Where Dolphins Go

by Webb, Peggy

  "Miss O'Connell, you were head nurse in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit the night of Mark Baxter's Code Blue?" She was so nervous she couldn’t speak. “Miss O’Connell?”

  Judge Mayhall leaned down and said, “Please answer the question, Miss O’Connell.”

  "Yes.”

  "You were there when the alarm sounded?"

  "Yes."

  "Will you tell the court in your own words what happened?"

  She was going to be hyperventilating if she didn't settle down. She couldn’t look at the two doctors involved.

  "Miss O'Connell?"

  She opened her mouth, started to speak. In the back of the courtroom the door flew open and Dr. Scott Matthew strode through. His raincoat flapped around his long legs and droplets of water flew off his wet hair as he made his way to a seat. Heads turned. Paul's lawyer smiled.

  Dr. Scott Matthew. How could she have overlooked Dr. Scott Matthew?

  She remembered that night—her frantic phone call to Curt announcing the funny murmur she heard, his statement that there was no cause for alarm, the rapid drop in Mark's blood pressure, the Code Blue, the frantic fight to save him, Paul's order to prepare Mark for surgery.

  They'd worked with the speed of demons, and just as they'd wheeled him out of SICU, she'd heard footsteps running down the hall.

  "Is this the Code Blue?" Dr. Scott Matthew, cardiologist, had bent over the gurney and put his stethoscope on Mark's chest. He'd practically run alongside the gurney as they rushed toward surgery.

  Someone had shouted that Paul was waiting, and they'd roared on down the hall, Dr. Scott Matthew forgotten.

  He'd heard the murmur that indicated the valve Curt put in had become unseated, the same one she had heard, the same one Paul Tyler had heard. Cindy would stake her life on it. And now he was back to testify.

  She was off the hook. Dr. Matthew would corroborate Paul’s story, making Cindy’s testimony merely another piece of supporting evidence rather than putting her in the position of being the key witness who brought Curt down.

  Even though Curt was a bit arrogant, he was a good doctor, and fun to work with. On the other hand, Paul was all business. Cindy hated what she had to do.

  The plaintiff's attorney, looking more and more puzzled, started to prompt her again, but Cindy began to speak. She started by telling about hearing the strange heart murmur and her subsequent call to Dr. Curtis Blake. At his table Curt looked shell-shocked.

  Resolute, she continued her testimony, every word the truth, every word exonerating Dr. Paul Tyler. When it was all over and she made her way back to her seat, a strange peace settled over her. She was nurse, a good one, and she'd just proved it.

  o0o

  The courthouse hallway was crowded with reporters shouting questions at Paul and his attorneys.

  "What does Cindy O'Connell's testimony mean for Dr. Tyler?"

  "Is Dr. Scott Matthew a surprise witness?"

  "Will Dr. Matthew's testimony corroborate Miss O'Connell's?"

  "What does today's testimony mean for Dr. Curtis Blake?"

  Paul's attorneys hurried him through the crowd with a terse no comment to all questions. Outside the rain had turned to a light drizzle.

  Paul stood in front of his car with his attorneys.

  "It looks good for you, Paul," Rice, the youngest partner in the firm said. "Cindy O'Connell helped us, and I think Dr. Matthew will cinch it."

  "Yeah, it looks real good," Grimsley, the grizzled old veteran of the firm said. "But don't count on anything. The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings, and the fat lady is those twelve people sitting in the jury box."

  Paul shook their hands. "I appreciate everything you're doing."

  "We plan to charge you handsomely." Rice clapped him on the shoulder. "Keep your chin up, Doc."

  Paul drove along Beach Boulevard, glad that he and Jean were in separate cars. He got out along the stretch of beach where he and Susan had once walked hand in hand. Wet sand clung to his shoes as he made his way down to the water.

  Chances of a good verdict were looking better. Then why wasn't he happy?

  He skipped a shell across the water, watching it bounce before sinking to the bottom. Somewhere out there in the depths of the sea, dolphins frolicked. Maybe he would get his boat out of dry dock. Maybe that's what he needed, to go skimming over the waves with the wind in his hair and sea spray on his face. Riding the breakers in his sloop he might once again capture the feeling of freedom that had eluded him for the last six months.

