Turning Point

by Danielle Steel

  * * *

  —

  At Stanford, Wendy looked shocked for a minute, and mildly panicked. Four weeks was a long time, and she hadn’t gone away for more than a few days in the last six years. She never wanted to miss a Wednesday night with Jeff. It made her uneasy to think of leaving him for that long. What if he forgot about her, or discovered that their Wednesday nights together weren’t worth the trouble, or he fell in love with his wife again or, worse, somebody else? All Wendy could think about was “out of sight, out of mind,” and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go, or should. She was flattered to be invited, but her situation with Jeff was precarious, and being gone for four weeks sounded dangerous to her, in terms of their relationship. She almost turned it down, but then decided to wait and discuss it with him on Wednesday night, and see what he said. If he objected to her going to Paris, she would gracefully decline. She said she would give them an answer on Thursday, and the head of the Stanford Medical Center did all he could to encourage her to go. He said she would be a valuable member of the team, and a wonderful representative for Stanford.

  There was going to be a reception hosted by the mayor at City Hall, when the French team came to town. It all sounded very appealing, and even exciting to Wendy, but not if she lost Jeff because of being away for four weeks. She realized, as she thought about it when she went back to her office in the trauma unit, that no matter how depressing the situation was at times, or how inadequate the arrangement, she wasn’t ready to let him go. In fact, she was holding on to him for dear life.

  * * *

  —

  The situation for Stephanie at UCSF was complicated too. She was stunned when they asked her to represent UCSF, and very flattered, and by the time they finished describing the assignment to her, she was ready to run home and pack her bags. Before she could stop herself, she said yes. But as she walked back to the trauma unit, she felt panic wash over her. What was she going to say to Andy? How could she justify leaving him and their two small sons for four weeks? Andy was going to have a fit, but this was another step toward her goal of becoming head of the unit one day. Being on the mayor’s commission was an honor she didn’t want to turn down, and she had already agreed. She had blurted out her positive answer before she had thought it through, but as reality hit her, she knew there was going to be trouble at home. What if he wouldn’t let her go? She didn’t want to miss it, but she didn’t want to push Andy over the edge either.

  She knew all of his complaints about her job, and he seemed to be getting more strident about it recently. Now she would have to tell him she was going to Paris for a month. She didn’t know what to say, how to couch it in a palatable way. All she knew as she sat down at her desk in the trauma unit, staring into space, was that she wanted to go. More than anything in the world. It was a fabulous opportunity and she just couldn’t pass it up. All she had to do was convince Andy of it too. That would be the hardest part.

  Chapter Four

  Stephanie waited until she had a night off, wasn’t on call, and didn’t have to work late. She brought it up to Andy, as casually as possible, over a glass of wine, sitting by the fire, after they put the boys to bed. She had set the stage as carefully as she could, hoping for the optimum result.

  “I got an amazing opportunity this week,” she said as they sipped their wine. Andy was in a good mood. A California magazine had recently bought an article of his about conservation in Marin. He hadn’t sold anything in a while. And he hadn’t done one on the urban crisis in months. He was too busy with the boys to be diligent about his writing, which was frustrating for him. He wanted to advance his career too.

  “What kind of opportunity?” He eyed her with suspicion. Announcements like that usually meant some extremely demanding project that would eat into her time with him and the kids. He knew her well.

  “Apparently, the Department of Emergency Management is sponsoring an exchange through the mayor’s office, with Paris as our sister city, to pool information and protocols about terrorist attacks. They’re sending four doctors from San Francisco to Paris to work with their emergency services there, and then four French doctors will come here to learn what they can from us. It’s a terrific idea.”

  “For how long?” Andy asked, frowning. He sensed immediately that there was more.

  “A few weeks,” she said vaguely, and then decided she’d better level with him. “A month,” she added in a small voice.

  “And you want to go?” He looked shocked.

  “Actually, UCSF asked me to go as their representative. It’s all trauma docs from the Bay Area. UCSF was invited to send the doctor of their choice, and I’m it. It’s a big honor,” she added, trying to convince him, and she could see it didn’t.

  “Jesus, Steph. You want to go away for a month?” He looked at her in astonishment. “What about your kids…and me? What are we supposed to do for a month?”

  “You could come with me,” she said, throwing it out there to pacify him. He looked upset.

  “With two small kids, while you work all day and night with a bunch of French doctors and we never see you? That makes no sense, and the boys would go nuts in a hotel. They’re better off here in school. But that’s a long time for you to leave them. I’m beginning to feel like we’re getting in your way. It didn’t used to be like this. You balanced work and our family, but now, little by little your job is becoming your priority, and sometimes I feel like you forget about us entirely. I think you have some choices to make, Steph.” He sounded harsh and angry, and her heart sank.

  “What is that supposed to mean? Give up my family or my job? My father never did. He was a busy obstetrician, and sometimes he delivered babies almost every night for weeks. We hardly ever saw him, and nobody asked him to choose between his work and us. My mother made it work, for all of us.”

