by Ruby Cruz
“And did he agree to the tests?” she asked hopefully.
I shook my head. “I’m not sure what he’s explained or said to you about any of this.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “What’s there to explain? The doctor said that if we don’t treat his heart, he’s probably going to die. He may be ninety years old but he’s a healthy man. He takes care of himself, exercises, stays active in the community. I don’t understand why he’s being so stubborn about this.”
“Well, he told me that he’s lived a long life and misses his wife. He told me he wants to be with her.”
“That’s bullshit,” the son-in-law exploded. “He’s crazy. I knew Dr. Harrington should’ve started him on those anti-depressants. He’s going to let himself die now because he’s depressed?”
“That’s not what I said,” I began but I never got a chance to finish. My eyes caught Dr. Darcy as he came down the hallway. I was disconcerted at seeing him, especially since it had been nearly two weeks since I’d last seen or spoke with him. I didn’t like the dark glint in his eyes as he spied me talking with the family; he strode directly towards us.
“Mr. and Mrs. Doran,” he greeted. His tone was clipped. He didn’t even acknowledge me. “Is there an issue here?”
“We’re still trying to understand why my father won’t undergo anymore testing. The nurse just told us that he wants to die.”
Darcy’s turned his piercing gaze towards me. “Is he contemplating suicide?”
“No, no, that’s not it at all. Look, you guys should probably talk to him yourselves, but he essentially told me that ever since his wife died, he’s been living his life through his family. He told me he misses his wife and he’s not afraid of death. I just think he’s made peace with his life.”
Mrs. Doran rounded on me. “This is ridiculous. You don’t know my dad. Who do you think you are, telling me that my dad wants to die? He’s got his kids, his grandkids to think about. He wouldn’t just abandon them.”
Before I could attempt to explain myself further, Darcy said, “Okay. I think we should speak with your father personally and attempt to clarify his earlier statement to Lizzy. If it seems like he is depressed, I can arrange for the on-call psychiatrist to evaluate him. In the meantime, I can’t force him to undergo any invasive procedures, even blood work, without his consent. If he is deemed incompetent to make his own decisions, then we can take different measures to give him the treatment he needs.”
The Dorans did not seem completely satisfied with Darcy’s response but they both nodded and wordlessly followed him into Mr. Karev’s room. I was not invited to join them.
I spent the next hour discharging two patients, then helping Kate get a three-hundred pound amputee out of bed and into a recliner. When I had a bit of a break, I went to check on Mr. Karev who was still in the midst of an intense discussion with Dr. Darcy and his family. More as a distraction than anything else, I decided to park myself in front of the box of Godiva chocolates someone had gifted the nurses and finish some documentation at the computer. I was in the process of stuffing an entire dark chocolate raspberry truffle into my mouth when Darcy rounded the corner and caught my eye. “Lizzy, may I have a word?”
Feeling the flush spreading on my cheeks, I stood and attempted to speed chew the enormous truffle while not choking in the process. Darcy led me into the dictation room and I closed the door behind me. I swallowed and prayed that there wasn’t any residual chocolate on my lips and teeth. When he didn’t say anything at first, I flushed even more as I assumed that the family was not happy with my involvement in the matter. Finally, I blurted, “Look, I think Mr. Karev may be mildly depressed, but I don’t think that’s why he’s saying these things. I think it’s the holidays and he’s missing his wife and he’s taking the time to evaluate what it is he wants from his life. I don’t think he wants to do anything that will unnaturally prolong his life, that’s all.”
He held up a hand to stay me. “Lizzy, it’s okay. After a lengthy discussion, Mr. Karev agreed to some basic blood work. I told him that most likely, he may have to take a few pills at home to help manage his symptoms and he seemed amenable to that.”
“But what about all the other tests you ordered?”
