“Try giving birth to one,” Mary Pat said with a grimace. “You have no idea—” She stopped and gave her head a quick shake. “Of course you do. You see it every day, don’t you?”
Ellen pressed kisses to Declan’s buttery soft cheeks. “Believe me, I know there’s a world of difference between assisting the delivery and doing the hard labor.”
“Well, I certainly didn’t mean to imply that—”
“I know that, Mary Pat. It isn’t called hard labor for nothing, is it?”
“I hate to interrupt all of the bonding going on,” Deirdre said, “but if I don’t use the john in the next thirty seconds—”
“Straight through the hall, second door on your right.”
Deirdre took off at a run.
“I half expected her to bring that dog with her,” Mary Pat said.
“I convinced her that Cambridge was no place for Stanley.”
She and Declan followed her into the house while Mary Pat gave her a brief rundown on the whereabouts of the other family members.
“James is at the office, of course. He’ll join us at the hospital. Shawna has a job on the Cape. She probably won’t be here this weekend. Sean is studying for finals with his friend Carl. Caitlin and Duffy are in school. They’ll spend the rest of the afternoon at their friend Courtney’s house. They’re too young to go to the hospital with us.”
“They’re eight now, aren’t they?”
“Almost nine,” Mary Pat corrected her.
“You might want to check with your hospital. Ours would allow them to visit an adult patient.”
“That’s not the issue,” Mary Pat said as she led the way to the kitchen. “They adore their grandfather. I think it would be too difficult for them to see him this way.”
A powerful argument could be made against Mary Pat’s position, but she wasn’t fool enough to try it. They were her children. She would make the decisions without Ellen’s two cents.
She ooh’d and aah’d over the recently remodeled kitchen. Mary Pat took her on a quick tour of the first floor. Within moments her head was awhirl with color schemes, window treatments, furniture styles, wallpaper patterns, and everything else that went into turning a bare-bones house into an inviting home.
“You should become a decorator,” she said. “This place is absolutely wonderful, Mary Pat.”
Her sister thanked her for the compliment. It was clear that the words, spoken sincerely, had pleased her. “From your descriptions, your house sounds fantastic.”
“It’s a great house,” she agreed, “but it looks like an empty barn. I don’t even have curtains on the bedroom windows yet. I ordered a bed for the guest room. Deirdre and I are a little too old to bunk together indefinitely.”
Mary Pat had mastered the art of bland sarcasm. “You two always were very close.”
“I’ve enjoyed spending time with her.” She refused to rise to the bait.
Mary Pat considered that statement but refrained from comment. “If she ever comes out of the bathroom, we can set out for the hospital.”
“Is Declan coming with us?”
“I’ll drop him off at his baby-sitter’s house on the way.”
“I wouldn’t mind staying here with him.” Actually I would love staying here with him. It would mean avoiding a trip to the hospital to see Billy. What had seemed like the right thing to do when she was safe at home in Shelter Rock Cove suddenly seemed fraught with emotional peril.
“You didn’t drive down from Maine to be a baby-sitter. That’s what I pay Laura for. You’re here to see our father, right?”
* * *
“Nice try,” Deirdre said sotto voce as they sat in the backseat of Mary Pat’s Saab on the way to the hospital. They had stopped so their sister could drop Declan off with his sitter. “I was going to use the same line myself.”
“Shh.” She kicked Deirdre’s ankle. “She probably has the car bugged.”
Deirdre laughed. “You’re beginning to sound like me.”
“And I’m beginning to see why you sound the way you do. Mary Pat is a force to be reckoned with.” She had never seen Mary Pat on her home turf before today. As adults, they had always met on more neutral territory. Restaurants. Clubs. Rented beach houses. Mary Pat was clearly a domestic genius who should have been chatelaine of a stately mansion or the grande dame of one of those sprawling multigenerational families whose story ended up sooner or later as fodder for a miniseries. “She could be CEO of a Fortune 500 company with those organizational skills.”