  He got back into his car and went to the hospital to do rounds. Twice he passed by the doorway to Jeffy's room, and twice he made himself go on by.

  He had no right to go inside.

  o0o

  It was very late when he came home, and Jean was already in bed. Paul eased in beside her, planning to turn on his back and feign sleep. But his conscience smote him.

  He touched her shoulder lightly, and she rolled into his arms. Her body was lithe and trim under the satin gown, and he told himself he should feel something more than an overpowering sense of obligation.

  Perhaps he wasn't trying hard enough. He thought of pushing aside her straps and trying one more time; but in the end he knew he couldn't.

  Perhaps she would be ready and willing and passably passionate, but where was the joy? Where was the love?

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Jo Lisa had a shiner where Susan had hit her. Sitting in her dressing room in front of her mirror she applied stage makeup to cover the bruise. A badge of her sins. Maybe she ought to let it show.

  The manager tapped on her door. "Five minutes, Jo Lisa. The crowd looks good."

  What did she care? She was tired of being somebody's paid entertainment.

  She thought about grabbing her purse and walking out the door, but then she remembered her sister, kneeling in the mud crying. She threw the makeup sponge onto the table and stalked to the rack of sequined dresses. Scarlet seemed appropriate. The dress plunged low in front and back and was slit high on the left side. It made her look and feel like a tart, and that was fine with her.

  There was no redemption for sinners.

  She was only vaguely aware of the crowd as she slinked onstage. There were a few catcalls and whistles from the back of the room. Jo Lisa put an extra swivel in her hips just for them. Maybe she'd pick one out and take him home. Celibacy was beginning to bore her.

  The band gave her an intro, and she sat on her stool crooning When Your Lover Has Gone. Funny that she could concentrate on the words while her mind was filled with visions of her sister's rage.

  Her fist tightened on the microphone, and she leaned forward to segue into When I Fall in Love. She hated that word, love. It caused nothing but trouble.

  When the set was finally over she hurried toward her dressing room.

  "Hey, babe." A man standing in the hallway smoking a cigarette caught her arm. "You're some looker."

  "Let go of me." She shook her arm loose.

  "Hey, no need to be touchy. I was just paying you a compliment."

  "You've paid it. Now buzz off."

  "I'm not accustomed to that kind of treatment."

  "I don't give a shit what you're accustomed to." She started marching away, and the man grabbed her from behind.

  "Hey, nobody walks out on Big Mick."

  "I just did, Little Dick."

  The man caught her waist and swung her around. Jo Lisa landed a hard kick on his shin. He hung on, howling.

  Suddenly he was plucked away by the back of his collar. A man with the dangerous face of a mobster held Big Mick as easily as he would a child.

  "The lady says no."

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "The devil. Want to burn in hell?"

  Big Mick shook himself like a wet dog coming out of a sewer, then slunk away. Jo Lisa's rescuer lit a cigarette and handed it to her. It was still warm from his lips.

  "How did you know I smoke?"

  "An educated guess
. You sing with a smoker's voice."

  Jo Lisa leaned against the wall and took a deep drag. Then she blew a perfect smoke ring into the man's face. He gave her a smile that didn't touch his eyes. They were the crystal blue of a pond frozen over in winter.

  "I didn't need rescuing. I can take care of myself."

  He put one hand over her cheek and gently rubbed away the makeup. "So I see."

  If another strange man had done that to her without specific invitation, she'd have slapped him or else scalded him with her tongue. But there was something about this particular stranger that held her still.

  "How did you know about the bruise?"

  "I heard the bruise in your voice before I ever saw it on your face."

  "What are you? Some crazy psychic?"

  "Maybe." He pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to her. "I own a few clubs, Jo Lisa. Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans. You're good. If you ever need a job, give me a call."

  He didn't wait for a reply, but simply walked away, his broad shoulders hunched inside his raincoat and his felt hat pulled low over his eyes.

