“You like him, don’t you?” Amy raised her glass of wine, but she didn’t take her eyes off Lauren.
“Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not being silly. I’m being your friend. I can tell when someone changes and you have a glow about you. That glow that goes with falling in love.”
“I’m not in love,” she denied.
“Maybe not yet, but you’re on your way. Otherwise, telling him you’re a doctor wouldn’t mean anything to you. If he fired you, it would mean nothing, but you want to stay. If he hadn’t asked you to stay, you’d have done so anyway.”
“I wouldn’t. I have been looking for property and a job.”
“Where?” Amy’s eyebrows went up. “This is the first I’m hearing of this.”
“In Arizona. I thought the Southwest would be a good place to settle.”
“Arizona? Do you know anyone in Arizona?”
“No, and isn’t that the point? Starting over means leaving everything behind.”
“Everything and everyone?” Amy asked.
“Not you,” Lauren stated. “But I need a fresh beginning.”
“What about Jake? Isn’t he a fresh beginning?”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
“Yes,” Amy said. “I know what you mean, but you’ve been at that apartment for nearly three months and it’s obvious you have feelings for the man that go beyond medical care.” She paused. Lauren didn’t say anything. “He could be the beginning you’re looking for.”
“I won’t deny that I like Jake a lot. But he’s not ready for a relationship. He’s got so much anger and doubt on his plate that it’s hard for him to see through it.”
“Maybe you should make him open his eyes wider with your next project.”
* * *
IT DIDN’T LOOK like there would be another project. Lauren checked her mailbox on her way back from Amy’s and, as if broaching the subject made it come true, there was a letter waiting for her from Kingman, Arizona.
The map of the United States covered the computer screen in Lauren’s room. She looked at the distance between New York and Arizona. It was only the span of her hand on the monitor, but in reality she was looking at thousands of miles, a different climate, different seasonal expectations. The foliage would be new to her and there were coyotes roaming the streets.
Wasn’t all that change what she was looking for? So why was she hesitating? There was a medical practice she could join until she was comfortable enough to strike out on her own again. She’d be a world away from her father, who lived in Maine, and her sisters, who lived in Maryland. Both had suggested she come and stay near them, but Lauren didn’t think that was far enough from the memories that New York held.
Should she accept the position? How long would they hold it for her? There had to be other candidates.
Lauren closed the computer screen. She’d talk to Jake about it. He knew she was planning to leave. He’d asked her to stay, but when opportunity presented itself, she needed to decide if she wanted to take it or not.
Why shouldn’t she go? she asked herself. If she had a checklist, she could tick off everything she’d required in this offer. Had she become too close to Jake? He needed her; she knew that even if he didn’t. If she moved on, he’d have to start over with someone else and Lauren could only imagine the type of personality needed to deal with Jake. He’d retreat into his anger.
But was that a reason for her to alter her plans? Lauren took a long time to ponder that. He was still a man suffering and she had become someone he could talk to. In her capacity as a doctor, what should she do? Was she responsible for his well being, for his attitude, for what his reaction would be without her? It was unfair of her to think that she was the only person able to cope with his mood changes or the only one who could get him to fight for life and not sit in his apartment all day.
Getting up, she wondered where Jake was. She couldn’t put this off. Lauren had no answer. She was torn between Jake’s needs and her own. The only resolution was to talk to him. She’d do it now.
He was sitting on the sofa amid the tall windows reading a book. Lauren walked down the stairs with determination. She went directly to where he sat and took the chair opposite him. He lowered the book to his lap.
“You’ve been up there a long time,” he said.
“I have a job offer.” She blurted the words out before she could stop herself.
“Where?”
He leaned back against the cushions. Lauren could see the stiffness in his body.
“Arizona?”
“Do you know anyone in Arizona?”
It was the same question Amy had asked. Lauren shook her head.
“Why did you decide to apply there?”
“You know I wanted a new beginning. It seemed like a good place. Everything about it would be far different from this side of the country.”
The atmosphere in the room had turned serious. The sun was up, but Lauren felt as if twilight had fallen.
“Are you going to accept?” Jake asked.
Lauren thought she heard him holding his breath. Maybe she wanted to think that.
“I haven’t decided. I wanted to talk to you about it.”
“It’s not my decision,” he said. “You told me straight out when you came that you were on your way somewhere else. I knew sooner or later you would have to deal with that decision.”
“Do you want me to go?” she asked.
Jake looked away, then back. “That’s an unfair question. I asked you to stay until Cal returned, but you’re not obligated to do that. If you have a place you want to go, then you have to decide.”
Want. Lauren latched onto the word. Did she want to go to Arizona? She could be a doctor anywhere. As far as Jake knew, she could be a kindergarten teacher anywhere. She’d been to Arizona once for a medical conference. It was in Phoenix, but this job would be in the small town of Kingman near both the tip of Nevada and the California border.
