by Gina Wilkins
It was a very good thing she wasn’t feeling that way now, she thought with a hard, aching swallow.
A worried couple awaited him when Mitch walked into a small, private hospital consultation room late Friday afternoon. They held hands as they watched him enter, followed closely by a surgical resident, who closed the door behind them. Mitch gave the parents a reassuring smile, offering his hand to each before inviting them to have a seat at the small, rectangular table in the cubicle-size room.
Sitting across from them, the resident seated quietly and observantly nearby, Mitch asked, “You were told that Jeffrey did very well during his surgery?”
“Yes, the volunteer and the nurse kept us updated,” Laura Dickerson assured him, her voice quivering just a little with nerves. “There were none of the possible complications you warned us about?”
“No, everything went just fine.”
No matter how many times he had done it, it always felt good to see the relief in worried parents’ eyes when he consulted with them after successful operations. Just as it always grieved him to have to report otherwise. Fortunately, in his specialty he didn’t have to relay heartbreaking news often. And in this particular case, the report was all good.
“I was able to cut his tibia and fibula very close to the growth plate, and the bones realigned very well. He’ll have to wear the fixator I attached for between eight and twelve weeks, and he’ll have physical therapy three times a week. We’ll have to make adjustments in the fixator during the process and then evaluate at the end of three months to determine if any further corrections are necessary. It’s going to be a challenging time for the whole family, but when it’s all over, Jeffrey’s legs will be as straight and strong as your own. You’ll be racing to keep up with him again.”
The three-year-old had been presented to Mitch with Blount’s disease affecting his left leg, which had bowed during growth, making it somewhat shorter than his right leg. It hadn’t been the worst case Mitch had seen by far, but he knew any procedure was drastic to the child’s adoring parents. He expected young Jeffrey to benefit significantly from the operation Mitch had just performed, leading a full, active life afterward. That was just one of the reasons Mitch loved this job.
Fifteen minutes later, after answering a dozen questions and offering a dozen more reassurances, he left the conference room, gave the eager resident a list of instructions, then headed for his office. At least something in his life was going right, he thought as weariness gradually overpowered satisfaction. He hadn’t been sleeping well this week. He’d been on call Wednesday night, and it had been a long one, leaving him drained and grumpy. Okay, so maybe there were times he didn’t love his job so much. That was normal, too.
He was greeted by quite a few coworkers on the way to his office. He’d made a lot of friends here, he thought. He passed a couple of parents of young surgical patients, returning their greetings with friendly nods. He was accustomed to the respectful manner with which he was often treated—after all, these people had literally placed their children’s well-being in his hands. He never wanted to let himself take that trust for granted or to let himself get jaded to the jumbled emotions his patients and their families had to deal with during medical crises.
Accepting a stack of messages from his always-organized secretary, he carried them into his office and tossed them onto his cluttered desk before falling into his chair. He had calls to return, reports to file, dictation to do—but it could all wait for just a minute, he thought, scrubbing his hands over his face.
“Here. Looked like you could use this.”
His secretary placed a steaming cup of coffee on his desk and gave him a sympathetic smile before returning to her own work.
Gratefully, he sipped the freshly brewed beverage, thinking he really should buy her some flowers or something. She’d gone beyond the call of duty during the past month. He hoped she knew how much he appreciated how efficiently she kept his professional life running, his schedule straight, his correspondence completed. Glancing at the door she had closed behind her, he wished fleetingly that he could turn over all his problems to her and have her handle them with the same firm hand.
Maybe then he could go to bed again without lying awake wondering why he had let Jacqui send him away. Wondering if he should have fought harder to hang on to something that had been so special. Wondering what kind of an idiot walked away from a woman like that just because she had very bravely and honestly informed him that she was the long-term-commitment type.
Hadn’t he really known that all along? She’d certainly made it clear from the start that she’d had enough of drifting in her rootless childhood. She’d told him she was saving for a home of her own—and he had seen the pure lust on her face when they’d toured that Craftsman-style house in Hillcrest. Unlike him, Jacqui knew exactly what she wanted, and she was pursuing it with single-minded determination. He wished he had her clear-sightedness, her certainty of what it would take to make her happy.
With a wince, he remembered the way she had compared him to a short-term lease while she looked for a place to settle for the duration. Her words had been blunt, a little jumbled, but ultimately effective. He’d gotten the message clearly enough. She wasn’t willing to settle. Wasn’t willing to risk too much on a guy who wasn’t prepared to offer forever.
What she hadn’t said was whether she would be interested if he did want to spend the rest of his life with her. Was he no more to her than another furnished apartment—nice enough to spend some time there while she looked for the place she really wanted?
Another real estate metaphor, he thought, muttering an exasperated curse. But apt enough to make his shoulders sag in despairing self-recrimination.
He never wanted to hurt Jacqui. He’d do anything to prevent that—even stay far away from her, if that was what she wanted. But apparently he’d left more behind than he’d realized when he’d walked away. Judging from the emptiness inside him, he’d left a sizable piece of his heart. Did he have the courage to offer her the rest of it? And would she even accept it if he did?