“I’m surprised her kids aren’t all in therapy,” Deirdre said.
“Her kids are doing great,” she reminded her sister. “Scholarships, awards, lots of friends.”
“Enough to make you puke, isn’t it?”
She gave Deirdre another soft kick in the ankle. “We’re not fourteen any longer, Dee. We can admit she’s doing something right.”
Deirdre peered behind Ellen’s ear. “No sign of a battery pack, so you haven’t been Stepfordized yet.”
They dissolved in highly inappropriate gales of laughter, considering the reason for their trip to Cambridge. They were struggling to regain control of themselves when Mary Pat slid back behind the wheel and pinned them with a look through the rearview mirror.
“Why do I feel like I’m driving my kids around? You two are as bad as you were years ago.”
I’m sorry,” Deirdre said, still bubbling with laughter. “Chalk it up to another Chuckles the Clown moment.”
If Mary Pat understood the reference to the classic sitcom starring Mary Tyler Moore, she didn’t let on. “I’m not a chauffeur. Why don’t one of you sit up here with me?”
One look at the expression on Deirdre’s face and Ellen knew she had been pressed into combat. Seconds later she was buckling the shoulder harness next to Mary Pat and trying to ignore the stifled sounds of laughter emanating from the backseat.
“When I was thirty-five,” Mary Pat said, “I didn’t have time for nonsense. I had four children to care for.”
“When you were thirty-five, dinosaurs still roamed the earth,” Deirdre shot back.
Ellen grinned. “Sorry,” she said to Mary Pat, who gave her a look. “It was funny.”
Was that the faintest twitch of a smile tugging at the corners of Mary Pat’s perfectly lipsticked mouth? “I don’t know why she bothers with music. She should be out there doing standup.”
“A compliment?” Deirdre fanned herself. “Somebody time-stamp this moment because it’ll never come again.”
“Did you ever do anything about that mole on your shoulder?” Mary Pat asked Deirdre. “You know there’s a strong history of skin cancer in the family.”
“There is?” Ellen effortlessly slipped back into her doctor persona. “I didn’t know that.”
“You’re as fair as we are,” Mary Pat said, glancing over at her as if she had forgotten how she looked. “Do you freckle?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“You doctors really are the worst when it comes to taking care of yourselves. You use sunblock, don’t you?”
“When I remember.”
“You’re as bad as Deirdre.”
“Thank you,” Deirdre called out from the backseat. “I’m flattered.”
“Tell me more about our family medical history.” She knew her mother’s history inside out, but she had never given a second thought to what her O’Brien genes brought to the table.
“We’re a remarkably healthy, long-lived bunch,” Mary Pat said as she flicked on her directional and glided into the right-hand lane. “My mother’s—” She stopped. “Sorry. You want to know about the O’Briens. Well, Billy’s brother lived to three months shy of his eighty-second birthday. His two sisters are still alive.”
“I didn’t know Billy had sisters.”
“You’re joking.”
“He never mentioned anything about his family.”
“I can’t believe you never asked.”
“Neither can
I,” she said. She had been so overwhelmed by the news that Cy wasn’t her father, so shocked to learn that she had two sisters out there she had never met, that everything else had faded into the background where it had remained all these years.
Mary Pat was an encyclopedia of information. Billy’s sisters, Maeve and Fiona, were both widows in their late seventies, who currently shared a condo in Fort Lauderdale.
Aunt Maeve. Aunt Fiona. She was finding it hard to take it all in.
“Do they have children?”
“They’re O’Briens, aren’t they? Maeve had six; five are still living. Fiona only had two, but they’ve given her eleven grandchildren between them.” Maeve had twenty-two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
“We don’t get to see each other very often,” Mary Pat said. “We’re scattered all over the world. I’ve been thinking about hosting a family reunion.”
Deirdre’s groan rattled the windows. “Oh, give it up, Mary Pat. We’re not the Waltons and we never will be.”
