The Doctor Delivers

by Janice Macdonald

  “They have a wonderful line in pâté. The duck with truffles is absolutely to die for. And the chanterelles with cracked black pepper…?” She reached over and tapped his arm with a long scarlet nail. “Omigod. Orgasm time.”

  “Do they sell tins of stew?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Tinned stew. I quite like it. Corned beef’s nice too, especially with a bit of HP Sauce. I like to wash it all down with a pint of Guinness.”

  The woman smiled uncertainly and turned to Tim’s wife. “I don’t know about you, Ruthie, but I need to visit the little girls’ room.” Both women gathered their purses, rose and headed off across the restaurant.

  “So what d’you think of her?” Tim grinned at Martin. “Attractive, isn’t she?”

  His thoughts on Catherine, Martin nodded a vague assent. The day’s events lodged heavily, like an ill-digested meal. He’d sold out for Catherine and then let her down. And despite Rita’s concerns, Holly’s surgery would take place as planned. Grossman would be the star of the evening news. Across the table, he realized, Tim had launched into a story about his wife.

  “…so she says, ‘Do whatever you like.”’ He imitated his wife with a mincing falsetto. “Of course, that means don’t do whatever you like.”

  “That’s the way it works, is it?”

  “Right.” Tim drank some wine. “That’s how wives are. Do whatever you like, but don’t do it. I tell you, sometimes I look back to the good old days when I only had myself to think of.” He smiled nostalgically. “Ah, freedom.”

  “You miss it?”

  “Aagh, I don’t know. Some days, when I come home after a bitch of a day and Ruth’s on a tear about one thing or another—usually what I have or haven’t done, I guess I think about the single days.” He took a bread stick from a wicker basket on the table, broke it in two. “There’s other days though… It doesn’t matter what’s gone on in the unit, when I get home, Ruth and the kids put everything into perspective.”

  “Grossman told me that my life needs balance,” Martin said. The words were out before he’d had time to consider them. “He said it improves clinical judgment.”

  “He’s right.” Tim met Martin’s eyes. “Work’s only part of the equation. I mean, when I’m there, I’m there one hundred percent, but don’t call me in the middle of the night when I’m not on duty. I’ve got another life.” He thought for a minute. “It’s more than that though. You need someone you can be yourself with, let your guard down once in a while.” His expression turned quizzical. “How come you mentioned Grossman’s comment? Don’t tell me you’re actually considering his advice.”

  Martin grinned. “What do you think?”

  “I’m surprised it even registered.”

  Martin stared across the restaurant. An image of Catherine’s face floated across his consciousness. He’d seen the hurt in her eyes this afternoon, had wanted to reach out, make a conciliatory gesture, but he hadn’t been able to find the words. Out of habit, he’d retreated behind the wall that now seemed higher than ever. His mind was still on Catherine, when the two women returned from the rest room, but he forced it in another direction. Grossman was a train barreling down the track to surgery, with Holly his passenger. His own task, he knew with absolute clarity, was to derail it. His action would be an atonement of sorts. The only way he could live with his conscience.

  After that, he would allow himself to think about Catherine again.

  “HEY, FORGET ABOUT HIM,” Darcy said from her customary spot at the kitchen table. “Let me fix you up with someone else.”

  “No thanks.” Catherine stared at the recipe for the third time, then glanced up at Darcy. “Damn, I don’t remember if I put any baking soda in—”

  “That’s what you get for going on a baking binge at ten o’clock at night.”

  “Therapy.” Catherine took a pinch of cookie dough, estimated the calorie count, shrugged, and washed it down with a sip of wine. In the oven, a tray of chocolate chip cookies slowly browned. Oatmeal raisin cookies cooled on the counter. She’d started to review a pecan pie recipe when she realized her therapeutic session was getting out of control. Still, at least she’d sorted things out in her mind. Bottom line: she didn’t need one more man screwing up her life.

  “So Gary’s threatening you again?” Darcy had been there to overhear Gary’s call just after the children went to bed.

