Beyond brittle, he thought. Damn close to broken. His aura, if there was such a thing, had long since been destroyed. Lisa and Becky had been his only reason for living and now they were gone. If he was alive, it was just because he’d been going through the motions for so long, he’d forgotten how to stop.
He looked from the boy to the woman. She’d come in with a manila envelope tucked under her arm. He assumed this visit had something to do with that. “Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”
“My brother’s pediatrician thought we should come to see you.” This time, she did slide forward on the seat, as if what she was saying made her uneasy and she wanted to say it quickly. “Blue has three tumors along his spinal cord. He needs to have them removed as soon as possible,” she recited as if she’d rehearsed the words for hours in her vanity mirror. “I have an X ray.” She laid the large manila envelope on his desk.
With a barely stifled impatient sigh, Peter took out the X ray she’d brought and looked at it. He was aware that the boy was leaning forward and had propped his chin on his fisted hands, staring at the same X ray.
“That’s my spinal cord,” he said as if he knew exactly what a spinal chord was. “Kind of messed up, isn’t it?”
Peter looked at Raven. “How old did you say he was?”
“I’m seven,” he said.
“Seven,” Peter repeated. The same age that Becky had been before… Before. He didn’t remember Becky sounding this old. “He doesn’t sound seven.”
“He was reading at three,” Raven told him proudly.
Peter nodded. “Impressive.” He turned his attention to the X ray.
It was the barest of introductions to the problem. He would need extensive films taken if he decided to undertake the surgery. But what he was looking at was enough to tell him that the boy’s pediatrician wasn’t mistaken. There were indeed tumors clustering at the base of the boy’s spinal cord.
“Your brother’s pediatrician is right,” he informed Raven crisply, sliding the X ray back into the manila envelope.
“Yes, I know.” She looked at him. “Dr. DuCane’s been Blue’s doctor ever since he was a week old and I trust her implicitly. That’s why we’re here.”
He looked from the boy to the woman. “What kind of a name is Blue?”
Blue grinned at Raven and launched into an explanation. “It was the color of the sky my mother was staring at when she gave birth to me in the field.”
Peter looked sharply at Blue’s sister. Had the boy’s mother gone into premature labor while they were out on the road? “‘In the field’?”
Raven pressed her lips together, obviously struggling with something. “My mother didn’t like hospitals. She said they always made her think about people dying.”
He noticed the grim set to the woman’s mouth, such contrast to the smile that had been there seconds ago. The change vaguely stirred a question in his mind, but he let it go. He didn’t indulge in personal questions, unless they had something to do with the outcome of the surgery. “Is that why she’s not here right now?”
“No.” Raven took a breath, as if that could somehow buffer the pain that assaulted her each time her mind turned to the subject. “She’s not here because she died in a car accident when Blue was two. Both of my parents died in the crash.”
She didn’t add that they, along with Blue, had been on their way to her college graduation. They’d gotten a late start because her mother had been finishing up a project that was due. In a hurry, they weren’t paying strict attention to the road. The highway patrolman told her that a trucker who had fallen asleep at the wheel had plowed right into them.
Blue, in the back seat, had miraculously managed to survive, but both of her parents had died instantly.
She saw an odd expression come over the doctor’s face. She was accustomed to looks of pity or sympathy. This was neither. “Is anything wrong, Doctor?”
The words “car accident” had instantly raised myriad thoughts in his head, bringing with it an unwanted image that he strove, every day of his life, to erase from his mind.
He’d been on the scene only minutes after it had taken place.
The surgery had run over and he’d been hurrying home to his family because he’d promised to be there early for once. Lisa and Becky were taking him out for his birthday. He’d had no idea that they had been on their way to the hospital to surprise him. Driving fast, with one eye out for the highway patrol, he’d passed an overturned car on the side of the road.
The scene was already behind him when the delayed recognition had hit him.
He didn’t know how many seconds had passed before he’d realized that the mangled blue Toyota hadn’t just resembled Lisa’s car, it was Lisa’s car.
He remembered praying as he’d spun his car around. Praying he was wrong. That someone else’s family was there, beneath the sheets, and not his.
It was the last prayer he remembered praying. Because the answer had been negative.
Peter blew out a breath slowly, shutting away the memory. Shutting away the pain.
“No,” he told her in a dead voice, “nothing’s wrong.”
Chapter Two
Peter frowned. He could tell the woman sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk was about to launch into a full-fledged recital of her family history. Being trapped here, listening to a long-winded recitation of who had what was the last thing he wanted. It was bad enough that she had brought the boy to the preliminary consultation. He didn’t need to see the boy until he’d made up his mind as to what was necessary. After all, it wasn’t as if he had X-ray vision to study the boy’s problem and, whatever he needed to know, the boy’s sister could tell him.
And tell him and tell him.
Peter held his hand up, visually stopping her before she could sufficiently warm up to her subject matter. “I don’t need to hear that.”
His sharp tone cut her dead.
