Perfecting For Love - A Standalone Novel (A Doctors Romance Love Story) (Burbank Brothers, Book #3)

by Naomi Niles

  “Just see to it that it also keeps you in the safe zone, got it?”

  “Got it, Dad. I love you. I’m going to go now.”

  “Stay in touch, Gwyne.”

  “See you, Dad.”

  We disconnected and I sat back in my chair, contemplating the direction of my next journalistic piece. I was relieved the topic of Bob had been averted. The less said there, the better. I thought perhaps I should meet Dad’s girlfriend and see just how serious he was. Perhaps I could use her to throw Dad off my dating scent.

  I could hear Sean downstairs, working with a power saw. I was sitting at my small desk, going through email and catching up on the news from over the weekend. It was important to me to become well known for a specific genre of writing. I thought my next category might be single women who were trying to raise their family alone. I didn’t want to come at it from the standard direction of ethnic family values, or the lack of. I wanted to spotlight women who, through no anticipated circumstance, found themselves alone. This could include widows, divorce women, even professionals who may have become pregnant and opted for their career and child over that of a man and wedding. I had to give some thought as to how I would pinpoint these women.

  I asked myself where I would go to socialize if I were one of these women. My first thought was dating hangouts, but then babysitters were hard to come by and a single mother might not be able to afford one. I also had to realize that just because the idea of being married held some appeal to me, that might not be true of everyone in the targeted group.

  I realized that daycares and schools were the common denominator. I began with making a list of the various income levels and the type of school these kids would likely be attending.

  The private schools would be easiest to pick out. Then came the public schools in better living areas, and then I needed to look where low-income, young mothers would live who didn’t have a family or ethnic community.

  I pulled up Google Earth and pinpointed parks and other outdoor entertainment areas in or near these neighborhoods. I knew that budgets may be tight and a park would be a good outing; not to mention that single mothers with single children would want them to socialize. I set up my calendar to cover these one by one. The weather would work against me as it was too cold to play outdoors yet. I wondered whether I should delay this particular series until spring arrived. As it happened, all that was answered for me.

  * * *

  My phone started buzzing and awakened me. I was curled next to Sean and having very erotic dreams. I didn’t want to wake up and hoped the noise, whatever it was, would stop and release me back into my slumber playland. It stopped once, and then started again. I felt my shoulder being jostled and turned my head to see Sean handing me my phone. “You’d better answer it.”

  I frowned, still fighting my way back to consciousness. Reaching out, I took the phone and Sean patiently reached back and turned it right side up.

  “Hello?” I murmured sleepily.

  “Gwyne?” There was a man’s voice at the other end that sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Yes?” I started to sit up so I could shake the remnants of sleep.

  “This is Chet.”

  “Who?” Why was it so hard to figure out where I was and what was going on? A glance at the clock said it all; it was a little after 4 a.m.

  “It’s Chet… from down at the firehouse?”

  “Oh… oh, yes, Chet. What can I do for you?” I was trying to assimilate why Chet was calling me.

  “Honey, it’s your dad. One of the boys found him on the floor in his office. We’ve taken him down to St. Mary’s.”

  “Oh, my God…” I dropped the phone. I fell over the side of the bed, my arms dropping to the floor as I buried my face into the blankets and began crying. It was all so fuzzy and yet I knew Dad needed me. I couldn’t seem to think straight.

  Sean must have disconnected the phone because I felt him lean over me and place it back on the nightstand. “Honey?” he asked the question.

  “Dad. They found him on the floor. St. Mary’s.” It was all I could get out.

  Sean rolled out of the bed and began dressing with the speed only a fireman could command. He grabbed up my clothes and stood me up against the bed like a doll, lifting my legs to slide them into my pants and pulling a sweater over my head. He grabbed my phone and slid it into my purse, passing the long strap over my head. I was mechanical and unseeing. He knew I was in shock. He leaned down and kissed me deeply. “It will be okay, honey. St. Mary’s is the best, in my opinion. They put me back together, didn’t they? C’mon, let’s go.” He pulled at my hand and I remember sort of shuffling behind him.

  When we got outside, Sean hailed a cab and gave him the address. He practically picked me up and put me in the cab, and then slid in beside me.

  “You can’t go – they’ll know we’re together!” I protested. I was amazed that this logic seemed to surface higher than the awareness of my dad’s condition.

  “I’ll wait outside. No one will know.”

  Sean was true to his word, asking the cabbie to drop us outside the emergency entrance parking garage. “I’ll be sitting over in that bus shelter; it’s heated.” He pointed to a nearby shelter where people were waiting inside an enclosed shelter. I nodded and stepped forward to trigger the automatic doors.

  I followed the overhead signs directing visitors to the emergency room. I was no longer sleepy; quite the inverse. My heart was hammering. I even felt a bit dizzy with panic. What if something happens to Dad? That will leave me all alone. That can’t happen! It just can’t happen!

  The woman at the reception desk wore a look of boredom. How could she do that? Didn’t she realize that people’s lives depended on what happened just beyond those doors behind her? She looked up. “Name and insurance information,” she said in an automated voice. Could she not see I was distraught? Why were people the coldest in the jobs where you needed them most?