Mary Pat glanced in the rearview mirror. “I can’t believe you never mentioned any of your aunts or cousins to Ellen.”
“When was the last time they mentioned me to anyone?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“I rest my case.”
“That’s your problem right there,” Mary Pat said to Deirdre. “The world doesn’t revolve around you. You should have told Ellen about her heritage.”
“Maybe if you spoke to The Doctor now and then, you could’ve told her yourself.”
The Doctor? Was that how they referred to her?
Mary Pat’s face turned crimson, and Ellen felt like crawling under the floor mats.
“Are we having fun yet?” she said, and they all managed a weak facsimile of a laugh.
Mary Pat was the first one to regain her composure. No surprise there. Despite everything, she was filled with grudging admiration. “I’ve been working on our family tree,” Mary Pat said as she pulled into the hospital parking lot. “I’d be glad to print out a copy of my information on the O’Brien branch.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll make sure you have it before you leave.”
“Good night, John-Boy,” Deirdre said from the backseat, and this time the laughs were a little closer to the real thing.
Ellen had learned early on in her training that hospitals had personalities same as the people who ran them. Some were austere and forbidding, the kind of place you wanted to avoid at all costs. Some felt like small hotels, where you weren’t a patient, you were a guest. Others tried to be a high-tech extension of home with TVs and CD players and computers available for their patients’ enjoyment.
There was an odd dichotomy at work when it came to hospital management. If the management staff was doing its job, the beds were filled with patients. But if the doctors were doing their job, the beds were empty because everyone was well and healthy. One of the trickiest tightrope walks was finding a way to balance the need to turn a profit with the very real needs of the patient population.
She liked the feel at St. Joseph’s. It was close enough to Boston to attract high-quality staff, but far enough away to retain a real sense of community, not at all unlike what they enjoyed in Shelter Rock Cove.
Mary Pat’s heels clicked loudly on the highly polished tiles in the lobby. She had a quick, long stride much like her own. Deirdre had to break into an almost-run to keep up with them.
They snagged an elevator and Mary Pat pressed 6.
“He’s in ICU,” she said, eyes focused on the lighted panel of numbers over the doors. “He had some trouble a few hours after the ERCP and—” She glanced over at Ellen. “You know how it is. Better to be safe than sorry, right?”
It was pure and utter bullshit and they both knew it. The diagnosis wasn’t in yet, but the specialist had made it patently clear that Billy’s chances were next to zero.
“He looks like hell,” Mary Pat said as the doors slid open at the sixth floor. “They were able to open up his bile duct a little so he’s not that ghastly deep yellow, but he’s lost a lot of weight.” She met Deirdre’s eyes. “You should be prepared.”
Deirdre looked as if she was going to pass out. Ellen placed an arm around her sister’s shoulders as they exited the elevator. “Are you okay? Maybe you need to sit down and drink some water.”
“Maybe I need to get out of here,” Deirdre said.
That summed up Ellen’s feelings right then as well. She found herself suddenly empathizing with every family member whose deer-in-the-headlights stare when she explained a diagnosis had gotten under her skin. It felt very different on this side of the stethoscope, something she would be wise to remember.
They passed through a pair of swinging doors marked ICU-CCU, walked past a small waiting room with a television suspended from the ceiling. Two women sat on opposite corners of the dark green sofa pretending to watch Emeril Lagasse do something unspeakable to a game hen. The women looked up as they approached. Their disappointment was palpable as they turned back to Emeril.
“They limit visitors to two at a time,” Mary Pat said, “but they make allowances for family.”
“That’s okay,” Deirdre said, her voice thin and shaky. “You two go ahead. I’ll wait.”
“If you disappear, so help me God I’ll track you down.”
“You’ve been watching too many old movies,” Deirdre said and claimed a chair in the waiting room.
