Falling for Her Army Doc

by Dianne Drake

  Lizzie was real, though. As real as any woman he’d ever met. And their kiss the night before had been about the realest kiss he’d ever had. It could have led to more. Maybe it should have done.

  But Lizzie was surrounded by barriers that were surrounded by their own barriers and more barriers after that. He couldn’t see her letting them down—not for him, not for anyone. Couldn’t see her ever giving in to the moment, even though she almost had during their kiss.

  “The beach is no place to be alone on a beautiful morning like this, so maybe I’ll tag along. Unless you choose to be alone,” he said, hoping that wouldn’t be the case.

  “Does anyone ever really choose to be alone?” Lizzie asked. “Or is that a decision forced on them by circumstances?”

  “Guess it depends on the person and what he or she really wants from life. Sometimes I’m in the mood to be solitary, sometimes I’m not.”

  “But given the choice between the two?”

  “Can I choose to be flexible?”

  Lizzie laughed. “You can choose anything you like, Mateo. It’s your life.”

  “Not lately it hasn’t been.”

  “Well, it’s up to you to fix that, isn’t it?”

  “You really put a lot of faith in me to do the right thing, don’t you?”

  When they arrived at The Shack the place was busy, as always, so she chose to sit on a log under a banyan tree.

  “You were a surgeon. I’m guessing a whole lot of people put their faith in you to do the right thing. You, too. You did put faith in yourself, didn’t you?”

  “I did. But it went with the job. I owed the people in my care the best I could give them.”

  “Plus all the military pressures on top of that. Sometimes I think that’s what made my dad too old too soon. He never knew how to relax, even when he had time off.”

  “Do you relax very often?” Mateo asked. “Apart from your vacations, do you ever make time to do something for yourself? Something you enjoy?”

  “I surf. Not as much as I’d like, like I said before, but I do get out there on my board once a week, or more, if I can fit it in. So, what do you do?”

  “Long in the past I played guitar in a little band. I also painted... Nothing fine. Don’t have that kind of skill. But I did murals on the sides of buildings. Urban art is what they call it now, and I really enjoyed it. I’ve always wondered if any of my work is still out there or if some other urban artist has come along and painted over it.”

  “You should go see,” Lizzie said. “Maybe even create something new.”

  She flagged down the server, who was hustling his way through the growing crowd.

  “I’ll keep it simple,” she told him. “Portuguese sausages and white rice, lilikoi juice and malasadas. They’re like a fried doughnut,” she explained to Mateo.

  The server looked to Mateo for his order. “I’ll have the same,” he said, and then to Lizzie, “I’m trusting your judgment on this.”

  “Hope that extends to things other than breakfast,” she said.

  * * *

  “Well, you didn’t go wrong on breakfast,” Mateo said, positioning himself under the banyan tree so that, like Lizzie, he could sit and watch the ocean as morning turned into noon.

  “You have to watch the portions, though. The food is good and the portions are huge. I usually take enough back with me for another meal or two.”

  She settled in next to Mateo, too full to move, too early in the day to feel so relaxed. But she was, and it felt good.

  “So, tell me about moving to the States,” she asked. “Was it traumatic? Because even as many times as I moved with my dad, it just seemed routine.”

  “After we moved to the States, when I didn’t speak a word of English, I would hang around this little grocery store for hours—listening to conversations, trying to pick up the language. And I’d ask questions of anybody who paid the least little bit of attention to me. My school classes were taught in English, so I was getting the education I really needed at the store. In fact, I was there so much the owner gave me a job, sweeping the floors and stocking the shelves. He paid me very little, but he taught me to speak English and speak it properly. It’s not easy when the first words you can understand and can speak are the names of various vegetables, but to this day I can pronounce rutabaga better than anyone.”

  “Have you ever eaten one?” she asked lightly.

  “Hell, no. Those things are nasty.” He faked a huge cringe.

  “Well, finally we agree on something.”

  “We could agree on something else if you like,” he said.

  “And what would that be?” she asked.

  “That today’s a perfect day to walk along the shore, maybe even go wading, but not alone.”

  “You’re a man of vast differences, Mateo. So, tell me... How is taking a walk with you going to make a difference for me?”

  “You’re tough, Lizzie,” he said, taking hold of her hand and helping her off the ground, so she could take her glass back to the bar for a refill of the lilikoi juice. “But so am I—and that’s what I want to talk about.”

  And talk quickly, before he backed out. Because his plan was a hard-set plan that she might like or might hate. He wanted to do this immediately, before negative energy zapped him of this little burst of courage. Now or never.

  And that worried him, because his life nowadays was closer to the never...

  * * *

  She loved to walk along the shoreline at any time of the day or night. It was a quiet place, a peaceful place. Sometimes, after her dad was asleep, she’d used to slip away for a few minutes and go stand on the shore, or maybe walk into the water until it was up to her knees and simply take in the beauty of the night.

