“Liz?” It was the first time he had used her first name, and she sat up, worried about Peter again.
“Is something wrong?” She set her feet down on the carpet, and tossed off the blanket she’d been given by the nurses.
“No, everything’s fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to see if you were all right.… I wondered if you wanted a cup of tea or something.” It was the middle of the night and coffee didn’t seem like an appropriate suggestion. He was working, but she was supposed to be asleep. “Did I wake you?” he asked in the dark, feeling guilty for disturbing her. But he’d been thinking about her and wanted to talk.
“No, I was awake. My sleep habits aren’t what they used to be, before …” The words drifted off, but they both understood. “Maybe some tea would help, or soup or something.” There was a machine down the hall, near his office. She’d bought both soup and tea there before, but as she put her shoes on and followed him down the hall, he offered her tea from a pot in his office.
She sat down in a chair, feeling rumpled and uncombed, but he didn’t look like he’d care. He looked worse than she did, after working all night.
“What kind of law do you specialize in?” he asked, as he sipped a mug of coffee.
“Family law … divorce.…”
He nodded knowingly. “I’ve had a little experience with that myself, but not in a long time.” He didn’t look as though the memory was pleasant, but he managed a small, wintry smile.
“Are you divorced?” she asked, and he nodded. “Kids?”
“Nope. No time. I was a resident when we got married, and she was an intern. Some people manage to have kids then, but it always seemed foolish to me. I didn’t want to have kids until I could spend some time with them, and enjoy them. You know,” he smiled, “like maybe when I’m eighty.” He had a nice smile, and a kinder look in his eyes than she had at first suspected. She had disliked him intensely when she first met him. He seemed so brusque, so rude, so uncaring, but she realized now that he had more important things on his mind, like saving lives, and sometimes, in his line of work, it was a matter of split seconds, and getting information from patients’ families as fast as you could. The day before he had seemed so harsh and abrupt to her, and now he seemed both pleasant and kind. “I’ve been divorced for ten years,” he told her then, volunteering more information than she’d asked for, but she was that kind of person. Her clients always told her more than she needed to know too, but sometimes that was helpful. And she found she wanted to know more about him.
“With no desire to remarry?” she asked with interest.
“Very little. And no time. I think the first time cured me. Our divorce was pretty bitter. She had an affair with my chief resident, which didn’t actually sit well with me. Everybody in the hospital knew it before I did, and felt sorry for me. They got married eventually and have three kids. She gave up medicine during her residency, it was just a hobby for her. We were very different.” To say the least.
“My husband and I practiced law together for eighteen years, we had a good time together. It’s nice being in the same line of work,” Liz said quietly, trying not to think of him too much. She was tired, and emotional, and she knew she would cry easily if Bill asked the right questions about Jack. “To be honest, he liked family law more than I did. I always liked the philanthropic stuff, and hopeless causes, fighting for the rights of the underdog. But he had a good sense of where the money was, and he was right, we had five kids to think of.”
“And now? You’re still doing divorce work?” She nodded. “Why? You could do anything you want.”
“Not exactly,” she smiled. “I still have the same five kids, their feet are bigger, and their shoes are more expensive than ever. So is their education. One of these days I’ll have four in college. Jack was right. Family law is very lucrative, even if it gets me down sometimes. In divorce work, you see people at their worst. The nicest people turn into monsters when they’re mad at their spouses. But I feel I owe it to my husband to keep our practice going. He worked hard building it, I can’t just walk away now.” From that, or their kids, or their house, or their responsibilities, it was all hers now, and Bill got that.
“Do you ever think about doing a different kind of law?” he asked, intrigued by her. She was smart, and nice, and very pretty. There was a softness to her which appealed to him, and a love for her son that touched his heart.
“Sometimes I think about doing something else,” she answered him, “but not very often. Do you?” She turned the question on him, and he poured some more coffee into his mug and shook his head.