Raven pressed her lips together. She was beginning to have serious doubts about Dr. DuCane’s recommendation. Dr. Peter Sullivan might very well be a wizard with a scalpel in his hand, but for Blue she required more. She required a doctor with something more than ice water in his veins. She wanted a surgeon with a passion for his work and a desire to save every patient he came across. She was beginning to think that Sullivan was not that surgeon.
“Why not?” she asked.
The simple question caught him up short. He wasn’t accustomed to being challenged professionally, not by patients or the relatives of patients. There was emotion in her voice, something he strove to keep out of his realm. He never had anything but crisp, clear, economic conversations with the people who entered one of his offices. They told him their problem, usually coming in with extensive scans and films, and he studied the odds of succeeding in the undertaking. He liked beating the odds. It was his way of shaking his fist at the universe.
It was the only time he felt alive.
She was still waiting. The woman honestly expected him to answer. He bit back an exasperated sigh. “Because in this case, it has nothing to do with what is wrong with the patient.”
He made it sound so sterile, so detached. Raven looked Dr. Sullivan in the eyes and corrected quietly, but firmly, “Blue.” She glanced at her brother. “He has a name.”
“And rather an odd one at that.” The words had escaped before he’d had a chance to suppress them. Trouble was, he wasn’t accustomed to censoring himself—because he rarely spoke at all.
Raven glanced at Blue. To her relief, the doctor’s words didn’t seem to affect him. She should have realized they wouldn’t. Like his parents before him, Blue was a blithe spirit, unaffected by the casual, small hurts that littered everyday lives. It was as if he examined a larger picture than that which everyone else saw. Twenty years her junior, Blue was very precious to her and, she vowed silently, if she had to move heaven and earth, she was going to find a surgeon who could help Blue. Really help.
In her
opinion, that surgeon wasn’t Dr. Sullivan.
She raised her chin just a tad. Peter noticed for the first time the slightest hint of a cleft in it.
“We prefer to think of it as unusual—just like Blue is.” She reached across and took Blue’s small hand in hers. She closed her fingers around it. Peter got a sudden image of union and strength. Odd thing to think of when he was looking at a mere slip of a woman. “Well, Doctor, I think that you’ve told me all I really need to know.”
Obviously the woman was woefully uninformed. But then, this was his domain, not hers. “I don’t think so. There are CAT scans to arrange to be taken. I need to study those before I agree to do the surgery.”
He had no more emotion in his voice than if he was talking about deciding between which colors to have his office painted. She was right. This wasn’t the man for them. Centered, her mind made up, Raven smiled as she shook her head. “That won’t be necessary.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed. Feeling like someone whose turf was challenged, he told her, “I’ll decide what’s necessary.”
Her eyes never left his. “No,” she replied softly but firmly, “you won’t.” Rising to her feet, she closed her hand a little more tightly around her brother’s. “Thank you for your time, Doctor.”
It took a great deal of conscious effort on his part not to allow his mouth to drop open as she and her brother walked out of his office.
Astonishment ricocheted through him. He had just been rejected. The woman had rejected him. That had never happened to him before. Patients were always seeking him out because he was reputed to be one of the finest neurosurgeons in the country. And ever since he’d found himself without his family, there was nothing left to fill up his hours but his work.
Oh, he stopped by occasionally at Renee’s to see how she was doing, but that hardly counted. Renee had been, and in his opinion still was, his mother-in-law. By her very existence, she represented his only connection to Lisa and his past. Besides, he got along with the woman. She was like the mother he could never remember.
Neither he nor Lisa had any siblings. Only children born of only children. It made for a very small Christmas dinner table. Especially since his mother had died when he’d been very young and his father had passed away before he’d ever met Lisa.
He had promised Lisa that they would have a house full of kids. It was a promise he never got to keep.
As twilight crowded in around him, bringing with it a heightened sense of loss, he found himself driving not to the place where he slept night after night, but to the house that had once seemed so cheery to him. The house where he would see Lisa after putting in an inhuman amount of hours at the hospital. Because Lisa had been his bright spot. She had made him laugh no matter how dark his mood.
Now the laughter was gone, as was the brightness. He’d sold his own house shortly after the funeral and moved into a one-bedroom apartment. He didn’t require much in the way of living space and the memories within the house they had bought and decorated together had become too much to deal with. He preferred being in a position where he had to seek out the memories rather than have them invade his head every time he looked at anything related to Lisa’s or Becky’s life.
Peter pulled up in the small driveway and got out. Telling himself that he should be on his way home instead of bothering Renee, he still walked up to her front door. He stood there for a moment before he rang the bell.
Renee had given him a key to the house, but he never used it. He always rang the bell and on those rare times when she wasn’t home, he’d turn around and leave. The house where Lisa had grown up was too much to bear without someone there to act as a buffer.
Renee Baker answered the door before the sounds of the bell faded away. A tall, regal-looking woman with soft gray hair and gentle brown eyes, she greeted him warmly as she opened the door.
“I was hoping you’d stop by.” She paused to press a kiss on his cheek, then stood back as he crossed her threshold. “You look like hell, Pete.” She closed the door behind him. “Bad day?”