  “My father was brought in… Mr. O’Reilly?”

  “Immediate family?” came her nasal voice.

  “Daughter and only family,” I emphasized.

  “Take a seat.”

  She went on to the next person and there was no opportunity for me to argue with her. Take a seat? What did that mean?

  I did as I was told. Five minutes later, I went back up to the desk and asked about him again. I was given the same response. Five minutes after that, I got testy and demanded to be taken to him. That’s when I was threatened with being escorted from the building. I sat.

  I watched the clock on the wall as the second hand rolled in a complete circle, one after another; why is it the clocks in hospitals are so sterile looking?

  A woman in a white coat opened the double doors to the treatment area. “O’Reilly?” she called, looking at her chart.

  I leapt from my seat toward her. “I’m his daughter,” I said, practically throwing my arms around her.

  “Follow me, please,” she invited without a smile.

  We walked through a sterile maze of hallways, lined with gurneys upon which lay people in various stages of distress. I saw blood, vomit, and urine puddles, and by the third hallway, I had decided to forego my series on ambulance drivers. This was not the world for me.

  We entered a room that contained what appeared four beds, separated by curtains. She stayed her course until we came to that fourth bed and she whipped back the curtain. I gasped. My dad lay there, a tube taped to his mouth, and his eyes were closed. “He’s sedated and on ventilation at the moment. We won’t bring him to consciousness until he’s no longer intubated. Too much stress on the patient.”

  “What happened to him?” I blurted.

  “Cardiac event.” She consulted her clipboard again and checked his vitals as I watched. “The report says he was found unresponsive and that someone administered CPR until the medics arrived.”

  “He’s the chief of a fire station,” I offered, as though foolishly thin
king that would get him some sort of preferential treatment.

  “Yes, so it says. Good thing it happened at work. I see that he lives alone… if he’d been home, he’d be downstairs right now.”

  I knew she was referring to the morgue and I wanted to slap her emotionless face. “What’s going to happen from here?” I asked her, knowing she would give me some sort of uncertain response, but at least I had to ask.

  “We’re freeing up a bed for him in ICU. Waiting on some tests and when he appears to be able to breathe on his own, we’ll take out the tube and see where we stand. You can stay a few minutes, but then you need to leave and check in with the front desk. They’ll take your contact information and call you if there are any changes.”

  “I can’t stay with him?” I practically shrieked.

  She wasn’t happy with my attitude. “No, you may not,” she said in a schoolteacher’s voice. “This isn’t a visitor’s area and we have patients to see to. He needs rest right now and there’s nothing you can do.” She slapped the chart into the holder over his bed and stood long enough to enter information into the laptop that was mounted nearby. “Just five minutes,” she seconded her warning on her way out of the room.

  I stood next to his bed, tracing an outline of a heart on the back of his tube-layered hand. “I love you, Dad,” I whispered. “They’re making me leave now, even though I want to stay. They don’t understand how it is with us. Just us, against the world,” I added.

  I realized then that truthfully, Dad and I were all one another had. We needed each other. At that moment, I felt supreme regret for all the trouble I’d given him, the fibs and follies alike. He had done his best by me and all I’d ever done in return was defy his orders and sneak behind his back. What a miserable daughter I was.

  I heard a voice clearing behind me and turned to see the same doctor poking her head around the curtain. I bent and kissed Dad on the cheek, patted his hand, and left the room. The hallway was a cacophony of beeping machines, crying people, bodily fluids, and moans. I felt my stomach protesting and wanted out as quickly as I could find an exit.

  I found the ambulance bay and simply walked out the “in” doors, much to the dismay of the waiting trucks. “Use the proper entrance and exit,” one man barked at me and I ignored him. I was almost two blocks from the parking garage, but needed the fresh air, so I plodded along the snow-covered sidewalk, slipping and catching myself as I went. I texted Sean and told him where I was and it was only a couple of minutes later that I saw him walking toward me. I stumbled into his waiting arms and he held me, kissing the top of my head and warming me against the cold.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” his voice rumbled through his scarf and into my ear. “We’ll get through this.” He didn’t ask any questions – he didn’t need to. He knew pretty much how these things worked and I figured he had called the ER from the bus stop and knew his condition.

  We walked, his arm around me, down the sidewalk as it began to snow in earnest. He flagged a cab; they were as plentiful as crows seeking carrion near ERs. He tucked me back into bed when we got home and climbed in beside me to keep me warm. I fell back asleep, but it was filled with nightmares of threatening shapes and colors. I slept poorly and when I awakened at mid-morning, I immediately called the hospital and was told that Dad was still in the ER.

  I sat cross-legged on the bed, my phone lying on the sheet between my knees. Sean walked in and handed me a cup of tea and a tray with toast and jelly. “You need to eat,” he said wisely. “You’ll be going through a lot for the next few days and need to eat when you can.” I nodded and sipped the hot, flavorful tea.

  “It’s good, thank you,” I murmured. It must have been the look on my face that brought his next question.

  “What are they saying?”

  “Nothing more than when I was there. He’s still waiting for a bed in the ICU – still lying there among people puking and bleeding and God knows if anyone is even paying attention to him.” I was outraged and sad.

