The Doctor Delivers

by Janice Macdonald

  “No, I think you’re right on. Martin’s a loner. He’d sooner walk away from a situation than admit he needed someone.” Graham signaled for another round. “Listen, Catherine, for what it’s worth, you’re important to him. We could all see the change in him in the last few weeks.” He hesitated. “Even Val Webb said his temper had improved.”

  She grinned.

  “I’m serious. Not that she was too thrilled that it was you and not her who was responsible for the change.”

  Catherine nodded, still smiling.

  “So what are you going to do now?” Graham asked.

  “I don’t have all the details worked out yet.” In her briefcase were a couple of addresses and phone numbers she’d wangled from a sympathetic clerk in personnel. “But I’m going to try and carry out a promise I made to him.”

  “WILL YOU BE JOINING us for a wee drink tonight, Martin?” Joan asked. “Sure, you can’t see the new year in without a bit of a celebration.”

  Martin didn’t answer. He stood in the parlor of his father’s house in Belfast and leaned a shoulder against the casing. Through lace curtains, he could see out to the front garden, and the street beyond. Misty rain dripped off bare, black tree branches, fell like tears onto the drenched ground below. Behind him, his father and sister drank tea, huddled around the electric fire. Despite the heavy cable-knit sweater and flannel shirt he wore, he felt colder than he’d ever felt in his life. A chill that seemed to wrap around his bones, seep into his blood.

  “Oh, come on Martin, it’ll do you good to get out for a bit. You’re walking around with the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

  Martin wiped condensation from the window, watched an elderly woman in a long dark coat trundle a shopping cart on wheels, her head bowed against the driving rain. The landscape seemed insubstantial, everything wrapped in a filmy shroud, the passersby shadowy figures who drifted through the gloom.

  He moved from the window, stared at the red coils of the electric fire. Away from the window’s drafts and cool panes, the room felt stifling and overheated, the air redolent of the eggs and black sausage they’d eaten an hour earlier. His father and sister watched him, faces expectant.

  “So what about this girl of yours, Martin?” Joan reached into a cavernous cloth bag at her feet, pulled out a piece of knitting. “The one with the children?”

  “Catherine.” He returned to the window to stare out at the street again. Touched his hand to the condensation. Drops of water trickled down the pane. “Catherine is better off without me,” he said after a moment. “I’ve already complicated her life enough. She doesn’t need more problems.”

  “Did she decide that?” Joan’s knitting needles clicked. “Or did you?”

  “It makes no difference.”

  “Of course it makes a difference. And what you’re not telling me answers my question.” She stopped to count stitches on the needle. “So you ran away again, did you? Ah well, always easier than staying to work things out, isn’t it?”

  Anger igniting like a flame, Martin turned from the window to face her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “What it sounds like.” Joan’s eyes, blue like his own, darkened. She dropped the knitting in her lap. “You’ve done exactly as you did after Sharon died. Run away from everything—”

  He glared at her. “I didn’t bloody well run away—”

  “Sure you did. You left Ireland in the first place because it was easier than living with what had happened. Not that you ever wanted to leave, mind you. It was a way to punish yourself, wasn’t it? Just as you’ve gone on doing all these years and just as you’re still doing.”

  “Balls.” He stalked into the kitchen, grabbed his jacket from a hook on the back of the door. His sister on his heels snatched it from his hands.

  “You’re going to listen to me, Martin Connaughton.” She held his arm in a fierce grip. “You blamed yourself for Sharon, now you’re blaming yourself for this baby—”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Do you take me for a fool, then? You don’t have to say it, it’s written all over your face. Look at yourself. You’ve barely said half a dozen words since you got here. And you look like death warmed over.”

  “I’m tired, for God’s sake, Joan. I don’t feel like listening to this rubbish.” He took his jacket from her, pulled it on and opened the back door.

  She caught the knob, held it for a moment. “Go on then. Off with you. Have your way and go. But mind what I’ve said. You’ve atoned enough. Don’t start the whole thing over again. Even prisoners get their sentences commuted.”