  “Ever since he heard about Martin. He pumps Julie for details about ‘Mommy’s boyfriend’ and then blows everything out of proportion. He makes it sound as though we’re practically living together.” She shot Darcy a wry grin. “Little does he know, huh?” With one hand, she opened the oven, bent to peer inside. Hot air blasted her face. “Anyway, I’m getting sick of his damn threats, At first I took them seriously, but now I’m beginning to think he doesn’t really want the kids, he just wants to intimidate me and make my life difficult.”

  “Speaking of making life difficult, I saw your guy on the news again talking about the triplets,” Darcy said. “He didn’t look too happy to be there though.”

  “He wasn’t.” Catherine took a deep breath. Do not cry. “And he’s not my guy.”

  “Cath—”

  “I’m fine.” She grabbed a paper towel and blew her nose.

  “I warned you he’d be trouble,” Darcy said. “I mean, maybe he’s great and everything, but so many guys are like that. One minute you’re the most wonderful thing they’ve ever seen, and the next it’s ‘Who the hell are you?’ Right now, he’s probably out there telling his story to someone else.”

  Catherine mashed cookie crumbs with her index finger. The discussion felt disloyal somehow. She got up, went to the refrigerator, searching for something to fill the emptiness inside. “I just hate the way I feel right now.” She closed the door. Food wasn’t the answer, she’d learned that after Gary left. Ten pounds later. “I’m behaving like an idiot,” she said after she’d sat down again. “I’m not a teenager, I’ve got two kids to support. A job to do, and all I can think about is Martin. Every time the phone rings, I think it might be him. Before all this happened, I was content—”

  Darcy sniffed the air, got up and checked the oven. “Uh-oh.” She pulled out a tray of cookies. “You’re letting these things burn.” She ran a spatula under the cookies, dumped them on a plate and brought it over to the table. “You thought you were content,” she corrected.

  “No.” Catherine fished a cookie crumb out of her wine. “I was.”

  “Listen, you might think you had everything you needed, but you didn’t. I mean, you’ve got to have more in your life than kids and work.” She shrugged. “This guy’s just the wrong one for you. Maybe he got scared. He told you about his wife and maybe that made him feel closer to you than he wants to admit.”

  “You think?” Hating herself, she couldn’t help hoping.

  “Maybe.” Darcy’s doubtful expression belied her response.

  “God, it’s so embarrassing.” Catherine stared at the cookie in her hand. “If someone hadn’t knocked on the side of the van, we would have made love right there in the parking lot.”

  “So you were horny. Big deal. When was the last time you had sex?”

  She tried to do a quick mental calculation, then gave up. “Probably the consolation screw Gary gave me before he told me he was in love with Nadia. First sex we’d had for six months.”

  “There you go then. You’ve got the hots.”

  “I have, but only for Martin.” The wine had loosened her tongue, caused her to ignore her resolution. “I think I might be in love with him.” She held up her thumb and index finger. “Just a teeny bit.”

  “Nah—” Darcy flapped her hand “—you’re not in love. You’re in lust. Big difference.”

  Catherine shrugged. Maybe Darcy had a point. Nothing had prepared her for the explosion of feeling she’d had with Martin. Even now, thinking about it made her stomach lurch. Darcy, she realized, had launched into a story about losing her vi
rginity.

  “…and I was fifteen.” She poured more wine into their glasses. “Back in Saint Louis. This Italian guy, Antonio Bongiavanni. He lived in a boardinghouse and he had these really great eyes. Long lashes. He’d always look so sad when I stopped him. One night, I’d had three or four beers and he’d managed to get most of my clothes off.” She shook her head at the memory. “I’m lying nearly naked in the back seat of his car and I thought, What the hell? Mostly, I was so damn cold, I just wanted to get it over with so I could get dressed. Eight weeks later, when I told him I thought I was pregnant, he dumped me.”

  “Men are bad news.” Catherine put her elbows on the table, gazed across at Darcy. “I don’t want to talk about them anymore. The thing with Martin is over, kaput. I mean it.”

