The Awakening of Dr. Brown

by Kathleen Creighton

  She felt chilled…stone-cold. And more frightened than she’d ever been in her life.

  The chair paused at a doorway. Beyond a half-glass partition she could hear the quiet beeping of monitors, see a nurse moving about with efficient and soundless steps. Of the person who lay on the bed, she could see only one hand, lying stark and black as a gnarled old tree root against the pristine white. When the chair moved forward again she reached out a hand and clutched at the door frame, stopping it.

  “I can’t,” she whispered fiercely. “I can’t.”

  Ethan’s hand lay gently on her shoulder; as if she were drowning and he’d thrown her a life preserver, she grabbed at it and held on. “He’s not in any pain,” he said softly.

  Pain? But what about me? I feel like my heart’s being torn out through my throat. A sob spiked through her and emerged as a faint, desperate laugh.

  After a moment she nodded and the chair began to move, though she still clung like a child to Ethan’s hand.

  “But it’s hard, so hard to say goodbye…”

  It’s what happens between hello and goodbye that matters, baby-girl…

  “Hey, Doveman, how’re y’doin’?” Her voice sounded loud and harsh, like a sputtering chainsaw. She reached for the hand that was lying on the sheets and took it in both of hers. It felt cool and papery…almost weightless.

  His eyes opened about halfway and focused on her. “Hey, baby-girl,” he whispered. His lips curved in a smile.

  There were fewer tubes than she’d have expected, but the doc had told her what that meant. Doveman was DNR-Do Not Resuscitate. Because he had end-stage lung cancer and wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway, even if the smoke and heat from the fire hadn’t destroyed what was left of his lungs. Doveman was dying, and he hadn’t told her.

  She felt herself being buffeted about as if by cruel, freezing winds. She felt herself breaking apart inside, shattering into a million tiny pieces.

  It’s okay, baby-girl…ol’ Doveman’s got you under his wings.

  She heard herself whimper like a lost child, “Doveman, don’t go…”

  “Got to, child. It’s like I told you. It’s time…”

  “I won’t let you go!” The child was angry now, railing futilely against that over which she had no control.

  His chuckle was a soft whiskery noise, like dry leaves rustling. “These ol’ lungs been shot for years…wouldn’t a’ had much longer anyway. This is a good time to go…now I know you gonna be okay…”

  “Okay! How can you say that?” How would she ever be okay again? “What will I do without you?” She was trembling…desolate. Closing her eyes, she held his hand against her cheek and felt it grow wet with her tears. Frail and lost, she whispered, “Who’s going to sing to me when I have my nightmares?”

  For a few moments the silence in the room was broken only by the beeping of the monitor, while Doveman’s tired eyes looked past Joanna’s bowed head and straight into Ethan’s. Then, with a tremendous effort he croaked, “Can you sing, boy?”

  Ethan, knowing exactly what was being asked of him, didn’t hesitate. With a fierce and protective resolve burgeoning inside him, he nodded. “Yes, sir, I can.”

  “There, you see?” Gently withdrawing his hand from Joanna’s, he placed it on her head as if he were bestowing a blessing…then let it slide down to her shoulder, where it covered and briefly squeezed Ethan’s. “You got nothing to worry about…” His eyelids drifted closed.

  Joanna gave a little cry and clutched at his hand. Gently, as he might have touched a newborn baby, Ethan stroked her hair. He said, “He’ll sleep now…”

  “I’m not leaving him.” Her voice was hard, breaking. She looked up at Ethan with tear-silvered eyes…then took a deep breath and wiped a cheek dry before she quietly added, “I want to stay.”

  Ethan nodded, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave her. He stood beside her and gently stroked her hair while she held on to her old piano man’s hand.

  It was only later, when the line on the screen had gone flat and the beeper sang its sad one-note farewell, that she finally said it:

  “Goodbye…”

  Chapter 13

  Back in her room, Joanna sat staring at the narrow white bed, the head cranked up and the covers rumpled, just as she’d left it. Now it looked to her like the set from a TV hospital show; except for the wheelchair under her and Ethan’s hands on her shoulders, nothing seemed real. The bed was a movie prop, made of cardboard and tissue paper; it would collapse if she tried to sit on it. The window was just a painted rectangle on a cardboard wall.