  HE WALKED FOR HOURS. Through the streets of Belfast. Down Dublin Road, along Royal Avenue, past the shops, among the pedestrians. Water worked through the soles of his thin California shoes, soaked through his jacket. Rain turned to hail, bounced off the streets like popcorn, turned to slush under his feet. Red taillights of passing cars jeweled the gray wintry light. He walked until he lost track of time. Through the maze of narrow streets, past small houses dominated by mill chimneys and chapel spires.

  In the cemetery, he stood in the rain by Sharon’s grave. Stood for a long time. Once, he’d imagined tracking down the killer, exacting a measure of revenge. Now he probed for the pain and anger but felt only a faint dull ache. He left the cemetery, kept walking. The chemist shop she’d worked in was now a video store. The flat they’d lived in, leveled to a parking lot. Shoulders hunched against the damp chill, he walked on, seeking something he couldn’t name.

  Streets that had once seemed a part of him were familiar but strange, as though he were seeing them in a dream. Joan was right, he hadn’t wanted to leave Belfast, but now he longer belonged. He looked up at the Antrim hills, their outlines blurred by mist, and imagined not returning to California. Imagined moving on as he had always done and felt a raw emptiness. He walked on.

  On a street off Falls Road, he stood and watched a couple of workers chip away at what was left of a wall. “Peace walls,” they were called, put up to keep neighbors from becoming angry enough to kill each other. What you don’t hear or see isn’t happening.

  “Need something?” One of the workmen looked over at him.

  “No,” Martin said. “Just watching.”

  The workman nodded. “Bloody things should have been torn down years ago.”

  Martin watched the pieces fall away, finally saw through to the other side. Two little girls stood there, giggling under a red umbrella, splashing their feet in the puddles. One of them, blue eyes and blond hair, flashed him a shy smile. He winked at her and headed on down the street. As he turned the corner, he looked back to the place where the wall had been. The girls’ red umbrella bobbed and glistened like a tropical flower in the gray watery light.

  Almost running, he reached his father’s house, already working out in his head the time distance between where he was now and where he wanted to be. Breathing hard, he let himself in through the front door, walked down the narrow hallway and into the kitchen.

  The warmth of the room hit him first, then the smell of a roast cooking. And then he saw the conspiratorial smiles on the faces of Joan and his father who sat at the table drinking tea. Finally, he noticed the third person at the table with them. For a moment he stood in the doorway, transfixed.

  Catherine smiled at him.

  HE STARED, speechless. She wore a long, blue cotton skirt and a loose sweater in the same color. California clothes. Her braid hung over one shoulder. As she raised a hand to her face, the silver charm bracelet lodged against the cuff of her sweater. In the next instant, he was across the room, his arms around her, his face buried in her neck.

  “I promised I’d come and find you,” she said. “Drag you out from behind the wall. I’m just keeping that promise. Of course, if it’s not what you want—”

  He held her in his arms. “I’m sorry—”

  “You’re sorry?” Clearly fighting a grin, Catherine pulled away to look at him. “You take off
without a goodbye, force me to chase halfway across the world to find you and all you can say is you’re sorry.”

  “You’re looking for abject groveling, is that it?”

  “Something along those lines.”

  “I’ve already told you, that’s not something I’m very good at.”

  “Which doesn’t say you can’t learn,” she said.

  “THE KIDS BOTH said to tell you hi,” Catherine said later that night. They’d eaten dinner at his father’s house and then around eleven had walked down to the pub on the corner to see in the new year. To her amusement, this pub didn’t look nearly as Irish as Mulligan’s, although Martin had insisted the Guinness was far superior. As they waited for the countdown to midnight, she sipped the glass he’d bought for her and tried to not grimace at the bitterness. Martin watched her across the table, his expression amused.

  “It’s an acquired taste,” he said. “So the children are fine?”

  “Terrific. Julie said she wants to marry you when she grows up, and Peter wants you to teach him how to light a fire the way you did at the cabin. Apparently he was quite impressed.”

  Martin grinned. “He hid it well.”