The ICU at St Joseph’s looked like every intensive care unit Ellen had ever seen. Bright lights. Lots of staff. The nurses’ station at the center of a horseshoe of patient cubicles which were separated by blue curtains. That sense of hyper-alertness masked by a deceptively calm facade that would ignite into action at the first sign of trouble. A young dark-haired nurse looked up as they approached and smiled at Mary Pat.
“Good news,” she said, pushing away from the computer terminal. “He’s doing a lot better this afternoon.”
“No more vomiting?” Mary Pat asked.
“Last episode was”—the nurse glanced back at the monitor—“last night around ten P.M. We might be able to start him on clear liquids tomorrow if he remains stabilized.”
“He was vomiting?” Ellen asked. The urge to step behind the nurses’ station and read the reports was very strong. The nurse looked from Ellen to Mary Pat.
“This is my sister, Dr. Ellen Markowitz.”
The nurse’s eyes lit up. “Mr. O’Brien told us all about you. He’ll be so excited when he finds out you’re here.”
Professional exaggeration, that was what it was. She had a hard time believing her presence or absence meant much of anything to Billy. She smiled at the nurse, then asked again about the vomiting.
“He had some trouble after the procedure.”
“The ERCP?”
The nurse nodded.
“What type of trouble?” ERCPs were fairly simple procedures but not without risk, especially not for someone as ill as Billy was.
“He started vomiting blood about twelve hours after he came out of recovery. We had some trouble bringing it under control.”
She had a score of questions, but the nurse looked so uncomfortable and poor Mary Pat was clutching the edge of the counter in a white-knuckle grasp.
“Has Dr. Loewe been in to see him today?”
“Not yet.”
“Does he have the results from the procedure?”
“I believe he’ll have them by four o’clock.”
“Fine,” said Ellen. “Please tell him that Mrs. Galvin and Dr. Markowitz would like to discuss their father’s prognosis with him before he leaves for the day.”
“Will do.”
“I’m impressed,” Mary Pat said as she led the way to Billy’s cubicle. “I’ve never seen you in doctor mode.”
“We’ve all grown up a lot since those first summers together.”
Mary Pat stopped in front of the closed curtains of #8. “I should probably see if he’s a
wake first. I told him you were coming, but I’m not sure how much he understood. He was still sleeping off the anesthesia.” She reached for the curtain, then stopped. “He isn’t the way you remember him, Ellen. I don’t want you to be shocked.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell Mary Pat how little it mattered to her. All afternoon she had been waiting to feel something, anything, about Billy and his situation, but her emotions remained flatlined. Deirdre, who claimed to feel nothing at all, practically vibrated with love and fear and anger and every other emotion she could toss into the mix. Even though Billy was still alive, Mary Pat was clearly grieving. She managed to keep her sorrow contained by throwing herself into micromanaging every aspect of the situation that she possibly could.
And all the while Ellen felt nothing at all.
She waited on the other side of the curtain while Mary Pat moved next to the bed.
“Hi, Da... it’s me, Mary Pat....” Billy’s responses were too muffled for her to make out. “You’ll never guess who’s driven down from Maine to see you.... Yes, Ellen... she’s right outside.... Of course she wants to see you.... You look fine.... I’ll go get her.”
Was it possible to age ten years in fifty seconds? Mary Pat looked older and infinitely sadder than she had moments ago, as if the weight of all that lay ahead had suddenly landed squarely on her shoulders. How different things could have been if they had only found a way to look past Billy’s sins and be a real family to one another. Maybe then she would know the right thing to say to ease the burden.
“He’s tired but lucid,” Mary Pat said. “He can’t wait to see you. I’ll wait out here.”
Ellen stood up straight, summoned up a big smile, and wished she could fly away.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The two women were only being friendly, but their questions were grating on Deirdre’s nerves.
“So what exactly is wrong with your father?” the older one asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Deirdre said, keeping her eyes fastened on Emeril’s bald spot. “We’re waiting for test results.”
Girls of Summer (Shelter Rock Cove - Book #2) Page 32