The Doctor's Redemption

by Susan Carlisle

  “You’re still punishing yourself for something that isn’t your fault. Mike’s in a wheelchair because of a choice that he made, not you. Your way of atoning is to remain uninvolved emotionally with anyone you might feel something real for. That translates into a wife and family for you. I can see that you care about Allie and I think you care about me, too. I’ve spent a long time not trusting my judgment about men. You got past that wall. You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for.”

  He didn’t look at her. Her heart ached for him but she had to get through to him. Make him start really living again. He deserved it. She loved him enough to do that and send him away if she had to.

  “You can’t create someone else’s happiness by being unhappy. You can’t fix what happened to Mike. Even if you had been wrong. What you can do now is try to be a better friend than you were back then.

  “The problem is you have run from and hidden from the issue too long. You’ve left the subject alone so long that it has grown and festered to a point it’s out of control in your mind. Based on what I saw from Mike the other night, he feels no animosity toward you. To me it sounded as if he just misses his friend. Face it, clean the ugliness away then you can see yourself for the person you are. Good, kind, loving, protective and caring. It’s time for you to like yourself.

  “I hope that one day you realize that and find someone to share your life with. It can’t be Allie and I.” Those last words almost killed her to say.

  His chair scraped across the floor as he pushed it away from the table. He pinned her with a pointed look. His eyes were dark with sadness and something else. Anger? “Are you through?”

  She nodded. She was sure she wasn’t going to like what came next.

  “I have issues, but you do, too. You carry a chip on your shoulder, Laura Jo. In the past nine years you have finished school on your own, raised a wonderful, happy child and started and helped to run a shelter for women, but still you feel you need to prove yourself to the world. You don’t need your father and mother’s or anyone else’s approval. It’s time to quit being that girl who had to show everyone she could do it by herself.

  “You let your ex overshadow your life to the point it took me using a sledgehammer to get past your barriers. Laura Jo, not every guy is a jerk and doesn’t face up to their responsibilities.”

  “Like you have?”

  Mark flinched. She’d cut him to the core. But she had to get through to him somehow.

  “I think I’d better go.” He stood and started toward the door.

  Shocked at his abrupt statement, she said, “I think it’s for the best. Goodbye, Mark.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE ONLY TIME Laura Jo could remember feeling so miserable had been when she’d taken Allie home from the hospital, knowing the child would have no father or grandparents to greet her. The pain had been heartbreakingly deep. She’d believed the scar had been covered over enough that she would never return to those emotions. But she’d been wrong.

  They had rushed in all over again when Mark had walked out the door. The overwhelming despair was back. The problem this time was that it was even more devastating.

  Looking back, she could see her goal when she’d been nineteen had been more about breaking away from her parents, standing on her own two feet and discovering what she believed in, instead of following their dictates. Turned out she’d let pride stand in her way all these years. It hadn’t been fair to Allie, her parents or herself.

  She appreciated Mark’s fears, even understood where they came from, but she couldn’t accept anything less than full commitment. Allie deserved that, and even she wouldn’t settle for anything less.

  Experience had shown her what it was like to have a man in her life who didn’t stay around. She refused to put Allie through that. If she felt this awful about Mark leaving after they had known each other for such a short time, what would it have been like if they had been together longer?

  The past had told her that the only way to survive disappointment and heartache, and in this case heartbreak, was to keep moving. It was Monday morning and Allie had school, she had to work.

  Was Mark working the early shift? Moving around his big kitchen dressed only in his shorts? With them hung low on his hips? Barechested?

  He’d called a couple of times but she had let the answering machine get it. If she spoke to him it would be too easy to open the door wide for him to come into her life. She just couldn’t do that.

  She groaned, afraid there would be no getting over Mark. She needed to stay busy, spend less time thinking about him. Forcing herself to climb out of bed, Laura Jo dressed for the day, making sure to have Allie to school on time.

  Allie asked her during breakfast, “Why’re you so sad, Mama?”

  Laura Jo put on a bright smile and said in the most convincing voice she could muster, “I’m not sad. Why would I be sad?”

  Allie gave her a disbelieving look but said nothing more. For that Laura Jo was grateful. She worried that she’d break down in tears in front of her daughter.

  At midmorning, after just releasing a patient home from the ER, Laura’s cell phone buzzed. Looking at it, she saw it was Marsha calling. It was unusual for her to call while Laura Jo was working. Something must have happened with the shelter.

  “Hello. What’s going on?”

  “Someone has bid against us for the house. It’s far over what we have and I don’t see any way for us to come up with that amount of money.”

  Marsha told Laura Jo the figure. They were doomed. The new house wasn’t going to happen this time. “You’re right.”

  “What we’ll have to do is use the money we do have to refurbish the place we’re in now and start looking for another place to buy. Sorry my call was bad news.”

  “Me, too, but I was afraid this might happen when the city opened it for bids. I’d prepared myself for it. We’ll start making plans this evening when I get home.”

  Laura Jo hung up. The sting had been taken out of the loss of the house by the loss of Mark. With him no longer in her life, it made everything else feel less important. She and Marsha would deal with this setback somehow.