“Arizona seems a long way for a school system to hire a kindergarten teacher. Don’t they have enough teachers out there?”
“I don’t know,” Lauren said honestly, but Jake had found a hole in her story that she had not thought through. “Maybe I was the best candidate.”
“For kindergarten?”
“Well, I told them I was planning to move,” she said.
Jake cocked his head to the side as if he was weighing the information.
“How long do you have to make the decision?”
“They didn’t say in the offer, but I’m sure I’ll have to give them an answer within a week. School starts the beginning of September.”
There was no calendar in the room, but mentally they both knew October was only a few weeks away.
Lauren stood up and walked to one of the large windows. She looked out over New York. She’d grown up in Maryland, gone to medical school in DC and lived in New York City since graduating. She loved the beat of the city. It was huge and there was a lot to do. If she moved to Kingman, the entire population was less than thirty thousand. It would be what she told herself she wanted. Somehow a new beginning no longer held the appeal it once did.
Did that have something to do with Jake? Was Amy right? Did she really want Jake to ask her to stay?
Speaking of Jake, he came over and stood next to her. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I was comparing New York to Kingman.”
“And?” he asked.
Again she thought he was holding his breath.
Lauren hung her head. “And I haven’t decided. But I will. And I’ll let you know.”
She reached up and ran her hand down his arm several times.
“I’ll miss you,” he said, as if he was sure her decision was to leave.
* * *
JAKE WAS ABOUT to
lose Lauren. She’d made her decision. There wasn’t anything more to say. She’d told him the day they met that her time was short. So now that she was planning to put that into action, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to him.
He turned back and stared at her.
“You know, you never call her LeeLee,” Jake said.
“What?”
“You said you called your daughter LeeLee, yet you always refer to her by her given name.”
Lauren looked away. For a long moment nothing happened. Jake didn’t think she was going to explain. Then she looked back at him.
“This is going to sound weird.”
Her voice was barely a whisper. He had to strain to hear her.
“After she was gone, it’s like there was no LeeLee. Whenever I hear it, my mind hears the way LeeLee said it. The high-pitched sound of her five-year-old voice, with her tongue between her teeth. The pain is more intense when I think of the name in her voice.”
“It doesn’t sound so weird,” Jake told her.
Lauren looked as if she was relieved.
“What about other children?”
“Other children?” she frowned.
“You’re a young, beautiful woman. I assumed you’d want a family?”
Lauren swallowed and Jake thought he might be getting too personal.
“I did,” she said quietly, almost reverently. “I haven’t thought about it for a long time.”
“Now that you’re starting over, you can add it back to your to-do list.”
She smiled. “You’re funny, you know?”
“Why so?”
“Talking about having a baby as if it was something you put between ‘pick up green beans’ and ‘have the television repaired.’”
“Isn’t it?” he laughed.
The instant he saw the expression on Lauren’s face, Jake regretted his words.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean that. I was only joking.”
“It’s all right, Jake. You can’t protect me from innocent comments and I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”
“I respect you so much,” Jake said.
“Oh?”
“Through all that you have to contend with, you’re still considerate of someone else’s feelings.”
“Isn’t that what doctors do? I mean you have a life too. Yet you still have to deal with the worry or heartbreak of another person, for instance.”
“But you’re not a doctor,” he told her.
“But everyone has to accept life and move on. The world won’t stop for either of us, regardless of what happens to us, or what we do for a living.”
Lauren was quiet a moment. Jake knew he’d brought up memories that were painful, but she’d taught him to face his. She needed to do the same.
“You’re right. We each have to face the day. And you running away won’t change things either.”
Her head whipped around and she stared at him. “I’m not running away.”
“What do you call it?” Jake asked.
“Starting over. I’m going to a place that needs a...needs me and putting down roots.”
“You’re licking your wounds in hopes that they will heal. Running away gives you new surroundings, maybe new friends, but at night when the lights go out and there is nothing in the dark but you and your thoughts, the change of scenery won’t mean anything.”
Lauren dropped her eyes and looked at the floor.
“I know,” Jake said softly. “It’s how you found me.”
“Physician, heal thyself,” Lauren said almost too quietly for him to hear.
“Exactly,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t have done it, at least not immediately. If you hadn’t come along, I don’t know where I’d be right now, maybe still sitting in this room hiding from the world. But you did come along. I was your Naliani.”
“You weren’t.” Her voice was strong in denial.
Jake nodded. “I represented the child you couldn’t help. You saw in me all the symptoms that you missed in your daughter. And you weren’t going to let me die, as it were. You pushed, cajoled, judged and guilt-tripped me to get up and live. You have to do the same.”
“Leave me alone,” Lauren shouted, getting up and leaving.
“Don’t. Wait.” Jake got up too. He stepped up to her and looked into her eyes.
