by Dianne Drake
He wasn’t proud of feeling that way, but it was the only thing that made sense to him when his thoughts turned to how nice it might be if he stayed.
“So, why didn’t you come back here after medical school? You know, return home and do the things you’d probably planned on doing when you left. I mean, that’s what so many doctors do, isn’t it? Go to medical school with the plan to return home and practice. Then they get distracted, or lured away. That is what happened to you, isn’t it?”
He pulled her into him until she rested her head on his chest, then he wrapped his arms around her. Such a natural fit. One like nothing he’d ever felt before. “You think you know so much about me,” he said on a contented sigh.
“Do I?” she teased.
“OK, you’re right,” he said, chuckling. “I got sidetracked. I’ll admit that, for someone who grew up here, going to a big city like Chicago was overwhelming. But I loved it. Loved the sense of who I was there. I served my residency in the public hospital, worked in a charity clinic, did pretty much the same things there I’d intended doing here, except for the surgery, and that was probably my biggest lure. I really hadn’t expected to be a surgeon. For me the dream was always general medicine, and maybe that’s because my experience with doctors was so limited. But when I was a student, the first time I held that scalpel in my hand…the rest, as they say, is history. I loved it. It’s all I wanted to do. And my history was easier to accomplish in a large hospital, especially at the start of my career. To make a long story short, I made my medical contacts in Chicago, got noticed there by the people who could help my career, had some amazing offers to stay and there was no reason to go anywhere else.”
“So you’re locked into a big city surgical practice? As in it’s your life, non-negotiable?”
“I think the one thing I’ve learned over the years is that I’m locked into whatever makes me happiest. Sometimes, when I come home, I do think that could be Peru again. I don’t realize how much I miss it until I come back here. But then when I get back to Chicago that’s what makes me happiest. So, what about you? Is San Francisco your home, or just the city that lured you?”
“No, home, actually. My sister and I were raised by a guardian who felt obligated to look after us because he executed my parents’ will. He moved around quite often, and we went with him.”
“Was it a good life?” he asked, suddenly serious. “Did you have a happy childhood? Did you get to do the things all little girls should be doing? You know, playing with dolls, trying on make-up?”
“Sometimes, but not too often. We were expected to be proper all the time and, to be honest, he left us with hired caregivers as much as he could, until he sent us off to boarding school. But I never liked dolls, unless I pretended they were sick, then I got to bandage them and give them candy pills and make them better.”
“So you were medical from the beginning?”
“Rosie and I both were. I think that kept us connected to our parents. They were both doctors—my mother an anesthesiologist, my father a cardiac surgeon. So maybe the interest was natural inclination, or it could have been our way of trying to keep them in our lives since we really didn’t have anyone else.”
“What about your guardian?”
Bella let out a ragged breath. “He was my father’s business partner, a cardiac surgeon, too. And he was a very…impatient man. He was older, didn’t have much time for children, but for some strange reason he’d agreed to serve as our guardian in the event of our parents’ deaths. I guess he didn’t expect that to happen. But I’ve always thought it was about his own self-interest, too. He and my father were two of the three major owners of a hospital, and my father’s part of the hospital was willed to Rosie and me. So, by keeping an eye on us, our guardian was keeping our share in the hospital under his control. And don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t a bad man. He handled our affairs honestly, and in our best interests. But handling our affairs and handling us were two different things, and he was much better with the affairs.”
“It sounds gloomy. I mean, you can guess the kind of childhood I had here in Lado De la Montaña. It was amazing.”
“Well, let’s just say that I didn’t help matters any. Dr. Gentry, our guardian…we were never allowed to call him anything else…he and I didn’t get along. I had a way of being disruptive. I looked for ways to do things he didn’t want us to do. Bad things. Destructive things. In fact, I went out of my way to look for trouble.”
“I can’t picture you ever being bad. Mischievous maybe, but never bad.”
“I was bad, Gabriel. Believe me, I broke things…things I knew Dr. Gentry cared about, like his treasured possessions and valuables. I set little fires in trash cans, called people names, hit other children. Stole little items from the grocery store…packages of gum, candy bars. Once I threw a rock through a plate-glass window just so I could watch it break. And the list is longer than that. I was sullen, angry. I had temper tantrums all the time.”
“Dear God, Arabella, didn’t this Dr. Gentry ever get you help? You sound like you were a child in need.”
“His idea of help was sending me away to a boarding school. Of course, I managed to get myself kicked out.”
“And Rosie?”
“He never separated us. He always said that Rosie was a lovely child who didn’t deserve to be punished for the things I did, and that I was the child from hell who would have been a heartache to my parents. But when he sent me away, Rosie always fought him to go with me, then he’d tell me that I was the one who held her back and ruined her life. He called me a selfish little girl who didn’t deserve the nice sister I had.”
“But your sister loved you, and stayed with you. You said she fought to stay with you.”
“She was seven years older, and she felt responsible for me. That’s what it was. Rosie’s obligation to take care of her little sister.”