He let the warmth within the house permeate him a moment before answering. “There aren’t any good ones.”
The expression on Renee’s face told him that she knew better. “There are if you let them come, Pete.” She cocked her head, looking at him. “Did you eat?”
His reply was a half shrug and a mumbled, “Yeah.”
Because he wasn’t looking directly at her, Renee repositioned herself so that she could peer into his face. “What?”
This time the shrug employed both shoulders. “Something.”
She shook her head. The short laugh was a knowing one. “You didn’t eat.” Turning slowly on her heel, she led the way into her kitchen. “C’mon, I’ve got leftover pot roast.”
He knew better than to argue. So he followed her into the kitchen, because, for a little while, he needed her company. Because he felt as if every day he stood at a critical crossroads and he had no idea which way to go. Today was one of those days when he didn’t know why he even continued to place one foot in front of the other.
When his mood was darkest, he came to talk to Renee. And to remember a happier time.
Moving quickly for a woman who wrestled daily with the whimsy of rheumatoid arthritis, never knowing when she would be challenged and when she would receive the green light to move freely, Renee put out a plate of pot roast and small potatoes. His favorite meal, as she remembered.
Peter said nothing as she prepared the plate.
She gave him a look just before she went to retrieve a bottle of soda from the refrigerator.
“Am I going to have to drag the words out of you?” Then she laughed. “Why should tonight be any different than usual?” she speculated. Placing a glass in front of him, she looked down at Peter. “Talk to an old woman, Pete. Tell me about your day and why you’re here tonight instead of last night or tomorrow.”
She went to get a glass for herself when she heard him say, “I lost a patient today.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Renee crossed back to the table and helped herself to the bottle of soda. Her voice was filled with understanding. She’d told him more than once that it took a special person to do what he did, day after day, and not break down. “But it does happen. You’ve saved more than you’ve lost.”
Peter realized that she’d misunderstood him. “No, I don’t mean that way. I meant, I lost a patient,” he repeated between forkfuls of pot roast that melted on his tongue. “He walked out of my office. Actually, his sister took him away.”
Renee set down her glass. “Sister, huh? You probably scared her away.”
Not likely, not someone like the woman who’d been in his office this morning. “I don’t scare anyone.”
Like a mother studying her child, Renee took his face in her hand and pretended to scrutinize it carefully, just to be certain that she was right. “Not with your looks, Pete, but I have to tell you, you were definitely hiding behind a pillar the day they were teaching all about bedside manners.”
He shrugged as she withdrew her hand. “A surgeon doesn’t need a bedside manner.”
“Don’t you believe it. A lot of the times—and especially in the field you’re in, Pete—the surgeon is all that stands between the patient and the big sleep. Patients want to hang on to what you tell them. They want you to make them feel better even before they get wheeled into the operating room.”
He raised his eyes to hers. He thought she knew him better than that. “I don’t deal with giving out false hopes.”
Renee sat across from him at the table, nursing the glass of soda she’d just poured for herself. The expression on her face transcended conversation. “The mind is a very powerful tool, Peter. It can perform miracles at times.”
He had a great deal of respect for Renee, but her philosophy was completely alien to him. “If people could think themselves well, Renee, there’d be no reason for doctors.”
She leaned in closer as she spoke. �
��That’s not what I meant—exactly. But a patient needs all the help he can get—so does a doctor.” She looked at him pointedly. “Use what’s available. Make a patient think positive. It can’t hurt.” She smiled encouragingly at him. “What have you got to lose?”
He could give her the answer without thinking. “Time.” And giving a patient empty words was definitely wasting it.
Unfazed, Renee shrugged before she took another sip. “It goes by anyway. Might as well do something good with it.” Setting down her glass, she looked at his plate. The four slices she’d put there were gone, as were the tiny potatoes. She nodded at it. “See, I knew you were hungry.” She let her eyes travel down his upper torso. “Come by more often, Pete. You’re getting way too skinny.”
He hadn’t come here to talk about himself. Reversing the tables on her, he gazed at her for a long moment. Her health was a major concern to him. “You doing okay?”
Like someone uncomfortable with the subject matter, Renee shrugged dismissively. She’d once told him that the less she thought about the advancing arthritis that sought to conquer her, the better off she was.
“I’ve got my good days and my bad days, same as everyone else.” And then she flashed a smile. “This is a good day.” Renee glanced at the wheelchair that was tucked away in the corner in the family room. She used it when there was no way around it. But most of the time, she didn’t have to resort to it. “That’s always there, waiting for me.” And then she smiled at him, as if her point was made. “I just think myself out of it.”
Peter shook his head. The woman was incorrigible. Just like Lisa had been. Just like Becky had been on her way to becoming. “Whatever works.”
Leaning across the table, Renee covered his hand with hers. “That’s right. Whatever works. And positive thought works.”
He was glad she felt that philosophy worked for her, but it wasn’t the way for him. He sincerely doubted that he was capable of thinking positively. Not after the negative event that had traumatized in his life.
The M.D.'s Surprise Family Page 2