She told herself to slow down, to simply tell Sarah how she felt. They’d take it from there, work things out together. Baby steps and all that.
Lauren was pulling a tray of some sort of bacon-wrapped hors d’oeuvres from the oven. “Hey, Joss, glad you could make it. Your work schedule change?”
“Hi. Yeah, something like that. Have you seen Sarah?”
“She disappeared an hour or so ago. I think she went to bed early.” She pointed down the hall. “She’ll be glad to see you. Why don’t you go wake her up?”
“I’m not so sure about that. She’s not exactly thrilled with me lately.”
“Then it sounds like you two have lots to talk about. Go ahead, it’ll be fine.”
Joss hesitated, thought about fleeing while she could, but she’d come here to see Sarah, and she wasn’t going to leave until she did. Especially now that she was ready to confess her love. If I don’t do it now, I might never do it. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Good luck.”
I’m going to need it, Joss thought, as she made her way down the poorly lit hall and past two women groping each other up against the wall. “Excuse me,” she muttered, halting at the door she knew to be Sarah’s. She knocked lightly once, twice, a third time. She tried the handle, which was unlocked. She’d pop her head in, and if Sarah was sleeping, she’d leave her alone and call her tomorrow.
Slowly, she opened the door and let her eyes adjust to the dim light of a tiny lamp on the night table. There were two people in the bed, two sleeping forms molded up against one another, fully clothed, but looking intimately cozy, like they were resting up before they got down to business. Or maybe the business between the sheets had already happened and they were sleeping it off before rejoining the party. She stepped closer, her stomach in her shoes as she prayed one of them wasn’t Sarah.
Fuck! It was Sarah, all right, her long red hair fanned out on the stark white pillow. She was snoring softly. As was the short-haired woman in a flannel shirt beside her. The stranger’s arm was around Sarah’s waist and her right leg was wrapped around Sarah’s left in a display that looked far too intimate for Joss’s liking. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. And then it was like someone had delivered a kick to her stomach. She doubled over, backed up against the door, and forced herself, with considerable effort, to stand up straight.
So that’s it, she thought. Forty-eight hours after we make love, she’s fucking somebody else! Anger shattered the shock. She says she couldn’t have meaningless sex with me, but she can screw somebody else at the drop of a hat? That’s rich, she thought, as her heart hardened into something impenetrable and into something irreversible.
Well, fuck you, Sarah Young, and the cowgirl you rode in on.
She didn’t bother to close the bedroom door as she stomped away.
Chapter Thirty
Now that the holidays were well past and her social obligations met, Sarah hoped she could start putting the drama and heartache of the last few weeks behind her and throw herself completely into her work. She’d finished two small paintings over the past few days. Her freshman class started later in the week—she’d successfully dropped the other from her teaching load—which meant she needed to get another piece painted before then. She aimed to have at least two more paintings done by the end of the month.
Her phone chimed from a pocket in her coat, which was hanging on a stand in the corner. Someone was texting her. She ignored it. She’d given up hoping it was Joss. She’d texted Joss on New Year’s Day, after Lauren told her Joss had showed up at the party after all. Sarah had missed Joss, but then, she’d missed most of the party, thanks to falling into a drunken slumber next to that A.J. woman for a couple of hours. She shook her head in dismay, but smiled anyway. A.J. was a hoot. Nice, in a down-home, cowpoke sort of way. After they’d rejoined the party, A.J. kept asking Sarah out, failing to be discouraged in spite of Sarah’s firm rebuffs. “But we already know we’re good in bed together,” A.J. had said with a sly wink, and it made Sarah laugh. She’d needed laughter that night. And a friend. But she’d never go out with A.J. or any other woman in the foreseeable future. Joss had ignored her text, reaffirming in Sarah’s mind that there was no room for her in Joss’s life anymore, especially if there wasn’t sex involved and certainly not if there was to be gooey love and commitment expectations.