  “Take me home,” she whispered.

  Ethan’s hands moved on her shoulders, massaging gently. They slipped alongside her neck, holding her in warmth and safety. The thumbs softly rubbed the edges of her jaws. And she sat rigid while peppery tears stung her nose and eyelids, filled with such sorrow…for him. He didn’t know-how could he?-that every place he touched her, meaning only tenderness and comfort, ached so savagely she could scarcely bear it.

  Leaning close to her ear, he said quietly, “There’s a pretty big crowd of reporters out there. Are you sure you feel up to it?”

  Desperately, she shook her head. “Tom and Carl could get us around them, couldn’t they?”

  He was quiet for a moment. Then… “I imagine they could. You’ll need some clothes. Wait here…”

  He left her then, taking with him all that was alive and real in her existence…as if the screen had suddenly gone blank and the sound had been turned off. She sat motionless, unaware of the passing of time, feeling nothing at all except emptiness. Thinking maybe this was what death would feel like…

  Then Ethan was there again, and when she saw him her heart gave a painful leap, as though it had been jolted back to life with a new and unfamiliar rhythm.

  “All arranged,” he said, sounding slightly out of breath. He was dressed in hospital scrubs, and held out another set for her. “Protective coloring…” His grin was crooked. “We can thank Ruthie Mendoza for these.”

  “Ruthie…?”

  “Father Frank’s sister-helps out at the clinic. She’s a nurse here. Do you think you’ll need any help putting them on?”

  Deep inside the frozen crust that encased her, she felt prickles and stirrings of…could it be jealousy? Sexual possessiveness…territorial pride? To her it was like sensation returning to numbed limbs, reassuring her that she was alive…that she would feel again.

  “I can manage,” she said, when what she really meant was, I need you…please help me…don’t go away and leave me again…

  Ethan nodded. “I’ll be right outside here.”

  He went out and quietly shut the door behind him, then leaned against it, breathing carefully, almost guiltily, as if he feared she might hear the ragged stutter of it…the runaway stampeding of his heart. He hadn’t known how much it was going to hurt, seeing her like this. He hadn’t known what it was going to be like, hurting for someone. These were new feelings, and he hadn’t learned what to do with them yet. He wondered, as he had before, if this was what it was like to love someone. And what on earth he was going to do if he’d fallen in love with Phoenix.

  Then the door opened and she stood there, shapeless in green surgical scrubs, with her signature hair hidden under a cap and her perfect oval face pale with exhaustion and smudged with smoke and grief. And he knew it wasn’t a question of if.

  “Ready,” she said breathlessly. “Which way to the gauntlet?”

  “Uh-uh-I have a secret exit,” he said, and smiled, wondering if she’d remember. But if she did, she was too preoccupied to smile back.

  As he led her down through the bowels of the hospital, through echoing concrete stairwells and corridors where pipes ran along the ceiling and the air was thick with formaldehyde, he thought about that time, the first day he’d met her. Thought about what a short time ago it had been, and how much things had changed since then. One thing, though, remained the same-he still felt compl
etely out of his league…in over his head. What, he wondered, does a man do when the woman he loves has been dealt a killing blow?

  In the basement, in the secret place where the coroner’s vans parked when they came to pick up bodies, the dark sedan waited, quietly idling. Tom Applegate held the door for them, then got into the front seat. Carl Friedenburg’s eyes met Ethan’s in the rearview mirror.

  “Where to, sir?”

  Before he could say anything, Joanna’s hand clutched at his arm, desperation in her grip. “Take me home with you,” she said in a raspy, panicky undertone. “I can’t go back there-to the loft-not tonight. I don’t want to be alone…”

  He nodded. There was a vast lump in his throat. To Carl he said quietly, “Just take us home.”