“Never. I love this. It’s about as high pressure as it gets, you have to make split-second decisions, and they have to be the right ones. The stakes are high, and there’s no room for mistakes. It forces me to be the best I can be all the time. I like that.”
“It sounds like climbing Everest every day, and it must be heartbreaking sometimes.” She was thinking of Peter the day before and how easily they might have lost him. And the two children he had lost that night.
“It’s heartbreaking too often,” Bill answered. “I hate losing.”
“So did Jack,” she smiled. “I’m not too crazy about it myself, but for him it was a personal affront if he lost a single motion. He had to win every time, which is probably what cost him his life. He played hardball with a man who went berserk over it. I was afraid of it.… I warned him … but he didn’t believe me. I guess no one could really have predicted what happened. It was an insane thing for our client’s husband to have done. But he was insane. He killed his wife, and then my husband, and then shot himself in our office.” Just saying it reminded her of the grisly scene again and she closed her eyes for a second, as Bill watched her.
“It must have been a nightmare for you and the kids,” he said, sorry for her.
“It still is sometimes. It’s going to take us a long time to get over it, but we’re doing better. We were married for nineteen years, you don’t forget all that in a few months, we were very happy for a long time.”
“You were lucky,” he said quietly. He had never felt that way about anyone, not even the woman he’d married, or the two he lived with after her. And in the years since, he had given up his search for the perfect woman. Women drifted in and out of his life from time to time, and he never got too attached to them anymore. It seemed safer that way, and simpler. He didn’t need or want more than that.
“We were very lucky,” Liz echoed, and then stood up finally and thanked him for the tea. “I guess I’d better try to get some sleep before Peter wakes up. I was going to try and go to the office in the morning, and come back in the afternoon with Jamie.”
“I’ll be here.” Bill smiled at her, and reminded her that he wanted to meet Jamie when he came in.
She turned in the doorway then, and looked at him, with a look of sorrow in her eyes. As she had said to him, for her, the nightmare of losing Jack was not yet over. “Thanks for letting me talk. It helps sometimes.”
“Anytime, Liz.” But he hadn’t done it entirely for her. He liked talking to her, liked the boy. He was just sorry they’d had so much trouble, so much pain.
She went back to the couch in the waiting room then, and lay awake for a long time. She was thinking about him and the lonely, demanding life he led. It didn’t seem like much of a life to her, but these days hers wasn’t much of a life either, except for her work and her kids. She fell asleep finally, dreaming about Jack, and he seemed to be saying something to her. He was pointing at something and trying to warn her, and when she turned, she saw Peter diving neatly off a high diving board, into concrete. She awoke with a feeling of panic, mixed in with the old familiar sadness again. There was always that terrible moment when she woke up when she remembered that something horrible had happened. And then in an instant, she would remember that Jack had died. She still hated waking up in the morning. It was what made it so hard to go to sleep at night, knowing
she’d have to wake up and face the sharp blow of reality all over again.
She had combed her hair and washed her face and brushed her teeth, but she still felt rumpled and messy. Peter was awake when she went back to the ICU in the morning. And he was complaining about the fact that he was hungry and no one would feed him. Eventually, they gave him a bowl of oatmeal, and he made a terrible face as his mother fed it to him.
“Yerghkkkk!” he said, looking five instead of seventeen. “That’s disgusting.”
“Be a good boy, and eat it. It’s good for you,” she scolded him, but he clenched his teeth and pursed his lips, and when she set the spoon down, she was laughing. “What did you have in mind instead?”
“I want waffles.” He was referring to hers, and she had purposely never made them again, since the morning Jack died. She just couldn’t. And the children understood. Although they were a family favorite, none of the children had ever asked her to make them. But this time, Peter had forgotten. “And bacon,” he added. “I hate oatmeal.”
“I know you do. Maybe they’ll start feeding you real food today. I’ll talk to Dr. Webster.”
“I think he likes you.” Peter smiled at his mother.