  Jo Lisa tucked the card in the bosom of her dress and went into the dressing room to re-cover her bruise.

  o0o

  Susan became two people: the careful, public self who checked Jeffy out of the hospital and brought him home and sent Bessie away with false cheer; and the demented, secret self who wanted to shout obscenities at the world and who constantly thought of ways to destroy her sister. The outside world had no meaning to her. She didn't read the paper, even to follow Paul's trial; she didn't answer her phone; she called in sick for choir practice.

  Lies. Her life was filled with lies.

  The third day after their quarrel, Jo Lisa knocked on her door. Susan sat in her rocking chair and rocked until the knocking ceased.

  o0o

  Bessie might not be the world's smartest woman, but she could tell when something wasn't right in her own family. Something hadn't been right since that day she'd carried Jo Lisa's rhinestone buttons to the hospital.

  She'd never been one to sit back and let nature take its course, her philosophy being that nature's course didn't always work out the way you wanted it to. Accordingly she girded herself in a bright red dress and her good black pumps, colored her roots, painted her lips, then got her purse with the flamingos and trotted herself off to Jo Lisa's apartment to see what in the world was the matter with her children.

  Jo Lisa didn't answer her first knock. Bessie knew derned good and well she was home, for she could see Jo Lisa's red sequined dress on the floor through the curtains. She was probably sprawled out in bed sleeping, though how anybody could sleep on a sunshiny spring day was a mystery to Bessie, even if they did work late.

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and kept on knocking. All she had was time.

  Finally Jo Lisa showed up, buck naked and covering parts of herself with a sheet that dragged along behind her.

  "What do you want, Mother?"

  "Is that any way to greet your mother?" Bessie went inside, picking up Jo Lisa's mess as she made her way to the chair. "Don't you know you'll ruin this dress leaving it on the floor like this?" She shook the sequined dress out, noting the slit skirt and the plunging neckline. "And another thing, showing all that flesh in public. It's asking for trouble, Jo Lisa."

  Jo Lisa dropped the sheet and jerked the dress out of her hand. "Didn't you know, Mother? Trouble's my middle name." Parading herself like a floozy, she marched to her closet, flung the dress inside, and shut the door. Then she grabbed a cigarette off the night stand and lit up, cool as you please, and her with not a stitch on.

  "Jo Lisa, put some clothes on."

  "Why?"

  "Because I've come to talk."

  "You should have called first."

  "Since when does a mother have to make an appointment to see her daughter?"

  "Since her daughter got grown."

  "Bosh. You're still my little girl."

  "I was never your little girl, Mother." Jo Lisa reached for a short purple silk kimono hanging on the foot of the bed.

  Bessie tightened her grip on her purse and sat in the chair. It was a rickety old piece of furniture that acted like it might topple right over. That's all she needed at her age, a broken hip. On top of everything else.

  "I'm worried about Susan."

  "You always are."

  "She's been holed up in that house for nearly a week. She barely has a thing to say when I call up, and she hasn't been to her office all week. You've got to find out what's wrong, Jo Lisa."

  "I'm not my sister's keeper." She took a long drag on her cigarette. "Did you ask her?"

  "Yes."

  "What did she say?"

  "Personal problems."

  "Let it go, Mother."

  "I can't. Susan's had a hard time, what with Brett driving off into the ocean like he did and poor little Jeffy being so sick. I can't stand to see her suffer and not do everything in my power to help her."

  "Then go help her, Mother. Go over there and hold her hand and pet and pamper her until she tells you the ugly truth, then decide if there's anything you can do about it."

  Bessie pursed her lips and stood up. "I see I was wrong to come here expecting an ounce of family feeling from you."

  "That's right, Mother. I don't have one ounce of goodness."

  "I never said that."

  "You didn't have to. All the years I was growing up, you made it perfectly clear that Susan was your darling girl and I was merely a burden you had to bear."

  Jo Lisa's hands shook as she lit another cigarette off the end of the first. Bessie had never seen her so pale. With her knees threatening to buckle, she sank back into her chair. Was this to be her punishment in her old age? A daughter who hated her?

