Side Effects

by Bobby Hutchinson

  The second call was to St. Joe's, to Wade's doctor, Mike Parsons. Alex had called her mother the previous afternoon, and Eleanor had sounded frantic. Wade was still refusing to see his family, although Thea was ignoring his wishes and camping out in his room anyway, which incensed Eleanor; if she, Wade's own mother, respected his desire for privacy, then surely that woman ought to do the same. Physically, Wade was improving very gradually, but Eleanor reiterated her belief that he needed intensive counseling—her standard formula for any sort of emotional conflict with her children.

  For once, though, Alex thought her mother might be right.

  She waited impatiently while the switchboard operator paged Dr. Parsons. Alex was hoping to catch him before he began his morning rounds.

  In a few moments, Mike's deep, hearty voice came on the line, and Alex asked about Wade. Her heart sank as Mike repeated pretty much what Eleanor had said.

  "Physically, he's progressing as well as we'd hoped," Mike said. "The sensation in his legs is a very positive sign, and the swelling in his spinal cord seems to be decreasing. We'll be able to take the tongs off fairly soon." He recited details of Wade's medical treatment and then added, "Emotionally, he's not so good, though. As you know, depression's the norm in cases of spinal injury. He's still insisting that he doesn't want to see anybody, that he's best left totally to himself. Thea still goes and sits beside him, but he either refuses to talk to her or else he becomes verbally abusive. Harve Franklin keeps trying, but Wade won't say much, except to tell him to get the hell out of his room."

  Harv& Franklin was a staff psychiatrist at St. Joe's, a big, friendly bear of a man whom Alex liked and respected.

  "Wade's not suicidal, is he, Mike?" It was a possibility that had haunted Alex half the night, and she shivered as she heard the slight hesitation in Mike's tone.

  "I don't think so. We're all keeping a close eye on him."

  Alex hung up feeling chilled and slightly sick, wondering whether or not she should return to Vancouver in an effort to help her brother. The problem was, she didn't know what she'd be able to do if she did go. And going back to Vancouver right now certainly wasn't the answer to the problems she and Cam were having, either. She blew out a pent-up breath and dialed the phone again.

  This call was to Thea. Alex had tried to reach her the night before with no success. This morning the phone rang over and over, and at last Thea's husky voice responded, thick with sleep.

  Alex apologized, and instead of making polite conversation, she went straight to her reason for calling. "Thea, I'm worried sick about Wade and I need to talk to you," she confessed, quickly relating what Mike had told her a few moments before.

  "Is there anything, anything at all, that you think would help Wade? Do you think I could do any good if I came down and tried to talk to him?"

  Thea was silent for so long Alex thought the connection had been broken. "Thea? Are you still there?"

  A sniffle came over the line, and Alex realized with a pang of sympathy that Thea was weeping. "I don't think there's anything anyone can do," the other woman finally managed to sob. "Everybody's tried, but you know how—how damned stubborn he can be."

  "Yeah, I do. He's a lot like Dad that way, although he'd never admit it."

  "No, for sure he wouldn't." There was a pause, and Alex heard Thea blowing her nose. "If I knew what to do," she finally continued, "I'd do it, Alex. See, he's— he's trying to force me to leave him. He either treats me like a stranger or else—" Thea sobbed again and finally gained control, and now her voice was angry. "Or else he uses every dirty trick he can think of to hurt me. Yesterday he said he doesn't really love me, that what we had together was just physical, that I'm—I'm one hell of a lay but—la-lacking in the brain department." There was heartbreak as well as anger in her tone, and Alex felt sympathy well up inside her.

  "When I left the hospital last night, I went and sat through three movies," Thea went on in a desolate tone, "and I don't remember the first thing about any of them. I feel as if he's making me crazy." The sobs began again, deep and agonizing.

  Alex's heart went out to Thea. Tears filled her eyes, and she couldn't think of what to say for comfort. She waited, and after a moment Thea managed to add, "He—he thinks just because his spine is injured, I won't want to be with him anymore. He won't listen when the doctors say there's a good chance he'll walk again. He's locked himself away from me emotionally, and I don't know what to do to get him back. I don't know what the hell to do, Alex. All I know is, I love him."