“I like him too. He saved your life. That’s a good way to impress me.”
“I mean, he likes you. I saw him watching you yesterday.”
“I think you’re hallucinating, but you’re cute anyway, even if you won’t eat your breakfast.”
“What if he asks you out, would you go?” Peter asked the question with a grin.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s your doctor, not some high school Romeo. I think the bump on your head jiggled your brain.” She was amused, but not particularly interested in what he was saying. Bill Webster was a nice man, and they’d had a nice talk the night before, but it meant nothing to either of them.
“Would you, Mom?” Peter was persistent, and she only laughed at him, refusing to address the question seriously. There was no need to. What he was saying was absurd.
“No, I wouldn’t. I’m not interested in going out with anyone. And he’s not interested in going out with me. So you can stop matchmaking, and concentrate on getting better.”
She helped the nurses bathe him then, and later that morning, she went to her office. Jean had put out as many fires as she could, and fortunately things weren’t as busy as they could be. It was the middle of August, and most people were on vacation till after Labor Day.
She went home that afternoon to see the kids, and have dinner with them. She spoke to Peter on the phone several times that afternoon, and he was in good spirits. A number of his friends had come by to see him, and they’d brought him something to eat. He and Jessica had broken up in June, so there was no current girlfriend in his life to fuss over him, but he was just happy to see his friends. And Liz finally had a few minutes to call Victoria and her mother too. She’d told them both about the accident after it happened, and it was nice to be able to reassure both of them. As usual, her mother made ominous predictions about possible unexpected lethal aftereffects, and Victoria asked her what she could do to help. But there was nothing anyone could do yet. It was just nice for Liz to hear her voice and unwind a little bit. And after the brief respite, she went back to the work on her desk.
After dinner at home that night, Liz took a shower and changed, and told Jamie to put his shoes on. She was taking him to see his brother. She had asked the girls to wait one more day, because she knew that the onslaught of their talk and laughter and questions and well-intentioned fussing over Peter would exhaust him. Butjamie’s visit was as much for Jamie as for Peter. She knew he still needed to see that Peter was okay.
Jamie was quiet on the way to the hospital, and she thought he looked a little anxious as he stared out the window. And then finally he turned to her as they pulled into the hospital parking lot and asked her a pointed question.
“Will it scare me, Mommy?” It was honest, and what he asked her touched her, and she was honest with him.
“Maybe a little. Hospitals are a little scary. It’s a lot of people and machines and funny sounds.
But Peter doesn’t look scary.” His face was a little bruised, but not very. “He has a funny-looking collar on, and he’s in a big bed that goes up and down if you push a button.”
“Will he ever come home again?”
“Yes, baby, very soon. Before school starts.”
“Is that soon?” Jamie wasn’t good about time, and he knew it.
“In a couple of weeks,” she explained to him. “Maybe even sooner. There’s a nice doctor there who wants to meet you. His name is Bill.”
“Will he give me a shot?” Jamie looked panicked. For him, this was not only an adventure, it was an ordeal, but he was willing to walk through fire to see Peter, or do whatever he had to do.
“No, he won’t give you a shot,” his mother said gently.
“Good. I hate shots. Did he give Peter a shot?” He was worried about his brother.
“A bunch of them, but Peter’s a big boy and doesn’t mind.” The only thing he hated was Jell-O and oatmeal. His friends had brought him a pizza that afternoon, and he had sounded happy when he told her. “Shall we go in now?” Jamie nodded and slipped a hand into hers as they walked into the main lobby. He held her hand tightly in his own, and she could feel that his palm was damp, as they went up in the elevator to the Trauma ICU, and he flinched visibly as they got out of the elevator and saw someone on a gurney.
“Is he dead?” Jamie asked in a horrified whisper, standing close to her. The man’s eyes were closed and there was a nurse standing next to him.