  It had been the only time she’d felt in control. During the day, as often as not, her job had kept her off-balance, due to so many different and difficult demands. And as evenings went, the routine had never changed. She’d sit with her dad in the garden for a while as he fussed with the flowers—something he did even when his memory was practically gone. Then she’d fix his dinner, get him ready for bed, and finally tuck him in.

  Most nights she’d sit in the hall on the floor outside his door for an hour, hoping he was sleeping. Sometimes he was, sometimes he wasn’t. Those were the nights he’d get up and wander, and she’d go after him, and then they’d start the whole evening routine over, because he wouldn’t remember he’d already done it once and demand to do it again. Including eating dinner.

  Some people had told her locking him in his room would be for his own good. But he was her dad and he hadn’t deserved that. She could have hired someone to sit with him at night, but so much of her life had already been disrupted, and she hadn’t wanted more of it going by the wayside. So she’d done whatever the circumstances had called for. She’d sat outside his door...sometimes slept outside his door.

  Slipping out and going to the water’s edge had been a rare and guilty pleasure, because even though she’d gone there to relax one eye had always been on the house.

  “So why the walk?” she asked Mateo, as they came to a stop and he bent to slip off her sandals.

  “Want to go wading with me?”

  The truth was, she did. But after kissing him she was afraid that anything even remotely resembling something romantic would bring about consequences far greater than she knew.

  She was attracted to him. But she was also afraid of involvement. There’d never been a relationship in her life that had gone the way she’d thought it would, and while she was well able to wade in shallow water, nothing about Mateo signaled shallow water at all.

  “What if I don’t want to?” she asked, half hoping he would drag her into the water.

  Something like that would be new to her, and being captured by Mateo... Yes, she liked the idea of that. Captured, carrie
d, conquered... All pure fantasy, of course. But nice when it involved Mateo.

  “I’m strong enough to carry you.”

  “You have a twenty-five-pound lifting restriction for a while yet,” she answered, wondering why she was protesting so adamantly when part of her really wanted it.

  “You’re not my doctor, remember? You’re just the person I’m living with presently. And telling the person I’m living with that they have a lifting restriction—well...it’s something I’d never do. So, in theory, that’s information you don’t have.”

  Despite her attempt to stay serious, Lizzie laughed. “I wish I knew what kind of personality you used to have, because I like this one.”

  “And if it turns out to be the other one? Or one we haven’t met at all? Then what?” He kicked off his shoes and headed toward her. “Tell me, Lizzie. Then what?”

  “Then we deal with what we’re given.”

  “But what if all my personalities are just part of me, and when you piece them together it turns me into who I really am?”

  “Maybe I already like who I’m seeing.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I don’t judge people, Mateo. I accept them as they are. Or in some cases don’t accept them.”

  “And you accept me as I am? Even though I’m not sure that person can really be defined yet?”

  “Oh, I think there’s a lot of definition stacking up. You’re just not ready to deal with it yet.”

  “You know what they say: to everything there is a season...”

  “The fine art of procrastination. It can become habitual, Mateo. Just saying...’”

  She smiled, then headed toward the water, but Mateo beat her to it, grabbing hold of her hand and pulling her all the way in.

  “No procrastination in this,” he said, as her head bobbed above the water. “I wanted to do it and I did it.”

  She splashed water in his face, then started to pull away from him, but he caught her by the hand and held her there, the water just barely touching her shoulders.

  “I want to find myself, Lizzie, and I can’t do it alone. But it scares me to think how deep I could drag you in.”

  “Only as deep as I want to go, Mateo. You can’t pull me any harder than I let you.”

  “I was just looking for a place to stay for a few nights, and now this is beginning to sound like a commitment.”

  “Nothing wrong with commitments. We make them and live with them every day. Should I get out of bed this morning? Coffee or tea with my breakfast? The blue shirt or the white one? Should I let a virtual stranger stay in my ohana or let him wander around lost and hope he makes it? We make our choices and those turn into commitments. No, I’m not getting out of bed this morning. I’m committed to staying in bed. And I want to wear the blue shirt while I’m drinking my coffee. Commitment, commitment.”

  “What about the man sleeping in your ohana? Commitment there, as well?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t figured out what kind.”

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to figure it out. Her dad had always accused her of being too tenderhearted, like that was a bad thing. But it was part of her...the part that opened her up to getting hurt. Like marrying the wrong man because he told her the right story. So her commitment to Mateo—it had to be what worked for him, but also what worked for her. Problem was, she didn’t know what worked for her anymore.

  “So, let’s start this commitment with you doing the cooking while I clean up after you. And you can tend the flowers since I don’t have a green thumb.”

  “And this is part of your treatment plan?”

  “It’s called retraining yourself to be disciplined. It’s where you start, and I’ll add things as I see fit.”

  “It’s also called being your slave.”

  “That, too,” she said, smiling. “Also, what about cars? Are you a good mechanic?”

