The Surgeon's Perfect Match

by Alison Roberts

  It wouldn’t last.

  There was something different about the way Holly was looking at him but that was hardly surprising. Ryan knew she must be feeling grateful and he couldn’t forget what she’d said initially about gratitude being a burden that could damage their professional relationship so maybe that oddly thoughtful expression he seemed to be catching so frequently was indicative of mixed emotions on her part.

  He sighed inwardly, wishing he could find a way to make all this easier for Holly, and the sigh took on an extra dimension as he eyed what was inside the container Holly was opening. A rather wilted and unattractive-looking salad that had lumps of what looked like tuna in it was clearly her only lunch for the day. No wonder Holly didn’t seem very interested in her food. She eyed the bag Ryan was carrying into his office.

  ‘That smells good. Did you go for those hot bacon and egg sandwiches again?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Ryan sat down on the other side of his desk, nudging the pile of case notes they were intending to review in their lunch-break to one side. ‘I’ve got heaps. Want one?’

  Holly shook her head sadly. ‘High salt. You heard me promise Doug I’d pay particular attention to my diet this week. If I ate them I’d get thirsty and then I might throw my whole fluid balance out.’

  ‘You’re a model patient, aren’t you?’ Ryan felt slightly guilty as he laid the bag flat and ripped it open to release even more of the fragrant smell of fried bacon.

  ‘I have to be,’ Holly said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s been hard enough without making things worse by breaking the rules.’

  ‘Well, apart from having to remember your anti-rejection medication, the rules should slacken quite a lot once you’ve got a functioning new kidney.’

  Holly grimaced as she poked at her salad with a plastic fork. ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘You won’t have to wait much longer.’ Ryan didn’t need to glance at his desk calendar with the day now circled in red. ‘Only four days to go.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Holly’s fork was chasing a lump of tuna through the lettuce bed.

  ‘Nervous?’

  ‘A little.’ Dark eyes flashed up to meet his briefly. ‘Are you?’

  ‘No.’ Ryan took another bite of his sandwich. ‘Not a bit.’ Not for himself, anyway, but Holly seemed too frail to be about to undergo major surgery. Ryan’s gaze was caught by the way the bone on the edge of her wrist glowed white under her skin as she moved her fork. ‘You look like you’ve lost a bit of weight, Holly. You’re not overdoing your exercise programme, are you?’

  ‘I’m not doing any more than usual. Walking to and from work is it really.’

  ‘You don’t walk in this sort of weather, do you? It’s pouring today.’

  ‘I have a good umbrella.’ Holly looked up again and smiled. ‘ We live in Auckland, Ryan. You’d be mad not to have a good umbrella.’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift home today if it’s still raining.’

  ‘No need. Thanks, anyway.’

  ‘You don’t want to have to postpone surgery because you’ve got yourself cold and wet and picked up some kind of virus. There’s a lot of bugs around at this time of year. You need rest.’ Ryan looked pointedly at Holly’s lunch. ‘And good food.’

  ‘You do have a point.’ Holly grinned. ‘Is that offer of a sandwich still open, then? The smell is driving me crazy.’

  The pleasure gained from seeing Holly taking such an enthusiastic bite of the thick sandwich was startlingly intense. When a drop of egg yolk escaped at the corner of her mouth, it was all Ryan could do not to reach out and catch it with his thumb. Things had changed all right. A week ago he would never have allowed such a notion to enter his head. Now he had to actively seek distraction.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Did you see Leo’s dad when he came in for a visit this morning?’

  ‘No. He had his grandma keeping him company.’

  ‘The baby’s fine, by the sound of it. Pretty small but healthy enough. She’s in an incubator for a few days to be sure and she’ll have to stay in hospital until she reaches a good birth weight, but it’s good news, isn’t it?’

  Holly only paused briefly before taking another bite of her sandwich. Absolutely.’

  ‘How about Michaela? Did you manage to find time for your usual visit?’

  ‘Just a quick one.’

  ‘Sounds like they’ve got her renal function back in control.’