“After our discussion, I canceled the tests. You were right. He didn’t want to undergo any invasive and, in his opinion, unnecessary procedures. Even though my inclination is to insert a pacemaker in him, he has made the decision that he wants just management of his symptoms with medications. His family isn’t very happy with his decision but they have agreed not to put him through the stress of any invasive procedures. We’ll monitor him one more night after we start adjusting his beta-blocker dosage and he should be home in time for Christmas dinner tomorrow.”
“That’s great,” I said sincerely and with a bit more surprise in my voice than I’d intended. I had thought that Darcy would’ve badgered him into getting a pacemaker or some other invasive procedure, but I was wrong.
He hesitated slightly before continuing, “Thank you, for speaking up. I know that Mr. Karev appreciates the way you advocated for him. I know it couldn’t have been easy to speak with his family.”
Speechless, I merely shrugged. His lips twitched in what could have been a smile. His eyes met mine for a beat, then shifted downwards towards my lips. As the tension became all but palpable in the room, I wondered if, like me, he was remembering the kiss. I cleared my throat which felt like I’d just swallowed glue. “Is that all?”
His eyes met mine again briefly before turning back to my lips. “You’ve, uh, got a little chocolate, right there.” He gestured to the corner of his own mouth. Horrified, I rubbed the area with my thumb until he said, “It’s gone now.”
“Thanks.” More as an excuse to escape than any pressing desire to return to work, I said, “I should probably get back.”
“Of course.” I turned to leave but his voice stayed me. “Oh, um, Lizzy?”
“Yes?”
He had that enigmatic expression on his face again but underneath I thought I detected a bit of uncertainty, maybe even shyness. “I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.”
“Thanks. Merry Christmas to you, too, Dr. Darcy.” And I escaped before I could be trapped in any more awkwardness.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Unhappy Holiday
Christmas morning usually was a day of cheer and fun and warm holiday fuzziness. This year, however, I found myself to be more in a Scrooge-like mood brought on by insomnia and an inexplicable gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach despite popping some antacids. Chloe awoke screaming with excitement over the beribboned pink play house Santa had left by the tree. Normally I would have gotten up and watched Chloe open her gifts, but I merely moaned and pulled the covers over my head. I felt groggy and hung over even though I’d laid off the mulled wine Jane had prepared when I arrived home from my Christmas Eve shift.
That was how they found me when Chloe burst through my bedroom door and proceeded to climb excitedly onto my bed, Jane not far behind. Chloe couldn’t quite say my name yet but her squeal was enough to ensure that I was fully awake, especially when she climbed on top of my chest and kneed me in the diaphragm. I pushed the covers away and gasped for air, as Jane apologized when she saw my face.
“Sorry. I thought you’d be awake by now.” She scooped Chloe off the bed and distracted her by tickling her.
“Rough night. Couldn’t sleep,” I mumbled as I finally caught my breath and rubbed at my chest.
“I figured as much when you didn’t drink your wine last night. Want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. Jane still didn’t know about my encounter with Darcy in New York and I had no intention of telling her that the reason I was moody and having trouble sleeping was the same person responsible for her heartache. “I think I just ate too much chocolate yesterday, I was having stomach troubles all night.” At least it wasn’t too far from the truth, though
she did raise a dubious eyebrow at me.
Ignoring the eyebrow, I grabbed Chloe. “Did Santa come last night? Did he eat the yummy cookies you left for him?” She grinned in answer and began pointing and babbling at the doorway. “Come show me.”
I allowed her to pull me into the living room which was already strewn with wrapping paper. When she began to pull me into the play house with her I had to crawl on my hands and knees but managed to fit into it so that Jane could take a picture of the two of us smiling out of the window. I had no idea where Jane thought we could fit the play house, our townhouse wasn’t that big, but knowing her, she’d find a not too conspicuous corner.
We spent the rest of the morning sipping hot chocolate and exchanging gifts. Jane especially loved the cashmere sweater I’d bought for her while in New York; it was feminine and flirty and expensive enough that I knew she would never have bought anything like it for herself. She protested at the cost, “Oh, Lizzy, this is too, too much!” But she beamed when she held it up to herself. When Chloe opened her gift from me, she fingered the soft velvet gingerly before holding it up to Jane for approval. “Lizzy, this is perfect for her!” Chloe, even just shy of two years old, already loved to dress up; she was always trying on our shirts and shoes and was fascinated if we wore jewelry of any type.