  That one stumped him for a moment, and he frowned. Then he shut his eyes. It was interesting watching him search for a memory, and in her experience, when something triggered someone as her simple question had triggered Mateo, there was usually a morsel there. So she stood thigh-high in the surf and watched the outward signs of his inward battle for a couple of minutes before he finally sighed, then smiled.

  “I had a...a... Damn, it was a 1957 Bel-Air. Convertible. Red.”

  He shut his eyes again and didn’t open them as he struggled to find more of the memory. She could see there was more coming back to him, and he was smiling as it returned, which excited her.

  “A classic?” she asked, to prompt him back into the moment.

  “It was. I found it in an old storage warehouse in pieces. The owner said I could have it.”

  Suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked at her.

  “I remember this, Lizzie. Remember it like it just happened. The deal was I locked up for him... Old Man McMichaels—we called him Mick. I made a deal with Mick to lock up for him every night so he could get home early to his wife and kids. If I wanted to lock myself in and work on the car that was OK with him. And if I sold the car he got half. Except I didn’t sell the car. It’s... I think it’s still in his warehouse. Or could be. He said he’d keep it for me until I came back for it. It runs perfectly. At least it did. And it’s the only car I’ve ever had.”

  He looked at her and a puzzled expression came over him.

  “I didn’t remember that before, Lizzie. Why is that something I would have forgotten?

  “Even the experts can’t explain the workings of the brain. And keep in mind that the farther away you get from your accident and surgery, the better you’ll do.”

  “It does work in mysterious ways,” he said. “Sometimes when I was a field surgeon I’d see a brain injury so bad I didn’t think there was any hope for recovery, and then recovery was almost instantaneous. Then other times...”

  He shut his eyes again. Then shook his head.

  “He wanted an aspirin. That’s why he’d come in that day. Had a headache. Asked for an aspirin. Died before I could give it to him.” He opened his eyes and stared at her for a moment. “I hated brain trauma. Hated what I could see, hated what I couldn’t.”

  “Did you have many patients with brain injuries?”

  “Too many,” he said. “I’m a... I was a general surgeon. I had no business doing neurosurgery. But sometimes it couldn’t be helped, if we couldn’t get a neurosurgeon in for whatever reason.” He sighed heavily. “And look where I ended up. Life can sure play some messed-up tricks, can’t it?”

  Turning slowly, he looked directly into her eyes.

  “But you already know that, don’t you?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Your father. Brilliant surgeon, the way you tell it. Then...” He shrugged. “Did he know, Lizzie? Did he know what was happening to him?”

  “At first. And he fought back—a lot like the way you do. With stubbornness and resistance. But as his illness progressed, and more of him got lost, the knowledge of what was happening to him went away as well, taking all those years of bravery and the good things he’d done. That was the worst part, I think. Watching this giant of a man lose the things that had made him a giant. He earned those memories and he deserved to have them. But there was nothing I could do except tell him about the things he’d done. And to him they were just stories. Something that kept him entertained for a little while. But even that stage didn’t last long, so after that went away I showed him pictures. They meant nothing to him, though. He didn’t even recognize himself.”

  She swatted back a tear sliding down her face.

  “It isn’t fair, Mateo. Not to him, not to you, not to anybody. Losing yourself like that...” She shook her head. “But you’ve got hope. My dad had none and there was nothing I could do about that, even though I tried.”

  “Did you ever resent him for what you had to do
?”

  “Sometimes...a little. I think it’s natural when the demands become more and more. But in a real sense...no. It wasn’t his fault.”

  “And you: the healer who couldn’t fix the person you loved the most.” He pulled her into his arms and held her there as the water lapped around them. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Lizzie. It can’t have been easy, and there’s nothing else to say except I wish it could have been different for you.”

  “Like you said, life can sure play some messed-up tricks.”

  “Why here? Why did you bring him here? Was it just because of the flowers?”

  “It was so that a practitioner by the name of Malana Palakiko could treat him. She’s a holistic practitioner who uses light therapy, acupuncture, and natural herbs. Traditional medicine had run its course and I’m...open-minded. She has a little clinic a few miles from here, and since nothing else was working... She’s one of the best when it comes to treating various forms of dementia. And, while she can’t cure Alzheimer’s, she does make her patients feel better, and she’s had some good results in prolonging the inevitable. Dad loved seeing her. The thing was, even while I knew there wasn’t any good outcome, I wanted to make his life as good as it could be as he was fading away, and I think Malana did that. She was so...kind. Patient. Understanding.”

  “And his doctors at the hospital?”

  “When a case is hopeless, sometimes their efforts are as much for the loved one as for the patient.”

  “Was it that way for you?”

  “Maybe. I just wanted to do everything I could. He would have expected that from me. But so much of his treatment... I think it was designed to make me feel better, like I was really doing something good for him. What was good for him, though, was sitting in the garden and tending his flowers. I didn’t see that at first. I was so busy pushing him into treatments that weren’t working.” She laid her head against his chest. “I could have done better for him.”

  “Something tells me you’re being too hard on yourself.”