“She took care of you because she loved you, Arabella,” he insisted. “And you’ve never let yourself believe that, have you? Because someone who should have cared about you said bad things, you’ve never let yourself believe it.”
“What I think, Gabriel, is that Dr. Gentry was right about everything he accused me of, no matter how Rosie felt about me. She spent her whole life looking after me, then in the end…look what I did to her.” The tears started to slide down her face. “Just look what I did.”
“What you did was turn yourself into a marvelous doctor who’s filled with so much compassion you can’t contain it. You became a woman who would sacrifice everything to take care of children who need her. It’s a fitting legacy for your sister, Arabella. And for your mother and father. Not something that should fill you with so much guilt.”
“She never had much of a life, looking after me. Then when she was finally happy…happy in a life where she didn’t have to spend so much time trying to fix all the things her sister broke along the way…I let her down. I told her that the way she was going about this was all wrong. We argued for weeks because I just couldn’t see how she could take everything she had and turn it into something so…so unknown without having some kind of plan first. It was so risky. She told me, Be spontaneous, Bella. I know that goes against your nature, but be spontaneous with this. Step outside your normal self just this once. Have some fun. Who knows? Maybe something absolutely wonderful will happen when you least expect it. But I couldn’t, Gabriel. I just couldn’t.”
Shutting her eyes, Bella tried to picture Rosie, and for a fraction of a second her sister’s image was lost to her. Her heart lurched in her chest and her breath caught in her throat. But then the image returned…Rosie, who fit her name. “Dr. Gentry always figured that I was just a spoiled child, inherently bad. Rosie kept insisting that wasn’t the case, that she thought there might be something wrong with me. She was standing up for me like a parent would do. But nobody would believe her, so one day she took me on a bus and we went to a medical center on the other side of town. We just walked through the emer
gency room’s front door, a seventeen-year-old and her ten-year-old sister. Rosie marched me over to the clerk and said that her sister needed to see someone who could help her. After the clerk gave us a dozen reasons why that wouldn’t be happening, Rosie marched me down the hall anyway, and we went into the first empty exam room we found. We waited for hours, until someone realized we were there.
“I didn’t get a proper diagnosis that day, but because of Rosie I was started in the right direction. As it turned out, I had a closure disorder…I didn’t really think my parents were dead. If I acted up with Dr. Gentry, and didn’t let myself get cozy or complacent in his care, someday my own parents would come back for me. I didn’t want another home. I wanted my home and I did everything I could to make sure he wouldn’t keep me.”
“Poor Arabella. No wonder you were a frustrated child. And Dr. Gentry simply saw you as bad?”
“But I was bad. Don’t you understand that? Even after the child psychologist worked with me, I still had temper issues, created problems.”
“You were only a little girl, who eventually got over those temper tantrums, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but only because my sister always believed in me, Gabriel. But in those last weeks, before Rosie was to leave for Peru…”
“Weren’t you coming with her?”
“I was, but only for a few weeks.”
“And she intended on staying?”
Bella nodded, brushing back a tear. “We were still arguing that last day. Not angry so much as just bickering enough that she asked me not to come to Peru with her group right then. She said we needed a break from each other for a little while, and that maybe it would be better if I stayed behind for a couple of weeks to co-ordinate ordering the supplies they would need once they started setting up. She couldn’t see my point of view that it would have been better to make plans, lay things out in an orderly fashion before she acted. She didn’t know where she would put the clinic, didn’t have a building…she just believed that once they all got here it would fall into place. And I…I needed a logical order to it. She was a dream-chaser and I was too grounded to believe that dreams could come true. We didn’t have time to make it right, Gabriel. My sister sent me back, and I never saw her again.”
“Arabella,” he whispered, pulling her tightly into his arms. “In so many ways you’re still that wounded little girl your sister dragged into the hospital, aren’t you? The wounds really don’t heal so easily, and I don’t want to say something trite like give it more time. Because time doesn’t always make things better. It certainly doesn’t heal all wounds.”
“I can deal with it,” she said, trying to be stiff about it. But it was impossible to be stiff and sniffle at the same time.
“Said with so much conviction. I know you mean what you say, but that’s an awfully tough life sentence to put on yourself, isn’t it? Isolating yourself as well as carrying your guilt?”
“Not when I have my work, and work’s all I need. It takes care of me.”
“Dedication is a good thing, Arabella. But when it’s for the right reason.”
“You’re saying that my dedication is for the wrong reason?” She bristled, this time succeeding in pushing herself out of his arms and completely away from him.
“You hide in your work, and succeed nicely because you’re an excellent doctor. I’m sure you chose pediatrics because you didn’t want other children to go undiagnosed, or misunderstood, the way you were. And that’s admirable. But your passion for it should be from the heart, and I think it could be, if you’d allow it. You don’t allow your heart any passion, though. Not for anyone to see, anyway. It’s locked up tight in some logical place, and you still believe you’re all those terrible things Dr. Gentry said you were. So you push people away for their good. You hide away in a profession you could love passionately but won’t because you’re afraid it will add to all the hurts of your life. And you’ve taken on all the blame for your sister’s death now. That’s a very big burden, Arabella.”