“Face it, Lauren. You didn’t miss the symptoms of meningitis. It struck fast. There was nothing you could have done. But you can’t bury your heart with LeeLee.” He deliberately used her daughter’s nickname.
Lauren’s eyes blazed like red-hot coals.
“You’re still alive. I know your heart hurts. I know all the things you feel.”
“You don’t,” she whispered. “You can’t possibly know how I feel.”
Jake shook his head. “You’re right. I don’t know what it feels like to lose a child, but I do know what it’s like to die inside because of something you couldn’t control.” He paused to see her reaction.
Lauren stood like a pillar, as unforgiving as a rock.
“Is this how you’re going to live your life? Locked away from the world, helping others, but never allowing anyone to get close to you?”
“I don’t do that.”
Jake wasn’t about to give up. She meant too much to him, and he knew this meant too much to her. Her whole future was at stake. Lauren stepped back. He reached for her hand, held it firmly.
“Since your divorce, how many dates have you been on?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Lauren questioned.
Jake didn’t want to argue with her, but he promised himself he’d see this through. “What it means is you’d be letting go. While your grief hasn’t left you and it never will, you’re still among the living. So, you should live. Do all the things you’re supposed to do, and that includes being open to others. Stop walking around closed off to what people can offer you. You deserve everything.”
“Who are you?” she asked with a bitterness in her voice that he’d never heard before. “Have you been sitting around all day thinking all this up, and now you want to analyze me?”
Jake let that go. He knew the question came from anger. “It’s not me analyzing you, Lauren. You’re angry.”
“You’re right, I am.”
She tried to move past him, but he reached for her hand again.
“It’s not me you’re angry with. It’s the truth.”
Her brows rose. “I’m angry with the truth?”
He nodded. “You can tell yourself anything you want, but I’ve hit a button you didn’t want pressed and you’re upset because you know I’m right. You’re the one who’s taken on the role of caregiver, yet you need as much care as I did.”
“Please let me go.” Lauren’s tone was laced with venom.
“Going to your room won’t change anything. Just like leaving the city and starting somewhere else won’t absolve you of the guilt you feel. All the feelings you have are in here and in here.” He pointed to her head and then to her heart. “They follow you, invisible, yet are always there, weighing you down. Until you deal them, you’ll never be alive.”
“Jake, move aside.” Each word was spoken succinctly like a warning bell.
Jake let her hand drop. He crossed the room and made a grand gesture with his free arm, indicating the open space to Lauren.
She took a deep breath and passed him. She didn’t run out of the room, but when she reached the steps, she rushed up them as if fire burned her feet.
* * *
LAUREN’S CHEST HEAVED as she closed the door to her bedroom. She hated Jake for what he’d said about her. It wasn’t true. She was moving on. She was changing states, changing almost everything about herself. She no longer had to pull herself out of bed in the morning or force herself
to go through mundane things like washing her face and brushing her teeth. She’d resumed eating regularly and gained back some of the weight she’d lost. She would still be a children’s doctor.
So why was she feeling as if she couldn’t breathe? Jake had said some harsh things that she didn’t want to hear. She denied some of it, but she knew part of it was true. Had he been right? Was she really angry because what she was really doing was refusing to go on? Lauren hadn’t had a date since her divorce. She’d had men show an interest in her. It was hard not to know when someone found her attractive. Even Jake had looked at her that way on occasion. And except for him, she’d refused all comers.
She told herself that she’d lost everything, her child, her marriage, and those were the reasons she wasn’t ready to start another serious relationship. But she knew enough time had passed where she should be ready to meet men. She’d used her practice as a shield to keep from doing that, telling herself and Amy that she was too busy. At the end of the day, she was too tired to do anything but sleep. And told herself that she would get around to dating sooner or later. In her mind, it was always later.
Then, thanks to that ad, she’d realized Jake was in town, and now, she didn’t know if that was a trigger telling her to try to move on with her life, or not. She just knew she wanted to see him. Maybe, in the back of her mind, she thought reconnecting with him could reconnect her with an innocent time in her life, before her marriage, her child’s birth and subsequent death.
And where had that led her?
Here, hiding in her bedroom, angry with the man who’d forced her to see herself in a true mirror. Not one that reflected the beautiful life of the princess after the prince finds her and they go on to their happily-ever-after. But one that showed her naked with scars, one that reflected who she was in stark sunlight and not clouded by fairytales or rose-colored glasses.
There was some truth to what he said. She hadn’t thought about it before, and she denied it to Jake, but she had been using him as her LeeLee. She was trying to save him. She’d pushed, forced him to confront things in his life, when her life was just as messy.
She couldn’t save LeeLee. But what about Jake? She knew the signs with him. She could see his symptoms and act on them before it was too late.
Healing the Doctor's Heart Page 17