  “Well, he just takes a little longer to come around. Actually, he was all in favor of my coming here.” She smiled. “He even offered to contribute his allowance toward the plane ticket. My mother was also pleased.”

  “Your mother? She’s never even met me.”

  “Yeah, I know, but you’re a doctor.”

  “And what? I’ve loads of money, is that what she thinks? Did you set her straight?”

  “It has nothing to do with money.” She took another sip of Guinness and slid the glass across the table to him. “God, I can’t drink this stuff. Anyway, my mom just kind of likes the idea of having a medical expert on hand. Be warned, she’ll have a list of questions to ask you. Everything from St. John’s Wort to Saw Palmetto.”

  “Saw Palmetto?” He frowned. “Why—”

  “Don’t ask. Just wait till you meet her.”

  “So the kids are staying with her?” He lifted his glass. “What about Gary? He knows you’re here, does he?”

  “Yeah. We had a long talk. I’m not sure it’s going to make a whole lot of difference, but Nadia’s pregnant. So he’s kind of got other things on his mind. I’m hoping that means he’ll back off a bit.”

  “Catherine.” Martin reached for her hands across the table, looked into her eyes. “I’m not going to take the job in Boston. I don’t know for sure yet, but I think I can get back on staff at Western. When Jordan told me about what had happened with Rita, we cleared the air about a few other things, and he told me to talk to him if I changed my mind about Boston.”

  “But what about WISH? Will they let you be involved again?”

  “I feel pretty certain we can work that out, too. Plus, I know someone influential in the public relations department.”

  “Listen, if you think she’s going to pull any strings for you…” She looked down at her hands in his, up into his eyes. “I love you, Martin. If you’d told me you were going to Boston anyway and you still wanted us to go with you, I would have because I love you enough to take the risk. But I’m glad you decided to stay.”

  He smiled and squeezed her hands.

  “After the divorce, I felt as though I was living under a black cloud,” she said. “It was like this storm always on the horizon, I just kept waiting for something else bad to happen. On the flight over here, I started worrying that maybe it was a mistake coming to find you, even though I’d promised I would. I kept thinking that maybe your leaving was one more bad thing, and I should just accept it and move on.”

  “Lucky for me you didn’t.”

  “Me, too. I guess we’ve both had our share of black clouds but that doesn’t mean we can’t expect sunshine.”

  “Unless of course we stayed in Ireland,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “A weather joke.” He reached into his pocket and produced a small box. “But you’re right. Maybe we’re both overdue for a little sunshine.” He set the box on the table between them. “What I’m trying to say is I love you very much and I think we should get married. It doesn’t have to be next week, or next month, just…sometime. Preferably sooner rather than later.” He opened the box.

  Catherine looked at the ring, then up at him.

  “I think I’ve seen this before,” she finally said.

  “You have. I’m going to keep bringing it out until I get the answer I want.”

  “And what happens then?”

  “Then I’ll get you a real one.” He slid the ring onto her finger. “What do you say? When we get back to California—”

  “Actually, I kind of like this one. I like this one a whole lot. Was that the answer you were looking for?”

  Martin smiled and started to answer, but his words were lost as the raucous countdown began. All around them people kissed and hugged, yelling out “Happy New Year.” The band struck up “Auld Lang Syne” and paper streamers were released from the ceiling. They hung in ribbons from Martin’s hair, draped like a shawl around Catherine’s shoulders. Laughing, Martin tipped her chin and kissed her and then his arms were around her and the sound of the festivities receded. Overcome by a sudden wave of emotion, Catherine buried her face in his shoulder. The uncertainty of the past week only heightened the happiness of the moment. It all seemed so incredible. Just to hold him again, to brush her mouth against his skin, to actually be here in Ireland with Martin, talking about their future together. So incredible that she couldn’t even try to describe it. Instead, she brought her lips to his. When she finally pulled away to look into his eyes, she knew without a doubt this was going to be a very happy new year.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-4071-1

  THE DOCTOR DELIVERS

  Copyright © 2002 by Janice Macdonald.

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