“Now she has her own dress up clothes to play with. I just don’t know where we’ll put the storage trunk they came in,” I said as I eyed the play house.
“We’ll find a place,” Jane assured me confidently. She handed me a prettily wrapped box. “Now it’s your turn. Merry Christmas.” After I ripped open the wrapping paper, my mouth fell open and, for once, I was speechless. “I know it’s not the top of the line model but Luke pitched in with me and, as he would say, ‘Welcome to the twenty-first century.’” When I still said nothing, her face fell, “I still have the receipt. We can return it for something you like.”
I hugged the HD tablet to me. “Oh, Jane, no. I love it. I really do. Now I don’t have to keep recycling and donating all those paperbacks I get or watching movies on my phone. It’s perfect. Thank you so much.”
“You realize you have to call Luke and thank him also. It was his idea.”
“Dammit. I hate it when he knows me too well. And I didn’t spend nearly that much on his gift.”
“Don’t worry about it. We got a really good price. Are you still going to the movies with him later?”
“Yes. We’re dying to see Les Misérables. I know I already asked but are you sure you don’t want to come with us? I know Mom said she’d babysit.”
Jane shook her head. “I know you’ve been missing Luke ever since he moved to the city. I’ll go grab Mary or Kate to see it with me another time. You two have fun.”
I spent so long setting up and playing around with my new tablet that Jane had to tell me to finish getting ready for church twice. Reluctantly, I put the device away and began to get ready with the knowledge that my day was probably going to get worse. Holidays with Mom were never fully enjoyable; holidays in which her daughters had no significant others to brag of were nearly intolerable. This year promised to be even worse because Lydia had called to say that she wouldn’t be dropping by as usual and would be spending Christmas with her mom and her new boyfriend at her grandparents’ house in Pennsylvania.
The thought that her step-daughter was in a relationship before her own daughters was enough to put Mom on a rampage. The daggers that she threw my way during Christmas service was enough to have me rolling my eyes, as if Charlie’s leaving town was solely my fault. The further rub came after church when we encountered Colin and his family. After saying our perfunctory Christmas greetings, Mom hissed at me, “I still don’t understand why you couldn’t have taken his very generous offer to work with him in New York. Jane and Chloe would’ve been just fine without you.” Instead of answering her, I jammed my earmuffs onto my head and pretended not to have heard her.
My supposed deafness didn’t deter Mom from proceeding with her badgering once we arrived back at her house. “Whatever happened to that handsome doctor you danced with at the Nurses Gala? Did you scare him away, too?”
Jane flashed me a warning glance when she correctly interpreted the murderous look in my eyes. Instead of throttling my mother like I wanted, I retreated. “I’ll get the gifts from the car.”
When Aunt Jo arrived, I prayed that she would act as enough of a buffer soI wouldn’t proceed in actually committing murder on Christmas Day. I was wrong.
Aunt Jo cornered me in the kitchen after Mom barked at me to help set out the appetizers. “What’s up with you, girlie?” she demanded. “You’re not your usual self. I’m usually much more entertained when I watch you and your mom.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I lied. “I’m just tired. Yesterday’s shift sort of wiped me out. I had a dying patient.” I hoped that would be enough of a deterrent for her questions. Aunt Jo had a penchant for seeing right through me.
Her eyes burned into the back of my neck as I busied myself with putting together the dish of olives and cheese my mom insisted on serving every Christmas. I hated olives and Jane was lactose intolerant so I was tempted to throw the whole plate in the garbage and order some Chinese food for dinner. I set the plate down hard on the dining room table and stiffened when I realized that Aunt Jo had followed me. “Okay, Lizzy, you’re more than tired. Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong or are you gonna go moping around and ruin everyone’s Christmas?”