  “Good.” Darcy went to the refrigerator and removed a bowl of risotto. “He’s trouble, I already told you that. One, you like him way too much and, two, he’s probably still got this thing for his wife.” She set the bowl down on the table. “No one will ever live up to her memory. I mean she’s dead, for God’s sake. How the hell can you ever hope to match up? And three—”

  “No—” Catherine dug her a fork into the risotto “—that’s enough.”

  “Tough. I’m going to tell you. Three…” Darcy scrunched up her face. “Shit, I’ve forgotten. Wait, let me think. Oh, I know. Three. He’s obviously one of those guys you never know where you are with.” She took a helping of risotto. “Look, I’m just saying you need to meet other people—”

  “Dammit.” Catherine put her fork down. “I can’t believe I’m eating this stuff. Cold, too. I’m going to gain back all the weight I lost.”

  Darcy gave her a critical look. “I don’t think you’ve gained any. But we’ve got to keep up the jogging. The other thing is I’m going to fix you up. It’s the only way you’re going to get over this guy.”

  Catherine shook her head. Another man wasn’t the answer. And maybe Martin wasn’t either. Gary had knocked her around emotionally. Today, she had allowed Martin to do the same thing. But it wouldn’t happen again. It didn’t matter how she felt about him. From now on she’d be on her guard around Dr. Martin Connaughton.

  Just one more encounter with him when Holly had her surgery, and then it would be over. If Holly pulled through the procedure, Grossman would have his moment in the sun; Western would reap the publicity rewards; the TV cameras and swarming reporters would move on to the next news story, and Catherine would forget the last few days ever happened.

  But when the phone rang at ten, she grabbed it on the first ring. When she heard her mother’s voice, she burst into tears.

  THURSDAY MORNING, the day of Holly’s surgery, Martin sat in one of the burgundy leather armchairs that stood on either side of Grossman’s desk and tried once again to reason with the neurosurgeon.

  “I just want to ask you one more time not to do this.” He looked at Grossman. “Clearly the mother doesn’t want the operation for the child. Obviously it’s futile—”

  “In your opinion, Connaughton. Not everyone feels the same way. Many of these children lead happy, normal lives—”

  “How many with the life-threatening problems Holly has? The whole thing is inhumane, Nate.”

  Grossman’s lips twitched. “Perhaps we should just get a pillow and hold it over the child’s head.”

  “That might be kinder.”

  Grossman studied him for a moment. “You’re looking at this patient with your heart and not your mind, Connaughton. It happens to physicians sometimes. For one reason or another, they become emotionally overinvolved and fail to use sound clinical judgment. Your position is not rational.”

  “Right, well, there’s a lot of things going on around here that aren’t very rational.” He knew he’d lost the battle and suddenly felt reckless. He rose from the leather armchair and began pacing the office. Adrenaline made his heart pound. “I don’t find it particularly rational that we’ve got crack-addicted babies up in the NICU while your son is out in the parking lot actively drumming up business.”

  “My son has entered a recovery program.” Grossman’s voice grew very quiet. “Which has nothing to do with the question of surgery for this child. You will spare yourself a lot of emotional turmoil by understanding that with or without the mother’s consent, the child will have the surgery. It’s the appropriate course of action. Medically, ethically—and legally. Were we to abide by the mother’s wishes and not operate, the father would almost certainly sue us. I would advise you to accept the inevitable and move on.” He leaned back in his chair, studied Martin for a moment. “What you need to realize is that around here only one of us gets to play God, and I’ve already got the job.”

  “Is that so?” Rage building until he could contain it no longer, Martin walked across the expanse of pale gray carpeting and placed one hand on either side of the antique desk. He saw the flicker of fear in Grossman’s brown eyes, a pulse beating in his neck. Then he caught the edges of the desk and tipped it. As he left the room, he glanced over his shoulder and saw the surgeon’s face visible through the spindly wooden legs. “Looks as though I just toppled you off your throne, doesn’t it.”

  He closed the door behind him as he left. Five minutes later, he sat across the desk from Dan Hanrahan, Western Memorial’s in-house attorney.

  “Let me ask you something Dan. What’s the precedent for a doctor going to court and arguing for a baby on the grounds of wrongful life?”