  “It’s the best they can do for now, sweetheart. That’s how those places are. I know you want to ride in on your white horse and straighten them all out, but believe me, people more powerful than you have tried it before but this is simply how it goes. Just try to conserve your strength and rest until there’s something more tangible you can do.” He was doing his best to console me in a difficult situation, and I knew this.

  “Sean, I’ve been thinking. Dad and I talked on the phone before this happened. He told me he’s been seeing a woman.”

  He chuckled. “Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged, “Yes, I suppose so, but I’m wondering about her. He talked like they’d known one another for some time and she won’t be hearing from him and maybe become worried. I don’t have any family and it just feels like I want to find her and talk to her.”

  “Do you think it’s wise to do that without his permission?” Sean asked, and I acknowledged his point.

  “I know… it’s a sort of privacy invasion, but under the circumstances…” my voice trailed off.

  “How will you even find her?” Sean asked, knowing from the tone of my voice that I’d already made my decision and there was no changing my mind.

  “I can go by the house and see if I find anything. Maybe a phone bill?” I suggested.

  Sean sighed. “Sometimes I’m not sure just how far you’ll go to get your way,” he observed.

  “This isn’t about me. It’s about knowing what it felt like to have you hurt, and to worry about how you were. I couldn’t let anyone know I was worried, so no one thought to tell me anything. I can’t help but feel for this woman, whomever she is, and that she won’t know why Dad isn’t calling her or what happened.”

  “Okay, okay… point well taken. It’s your dad, sweetheart. Just don’t bring my name into this.”

  “No, I won’t. I get that much. This is all on the hush, hush.”

  “I suppose you want me to go with you to his house?”

  “Would you?”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Sean smiled good-naturedly and I loved him in that moment even more than I had the minute before.

  I checked with the hospital one more time before we left for dad’s house. I asked if there had been any other calls but the nurse was not very forthcoming with information. We got to Dad’s house and I let myself in with the key. Flipping on lights, I looked around briefly and saw Dad’s life, just as he had left it. There were breakfast dishes in the sink and mail had been pushed into the slot. It looked like just an ordinary day in his life. It made my heart ache.

  The first place I checked was Dad’s desk. There were a few bills, some catalogs for hunting and fishing gear, and a firefighter’s magazine. Nothing there that spoke of a clue. I knew how to get into Dad’s desk; I’d done it many times as a teenager. I think he knew that I was getting into it and only used it to store the things that wouldn’t compromise his reputation if I found them. Using his letter opener, I managed to unlock the center drawer. Opening this unlocked the remaining drawers. I found his pistol in the bottom left-hand drawer and opened it to see that it was completely loaded. I carefully put it back and moved upward.

  In the top left-hand drawer, I found bills that he had paid. There was indeed a bill from the phone company. I pulled it out and with some guilt in my heart, I began scanning the numbers for outgoing calls. Sure enough, there were several to the same number. I copied down that number and turned on Dad’s computer. Using a reverse search website, I found the number from the phone bill. The number was in the name of a Carla Rose. Her address was not far away and rather than call her on the phone, I opted to go by her house. When I mentioned this to Sean, he shook his head.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, sweetheart,” he voiced.

  “Why not?”

  “What if it’s not as simple as that? What if there is a Mr. Rose? What if you have the wrong woman altogether?”

  “I know, but it�
�s a chance I’ll have to take. I’ll handle it well, don’t worry.”

  I quickly washed up the dirty dishes and we stacked the mail on the side table in the foyer. I also took a quick peek into the refrigerator so that I would know what to stock up on when dad came home from the hospital. Anything less was unthinkable.

  Sean and I headed for Carla’s house; the cabbie seemed to know his way around. When we pulled up to the curb, I patted Sean’s hand and told him I would take care of this in my own way. I wanted as few witnesses to our being together as possible. I climbed out of the cab and went up to the door. It was a brownstone with neat shutters and flower boxes below each window. It appeared to be the sort of house that had been well cared for. I went up to the door, hesitated a moment, and bravely knocked.

  I could see someone moving about as a shadow inside and soon the inner door slid open. A woman stood there, clutching her sweater closed against the cold that radiated through the storm door. “Yes? Can I help you?”

  I wasn’t really sure how to begin. As it turned out, she helped me. “Hello. You don’t know me but—”

  “You are Gwyne, aren’t you?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Warren talks about you all the time. I think I have seen your picture two dozen times and he’s always showing me the articles that you write. Your father is very proud of you.”

  “Well, that makes this easier.” I wasn’t sure how to go on.

  “Makes what easier?” she asked, clutching the sweater even more tightly and a frown crossing her face. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Yes, perhaps I should. Only for a moment, though.”

  Carla opened the door and stood back to allow me to pass through. She closed behind me and then motioned with their arm for me to go into the cozy living room next to her foyer. Her furniture was upholstered in a bright fabric, the overall effect being one of comfort and warmth. There was a small fire burning in her fireplace and classical music, Chopin, could be heard from the next room.

  “Won’t you sit down?”

  “I can only stay a moment. May I call you Carla?”