Not unlike himself, he thought as he left the room.
Taking the elevator, he went down to the first floor and out to the parking lot. It was still chilly, but the rain that had been promised had slipped away. This was their rainy season and it had only done so a handful of times. Looked like another dry year, he mused.
Christian got in behind the wheel of his car. He still drove the same car he’d had in medical school, the one he’d almost single-handedly resurrected at Henry’s behest. He could afford a better one now, but the car still ran and it suited his purpose of getting from here to there. Wealth and its trappings had never meant anything to him, the way they did to Joan.
Because it was Friday and he found himself needing to touch base, he drove to the private airfield instead of his small apartment.
He was going home. His real home. Where he had grown up. Where they still needed him.
As he drove, he wondered if Joan’s husband would react the way she thought he would if he found out her secret. The man in the hospital room had looked relieved, even though he’d actually said nothing. Ron Cunningham had struck him as someone who cared deeply but couldn’t bring himself to say it. Had probably been raised that way, to keep things bottled up. It was obvious that Joan would benefit from having some of those feelings released.
Every woman needed to hear words of endearment, words of comfort. Had he said them enough to Alma? Had he told her he loved her enough? Had he done everything he could have to get through to her?
Would she still have killed herself if he’d talked to her more, said those words more often? He pondered this as he sat back on the commuter plane that was taking him to Mesa Roja, the closest town he could reach before the reservation. He and Lukas had a standing arrangement with Jake Anderson, the man who ran the used-car dealership in Mesa Roja. They’d rent a vehicle for the duration of their stay at the reservation. The man did it as a gesture of good will—and because he knew that neither one of the Drs. Graywolf would do anything to cause damage to his precious property.
A slight tremor went through the plane as turbulence challenged the pilot’s skill. The first time it had happened, Christian remembered getting violently ill. Not so much from the swaying as from the thought of crashing. But withstanding turbulence had become so commonplace for him, Christian hardly noticed it now.
His thoughts were elsewhere.
With a girl who’d had a heart-shaped face and the saddest dark eyes he’d ever seen. Her eyes were so dark, they looked almost as black as her long, shining black hair.
He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t loved Alma. Most likely, it was love at first sight. They’d grown up together on the reservation. He with his partial family, she with hers. He used to joke that between them, they had a complete unit. Because in Alma’s case, it was her mother who was no longer there. Death hadn’t claimed her the way it had his father, she’d walked out.
And left her daughter with her husband. The man, he later learned, quickly turned to his daughter for comfort. From the time she was seven years old she’d been used by Alan Three Feathers as his surrogate wife. Scarring her forever.
When she had finally confided in him what her father was doing, Christian had been filled with such rage, he could barely see. Going to him, he’d threatened to kill the man if he ever laid so much as a finger on her again. As it happened, Uncle Henry had overheard the exchange and had his own talk with the man. Shortly thereafter, a very bruised-and-battered Alan Three Feathers disappeared off the reservation. Permanently.
Because he’d begged her, his mother took Alma in. He’d hoped that with a loving home around her, Alma would bury the past and the damage it had done. She’d fooled them all into believing she was getting better. Only sometimes, when the two of them were alone and talking, he’d see that look in her eyes. That look that belonged to a whipped dog who had no hope, no inner resources to draw on. It made him feel powerless. He tried harder to make it all up to her, to love her with every fiber of his being.
He went to college close by, but medical school was another story. He had to go where he was accepted. He remembered how terrified Alma had been when she found out he would be going away. She’d begged him to take her with him. To get her away from the reservation because she was afraid that someday, her father would come back for her.
Christian could never say no to her. They lived together in a little one-room flat close to the campus.
For a time, she worked as a waitress in the same restaurant where he tended bar nights and he thought they were happy. He knew he was happy, despite all the hard work and the long hours. But long hours at night by herself made Alma sink further into the abyss she’d created. Further into the bottle she chose for comfort.
He’d married her his last year in medical school, praying that the official piece of paper would make a difference to her, would somehow pick up her self-esteem. He tried every way he could to show her what she meant to him. Again, things were good for a time. But then she began slipping back.
And then she became pregnant. The day she told him the news, she swore that she would be the world’s best mother. That things would be different from now on. He believed her because he wanted to. He felt his life was perfect. The girl he’d loved since childhood was bearing his child. All was right in the world.
His world, not hers.
As a doctor, he should have realized that. As a man, he hadn’t. And because he hadn’t, because he hadn’t insisted that she get counseling, hadn’t found a way to reach in and slay the demons Alma was always wrestling, the demons killed her.
And she killed their baby.
How could he have been so blind?
A hand was on his shoulder, shaking him. Bringing him back to the inside of the small passenger plane and the present. Bill Preston, the pilot who ferried his brother and him back and forth from Bedford to Mesa Roja, was standing over him, looking befuddled.
“Hey, Doc, you thinking of taking the trip back?”
Christian shook himself free of the memories that were dragging him down. “What?”