  The words seemed to echo in Alex's head. She did her best to reassure and comfort Thea, feeling uncomfortably like her mother when she suggested a therapist at St. Joe's, a practical woman Alex knew and trusted.

  "And if you feel like talking to me, I'm here. If it would help for me to come down, I'll come. Just please keep me posted as to what's really going on, won't you, Thea?"

  Thea promised, and Alex hung up the phone with a terrible sense of helplessness and the knowledge that she'd been no real help at all.

  He's locked himself away emotionally, and I don't know what the hell to do about it.

  The words seemed to lodge like cement in the pit of Alex's stomach, and she leaped out of bed, tossed her outsize cotton sleep shirt in the laundry basket and headed naked for the shower, frantically going over all the things she needed to do that day.

  Go to the bank, transfer her accounts, send out address changes, find a decent hairdresser, buy tampons and moisturizer, get a couple of paperbacks to read, empty her suitcases into the closets, organize her clothes for work...

  She lathered her hair with shampoo and then stood under the spray long after the soap was gone, her heart thudding with anxiety.

  Was Cameron, too, locking himself away emotionally?

  Was he using his job to keep from having to discuss any of the issues they'd left unresolved? Because if he was, Alex felt exactly the same way Thea did.

  And she didn't know what in hell to do about it, either.

  THAT DAY, and the days that followed, seemed to confirm her fears. She hardly saw Cameron. He called four or five times each day, hurried calls that always seemed to be interrupted by some emergency. "I've decided to sleep in the single officer's quarters at the detachment rather than have the night calls routed to the house," he told her at one point with perfect logic. "I'm just too far away at the lake. It takes too much time to get back to the detachment."

  Alex began to see distinct advantages to living next to the police office.

  They ate dinner together three times, once at home and twice at Luigi's, a family-style restaurant in town. None of the three meals was leisurely or relaxed; at home, Cameron's radio interrupted their meal continually, and the calls left him distracted.

  At the restaurant, Alex learned that eating out with a policeman in uniform was similar to being an exhibit in a zoo. Everyone stared, either openly or covertly, and many of the town's citizens felt free to wander over and discuss some injustice or other. Some introduced themselves and welcomed Alex and Cameron to Korbin Lake, which was nice but certainly didn't make for an intimate or relaxing meal. She was beginning to realize that in this town, Sergeant Cameron Ross was public property, and it irritated the hell out of her.

  Oh, they talked, of course, in hurried, interrupted bursts that made her want to scream. She managed to tell Cam about Wade, and she relayed the happy news that Jason's surgery had been a resounding success; the baby was recovering at an amazing speed, and the Townsends would be back in a few days.

  Their return couldn't come too soon for Alex. She'd made up her mind that the instant the pressure of work had lessened for Cameron, she was going to confront him and really work through all the issues he seemed to be avoiding so adroitly.

  And added to everything else, the closer she came to starting work, the more Alex found herself dreading it. Dr. Hollister King was not going to thank her for taking over the treatment of little Jason Townsend. She knew that for damned sure.


  The emergency room at St. Joe's was beginning to seem a veritable rest home compared to the intricacies of life in a small town.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MONDAY MORNING and her first day of work came all too soon for Alex.

  Cameron had come home after all late Sunday night, but a call had come at three in the morning, a report of domestic violence, and he'd hurriedly dressed and gone out again. Nerves on edge at the thought of her new job, Alex didn't sleep much after that.

  At five, she got up and showered and then dressed for work, knowing it was far too early but needing to get the day started. She was accustomed to being alone in the big house by now, but this morning she felt especially lonely and abandoned.

  It was childish of her, she knew, but it would have been so nice to have Cameron there to reassure her, to tell her that the pretty blue patterned cotton skirt and matching vest, the white silk tee and pearl studs were the right choices for a day at the clinic. She dried her hair and fluffed out the curls, again needing Cameron's assurance that the shorter haircut she'd had on Saturday was a good one.