  * * *

  A week later, her heart was still as heavy as ever over Mark. If she could just stop thinking about him and, worse, dreaming of him, she could start to heal. But nothing she did except working on the shelter, seemed to ease the continuous ache in her chest.

  She and Marsha had just finished meeting with a contractor about ideas for changes at the shelter when Laura Jo was called to the front. There a man dressed in a suit waited.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Are you Laura Jo Akins?” The man said in an official manner.

  “Yes.”

  “I was instructed to personally deliver this to you.”

  He handed her an official-looking envelope. Was this some sort of summons?

  Laura Jo started opening the letter and before she could finish the man left. What was going on?

  Printed on the front was a name of a lawyer’s office. Why would a lawyer be contacting her? She opened the envelope and scanned the contents. Her heart soared and her mouth dropped open in disbelief. She thought of telling Mark first, but he wasn’t in her life anymore.

  “Marsha!” she yelled.

  Her friend hurried down the hallway toward Laura Jo. “What’s wrong?”

  She waved the letter in the air. “You’re never going to believe this. My father has bought the house the city was selling and he has deeded it over to me!”

  That night Laura Jo wondered about her parents’ generosity. Had they had a change of heart years ago but she wouldn’t let them close enough to say so? She had been surprised at the krewe dance to discover they knew some of what had been going on in her life. Had they been watching over her? There had been that school scholarship that she’d been awarded that she’d had no idea she’d qualified for, which had covered most of her expenses. Had that been her p
arents’ doing?

  She’d told Mark that people had the capacity to change. Had her parents? After speaking to them, she’d certainly seen them in a different light. She’d also told Mark that people could forgive. Maybe it was past time she did.

  * * *

  On Saturday afternoon, Laura Jo pulled her car into the drive of her parents’ home. Allie sat in the seat next to her. Laura Jo had told her about her grandparents a few days before. She had asked Allie to forgive her for not telling her sooner, and had also told Allie that they would be going to visit her grandparents on Saturday. Later that evening, Laura Jo had called the number that she’d known from childhood. Her mother had answered on the second ring. Their conversation had been a short one but during it Laura Jo had asked if she could bring Allie to meet them.

  “Mama, what’re we doing?” Allie asked.

  “I’m just looking, honey. I used to live here.” That was true but mostly she was trying to find the nerve to go further. The last time she’d been there, hurtful words had been spoken that had lasted for years.

  A few minutes later, she and Allie stood hand in hand in front of her parents’ front door. Allie rang the doorbell. Her mother must have been watching for them because the door was almost immediately opened by her mother herself. Not one of the maids. Her father was coming up the hall behind her.

  “Hello, Laura Jo. Thank you for coming.” Her mother sounded sincere.

  “Mother and Daddy, this is Allie.”

  Her mother leaned over so that she was closer to Allie’s level and smiled. “Hi, Allie. It’s so nice to meet you.”

  Her father took the same posture. “Hello.”

  Allie stepped closer to Laura Jo. She placed a hand at Allie’s back and said, “These are your grandparents.”

  Both her parents stood and stepped back.

  Her mother said in a nervous voice Laura Jo had never heard, “Come in.”

  It felt odd to step into her parents’ home after so much time. Little had changed. Instead of being led into the formal living room, as Laura Jo had expected, her mother took them to the kitchen. “I thought Allie might like to have some ice cream.”

  Allie looked at Laura Jo. “May I?”

  “Sure, honey.”

  “Why don’t we all have a bowl?” her father suggested.

  When they were finished with their bowls of ice cream her mother asked Allie if she would like to go upstairs to see the room where Laura Jo used to sleep. Allie agreed.

  Laura Jo looked at her father. “I don’t know how to say thank you enough for your gift.”

  “We had heard that you were looking for support to buy it.”

  She should have known it would get back to them about why she’d been at the dance.

  “It’s a good cause and we wanted to help. Since we weren’t there for you, maybe we can help other girls in the same position. I know it doesn’t make up for the struggle you had.”

  It didn’t, but at least she better understood her parents now. She had to share some of the fault also. “All those calls I made to Mom—”

  “We thought we were doing what was best. That if we cut you off then you would see that you needed us and come back.”

  “But you wouldn’t talk to me.” She didn’t try to keep the hurt out of her voice.

  “We realized we had been too hard on you when you stopped calling. I’m sorry, Laura Jo. We loved you. Feared for you, and just didn’t know how to show it correctly.”

  “You saw to it that I got the nursing scholarship, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “We knew by then that you wouldn’t accept if we offered to send you to school.”

  “I wouldn’t have. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that sometimes what we believe when we’re young isn’t always the way things are. You were right about Phil. I’m sorry that I hurt you and Mom. Kept Allie from you.”

  “We understand. We’re proud of you. We have kept an eye on you both. You’ve done well. You needed to do it the hard way, to go out on your own. It took us a while to see that.” Her strong, unrelenting father went on, with a catch in his voice, “The only thing we couldn’t live with was not having you in our lives and not knowing our granddaughter.”