Bill pointed out the window beside him. “We’ve landed. You’re usually the first one off the plane. Something wrong?”
After unbuckling, he quickly rose to his feet. Bill stepped back to get out of his way. The other passengers had already disembarked. He hadn’t even heard them. Christian picked up his luggage. “No, just lost in thought.”
“Oh.” Bill followed him down the narrow path to the door. “Happens to me sometimes. When I got a thought to get lost in,” the man chuckled, pushing his hat back on his head. “Sunday night or Monday morning?” he asked.
Christian got off the plane. “Make it Sunday night.”
“Right. Sunday,” the pilot called after him.
Turning back around, he left the field and walked to Anderson’s A-1 Cars. He’d called the used-car dealer from the plane to tell him he was coming. A car was waiting for him in front of the lot. Like clockwork. The key was in the left rear wheel well. Christian unlocked the driver’s door, threw in the small suitcase he’d brought with him and got into the vehicle. As he turned on the ignition, he blew out a long, cleansing breath. He had to stop doing this to himself. Had to stop reliving everything. There was no sense to it, no changing anything no matter how many times he did it. It had been three years since Alma had died. Three years. He needed to move on.
Easier said than done.
It always seemed that whenever he, his brother or one of their physician friends from Blair came to the clinic, the amount of patients doubled or tripled the second word was out. It got so bad that at times patients literally poured out the front door and down the path.
He’d gone to the clinic at seven, and patients were already waiting for him. The first in line said he’d seen a “strange car parked in front of Juanita’s house,” so he knew one of her doctor sons was here. Christian took it as a compliment and ushered the man in.
Other patients qui
ckly followed. The clinic’s one retired nurse and midwife, the only other staff, showed up at nine.
He put in far longer hours here than he did at the hospital, starting early, staying late, pausing only to grab a bite to eat when he remembered. His only compensation was a strong handshake and a show of gratitude. It was more than enough. Enough to know he was doing some good.
Although, there were times he wondered if he was really getting through to some of the patients.
He put down the new file he was reviewing, the one that had been filled out by his new patient, Lily Wind-walker. His mother had sent the girl to him, insisting that she come.
Lily had sauntered into the tiny office, a palpitating cross between sullen and seductive. She was all of fifteen going on trouble. His mother had been blunt with him, saying that she was afraid Lily might have contracted something. It was no secret that girl had been sexually active for a while now.
He ran a preliminary test and conducted an exam, then gave Lily the results after she’d gotten dressed.
“You’re lucky, you know.”
“You want to get lucky, Doc?” Lily moved forward on her chair, her skirt barely covered the legs that were parted invitingly.
Trouble, he thought, any way you spelled it. Before he’d had her disrobe for the exam, Christian had made sure that not only the nurse who ordinarily assisted him with these exams was present but the midwife as well. He could see that Lily was unpredictable and he wasn’t about to take any chances.
“I meant that you haven’t contracted any sexually transmitted diseases so far. But you keep this up the way you are and you’re just playing a game of Russian roulette.” He could see he wasn’t getting through to her. “You know what Russian roulette is?”
“Couldn’t care less,” Lily informed him. And then her smile grew wicked. “I bet I wouldn’t ‘contract’ anything from you, Doctor. You’re squeaky clean.”
He wondered how many men and boys had fallen victim to that smile. There was no denying that Lily was beautiful, with the body of a woman ten years older. Another ten years like this, and she’d look like a burnt-out shell. He’d seen it before.
“Don’t do that, Lily,” he told her angrily. “You’re worth more than that.”
“How would you know what I’m worth?” she smiled wickedly. “Oh, I forgot. You saw me naked. Whet your appetite, Doctor? Did you like what you saw?”
She reached out to touch him, but he stopped her with a look. Lily slid back in her chair. “Stop it, Lily, I’m your doctor.”
“You’re also a man.” She tossed her head, sending her hair over her shoulder. He wondered how long she’d practiced that in the mirror. “You can’t separate the two.”
“You can if you take an oath and believe in it.”
He rose from his desk and walked over to the cabinet he and the others always kept locked, except when they were in the office. Reaching in, he took out a handful of samples that had been donated to the clinic. That had been Alix DuCane’s work. The pediatrician knew which drug companies to approach and she approached them tirelessly. The result was a good size supply of almost every medication needed to treat patients at the clinic.
“If you’re going to continue what you’re doing, I want you to at least exercise some common sense.” He placed several small boxes in front of her. It was a three-month supply.
She looked at the boxes, making no effort to take one. “What’s that?”
“Birth control pills.”
She snorted, waving a hand at the boxes. “I’m not going to have a baby.”
“Not if you use these, you’re not.”
Lily stuck out her lower lip. “Why would you care if I do or not? My mother doesn’t.”
His mother had filled him in about that, too. Lily’s mother worked two jobs, trying to provide for herself and her daughter. Any free time she had was spent in the company of prospective husbands. She was rarely home. “Is your mother even aware of what you’re doing?”
There was contempt on Lily’s face.