Heaving a long sigh, he turned his focus to his work. As always, he had a stack of responsibilities waiting for his attention.
Jacqui tried to ignore the guilt she felt while sitting across the kitchen table from LaDonna Baker, sharing tea and cookies on Wednesday afternoon, eleven days after Jacqui had broken up with Mitch. Not that there had been much to break up, she told herself as she toyed with a cookie she didn’t really want, just to have something to do with her hands during this visit.
LaDonna had dropped by with a pretty top for Alice that she’d found on a sale rack that afternoon. “I couldn’t resist it,” she’d admitted to Jacqui. “The color will look so pretty on Alice.”
Unfortunately, Alice wasn’t there to accept the gift. School was already in session during this final week of August, having started Monday morning. After school, Alice would be competing in her last swim match of the season. Seth had arranged to attend that match, then he and Alice planned to meet Meagan for dinner, so Jacqui would be headed home soon. No one to cook for tonight but herself, she thought. Maybe she’d order a pizza and watch a little TV. That sounded like a perfectly nice evening. She wished she could look forward to it a little more.
Jacqui had invited LaDonna in for a snack and a chat, and the older woman had eagerly agreed. She didn’t work on Wednesdays and it was sometimes difficult to entertain herself, she confessed. But maybe she had overdone it a bit that day. She was tired from her shopping excursion, and tea and a chat sounded like a lovely way to recuperate.
“You’d think I’d be over empty nest syndrome by now,” she said as they lingered over the tea. “After all, my youngest child turned twenty-eight last week.”
LaDonna’s house had been empty only since last November, when she’d lost her mother, who had lived with her for several years. Jacqui thought it wasn’t so unusual that LaDonna’s home still felt empty to her at times after living th
ere so long with her late husband, her now-grown children and then her mother. It must be difficult to make that transition from a full house to a quiet one. And LaDonna was still relatively young. It was no wonder she sometimes felt at loose ends.
“Did you buy anything for yourself during your shopping trip?” Jacqui asked.
“No,” LaDonna admitted. “Just the top for Alice and that bag I described to you for Madison. Oh, and I got a lovely set of hand towels for a nice young couple from my church who is getting married next month. Half off, plus I had an extra-fifteen-percent coupon,” she boasted.
Jacqui laughed. “Congratulations.”
“I saw lots of nice things I thought Mitch could use, but because he can’t seem to make up his mind if he’s going to buy or rent his next place I wasn’t sure exactly what he’d need. It’s been five weeks since his duplex burned, and I know that’s not a lot of time, but still, he should be making some progress in deciding what he wants. I swear, all that boy can think about is his work and his upcoming trip to Peru.”
It took all her fortitude for Jacqui to keep smiling and speak lightly. “He’s still very excited about that trip, I suppose.”
“Well, yes.”
Something in LaDonna’s tone made Jacqui’s eyebrows rise. “That didn’t sound very certain.”
“It’s just that—well, he was so excited up until a week or so ago. Now he just seems distracted all the time. And he looks so tired. I guess he’s been working like crazy to clear his schedule for the time off. I fussed at him over the phone yesterday, told him he’s going to have to start getting some rest. Which would be easier, I said, if he were sleeping someplace other than a hotel. I wish he’d just move in with me while he makes his decision.”
“I suppose he doesn’t want to cause you any trouble,” Jacqui replied, feeling guilty again that she was keeping so much from LaDonna.
Did Mitch miss her as much as she missed him? Did he, too, lie awake remembering the nights they had spent together and aching for more? Did he also wish things could have been different for them?
“As if having my son as a guest would be any trouble,” LaDonna fretted.
Leaving her cookie untouched, she took a sip of her tea. Her pale face was creased with a frown when she lowered the cup. “Jacqui, do you have an ibuprofen available? I have a little headache.”
Jacqui stood and moved to the cabinet where she kept a bottle of over-the-counter pain reliever. “Headache? Is that something you have often?”
“More often during the past few months,” LaDonna admitted. “They seem to be getting worse. I suppose I should see someone about it.”
Jacqui frowned at the older woman in concern. “With three doctors in your family, I’d have thought you’d have mentioned it to one of them.”
“I hate to bother them with medical questions. They get enough of that at work. My annual physical is next month, so I’ll mention it to my doctor then.”
“I hope I’m not being too personal, but I’ve been a little worried about your health lately,” Jacqui admitted, reaching for the high shelf where she stored the bottle. “You seem to have lost some weight and you look a little pale to me. I’ve been wanting to mention it, but I wasn’t sure you’d—”
Her voice trailed into shocked silence when she saw LaDonna slumped in the chair. Throwing the plastic bottle of ibuprofen on the counter, she rushed forward. “LaDonna? LaDonna!”
Chapter Eleven
Mitch didn’t know what his family would have done without Jacqui during the next three days. When he and his sisters and Alice reacted with panic to his mother’s collapse and subsequent rush to the E.R., Jacqui remained calm, her soothing manner and outward confidence helping them all to remain optimistic.