  “I’m trying to make it work too, but maybe the world isn’t quite as fair as you think. I’m your husband, not an au pair. I want to work on my career too. This whole family is not just about supporting you. And now you want to go to Paris for a month. Where does that leave us, Steph? What am I supposed to think? What’s your priority here? Work or us?” He couldn’t see her giving up a month in Paris to stay home with them. And if she did, he knew she would feel cheated, and in some ways she wasn’t wrong. It was a fabulous invitation for her. But it was going to come out of his hide whether she went or she didn’t. The balance of responsibilities, and the way they’d agreed to divide them up, was beginning to weigh heavily on him. The deal they’d made to support her career came at a high price for him. And she never said it, but she thought medicine and saving lives were more important than writing, no matter how talented he was.

  “Why does it have to be a choice?” She argued with him, but didn’t want it to escalate into a fight. If it did, she knew they would both lose. And he had a point. Her career had become increasingly demanding in the last year. But he knew what she did when he married her. Hers wasn’t a nine-to-five job, particularly in trauma, where they dealt with life-threatening emergencies every day. Sometimes she had to go in, even if she wasn’t on call, because she was the best doctor for the job. But it was creating a lot of conflicts for them at home. “I’m torn about it too,” she said in a gentle voice, trying to stay calm. “I hate leaving you and the boys, but I’d love to be part of this exchange. It’s an honor to be asked, and I could learn so much. It could open doors for me at work,” and close doors at home, if Andy resented it and held it against her. He had the power to hurt her severely, or even get tired of their life and have an affair, or leave her. He met lots of attractive young mothers every day, schoolteachers, and probably other women she knew nothing about, and he was great-looking and a nice guy. But in some ways, he was holding her back and making her feel guilty all the time. Things hadn’t been as smooth between them for the past year, and she never had enough free time to make it up to him. He was angry al
most all the time.

  “I don’t want to be the bad guy here,” he said firmly, then finished his wine and stood up. Their cozy moment in front of the fire had come to a bad end. “I’m not going to deprive you of this and tell you that you can’t go. You have to make up your own mind,” but it was obvious from the way he said it that there would be a price to pay, possibly a big one, if she went. He was monumentally upset about the trip. “And when you’re figuring it out,” he said in an icy tone, “try to remember that you have a husband and two kids. Maybe married doctors with young children don’t get to trot all over the world, going to monthlong conferences in other countries. There are sacrifices one has to make.”

  “I do,” she said, sounding lame even to herself. “I give up plenty of stuff to do my job and be home with you as much as I can. It’s a hard juggling act for me too,” more than it was for him without a regular job. And this was the choice they’d made and agreed to when Aden was born. It was just harder than they’d expected six years later. Andy got angry now every time she had to go to work in the middle of the night, or came home hours late, or wasn’t free to have dinner with their friends. But she made a good living, which they relied on. He didn’t make enough to afford the kids’ school, and the mortgage on the house, both of which she paid for. They never talked about it, but the reality was there. He had become a stay-at-home dad and kept trying to make his writing career a success, but hadn’t made real money at it yet. She never complained about how little money he made. That wasn’t the issue. The real issue was that she wanted the freedom to do her job, and enjoy the perks, without Andy and the kids holding her back.

  “Maybe we should take a break when you come back,” he suggested as he stood looking at her.

  “Why? As my punishment if I go to Paris?” That seemed so unfair and the reaction seemed extreme to her.

  “I’m not trying to punish you, Steph. But we need more balance in our marriage. We need more time together, and with the kids, if we want this to work.”

  “It’s been working until now,” she said, looking unhappy, and he did too.

  “Not in a while,” Andy said honestly. “At least not for me. I feel like your errand boy and babysitter. You’re at work all the time. If you’re not seeing patients, you’re in meetings, or taking classes on new techniques.”

  “That’s part of the deal, and what the hospital expects of me. I have to stay on top of new protocols, new surgical techniques, and new meds.”

  “Our kids are going to grow up before you know it, and you’re going to miss it. You said that to me about your father when we met, that you hardly saw him when you were growing up. You can’t get back the time you don’t spend with the boys. All I know is that a month in Paris sounds like a long time to me, no matter how flattering the invitation is. You don’t need to know how they deal with terrorism and trauma in France,” he said practically. “You live and work here.” He was right about that, but it sounded fascinating to her. For a minute she wished that he could go with her, but it made no sense. She knew he was right and she’d be busy all the time. He and the kids would be cooped up in the hotel, and the boys were too young to enjoy a month in a foreign city. They wouldn’t even remember it.

  “Do you want your mom to stay at the house with the boys, and you come with me?” she suggested as a peace offering, but he shook his head.