  Moisture filled her eyes for all the hurt and wasted opportunities through the years on both sides. Laura Jo reached across the table and took her father’s hand. Forgiveness was less about her and more about her parents. A gift she could give them. “You’ll never be left out of our lives again, I promise.”

  * * *

  Three weeks after the fact Mark still flinched when he thought of Laura Jo accusing him of being a jerk and not living up to his responsibilities. The plain-talking Laura Jo had returned with a vengeance when she’d lectured him.

  She was right, he knew that, but he still couldn’t bring himself to talk to Mike. That was the place he had to start. He’d spent over ten years not being able to face up to Mike and what had happened that night. Could he be a bigger hypocrite?

  He’d looked down on Laura Jo’s ex, taking a holier-than-thou approach when he’d been running as fast and far as Phil had when the going had got tough.

  Every night he spent away from Laura Jo made him crave her more. He wasn’t sleeping. If he did, he dreamed of her. The pain at her loss was greater than any he’d ever experienced. Even after the accident. He wasn’t able to live without her. He’d tried that and it wasn’t working.

  He’d tried to call her a couple of times but she hadn’t picked up.

  Mark thought about Laura Jo’s words. Didn’t he want a family badly enough to make a change? Want to have someone special in his life? More importantly, be a part of Laura Jo’s and Allie’s world?

  He’d been running for so long, making sure he didn’t commit, he didn’t know how to do anything else. It was time for it to stop. He had to face his demons in order to be worthy of a chance for a future with Laura Jo, if she would have him. How could he expect her to believe in him, trust him to be there for her, if he didn’t believe it for himself? He had to get his own life in order before he asked for a permanent place in hers. And he desperately wanted that place.

  * * *

  Mark picked up the phone and dialed the number he’d called so many times he had it memorized by now. He’d been calling every day for a week and had been told that Mike wasn’t available. Was he dodging Mark, as well?

  He’d made his decision and wanted to act on it. It was just his luck he couldn’t reach Mike. The devil of it was that he couldn’t return to Laura Jo without talking to Mike first. She would accept nothing less. For his well-being as well as hers.

  The day before, he’d received a call from Marsha. She’d told him how they had missed out on the house but then an anonymous donor had bought it outright and gifted it to them.

  Mark was surprised and glad for Laura Jo. At least the dream she’d worked so hard for had come true. Marsha went on to say that she and Laura Jo no longer required a board but planned to have one anyway. Marsha wanted to know if he was still willing to serve on it.

  “Have you discussed this with Laura Jo? She may not want me on it.”

  “She said that if you’re willing to do it she could handle working with you on a business level. I think her exact words were, ‘He’s a good doctor and cares about people. I’m sure he’ll be an asset.’”

  Panic flowed through his veins. Laura Jo was already distancing herself from him. The longer it took to speak to Mike, the harder it would be to get her to listen.

  Marsha said, “Look, Mark, I don’t know what happened between you two but what I do know is that she’s torn up about it. I love her like a sister and she’s hurting. She can be hardheaded when it comes to the ones she loves. The only way to make her see reason is to push until she does.”

  “Thanks for letting me know.”

  The next day, when Mark had a break between patients, he tried Mike’s number again. This time when a woman answered he insisted that he speak to Mike.<
br />
  “Just a minute.”

  “Mark.” Mike didn’t sound pleased to hear from him.

  “I was wondering if I could come by for a visit,” Mark said, with more confidence than he felt.

  “It will be a couple of days before I have time.” Mike wasn’t going to make this easy but, then, why should he. “I’ve been out of town and have some business I need to catch up on.”

  Mark wasn’t tickled with having to wait, but he’d put it off this long so did two more days really matter?

  “How does Thursday evening at seven sound?”

  “I’ll be here.” Mike sounded more resigned to the idea than cheerful about the prospect. Mark couldn’t blame him. His jaw tightened with tension from guilt and regret at the thought of facing him. He felt like a coward and had acted like one for years.

  The next day an invitation arrived in the mail. It was to a garden party tea at the Herrons’ mansion on Sunday afternoon. It was a fund-raiser for the new shelter. Had Laura Jo taken his advice and cleared the air with her parents? He looked forward to attending.

  Two evenings later, Mark drove from Fairhope over the bay causeway to Mobile. Mike lived in one of the newer neighborhoods that Mark wasn’t familiar with. He hadn’t slept much the night before, anticipating the meeting with Mike, but, then, he hadn’t slept well since the night he’d had Laura Jo in his arms. He drove up the street Mike had given as his address during their phone conversation. It was tree-lined and had well-cared-for homes. He pulled up alongside the curb in front of the number that Mike had given him. It was a yellow ranch-style home, with a white picket fence surrounding the front yard. Early spring flowers were just starting to show.

  Mark sat for a minute. He’d prepared his speech. Had practiced and practiced what he was going to say, but it never seemed like enough. If Laura Jo were here, she would say to just share what was in his heart. To stop worrying. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he opened the car door and got out. Closing it, he walked around the car and up the walk.