She moved to block my way. Those eyes that I wanted to escape bore into mine, blue like Mom’s but hard and steely. I lowered my voice and hissed, “I hate going through the motions. Mom uses the holidays as an excuse to whine and cry about how she doesn’t have any happily married daughters and sons-in-law to brag about, to cook food that’s barely edible on a good day, and to just make me feel generally crappy about my life. Holidays are supposed to be happy and easy and she always finds a way to make them miserable.”
Aunt Jo didn’t say anything to me at first which was unusual, but when she did start to speak I felt even worse than when she’d stayed silent. “You listen here, missy. Your mom, she’s got her priorities screwed up, we know that. But she’s your family and she just wants you guys to be happy.”
“That’s not true. She just wants to parade Jane and me around as doing better than she did, like live-action dolls. All she’s ever told me is how much of a disappointment I am to her and, frankly, I’m sick of it. In fact, I don’t know why I’ve put up with it for so long. If she wants to live vicariously through her daughters, she has one less daughter to live through. I’m done.”
I made to leave and Aunt Jo’s hand snaked out and wrapped around my arm like a vise. “Don’t you dare leave. Are you really that selfish that you’re going to ruin this for everyone? Is that what you want for Jane, for Chloe? The Lizzy I know wouldn’t do that.”
“The Lizzy you know is an awful person so I might as well just go all out and be that person.”
“What are you talking about?”
I snatched my arm away and rubbed where I was sure I had permanent bruises from Aunt Jo’s fingers. “Nothing. I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m being selfish and callous.” I made to leave the kitchen and when Aunt Jo asked where I was going I bit out, “I’m going for a walk.”
I grabbed my coat from the hall closet and stormed out of the house without putting it on. About ten yards down the street, I couldn’t ignore the bitter cold anymore and shrugged the coat on and wished I’d thought to grab my scarf and gloves also.
I didn’t know what was wrong with me.
I knew exactly what was wrong with me: Darcy.
Never would I have thought that dictatorial, arrogant, God-complex Dr. Darcy would have allowed a patient to actually make an informed decision about his health care. He’d actually listened to Mr. Karev, had played the liaison between him and his family, and had negotiated a plan of care that was acceptable to everyone. He’d imp
ressed me when I thought I’d had him all figured out. And the way he’d looked at me in the dictation room…my stomach flipped even thinking about it.
My breath clouded the air in front of me and I pulled my coat more tightly around my neck. I had to stop this. It had been nearly a month since I’d come back from New York and I was still obsessing over what had happened there with Darcy, over every encounter with him since then. There was a reason I’d told him to keep his distance, to keep things professional, and he’d held his end of the bargain, mostly. I was the one who kept thinking about him and replaying his words in my head; I was the one being unprofessional by actively avoiding him and I hated knowing that. I couldn’t deny the fact that I was conflicted and the fact that my mother kept throwing my single status in my face didn’t help matters. Yes, she was being annoying but not any more than usual. Aunt Jo was right – I was just projecting my anger at myself towards Mom and she didn’t deserve that any more than Jane and Chloe and Hal and Aunt Jo deserved me walking out on them Christmas Day.
I blew out a cleansing breath and began to head back to the house.
~
Mom spoke nothing of my extended walk outside, though she did berate me slightly for holding up Christmas dinner. Aunt Jo’s eyes pierced me but she said nothing more about our argument in the kitchen; she probably was happy that I’d decided to return to the house at all and not just abandon Christmas dinner altogether.
Needless to say, I was more than happy to leave after dinner and meet Luke at the movie theater. We’d both been dying to see the new Les Misérables movie on opening day and, after giving him my gift of a sweater from his favorite store, I thanked him further for his gift by treating him to the movie. He slung an arm over my shoulders and announced, “Besties back in business! I’ll spring for popcorn.”
I’d seen the musical performances on PBS plenty of times and had gone with Luke to see the musical on Broadway years ago but there was something about seeing the story portrayed on the big screen that was different than seeing it live or on television.