  Phoenix sat hunched and withdrawn as the car rolled through silent early morning streets, still glistening from the previous evening’s rain. Ethan didn’t even try to talk to her; he had no idea what to say. He’d never felt more helpless, more frustrated in his life. He felt she needed him-knew that she needed him, and that he was failing her miserably. He was a doctor, for God’s sake. He’d been trained to heal people. But no one had taught him how to heal a broken heart.

  Secure inside his own apartment building, he said good-night to Tom and Carl and climbed the stairs with Phoenix beside him. He kept one hand deferentially on her elbow, exactly the same way he’d have touched his sister, or Dixie, if they’d come to pay him a visit. But never for his sister or stepmother would his heart have pounded so, or frustration sizzle like acid below his breastbone. Never for them or anyone else had he felt jangled and jerky like this, as if there were a loose connection somewhere between his nerves and muscles.

  He closed and locked his apartment door, shutting them in together, then turned, pulling off his surgical cap. “Are you hungry?” he asked. He could heard his jaws creak with tension.

  She shook her head, and he was utterly at a loss-until he saw that she was shivering. This, at last-a physical symptom-was something he knew how to deal with.

  “How about a shower?” he suggested gently, and was pleased beyond measure when she whispered, “Thanks…that’d be nice.”

  “I’ll see if I can find you something to put on. Would sweats be okay?” He had quite a few of those-probably even some that were clean.

  Again he was delighted with her murmured acquiescence. He led her into his bedroom, grateful for the embarrassment he’d suffered the last time he’d brought her here, which had prompted him to tidy up some-he’d even, praise God, made his bed. She stood silently while he collected clean sweats from a drawer and towels from his closet, nodded when he showed her where the shampoo was, if she wanted it. He felt positively masterful when he found her a new, unopened toothbrush. It was a feeling that lasted exactly as long as it took him to say, “Well…if you need anything else, let me know,” and walk out of the bathroom and close the door.

  Then he knew with absolute certainty that he hadn’t given her anything even close to what she needed.

  He hovered nervously until he heard the water running in the shower, then for something to do, went out to the kitchen and filled a tea kettle with water and put it on the stove. Hot cocoa, he thought-or maybe herbal tea. That would be better this time of night than coffee.

  While he waited for the water to boil, he puttered around in the living room…debated putting on music and decided against it. Changed out of his borrowed scrubs and put on sweats and a T-shirt instead. The tea kettle whistle rose to a crescendo and as he went to turn off the stove, he checked the time on the stove top clock. Fifteen minutes. She’d been in there fifteen minutes. And he could still hear the shower running. He wouldn’t have thought he had that much hot water.

  Heart pounding, he went into the bedroom. The only sound from the bathroom was the steady shushing of water hitting tile. Leaning close to the door, he called, “Joanna? Everything all right in there?”

  There was no answer. But now he could hear something else-a very small sound, like a bird…or a kitten. His heart shot into his throat. He knocked, then called again, “Joanna-you okay?” He pounded on the door. Tried the knob. Found it unlocked. “Joanna? I’m coming in…”

  The air in the bathroom was cool and wet, like a jungle in the rain. The fog that had collected on the mirror and shower door was already condensing, beginning to run in little rivers down the glass. Through the dimpled door glass he could see a small shape, darker than the tile…

  “Oh, God-” He felt as though the top of his head was coming off. As if he could plunge through walls. Wrenching open the shower door, he fumbled with the faucets, shutting off the water.

  She was huddled on the floor in the far corner of the shower, knees pulled up to her chin, hands covering her face, her hair streaming over her and plastered to her body like seaweed…sobbing…brokenly, heartrendingly, like a child.

  A strange quietness came over Ethan then…a new kind of quietness that was altogether different from his old retreat to a place of peaceful solitude. There was nothing solitary about this quietness, but there was peace. The sweet and tender peace that comes with confidence…with certainty…with knowing at last exactly what it was she needed. And with knowing at last that, of all the people in the world, he was the one who could give it to her.

  He took a towel from the stack he’d given her, shook it out and stepped into the still-dripping shower. Crouching beside her, he wrapped the towel around her. Then he lifted her tenderly into his arms and carried her to his bed. And all the while he was murmuring to her, crooning soft reassurances as if she were a frightened or injured animal.