  "Jo Lisa, I never considered you a burden. You were strong and independent, and sometimes I didn't understand you, but I was always proud of you."

  Jo Lisa sucked on her cigarette and stared at the wall. Bessie set the old chair to rocking. Let it break and fall on the floor in a million pieces. A broken hip would be better than the fear that clutched at her heart.

  She rocked while Jo Lisa smoked. The sun peeked through the curtain, bright and curious, and outside the window birds twittered over their nest building. Cigarette smoke blended with the heavy air, coming down around Bessie's head like a funeral pall.

  She and this daughter she'd never understood were trapped inside the small, unkempt room. Imprisoned and fearing a sentence worse than death, Bessie saw flashes of her past—her girls when they were small and blond and beautiful and everybody called them angels; her dear, departed Henry who was the salt of the earth and who had loved her unconditionally; and Peter . . . God was surely punishing her for Peter.

  Bessie propped her purse against her stomach and held out one hand to her daughter in entreaty.

  "Jo Lisa . . ."

  Jo Lisa stubbed the cigarette out.

  "You want to know what's wrong with Susan, Mother? I slept with her husband. I slept with Brett, and he couldn't stand the guilt and so he drove off into the ocean and kept on driving."

  Bessie pressed her hands against her mouth to stop the awful sounds.

  "I don't suppose this news is shocking to you since I've always been a troublemaker."

  "Why, Jo Lisa? Why?"

  "To punish her for being perfect and to punish you for loving her more." Jo Lisa dumped the ashtray into the garbage can. "Please leave so I can pack and get the hell out of your lives."

  With a mother's heart, Bessie understood that there was only one thing she could say to ease her daughter's pain, only one thing she could do. She left her pink flamingo purse in the chair and put her arms around her daughter. At first Jo Lisa resisted the embrace, then she leaned on Bessie and her shoulders began to shake with sobs.

  "Cry, sweetheart. Cry. It's all right." Bessie smoothed her daughter's hair, and it was as fine and silky as it had been when Jo Lisa
was a child. Bessie held on and crooned soft lullabies in a clear soprano voice that showed where her children got all their talent, even if she did say so herself.

  And when Jo Lisa's tears abated, Bessie took her hand and led her to the bed and tucked her in with a mother's tender care.

  "I'm going to tell you a little story ... A long time ago there was a woman with red hair and two little girls and a fine husband. She had everything a woman could possibly want, but there was something wild in her that wanted more. And so she took her husband's brother to bed, just because she could. She was never found out, but her punishment was to live with the guilty secret the rest of her life."

  "You and Uncle Peter?"

  "Yes. We did it only once, Jo Lisa, while Henry was on the road selling shoes, and it nearly destroyed both of us. If I tried too hard with you, Jo Lisa, it was because I knew you were like me."

  Jo Lisa squeezed her mother's hand. "Will you sit with me awhile?"

  "Yes."

  "I'll make it right with Susan, Mother. Somehow I'll make it right."

  "I know you will, Jo Lisa. I know." Bessie smoothed back her hair. "Shhh. Sleep now."

  o0o

  By Sunday morning Susan knew she had to get out of the house or else lose her sanity. She called Bessie to sit with Jeffy, and if Bessie was unusually subdued, Susan was in no shape to notice.

  Driving the familiar lane to Hope Methodist Church, Susan felt none of the uplifting feeling that usually accompanied the Sunday morning drive. The sound of chimes blending with the birdsong and the music of the ocean was nothing to her except noise.

  Even Reverend Cartwright's hug failed to restore her. Dead inside, she went into the choir practice room and sorted listlessly through the music. Her assistant director had left a list of songs for the Sunday morning service. Susan would take her place in the choir loft and let the assistant direct.

  A phrase from the dolphin song ran through her head. She sank onto the piano bench and picked out the tune.

  “Show me a rainbow." Her voice echoed mournfully around the big room. She didn't believe in rainbows anymore. "Show me the sun." It had quit shining for her.

  "That's beautiful, Susan." Jo Lisa stood in the doorway, backlit by the multicolored rays of sunlight that came through the stained glass windows in the hallway.