Her phone chimed again. Then it began ringing insistently. Goddammit! She tossed her brush in a can of paint thinner and wiped her hands on the nearest paint-spattered rag.
“Hello?” she said, anxious to get rid of the caller as quickly as possible.
“Oh, thank God I caught you, Sarah.” It was her stepmother Linda, her voice sounding like rubber bands pulled tight.
“What’s wrong?” The fine hairs on the back of Sarah’s neck sprang to attention.
“It’s your father. He’s been rushed to the hospital.”
Great, he’s trying to be dramatic to get me to come slinking back to him, was Sarah’s first thought before she realized how cynical that was. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, his heart, I think. He came down with bad chest pain and was really short of breath. Right after lunch. I called an ambulance, though he didn’t want me to. Said he could tough it out, but he looked awful. Sarah, I’m worried about him. I think he’s having a heart attack.”
A million thoughts raced through Sarah’s mind, but one stayed with her: My father’s going to die while I’m not speaking to him. She’d have to think long and hard about whether she could live with that if the worst happened. “Where are you now?”
“Vanderbilt’s ER, though I think they’re moving him to the cardiac unit any minute now for more tests.”
Sarah would go see her father. Then it occurred to her that he might not want to see her. “Linda, do you think he’ll want to see me? Or should I stay away?”
“Of course he’ll want to see you.”
Sarah’s hand trembled. “I’m not so sure about that, but I’ll come sit with you. I should be able to get there in about twenty minutes. Can I bring you anything?”
“No,” Linda said, relief in her voice. “Just bring yourself.”
* * *
Joss looked over the results of the echocardiogram. With the press of another button on her computer, she pulled up Peter Young’s electrocardiogram graph. She hadn’t examined him yet—she’d left that to the ER doctor and her second-year resident—but she was sure it was the same Peter Young who was Sarah’s father. His records confirmed he was the right age, and the workup said his wife Linda had accompanied him in the ambulance.
Joss strode down the hall to the cardiac ICU, where her resident had admitted Peter Young. She would examine him for what she felt sure was acute mitral valve regurgitation, and then she’d discuss her findings with Peter and, she supposed, Linda. Sarah too, if she was here, although Sarah had said she’d had a falling out with her father. Would she show now that he was having a health crisis? She thought about her own chilly relations with her mother, how they’d barely spoken since Christmas Day. If her mother turned suddenly ill, she would do all she could to help her and be there for her, no matter what disagreements they were having. Nothing mattered more than family when someone’s health was threatened, Joss had learned through experience. Family could really help or hinder a patient’s recovery, both physically and mentally. She also knew how much people regretted not mending fences before it was too late—she’d held the hand of many a distraught survivor who’d lamented an estrangement after it was too late to do anything about it.
“Mr. Young,” Joss said, extending her hand. “I’m Dr. McNab, the attending physician.”
He was pale, and there were dark smudges beneath his eyes, but he was indeed Sarah’s father.
His hand was limp as a rag. He wheezed when he spoke. “I remember you. Sarah’s…Sarah’s…”
“Yes,” Joss said thinly. “I am.” Or was, but she didn’t know how much he knew. Or cared to know. “You�
��re not feeling very well, Mr. Young?”
“Took you all those years of training for you to reach that conclusion, did it?”
Yup, same old cantankerous bastard, Joss thought. She’d heard it all before and could only be amused by such comments now, not insulted. “Well, you can’t be feeling that bad if you’re going to smack me down with a line like that.”
Peter Young’s sheepishness was short-lived. “Something’s sitting on my chest, doc, and I can’t breathe.”
Joss popped the ends of her stethoscope into her ears. She listened to his heart and lungs, asked him to take deep breaths, palpated his abdomen. They went over his history and his symptoms, even though he complained he’d already gone through it all with two other doctors.
“What’s wrong with me, doc? Give it to me straight. I can handle whatever it is.”
God, his blue eyes were exactly like Sarah’s, and she marveled at that which still had the power to shatter her. “I’d like to bring your wife in so I can go over things with both of you. And Sarah, if she’s here too.”