  She wanted him to tell her that of course Dr. King was a reasonable man, that he and Alex would work easily and well together, that all her misgivings were unfounded.

  Damn it all, Cam, why can't you be here for me when I need you? But he wasn't there, so instead, she chattered nonstop to Pavarotti as she made herself a cup of instant coffee.

  She was too keyed up to eat the single slice of toast after it popped up in the toaster, and the cat got bored with her stream of nervous chatter and bolted out the back door.

  "Traitor," Alex called after him. She glanced at the clock. It was still too early, but she had to get out, do something. She gathered up her medical bag and her purse and went out into the early-moming sunshine, locking the door behind her and wondering how she'd feel when she unlocked it again that night.

  The medical facilities were on the outskirts of town, far enough from both houses and highway to seem almost pastoral. Korbin Lake Medical Clinic was housed in a small frame building just a hundred yards or so from the twenty-six bed hospital. Both structures were pleasantly situated on wide lawns interspersed with flower beds, set against a thick backdrop of emerald green pine trees.

  At this early hour sprinklers sent water cascading over the grass and flowers, the spray catching rays of sunlight and making rainbows.

  Alex compared the idyllic scene to the frantic early-morning traffic in front of St. Joe's and smiled wistfully as she pulled her car into the nearly deserted lot. Driving to work in the city had sent adrenaline pumping through her veins. This was a lot more like meditation.

  Alex glanced at her watch. It was barely seven. She was slated to meet Dr. King at eight at the clinic, and then Harry Perkins, the hospital administrator, over at the hospital. Well, what the heck. Maybe being an hour early would give her a chance to familiarize herself with both hospital and clinic before the workday started.

  She walked slowly across to the main entrance and into the hospital, heading straight over to the nursing station and smiling at the pretty nurse with the long strawberry blond hair who returned her smile with a gamine's wide grin and a cheerful greeting.

  "Morning. What can I do for you?" She had a sprinkling of freckles on her nose and a dimple beside her mouth.

  "I'm Doctor Ross. I-"

  "You're our new doctor? Holy smokes." The young nurse's hazel eyes widened, and she held out her hand. "You're an early bird. Our director of nursing won't be here until around eight. How d'ya do? I'm Rebecca Jones. Everyone calls me Becky."

  There was an engaging openness to her manner that put Alex immediately at ease. "Hi, Becky. I'm Alexandra, but everyone calls me Alex." They both smiled as Alex shook the other woman's hand. "I'd just like to look around if you don't mind."

  The nurse's intelligent eyes were assessing Alex, from the tip of her curly head to the leather sandals on her bare toes, and there was approval and admiration in her expression and her tone. "Wanna poke around on your own or would you like the guided tour?" Again, her wide smile came and went. "No extra charge."

  "Well, if it's free, of course I'll take the tour." Already, Alex liked this friendly woman, and a little of the tension inside her eased. If all the staff were like Rebecca Jones, it would be a pleasure to work here.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Becky walked Alex through the hospital, introducing staff and patients alike. The rest of the staff consisted of a senior nurse who acted as evening supervisor, two RNs on duty at night, four more during the day, and one orderly.

  Becky introduced the other nurse, Pam Walker, a quiet woman in her midforties, and the two aides collecting breakfast trays. Alex was delighted to find the small lab extremely well-equipped, the operating room state-of-the-art.

  "Complex surgical cases are sent to either Vancouver or Calgary, we don't have a full-time anesthesiologist or enough trained staff to do more than the routine stuff here. Doc King does vasectomies, appendixes, circumcisions and hysterectomies," Becky explained. "But you already know all that. I guess you'll be doing anesthesia for him."

  Alex did know, and she wasn't delighted about that aspect of her new job, although of course she didn't say so to Becky.

  Although she'd sat in on a refresher course in basic anesthesia before she left Vancouver, she was well aware that it was a specialty for which she wasn't fully trained. She also knew, however, that applying for a position as a GP in a small community like Korbin Lake meant performing several other medical procedures for which she'd routinely call in specialists at St. Joe's.