“He’s just sleeping, Jamie, it’s okay. Nothing bad is going to happen.” She shepherded him quickly down the hall to the ICU, and they could see Peter the minute they walked in. He was sitting up in bed, and he gave a whoop of glee when he saw Jamie. And the minute Jamie saw him, he smiled from ear to ear.
“Hi, big guy, come over here and kiss me!” he shouted, and Jamie ran to him and then came to a dead stop when he saw all the monitors and machines. He was afraid to get too near. “Come on,” Peter encouraged him, “just one more big step, and I’ve got you.” Jamie took the last step as though he were fording a stream filled with snakes, but as soon as he could, Peter grabbed him firmly, and pulled him closer. He was smiling at him, and leaned over to give him a hug and a kiss, and as Liz approached she saw that Jamie was beaming. “Boy, I missed you!”
“I missed you too. I thought you were dead,” Jamie said simply, “but Mom said you weren’t. I didn’t believe her at first, that’s why she brought me here to see you.”
“You bet I’m not dead. But it was a dumb thing to do, jumping into the pool like that. You’d better not do anything as stupid as I did, or you’ll be in big trouble with me, kiddo. How’s everything at home?”
“Boring. The girls keep telling everyone what happened to you. They all cried when you went away in the ambulance. Me too,” he said, looking up at his big brother in relief. This was just what he needed. “Can I make your bed go up and down?” he asked with interest, as he looked around. There were other people in the ICU, but their curtains were drawn, and he couldn’t see them.
“Sure.” Peter showed him the buttons and how to do it, and he winced as Jamie first flung him up then down, and then moved him to a sitting position.
“Does that hurt?” Jamie was fascinated with making the bed move.
“A little,” Peter admitted.
“Do you want to lie down again?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you how far, and when to stop.” Peter was always a good sport about making Jamie happy. And as Jamie was concentrating on flattening the bed out again, Bill Webster walked in, and looked at the scene with interest.
He glanced at Liz, and then back at her two sons. Peter had just told him to let go of the button, and Jamie was satisfied that he had done a good job of it. He wanted to do it again, but this time Peter asked him not to. He was still in more pain
than he wanted to admit.
“Hi, Doc,” Peter said as he looked up, and Jamie glanced at Bill with a look of suspicion.
“Are you going to bed?” Jamie asked politely, staring at the green scrubs he was wearing.
“No. I get to wear these to work, isn’t that silly? That way, I can fall asleep anytime I want.” He was teasing, but Jamie looked up at him with big, serious brown eyes. Despite Jamie’s dark brown hair, and Peter’s red, there was a striking resemblance between them. “Introduce me to your brother,” he said to Peter, who duly introduced Jamie to the doctor.
“I don’t want a shot,” Jamie explained, so there would be no misunderstanding between them from the first.
“Neither do I,” he said, keeping a respectful distance, not wanting to upset the boy. He knew of his limitations from his mother. “I’ll promise not to give you one, if you don’t give me one either.” Jamie laughed as Bill said it.
“I promise,” Jamie said solemnly. And then for no particular reason, he volunteered a piece of information about himself, as though he thought some kind of social exchange was expected of him. “I won three medals at the Special Olympics. Mom coached me.”
“What did you compete in?” Bill asked with a look of profound interest.
“Running long jump, hundred yard dash, and sack race.” He reeled them off with pride, and Liz smiled as she watched him.
“Your mom must be a pretty good coach if you won all that.”
“She is. I only won fourth place with my dad. He shouted a lot more than Mom did. But Mom made me work harder and stay out later while we trained.”
“Persistence wins the prize,” Bill said more to Liz than to Jamie and she smiled at him, slightly embarrassed to have Jamie extolling her virtues. “That must have been pretty exciting.”
“It was,” Jamie said, smiling, and then turned back to his brother and asked if he could work the bed again. And although Peter didn’t look too happy about it, he let Jamie do it, as Bill and Liz stepped outside for a moment to talk.
The House on Hope Street Page 12