  ‘Yes, but her heart failure’s getting worse. If they let her go home, she’s going to be confined to a wheelchair or her bed.’

  ‘Her family seem desperate to get her back home as soon as possible. Will they cope, do you think?’

  ‘What choice do they have?’

  ‘Hmm.’ The distraction of discussing patients wasn’t working. Ryan’s thoughts had just done another neat circle back to Holly. ‘How are you planning to cope after your discharge?’

  ‘I guess I’ll need a quiet week or two at home.’

  ‘Who’s going to be looking after you?’

  Holly shrugged. ‘I can look after myself, Ryan. I have done for years. You know that.’

  ‘But this is different.’

  ‘Why? It’s not as if they’ll be discharging me before I’m able to get around easily. I’ve got it all planned. I’m going to spend this weekend putting meals in the freezer so I won’t have to cook, and I’m going to the library to get a load of books. I’m looking forward to having a fiction-fest for a change. Total indulgence, in fact. I might get a whole stack of historical romances.’

  Ryan wasn’t satisfied. ‘You shouldn’t be on your own. Haven’t you got friends or family you could stay with?’

  ‘Dad lives in Sydney, close to my brother. They’ve invited me to go over there to recuperate but Liz, my sister-in-law, has a fairly new baby and she helps Dad out a lot so she’s got enough on her hands.’

  ‘What about having a friend to stay? Like Sue?’

  ‘Sue’s got her own family to take care of. Besides, my apartment is only designed to have one person living in it. I’ve got plenty of neighbours, Ryan. And a telephone. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You could stay with us.’ The words popped out and startled Ryan almost as much as they apparently startled Holly. She nearly dropped her fork.

  ‘Us?’

  That was strange. Ryan could swear the tone was one of dismay. ‘Me and Pop.’

  ‘You live with your grandfather?’

  ‘Kind of. It’s a huge old house and it got divided when Pop’s son—my father—got married. It’s really two separate houses but we try and make an effort to see each other every day. I moved in when I first came back to Auckland and there’s never been a good reason to move out. Pop would deny it ferociously, of course, but he does need someone keeping a bit of an eye on him.’

  ‘I can understand that. How old did you say he was?’

  ‘Ninety-six.’ Ryan smiled. ‘But he’s a great cook. I pretend I can’t live without his food and he pretends he just puts up with me and doesn’t rely on my company. It works well.’

  ‘He sounds like a bit of a character.’

  ‘He is. He’d like to meet you, by the way. What would you say to a home-cooked meal tonight? One that doesn’t have any rabbit food in sight?’

  Holly laughed. ‘I’d say that I’ve already wrecked my diet enough for one day.’

  She was curious, though. Ryan was getting that thoughtful look again.

  ‘What about roast lamb?’ he queried cunningly. ‘With mint sauce and gravy and baby peas and itty-bitty new potatoes?’

  ‘Ooh…’ The sound was almost a groan of desire, and did something very strange to Ryan’s stomach. Then Holly’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘How did you know that’s my all-time favourite dinner? It’s what we always had on Christmas Day.’

  ‘I didn’t. It just happens to be one of Pop’s specialities. He cooks the leg of lamb in a clay case that keeps it all juicy and he grows fresh mint to make his own sauce and puts it in with the potatoes an
d—’

  ‘Stop!’ Holly was laughing. ‘I don’t believe you, anyway. Itty-bitty new potatoes in the middle of winter? I don’t think so!’

  ‘Pop has his sources. He was a chef until he ended up owning his own restaurant.’ Suddenly it was important to Ryan that Holly visited his home and met his only family, but he tried to keep his tone casual. ‘Hey, we’re both going to be eating hospital food for at least a week. We owe it to ourselves to indulge a bit first.’

  He’d like to tell her that she needed some lovingly prepared food that might actually put a decent covering on those bones. That he had every intention of seeing her healthy and cared for as much as he was able to. But Ryan knew not to push any further. He was taking another step over personal-life boundary lines here and, having issued the invitation, it was time to back off and let Holly think about it.