“Sarah won’t be here,” Peter croaked.
“I’ll get the nurse to bring in whoever’s in the waiting room for you, okay?” She patted his shoulder. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Joss hustled back to her office, closed the door and leaned heavily against it. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted Sarah to be there or not when she spoke to Peter and Linda. If they were to see each other again, what would they say to one another? Well, nothing in the presence of her father and Linda, of course. But even if she got Sarah alone, was there anything left to say? Evidently she had moved on with someone else, having run out of patience with Joss and her solitary, perpetually single ways.
And right when I was ready to try to figure out how to make things work with her, Joss thought grimly. Well, it figured that the fickle finger of fate was fucking with her. With them. Nancy told her it probably wasn’t meant to be, that there were other fish in the sea. “Right,” Joss told her, “like that worn-out old line is supposed to make me feel better?” She didn’t want any other fish, didn’t plan to ever go fishing again. If there was one thing the experience with Sarah had taught her, it was that she’d been right all along. She simply wasn’t cut out to be in a relationship. They were simply too hard and too much of a mystery to her.
Joss retrieved her iPad. She’d use it to call up the echocardiogram results and other diagrams to show her patient and his family exactly what was wrong. And what she could do to fix it. She took a deep breath, straightened her lab coat and marched back to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, doing her best to prepare herself mentally in case Sarah was there.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sarah’s father had avoided looking at her when she entered his cubicle in the CICU. It went both ways. She too had had a hard time settling her gaze on him, especially because she’d begun to question whether their estrangement had played a part in his being sick. Had the stress led to a heart attack? Well, even so, she reasoned, she refused to take all the blame the way she would have in years past. His health was his own responsibility; he worked too long and too hard, and his temper had undoubtedly impacted him too. Still, their recent confrontation couldn’t have helped and for that she felt bad.
“It’s not good. Not good at all,” Peter said, directing his attention to his wife. He was acting like he’d lost a case before it reached the jury.
“The doctor didn’t say that, did he?”
“She and not exactly. But I can tell.”
Joss breezed into the cubicle, and Sarah’s knees buckled.
“Not you too!” Linda clutched her arm and pulled her up. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Sarah mumbled, chagrined that seeing Joss still had this dizzying effect on her. She couldn’t see Joss and not think about her mouth, about the fire in her eyes, about the soft touch of her hands. And about that damned stubborn streak of hers that would never allow them to be together.
Joss didn’t glance her way, for which Sarah was grateful. But that meant Linda was the only one in the room who was acknowledging her existence. God, it hurt to see Joss again. Far more than she would have expected and almost more than she could handle. Tears were not far from the surface, and she had to quietly clear her throat to hold back the tide.
“Did Peter have a heart attack?” Linda asked, preempting Joss.
“No.”
“It sure as hell felt like one,” Peter replied in a tone that seemed to imply Joss didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. “And you’d better not tell me it’s all in my head.”
“It’s not all in your head, Mr. Young. I’m afraid you have a serious problem with your heart. But I can help you, all right?”
Sarah’s father seemed to relax at this last bit, but his expression remained tense, worried.
“What you have,” Joss continued in a commanding, even tone, “is acute mitral valve regurgitation. It can happen when the valve or the tissue near it ruptures suddenly. Instead of a slow leak, blood builds up quickly in the left side of the heart. Your heart doesn’t have time to adjust to this sudden buildup of blood the way it does with the slow buildup of blood in the case of chronic regurgitation.”
“And this is what caused my chest pain and shortness of breath?”
“Yes.”
“What would suddenly cause this to happen?” asked Linda, her face still pale from the shock of everything that had transpired over the last couple of hours.
“In your husband’s case, probably an undetected case of endocarditis. Which results from an infection.”
“How the hell would I get an infection in my heart?” Sarah’s father asked.
“Have you had any dental work lately?”
“No.”