Sitting on the side of the bed, her back to him, she didn’t get up. Didn’t huddle over and cry either. Instead, she sat up straight and let the tears run down her cheeks, unchecked. “I should have hugged her that day. Should have told her I loved her instead of trying to convince her that she needed to slow down and plan what she was going to do before she leapt straight into the middle of it. There were so many things I should have said, but…” Her voice faded. “If you love someone you should tell them every day…tell them ten times a day, a hundred times…They shouldn’t ever walk away from you without knowing how you love them. And I should have told her.”
“I know,” he whispered, scooting over behind her, then sitting up and pulling her into his arms. “When you lose someone you love you’re filled with all the things you should have done differently. I keep wondering what might have happened to Lynda if I’d been here. Would I have seen that something was wrong and gotten her help, would I have been able to prevent something? When I talked to her the day before she died she was so happy, then she was…gone. And I’ve asked myself all the questions, Arabella. But there are no answers. Never will be.”
“It hurts so much, Gabriel. I’ve been wondering if Rosie’s last minutes were filled with anger toward me for the way I argued with her, because they shouldn’t have been. They should have been filled with excitement and happiness over what she was on her way to do…following her dream. But maybe I put awful thoughts in her head that stayed there for the rest of her life. Maybe I caused her anguish and pain in those last minutes, and if I did…”
“Shh,” he said, holding her even closer, wrapping his arms so tightly around her they were practically one. “There’s no blame here, Arabella.”
“No blame?” She pulled away again, and stood up. Turning to face him, she straightened her shoulders and slapped away the few remaining tears on her face. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Gabriel. I do get the blame. All of it. And if Dr. Gentry were alive today he’d get to call me selfish again, and be right about it, since I’m the one who wouldn’t come here with the other families while everybody waited for word from the rescuers. And I’m the one who wouldn’t attend a memorial service for the victims, and I’m the one—” she gulped hard “—who refused to put a grave marker on an empty grave. Just like I refused to believe my parents were dead, which was what caused my sister a miserable life.”
“Damn,” he muttered, jumping to his feet. He went toward her to pull her back into his arms, but she backed away, pressing herself flat against the door. He didn’t give up, though. That’s what she wanted him to do, and she was so good at pushing and pushing until people did walk away from her. But he wasn’t walking anywhere. Not now, and if he had his way about it, not ever. He did love her, every little wounded speck and fiber of her being. On top of that, he was a very patient man, and she was going to need that in him. “Arabella,” he said, stepping around behind her, blocking the door so she couldn’t get out.
“Just leave me alone, Gabriel. Please. It’s better that way.”
“That would be the easy thing to do, if I weren’t a man in love with the most impossible, the most stubborn woman he’s ever met.”
“No!” she choked, scooting around him and running back toward the bed just to get away from him. “Don’t say that. Please, don’t say that!”
“Do you love me, Arabella?” he asked, still holding his place at the door. If he didn’t, she would escape, and as vulnerable as she was right now, he was afraid she’d run away from the village. Escape any way she had to, simply to get away from him. And away from her feelings for him.
“This isn’t about my feelings for you, or for anybody else.”
“I think it is. So answer my question Arabella. Do you love me?”
“It doesn’t matter, Gabriel!” she cried. “Can’t you understand that? What I feel or don’t feel doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving here. And you are. So the rest of it doesn’t matter.”
“Why are you staying?” he asked.
“Because…Rosie saw the need here, and I can fix that. I can do what she wanted to do, and still have my work.”
“Do you remember before, Arabella, when I said that dedication is a good thing, but only when it’s for the right reason?”
“The right reason is to take care of all the people here. I do have a reason to stay, Gabriel. Maybe it’s not your idea of a good reason, but it will take care of me when you return to Chicago, to the things you want from your life. Which is why our feelings for each other don’t matter in this. I can’t leave and you can’t stay. So why tell you that I love you when all it will do is break my heart even more and, in the end, get me nothing?”
It was Gabriel’s turn to step away. Because she was right, and it felt like a slap to the face. Somehow he’d envisioned the scene playing out with her in his arms, telling him she’d follow him anywhere. But Arabella had this life plan from which she wasn’t going to divert and he had…well, he had his own life plan, didn’t he? Or at least the beginning of one since Ana Maria had changed his original course. “I think you love me. And I know you love Ana Maria. You fell in love with her before I did, in fact.”
“Which has nothing to do with anything. Especially us together in any way.”
“You’re frightened of it, aren’t you?” It was so pronounced in her eyes he felt a physical ache in his chest. But he could also see the desire there, the longing for things she wanted and didn’t think she deserved. Could he break through to that part of her? Find his way in deep enough to help her discover it in herself? “But admitting your feelings shouldn’t frighten you. A very wise woman once told me that if you loved someone you should tell them how much a hundred times a day.”