  And maybe that was the good news, she told herself firmly. She'd be getting back to the grass roots of medicine here, and although she was a bit nervous, it would be a great learning experience.

  She tried to shove her uncertainty to the back of her mind and concentrate only on the patients Becky was introducing. There were a dozen or so of them, housed in small, sunny rooms, and Becky knew every one on a first-name basis. It was obvious from their responses that she was not only a caring and compassionate nurse, but a beloved one, as well.

  She led Alex into one last room, where an elderly woman was sitting up in bed, sewing together the knitted portions of a child's indigo blue sweater. The woman's fingers were twisted from arthritis, she breathed with difficulty and there were nasal prongs in her nostrils, attached to an oxygen outlet.

  "This is a very special lady, Alex. I've saved the best for last. This is my grandma, Winifred Lawrence. Gram, this is our new doctor, Alex Ross."

  Hazel eyes, identical to Becky's own, shone intelligently from the wrinkled face. She laid down the knitting and held out a gnarled hand. "How d'ya do?"

  Alex shook it gently, noting how blue the nails were. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Lawrence."

  "Call me Winifred, it's more neighborly. Mrs. Lawrence makes me feel like the parson's wife or something." A smile came and went, again a facsimile of Becky's.

  "What are you knitting?" Alex fingered the soft wool.

  "A sweater for my granddaughter. Becky's little girl, Emily. It's almost done."

  "Emily's going to love it, Gram." Becky kissed the woman's wrinkled cheek and drew the covers up over her thin legs. She checked the oxygen mix and stroked the withered arm that protruded from the pink hospital gown. "Blue's always been Em's favorite color." Becky lowered her voice to a conspirational whisper. "I'll smuggle her in to see you this afternoon."

  When they were again in the hallway, Alex asked quietly, "What's your grandmother in for?"

  "Pneumonia, caused by her heart. Myocardial isch-emea."

  Lack of oxygen supply to the heart with consequent altered cardiac function. The prognosis wasn't great for a woman Winifred's age.

  "She's improving, but it's slow this time. She's almost seventy-seven." Becky's voice was determinedly cheerful, although Alex knew the nurse had to be aware that at her grandmother's age, there was no question of bypass surgery.

  As
if Becky had read her mind, she said softly, "It's tough when you know exactly what the odds are, isn't it?"

  Alex nodded. "It sure is. My brother had a motorcycle accident just a short while ago, and I've realized it's much more difficult to be a relative when you're in the medical field."

  "How's he making out?"

  Alex briefly outlined Wade's condition. It was a relief to be able to tell someone about her brother, particularly someone as responsive and sympathetic as Becky.

  "It must have been tough for you, leaving Vancouver just after that happened," she said, and the compassion and understanding in her voice was deeply comforting to Alex.

  At last Becky opened the door to a small staff lounge and gestured at the coffeemaker. "This is the end of the tour—you've seen the whole joint. Want a cup? It's fresh. I just made it before you got here."

  Alex checked her watch and then nodded. There were still ten minutes or so before she was due to meet Dr. King at the clinic.

  Becky rinsed out two mugs and filled them. "The hospital grapevine says you're married to our new Mountie. You have any kids, Alex?"

  "Nope, not yet. Maybe in a few years. A baby needs more time and attention than we'd be able to provide right now. I have trouble taking good care of our cat, never mind a baby."

  And a baby needs parents with a secure marriage.

  Becky nodded. "Kids are lots of work, all right. I'm lucky. Mom and Grandma have always lived with me. They care for Emily when I can't be around." She sipped her coffee and then added, "I'm a single parent." Her voice took on a bitter note. "Emily's genetic donor walked out just after she was born, never to be heard from again."

  Alex felt touched by the confidence. Before she could reply, however, the door of the coffee room opened and an older nurse walked in. She was tall and thin, ramrod straight, and every detail of her uniform was impeccable. She was even wearing a cap, the only one in the hospital to do so. From behind the tinted lenses of her designer glasses, her cool gray eyes flicked from Becky to Alex. Instantly, the atmosphere in the room changed.