“Probably a virus then. Have you been sick at all during the last couple of months?”
“Early December,” Linda answered. “Peter had a bad cold, but nothing that kept him down more than a couple of days.”
“That could have been it. Sometimes these seemingly run-of-the-mill viruses cause all kinds of damage to our bodies, even though it doesn’t seem so bad at the time. It can take weeks before it becomes apparent. But I’ll order some blood work too.”
Joss proceeded to show them grainy images of Peter’s heart on her iPad, then swiped to diagrams of the heart and its valves and explained everything to them in a way that they could understand. She was calm, so calm, Sarah thought. Reasoned and confident too, but not emotionless. She managed to convey knowledge and competence but also sensitivity and patience, waiting until every question was answered, and often answered in multiple ways. Sarah hadn’t doubted that Joss would be good at this, and she was relieved more than anything. When Joss had suffered the loss of her sixteen-year-old patient a month ago, Sarah worried her confidence might have been shaken. If it was, there was no evidence of it now.
Joss explained that regardless of the cause, surgery would be necessary and that she was quite sure she could repair the valve instead of replacing it, for now. “But you may need a new valve in five, ten years. It’s hard to predict at this point. But if that needs to happen, it’s nothing to worry about.” She smiled at Linda and Peter. “I replace valves every day, all right?”
“When will I need this surgery?”
Sarah thought she saw, for the first time since she was a kid, real fear in her father’s eyes.
“Tomorrow. I feel you’re stable enough, and if we don’t repair the valve soon, it could continue to degrade and quickly, forcing us to do a complete replacement. That would be a much more intensive surgery. I’d rather take the repair approach first. If that doesn’t work or the repair doesn’t hold up for very long, we can then do the full replacement.”
Joss patted Sarah’s father’s hand to reassure him. The gesture, small as it was, stunned Sarah a little. She knew Joss had little respect for her father, given the way he’d treated Sarah all these years. And she was the one who’
d encouraged Sarah to give her father an ultimatum. But Joss was in doctor mode, Sarah reminded herself, and it was impressive the way she so effortlessly separated her work from her emotional involvement or from any personal judgments she might harbor. It didn’t matter whether she liked Sarah’s father or not. He was her patient, and she would do the best job she could for him.
“I’ll let you talk things over for a piece, but I’ll need consent forms signed shortly.”
Linda nodded, and Joss, finally, looked at Sarah. Her face, her voice, had not veered from her professional demeanor, but her gaze settled over Sarah like the warm glow of a light. She took a step closer to Sarah. “Can I see you privately?” To Linda and Sarah’s father, she said, “I’ll check back with you guys in about an hour, okay?”
* * *
Joss became hyperaware of the sterility evident in her office. Sarah, artist that she was, would surely take note of the lack of personal photos, the absence of plants or paintings or mementos of any kind. It could be anyone’s office, now that Joss took a quick look around. Her only defense was that she was here to work, not entertain people. Besides, the OR was her second home, not her office.
She tossed her stethoscope onto her desk, shrugged out of her lab coat and draped it over the back of her chair, though she wasn’t about to sit there. This was not a one-on-one with a patient, though it felt like something ominous and final, the kind of conversation in which she told a patient there was little she could do for them.
She motioned for Sarah to take one of the four chairs around a small, round table, like they were going to sit there and consult over a report the way Joss might do with a colleague.
Maybe that’s what they needed to do. Maybe they needed to go over the autopsy of their dead relationship, because resuscitation certainly seemed out of reach now. Or maybe they should forget about discussing what went wrong and skip the blame game and simply agree to move on. She should say something to demonstrate that she was okay with Sarah moving on, because she certainly didn’t want to play the role of sore loser or the rejected lover who remained bitter. But seeing Sarah in bed with another woman had been far harder to bear than it should have been. She had no claim on Sarah, no right to her body or anything else that was Sarah’s, but damn, did she have to move on so quickly? So easily?
By Mutual Consent Page 23