  He pushed his shirtsleeve up to expose his watch. ‘I guess we’d better have a quick look over these notes so we’ve got some idea of who’s coming to our outpatient clinic this afternoon.’

  The clinic that afternoon was for the purpose of seeing potential elective surgical cases rather than a follow-up of post-operative patients, but the first appointment managed to fit both categories.

  ‘Our GP referred us to the cardiology department in Wellington where we’ve been living, but when they said that Bella probably needed surgery, we asked if we could come and see you, Dr Murphy—seeing as you operated on Bella when she was a baby.’

  Ryan smiled at the eight-year-old girl sitting between her parents. ‘You won’t remember me,’ he said, ‘but I remember you. You were just this big.’ He held his hands about eighteen inches apart.

  ‘How old was I?’

  ‘About three weeks.’

  ‘And what was wrong with me?’ Bella’s stare suggested that she wasn’t the least bit shy.

  ‘You had something we call pulmonary stenosis,’ Ryan explained. ‘Your heart has things called valves in it and one of your valves didn’t grow quite the way it should have before you were born.’

  Bella cut straight to the chase. ‘Why didn’t you fix it up properly, then?’

  ‘Bella!’ Her mother looked embarrassed but Ryan smiled again.

  ‘We tried our best,’ he told the girl seriously. ‘But sometimes, when children grow, the problem can come back.’

  ‘Is that what’s happened to me?’

  ‘That’s why you’re coming to see us. We need to find that out.’

  ‘If it has happened to me, can you fix it up this time?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ryan said confidently.

  Bella’s nod was satisfied and Ryan looked up to include her parents in the interview. ‘Our referral letter says that you took Bella to your GP because she’s been getting tired rather easily, is that right?’

  Bella’s mother nodded. ‘She’s too tired to even eat her dinner some nights.’

  ‘She gets short of breath,’ her father added. ‘And last week, when she was out running around with our new puppy, she said she got a really bad pain in her chest.’

  ‘According to the records from the GP, Bella has been well up to now. She hasn’t had any other major illnesses or problems and her vaccinations are all up to date. Correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ve been living in Wellington for a few years now?’

  ‘We’re thinking of moving back to Auckland. Most of our family’s up here.’

  Bella was starting to look bored. She swung small feet and kicked the legs of her chair. Then she stared at Holly, who was sitting near Ryan.

  ‘You’ve got really long hair,’ Bella stated.

  ‘I have, haven’t I?’ Holly kept her voice down so as not to interrupt the history Ryan was still going over with Bella’s parents. ‘That’s why I have to keep it in a plait when I’m at work.’

  Bella fingered a blonde pigtail that didn’t quite reach her shoulder. ‘Jessie bites my hair.’

  ‘Is Jessie your new puppy?’

  ‘Yeah. Are you a heart doctor, too?’

  ‘I sure am.’

  ‘I’m going to be a animal doctor when I grow up.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘I’m going to practise on Jessie.’

  ‘Oh…’ Holly made a mental note to revisit the subject at a later date on Jessie’s behalf. Ryan had stopped making notes now and it was time for a physical examination for Bella. Then they would review the recent chest X-rays, echocardiogram and blood tests that had been done in Wellington. Judging by the letter she and Ryan had gone over in their lunch-break and the snippets she had overheard of this interview, it seemed highly likely that Bella would be one of their first surgical patients when she and Ryan returned from sick leave.

  Thoughts about that leave intruded more than once during the hours of that clinic. Holly felt she couldn’t possibly accept Ryan’s offer of a place to stay during her recuperation but he had, inadvertently perhaps, opened a rather large can of worms.

  Only half her mind was on the interview with the next patient’s family. The girl had been diagnosed with an atrial septal defect at birth. She had never exhibited any symptoms but her mother had been on the internet to learn of possible complications, such as heart failure or arrhythmias, that her daughter could face in her forties or fifties.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better to have surgery and repair the defect now?’ she asked Ryan.