“Not since the day I was born. Look, Doc, I’m only here because your mom said she wouldn’t let me come back to class until you gave me a note. She’s pretty hard-assed, if you ask me.”
He might have entertained similar thoughts in his time, although not quite in those terms. There was no denying that in her career, Juanita had set more than just his brother straight. “She knows her way around kids.”
Lily waved away the words. “Yeah well, am I getting my note?”
He’d already written it out. He held it now, just out of her reach. “Will you take the pills?”
Opening her purse, she leaned forward and with one sweep of her arm, brushed the stack off his desk and into the black bag. “Consider them taken.”
He let her have the note. “You might try abstaining, too.”
She grabbed it from his hand before he changed his mind. The look in her eyes was enticing. “And you might try not.”
The next minute, she was gone.
Chapter 12
“You know, we have a saying—physician, heal thyself.”
Christian looked up from his plate and smiled at his mother. She had purposely delayed dinner until he walked through the door. Uncle Henry and John fairly pounced on their meals the second he did.
As for him, he had to concentrate to work up even a ghost of an appetite. Food didn’t interest him, even the traditional meals that his mother made, not for more than three years now.
A faint smile touched his lips. “I don’t think that’s a Navajo saying, Mom.”
Juanita looked unfazed by her son’s correction. “It could be. It’s wise enough for one.” She eased an ear of corn onto his plate. There was hardly anything on it besides that. “Now, the question is, my fine young son, are you wise?”
He was wise enough to see through one of his mother’s webs. But because he loved her, he tolerated her burrowing into his life. “What are you driving at, Mother?”
She spooned out a serving of grilled chicken tenders onto his plate, then passed the bowl to her uncle. “Well, a wise man—like my grandfather was—knows that each man has something to add to the sum total of the community. You, like your brother, are a wonderful doctor. The people are grateful for you, for your frequent trips back to the reservation to care for them when you could just as easily turn your back on life here.”
She was setting up for her argument. It was like watching a craftswoman. He knew from experience that it could take a while and today his patience wasn’t the best. “The point, Mother, where’s the point?”
“At the top of your head, it would seem.” She nodded at his plate. He was pushing food around with his fork, wearing out the beans in their circular travel. “You don’t eat enough to keep a bird healthy.”
She’d slipped up, Christian thought. “You’re the one who knows that birds eat twice their weight in food. If I did that—”
The sound of muffled laughter had Juanita looking sharply to her left. Toward John, the boy she had taken into her home when his parents were killed in a car accident. To show his gratitude, when he wasn’t going to school, John helped Uncle Henry at the gym.
Right now, the seventeen-year-old was working hard trying to hide the laughter that had bubbled up. Despite his efforts, a small noise had managed to eke through. His eyes on his plate, John pretended to be involved with his meal.
“All right,” Juanita conceded. “Then eat like a human being.” She waved a disparaging hand at his plate. “A healthy human being. Or you are going to become ill,” she warned with the voice she used whenever she made one of her “vision” prophesies. “And then who will treat these people?”
Normally, he’d let it pass. But tonight, he had an answer ready for her. A certain perverseness, utterly foreign to him, urged it out. “Lukas and the other doctors who donate their time—”
Juanita was quick to cut him off. “Lukas has a wife, a practice and a life. We can’t expect him to sa
crifice himself and do without any sleep at all. The others are in the same position. They’re married, they come when they can…”
A blind person could see where this was going. Food had only been her starting point. They were going to the field where they always went. To duel without weapons, armed only with love.
“But I have no wife or life, so I’m here more often,” Christian concluded.
She looked at him for a long moment. He couldn’t tell if she was annoyed because he had seen through her, or because he’d interrupted her.
“That really wasn’t where I wanted the conversation to go,” Juanita informed him quietly. She looked accusingly at her older brother and John. “You two, don’t just sit there like grazing cattle, help me.”
Henry raised his eyes to his nephew. “Eat something,” he said, then focused back on his meal.
A hint of exasperation echoed in Juanita’s voice as she watched him incredulously. “That’s it?”
Henry raised his eyes again, this time to look at the woman he referred to as his baby sister, but only in private. The stoic expression on his face never changed. “That’s what you want him to do, isn’t it?”
Juanita sighed and shook her head. One look at John told her that he wasn’t even about to try. She knew the boy idolized Christian. Left without soldiers, Juanita attempted to use diversion, hoping that Christian might wind up eating without realizing it. She really did worry about him. “How did it go with that girl I sent you? Lily?”
Christian noticed that at the mention of the girl’s name, John seemed to snap to attention despite the fact that he continued staring at his plate.
“I can see where you’d have your hands filled with that one,” Christian commented.
“Did you talk to her?” Juanita pressed.
Christian broke a bit of bread and dipped it into bowl of hot sauce his mother had prepared. “I talk to all my patients.”
Juanita snorted, although she was pleased to see him eating something without prompting. She felt a small surge of victory. Christian had a weakness for her bread and the hot sauce she liked to make.
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