  His gentle voice…words she didn’t really understand…seeped into her tormented mind and spread like oil. His arms felt warm and sturdy around her…she liked the strong, reassuring thump of his heartbeat against her cheek. She liked the way he smelled. And, oh, he felt good…so good. Now, everywhere he touched her, that part of her seemed to hurt a little less.

  Sodden on the outside, inside her head-her throat, her eye sockets-felt hot and dry. She was tired of crying. She didn’t want to cry anymore. But every time she thought of anything-anything at all-and even now she could feel fresh shudders building-she started all over again.

  “Hold me,” she whispered fiercely, gathering handfuls of his sweatshirt into her fists.

  “I will,” he promised, rocking her tenderly. “I am.”

  But it wasn’t his gentleness she wanted now. She wanted oblivion, craved it like some powerful, mind-numbing drug. Pulling herself up in his embrace, she pressed her damp face into the curve of his neck, opened her mouth and tasted his salty-sweet skin. She shivered at the tickle of his beard on her cheek. Grew hot inside at his thundering heartbeat, the soft intake of his breath. Her fingertips found his beard…played in its softness…then moved on to his lips, stroked them lightly, teasingly, sensitizing them…preparing them for hers.

  Hot all over inside, she heard his intake of breath become a growl, and then her name. “Joanna…”

  He knew what was happening, of course he did. Knew that what she was doing was filling a fundamental human need, obeying an instinct as old as time-attempting to vanquish death by creating new life. And he had no thought at all of denying her. Sometime later, he thought he might feel ashamed of himself, but just then it seemed to him the only possible thing to do. That was his last rational thought before her lips touched his.

  A moment later he knew how desperately he’d been craving the taste of her. He knew she must have been in his dreams, when he’d woken up itchy and feverish and swollen with unfulfilled desire. Knew she’d been just behind his thoughts every waking moment, like a sprite playing peekaboo, playing havoc with his concentration, popping up unexpectedly to give him a breath-stopping vision of her lush, sensual mouth, lips curved in a sardonic smile…

  So, he opened to her…felt her lift herself and with one hungry surge, come inside him. She wanted the lead and he gave it to her with all the generosity of
spirit that was his nature, holding nothing back. His breath scalded his throat; groans that formed deep in his belly somehow fought their way through his chest to mingle with her tigerish little growls. Desire exploded inside him and scattered sparks through all his muscles. His skin ignited.

  The towel fell away, forgotten. His hand found and filled itself with her breast…but at the first brush of his fingers on her cold-tightened nipple she gasped…first arched against him, pushing into his hand…then tore her mouth from his and instead pulled his head down, her fingers weaving themselves though his hair as she lifted herself to meet him.

  The sound she made when he lowered his mouth over the jewel-hard tip was heart-wrenching-a whimper, sharp and bright as crystal breaking. Hearing it, love and passion came together inside him for the first time in memory, forming a tenderness so intense and so vast it filled every corner of his being, and his throat and eyes with tears. Quaking inside, he held himself still…save for his tongue, which gently…so gently laved her nipple to melting softness. And for his hand…which, usurped, went searching, skimmed down the sensitive sides of her waist, her hip, the gentle concavity of her stomach, to find the nest of damp curls between her thighs. Lightly, he rubbed her legs with long, easing strokes until she opened to him…then brushed the silky insides of her thighs with his fingertips…nested the damp mound at their apex in his palm.

  At first, as before, she gasped and pushed into his hand, hungry…demanding…shivering in anticipation. Then, as before, she twisted away from him with an inarticulate little cry. Her hands clutched at his shoulders with an urgency he heard a moment later in her hoarse and guttural “No!”

  Before the meaning of that could penetrate the delirium of his thoughts, it came to him that she was tearing frantically at his T-shirt, trying to pull it over his head while at the same time pushing on him, bearing him down. Understanding came. Laughing softly, he drew off his shirt in one swift motion and lay back on the bed, drawing her with him.