It was Jacqui who had reacted so quickly to get his mother to the hospital and who had called each of them to give them the news of her illness. The first fear had been that LaDonna had suffered a heart attack. Instead, she was diagnosed as severely anemic, which led to the discovery of previously untreated bleeding stomach ulcers.
When the family reeled in shock from that news, Jacqui pointed out that LaDonna was in an excellent facility with highly skilled physicians and surgeons to care for her. When guilt and stress caused the physician siblings to snap at each other, mostly over who should have seen the signs that their mother had probably been ill for several months, Jacqui stepped in quickly to play peacemaker. She handled the brief conflict so skillfully that they were soon apologizing and working together to make the best medical decisions for their mother.
Jacqui fetched coffee and bottled waters, made phone calls, nagged everyone to eat and rest and served as a buffer when well-intentioned friends flooded them with calls and visits during the first hours after LaDonna’s hospitalization. When Mitch’s mom insisted that no one should miss work or school to sit in the hospital room with her while she recuperated enough to be discharged, Jacqui made them all feel more comfortable about leaving by offering to stay in their place. She promised to call each one if problems occurred. All of them checked on their mom every chance they got, but Mitch, for one, was able to concentrate better on his work knowing Jacqui was staying with her. He was sure the others felt the same way.
Jacqui had tried to warn him that his mother hadn’t seemed well to her during the past few weeks, but he had basically brushed her off. He regretted that deeply now. Under questioning from her doctors and family, LaDonna admitted that she’d had some pain for several months, but had treated herself with over-the-counter medications. She had taken a lot of ibuprofen for stress headaches during her mother’s long illness, she confessed on further questioning. Taking too much of the drug was associated with the formation of stomach ulcers.
There had been other symptoms, she said now. Long accustomed to caring for others, she’d gotten into the habit of neglecting her own pains. Besides, she hadn’t wanted to worry her children.
“What is with this family?” Seth asked in exasperation on Saturday, the third day of LaDonna’s hospitalization. He looked from one Baker sibling to the other as they rested for a few minutes in a visitors’ lounge while their mother was undergoing another test. “Meagan ignored the signs of her ovarian torsion for so long she finally had to have emergency surgery. Now LaDonna has suffered in silence until she collapsed. You may be a family of doctors and caretakers, but all of you have to start taking care of yourselves, too.”
“Amen,” Jacqui said, entering the waiting room with a tote bag full of cold drinks and snacks.
“You’re one to talk,” Mitch accused her, even as he gratefully accepted a diet soda. Having just spent the past eight hours straight working before breaking away to check on his mother, he needed the caffeine. “Who’s been taking care of all of us for the past few days?”
Jacqui’s gaze met his for a few moments, but then she looked quickly away, moving to hand a drink to Madison. She had been attentive to Mitch during this crisis but in no different a way than with any of the others. He suspected that he was the only one who could detect the invisible wall she’d placed between them, holding him at a distance even as she had seen to his needs.
There had been more than one time during the past three days when Mitch would have liked to just take her into his arms and hold her, seeking courage and reassurance from her when his own had wavered at the thought of losing his mom. Had it not been for that imaginary wall, and for knowing how important it was to her not to let his family know about their brief affair, he might well have given in to the impulse.
“I’ve been making sure I’ve had plenty of rest and food during the past couple of days,” Jacqui commented. “You guys are the ones who have to be reminded.”
“Whatever you pay her, Seth, it isn’t enough,” Madison remarked, popping the top on her soda can. “Thank you, Jacqui. I needed this.”
Mitch wondered if he was the only one who saw the slight wince narrow Jacqui’s eyes for a moment before she moved on to hand Alice a bottle of flav
ored water. He knew very well that Jacqui hadn’t been looking after them because she was paid to do so but because she genuinely cared about this family. She loved Alice and Seth and Meagan. She loved LaDonna.
Being loved by Jacqui Handy was a very special gift. Loving her in return was impossible to resist—at least for him, he realized abruptly.
He sank heavily into a straight-backed visitors’ chair, nearly splashing soda on the white coat he wore over his blue surgical scrubs. As if he hadn’t had enough shocks in the past few days, now he had a new one to deal with. He was in love with Jacqui. He’d been an idiot not to admit it earlier, especially when he’d been fortunate enough to be with her. Not to mention during the long, lonely nights that had passed after she’d sent him away.
With typical Baker oblivion, he had completely missed the symptoms of his own condition. He’d even misdiagnosed the signs that should have been glaringly obvious. Had he waited too long to do anything about it? Or had he ever really had a chance with Jacqui in the first place?
He watched her chatting with Seth across the room, both of them smiling. Probably lamenting together on how dense the Baker clan could be when it came to their own well-being. Now that it was apparent that LaDonna would make a complete recovery, everyone had relaxed a little, although he suspected his sisters were still struggling with the same guilt he was that they hadn’t been more observant.
He wished he knew how to approach Jacqui with his new realization. Should he ask her out again, try to start all over with her? Or simply tell her the truth—that he missed her, that he’d been a fool to take so long to figure out what he’d been looking for all this time?
Would she give him another chance, or would she build yet another invisible wall between them? When would the time be right—if ever—for him to tell her what he felt?