  “Wrongful life?” Hanrahan ran his index finger along the bone of his nose and pushed his glasses up. “Keeping the kid alive technologically even though it’s not viable? Is that what you mean?”

  “Right.” Martin nodded. “Severe disabilities that she’s never going to outgrow. Unjustified pain and suffering.” He looked at Hanrahan and tried to keep his tone casual. “Anyone ever won a case like that?”

  Hanrahan gave him a quizzical look. “You’d make a terrible poker player. I know damn well where this is going. It’s the Hodges kid, right?”

  Martin nodded.

  “Grossman’s going to prevail. He’s going to do this surgery, and even if the kid dies, he’ll be forging new ground. You’re fighting a losing battle, pal, and if you’re not careful you’re going to lose a hell of a lot more than that.”

  LOSE A HELL OF A LOT more than that. An hour later, he stood at the window in the corridor looking out over the skyline of downtown Long Beach. When he stepped away, his own reflection stared back at him, hollow-eyed and weary. He felt defeated and drained and lonelier than he’d ever been in his life. He’d lost the battle to protect Holly. Had he lost even more than that? There was only one way to find out.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  PHONE LODGED between her head and shoulder, Catherine scraped out the last of the nonfat strawberry yogurt and explained to yet another reporter that while he couldn’t bring his camera crew into the OR, there would be pool footage of Holly’s surgery available. She tossed the empty carton in the trash bin under her desk, looked at the to-do list and tried to think of anything she might have forgotten.

  Derek had assigned her all the arrangements for press coverage of the surgery and she’d spent most of the morning pulling everything together. Things were a little strained between Derek and her, but she intended to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that her slight lapse in judgment over Martin hadn’t compromised her ability to get the job done.

  Convincing Gary that she wasn’t compromising her moral standards with overnight guests wouldn’t be so easy, but she couldn’t think about that now. Compartmentalizing was the trick to successfully juggling responsibilities, she decided. Not thinking about Western when she was at home with the kids and keeping thoughts of home…she looked up to see Martin standing in the doorway.

  He leaned against the door frame watching her. Green scrubs, stethoscope dangling from the pocket of his white lab coat. He looked exhausted, beaten. Eyes dark, a shadow of beard at his jaw, an uncertain smile that flickere
d like a candle caught in a draft. The smile tugged at her heart. Steeling herself against it, she folded her arms across her chest, gave him a level stare that belied the churning in her stomach.

  “I should be getting good at this apology thing,” he said. “I’m definitely getting enough practice at it.”

  She kept looking at him, forced herself not to speak.

  “I’m truly sorry,” he said. “I did some stupid things, I thought I could block Holly’s surgery, but I was wrong. I thought I could compromise a bit and go along with it all, but…” He ran his hand around the back of his neck, as though not sure what to say next. “Anyway, after that press conference, I realized that I’d sold out. I knew that unless I did all I could to try and stop the surgery, I couldn’t live with myself.”

  “And you couldn’t have just told me this when I came up to the unit?”

  “I didn’t handle it well, Catherine, I know that. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Nothing has changed about the way I feel…the things we talked about the other night. I want us—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to hear that. You could have told me what was wrong. I asked you enough times, but you shut me out. If you choose to hide behind some kind of emotional wall whenever things go wrong, that’s your problem.”

  He walked around to her side of the desk, sat on the edge. “Want to help me tear it down?”

  “I can’t.” She folded her hands on the desk, looked down at them for a moment. A phone rang in Derek’s office, a door slammed. “I’ve got my own walls. The reason I’ve avoided relationships is that I’m scared to death of getting hurt all over again. I tell myself it’s because of the children, but I know the real reason. With you, I sort of peeked over the top, but now…”

  “You’ve retreated again.”

  She looked up at him, and neither of them spoke. A moment passed, and then she saw the flicker of a smile around his eyes, felt a reluctant smile on her own face. She couldn’t help it. The image struck her as funny, both of them hunkered down behind their own walls, both wanting to come out but not knowing how to do it. The problem was she didn’t want to go back to her side—now that she’d glimpsed life beyond the wall.