  ‘Open heart surgery isn’t something to take lightly,’ he responded. ‘Fleur is a well, happy child at the moment and investigations suggest that the defect is relatively small. This is her chest X-ray here, see? With a defect likely to cause problems later in life, we’d expect to see a much larger heart size, with a prominent atrium and pulmonary artery. Just here.’ Ryan was using a pen to point to the viewing screen just behind his chair. ‘Fleur’s are a little enlarged but not enough to make me concerned. And this is her ECG.’ He pulled the page from the child’s file and began an explanation of the results in terms designed for lay people to comprehend.

  Holly’s concentration wandered, dipping into that worm can again. Loneliness had been a fact of life ever since the struggle to keep up her career had made trying to socialise more of an ordeal than a pleasure. Her circle of friends had dwindled to those she saw at work and they all worked long hours themselves and many had their own families to go home to by now. Days off were normally taken up with coping with housework, laundry and grocery shopping, with any surplus energy being channelled into study. Sheer exhaustion and the demands of her home treatment had disguised how alone Holly was most of the time, but that was about to change.

  Holly was actually dreading the days alone in her apartment after discharge more than the surgery or hospital stay. If the transplant was successful, she would have more energy than she’d had for years. Long hours in every day to find something to do.

  Alone.

  Fleur left, with her parents totally reassured by the promise of continued monitoring of their daughter’s heart condition. Her place was taken by a six-month-old baby whom they had expected to need surgery for a large ventricular septal defect that had been causing quite marked symptoms only three months ago. Medical treatment had been effective for control, however, and the baby’s growth had led to a partial closure of the defect. She was still borderline for surgical intervention, and Ryan was happy to agree with the parents’ request that they wait a bit longer. With a bit of luck, the defect would close even further and they could look forward to a healthy future for their child without the need for major surgery.

  Holly was looking forward to a healthy future herself but right now a part of it was looming as a scarily empty void and a period of recuperation from major surgery was not going to be the time to try and get out and about, renewing or making new friendships, was it? Ryan’s new offer was, once again, so tempting that Holly’s mind refused to leave it alone.

  A huge house, he’d said.

  But not an empty one. If she stayed there, she’d have company. The sup
port of someone going through a similar period of recuperation, no less. A medical professional who might be a great insurance policy just in case some nasty complication reared its head, like her spiking enough of a fever to make her delirious or getting a scare like passing blood in her urine.

  Not that she expected any such complications, of course. Her mind was just craftily dreaming up a reasonable excuse to spend more time with Ryan. Holly could recognise what was happening, but wasn’t convinced she had the motivation to put up enough of a fight.

  Given her confused feelings about Ryan at present, it would be a huge mistake to share a house and risk being drawn even closer. What if she really fell in love with him? She’d have to cope with getting over him on top of all the other challenges she would face in the near future.

  The final patient for the clinic that day was a fifteen-month-old boy called Thomas who had been diagnosed with coarctation of the aorta after his GP had picked up a heart murmur on a routine check prior to an immunisation. Thomas had a young, single mother and it was her father who had come to the appointment as support. Thomas’s grandfather.

  How could Holly help but start wondering about Ryan’s grandfather? The idea of a ninety-six-year-old who was a gourmet cook, grew his own herbs and was still sharp enough to win at chess was intriguing. He had to be a bit special, too. How many men of Ryan’s age would care enough to check on the welfare of an elderly relative every day?

  Or was it Ryan that was the special one?

  Thomas was unfazed by the appointment that was deciding a date for the surgery he needed. He trotted back and forth across the consulting room, choosing toys from the large basket in the corner and then taking each item to offer, with some awe, to Ryan. The surgeon’s lap was already crowded with wooden blocks, plastic stacking rings, a toy aeroplane and a Barbie doll, but that didn’t stop him thanking Thomas for the knitted elephant that appeared next.

  And then he looked across at Holly and smiled with just a hint of a wink creasing the corner of one eye. Other doctors who could see the finishing post for a busy afternoon’s clinic might well have been irritated by the constant interruptions to an important conversation, but Ryan was actually enjoying the interaction with this small boy.