  “They’re too much for my mother to handle, she’s seventy-four years old. And your mother wouldn’t do it either. I don’t want to leave them for a month,” he said, sounding supercilious about it, and making her feel guilty again. He always did. “Let me know what you decide. It’s up to you.” She was almost waiting for him to add the famous words of Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio, “and let your conscience be your guide.” Why was everything in life a hard decision, involving so many sacrifices? Parenthood was harder than she had expected, and their marriage wasn’t going as smoothly as it used to either. He was always pointing out to her where she fell short. He hung out with women who didn’t work, the mothers he saw at the boys’ school, and suddenly she had become a criminal in his eyes. He made her feel like an inadequate parent, and she wondered if it were true, and she was damaging her children forever. But if she backed down on her career or worked part time, she knew it would damage her and she would feel cheated. It really wasn’t fair. He had nothing else to do, except write articles and essays that most of the time didn’t sell. He had talent but getting freelance articles published wasn’t easy.

  She wanted to talk to someone about the trip, but didn’t know who. She wasn’t close to the other doctors at work, nor the mothers at the boys’ school. She felt like a freak compared to them, and showed up in scrubs or surgical pajamas or her white doctor’s coat every time they had an event at school, as though to show them she had an excuse for the times she wasn’t there. And her mother was usually sympathetic to Andy, even though Stephanie’s father had been at the hospital most of the time. Her mother excused it because he was a man. Her sister was even more extreme. She’d had a great job as a family law attorney, and given it up the first time she got pregnant. She had three children and spent all her time making bead jewelry with her daughters, papier-mâché Christmas decorations, perfect gingerbread houses for the school fair, and carpooling her girls to ballet. She thought Stephanie was dead wrong to maintain the pace she did, and continue working full time in the trauma unit. She had recently told Stephanie that she should be getting Aden onto a soccer team, signing him up for Little League, and checking out a Cub Scout troop. Stephanie didn’t have the time, so Andy had promised to do it, but hadn’t yet. Her sister had nothing else to do.

  She felt as though her entire family was some kind of guilt factory, they were always picking on her. Her father thought they should have another child, he said her fertility was going to drop markedly in the near future, now that she was thirty-five. But a third child was the last thing Stephanie wanted, she could hardly take care of the two she had. Her baby-making days were over, and she wanted them to be. She loved the two boys she had, but couldn’t have juggled one more. Andy had always said he wanted four, but Stephanie knew her limits, and two was all she could handle, with her job. Her sister’s answer to everything was to tell her to quit. She could just imagine what Nicole would say if Stephanie told her she wanted to go to Paris for a month on a medical exchange.

  She was looking troubled when the head of the trauma unit stopped to talk to her a few days later, and congratulated her on the trip to Paris. He had recommended her for the exchange. “You’re lucky you’ve got a husband who’ll pick up the slack for you with the kids while you’re away,” he said confidently, and Stephanie looked pained but didn’t comment. “He’s a good guy,” he added.

  “Yes, he is,” Stephanie agreed softly, “but I feel guilty anyway. A month is a long time to be away from my kids.”

  “It’ll fly by, you’ll be so busy. And you’ll come back with a wealth of information we can use here, especially with multiple casualty incidents, mass prophylaxis planning, and disaster preparedness. The French have been hit hard in the last five years and have probably learned a lot from it.” San Francisco hadn’t had any mass terrorist incidents, although other cities in the United States had, and no place was exempt anymore. Terrorism was a factor in everyone’s life now, mostly from crazies in the States and political dissidents in Europe, but the end result was the same. Thousands of people injured and hundreds of people dead. All government agencies wanted to find ways to avoid the tragedies that were happening on campuses and in cities. It was man’s cruelty to man at its worst. “I’m proud of you for going,” the head of the unit said, tapping her on the shoulder. She realized after he left that this was not just about her and a trip to Paris. It was about what she would learn there and bring home to use for her patients’ benefit, and to teach the other doctors. She was an ambassador on an important mission, and on her way home that n
ight, she made the decision. She was going to Paris, whether Andy understood it or not.

  She told him after dinner, when the boys were in bed, and he nodded, and made no comment. He went upstairs shortly after, took a shower, and went to bed, and he barely spoke to her for weeks afterward. She felt like a child abuser every time he looked at her, but she had made the decision and dug her heels in. On an intellectual level, and career-wise, she knew it was right. And five years from now, the boys wouldn’t even remember that she’d gone. It wasn’t going to scar them forever. They were four and six and they would miss her, but they’d forget about it as soon as she came home. It was Andy who would remember for longer.

  When she told the boys a few days before she left, she promised to call them every day. Ryan cried for a few minutes when she explained it to them, and Aden looked sad for an instant and then said okay and went back to playing with his Legos. He was making a fort with his father. Andy hardly looked at her now that she’d decided to go to Paris. He never referred to it, or asked her when she was leaving. It had killed all but the most basic communication between them, exclusively about plans that involved their children. The romance or lust between them had been dead for months so nothing changed there. Her sister Nicole told her it was shocking, her mother didn’t comment and stayed out of it, but had told Nicole it was a mistake. And Andy’s mother told him how sorry she was that his wife was so selfish and gave so little thought to him and their boys. Stephanie knew she was definitely not a hero for leaving home, no matter how great the honor. And she hoped she wasn’t making a huge error that would strain their marriage past breaking point, but she was going anyway. She would do her best to fix it when she got home.