by Barbara Ebel
He stared up at the ceiling, faint moonshine seeping through the blinds and the light dinner he’d had seemed lodged in his throat. Julia had become a beacon of light in his life and he could not bear to think about losing her.
“Are you still awake?” Sara asked while turning towards him.
“I can’t sleep … at all.”
“Your dad used to say sleep is like a cat. Ignore it and it will come.”
“Good old Dad. Glad he’s not here right now to know what’s going on with my daughter.”
“Good night, Danny.”
“Good night, Sara. Thanks for coming with me today. I love you.”
Chapter 30
As Danny waited to see his first patient, he read over the medical paper he and Vance had completed. It had just come back from the medical editor and the upgrade made a smooth difference.
His nurse walked in and he handed it to her. “Ask them at the front desk to get this in the mail today,” he said. “They already have the cover letter.”
As Cheryl reached for it, Jeffrey and Matthew came in and Bruce tagged behind them.
“Nice to see you, Bruce,” Danny said. “The few times you’ve been here recently, we’ve missed each other.”
“Your staff booked me a half day today as your schedules are booked solid.”
“I’m certainly glad they oversee all of that,” Danny said. “I realize we run smoothly because of them.” He smiled at Cheryl who still stood there with the medical paper.
Matthew’s eyes darted back and forth from Danny to Jeffrey. His long brown hair rested on the nape of his neck and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other like he was at a marathon’s starting line. Jeffrey’s hand rested near his chiseled facial features while he did a poor job of suppressing a grin.
“What?” Danny asked. “I give up … what are you all standing there for?”
“The three of us have nominated you,” Jeffrey said.
“Nominated me for what?”
“The Tennessee Medical Society’s Physician of the Year.”
“Why did you go and do that?”
“Humility is one of your strong points,” Bruce chimed in. “The way you have handled milestone cases in the last few years and your contribution to medicine in Tennessee and elsewhere makes you an excellent candidate.”
“We think that for you,” Matthew said, “it should be more than ‘Physician of the Year.’ It should be an award for the physician of the decade. There’s nothing like that, so we’ve only put your name in for this year.”
Danny shook his head and stood up. “There are plenty of doctors more deserving than I am. The three of you are certifiably crazy.”
“Then don’t worry about it,” Jeffrey said, flicking his one long earring. “Just because we’ve put in a proposal, doesn’t mean you’re going to get it.”
He left to go see patients, Bruce followed him, and Matthew tipped his head before rushing over to the hospital for surgeries.
“What?” Danny asked Cheryl. “Did you know what they were doing?”
“I just work here,” she said, feigning ignorance. She left on her errand and, with a bemused grin, Danny enjoyed his Norman Rockwell print for just a moment before seeing his first patient of the day.
-----
Rachel and Kevin stood side by side. She had his instruments ready for the next case while an orderly went to get their next patient. Between cases, they had both inherited Robert’s obsession with crossword puzzles. Rachel brought them in every day; she’d even bought a book full of them. The best reason to do them, she knew, was to spend time together and enamor him more and more. And besides the sex and the dates, it was working.
She untied her scrubs, pulled the strings tighter, and made a bow.
“If we were at your place, I could have tightened those for you,” he whispered.
She pinched his side. “Tightened them? I hope not. Loosening them and slipping them off me - one leg at a time - would be more like it.” Leaning over the counter on her elbow, she pursed her lips at him.
“So leave them on and I’ll come over after work and do just that.”
“Kevin Mcbride, you’re a very accommodating man. I’m so glad I met you.” And I didn’t think you’d be this easy, she thought.
“I’m lucky for the timing, too,” he said. “And I can’t believe the coincidence that we’ll both be heading west soon.”
“Yes. And who knows?”
“Who knows what?”
“Well, we should look each other up,” she said, tilting her head down as if she was blushing. “But never mind.” She straightened and peered closely at the puzzle, pencil in hand. “I can’t figure this one out at all. What on earth is another word for ‘and’?”
“What does it say?”
“It says ‘a word used for the word and.’”
“That’s crazy. That has to be the most used word in the English dictionary and I can’t recall ever seeing a substitute.”
They heard the metal noise of a stretcher entering the adjoining OR and the chitchat between the patient, the orderly, and the anesthesiologist. Kevin went outside first while Rachel opened a drawer and pulled out her handbag. After rummaging around, she pulled out a dictionary and even a thesaurus. She had no luck with the latter but liked what she found in the Merriam-Webster. She shoved them back in her bag and penciled in a nine-letter word which fit perfectly.
Kevin stepped back in after a short discussion with the patient as Rachel began to walk out to confirm the patient’s name, operative procedure, and to assist the anesthesiologist.
“That was a tough one,” she said.
“You figured it out?”
She nodded. “Ampersand.”
He furrowed his brow. “Never heard of it. And by the way, we should do more.”
“Do more of what?”
“Do more than just look each other up when we move out west.”
-----
Casey pulled his car into the garage after working an early shift and went to the mailbox as he contemplated going to the gym. It was stuffed as no one had taken the trouble to check it. He grabbed the pile and thumbed through it as he went in the house, seeing a large envelope for Danny from Mark Cunningham.
Swallowing hard, Casey contemplated calling Danny. If he did, his friend would know that the final determination of Julia’s custody would be awaiting him when he got home. He couldn’t judge what news the packet contained for, unlike his friend, he had less of a feel for family court decisions than Danny did. However, as an observer in the courtroom weeks before, he thought the situation looked grave.
He paced the kitchen floor and finally decided to call. Knowing ahead of time, Casey thought perhaps the call would soften Danny’s blow if it turned out to be bad news.
After a few minutes, Cheryl put Danny on the phone.
“Danny, it’s Casey. I just want to give you a heads up that there’s a large envelope for you from Mark Cunningham.” He stopped pacing. “You there?”
“Uh … yeah,” Danny said. “Thanks. Thanks for letting me know. See ya later.”
Casey wondered if he had made the right decision but then brushed the uncertainty aside. What was in the envelope is what mattered.
-----
With a heavy heart, Danny opened the car door and started the ignition. He drove slowly at first, headed for home, but found himself circling blocks in the thick downtown area. Not only were the streets thick with 6:00 p.m. traffic but they were busy because of the early evening tourists and the bars, restaurants, and country music venues filling up. The earlier crowd confiscated the best seats for viewing live bands.
Danny veered his Lexus into the parking garage, walked to the street and began dodging pedestrians, especially the ones holding hands and blocking other people from passing. The river path was several blocks down and he fooled himself into thinking he would go over there to take a stroll.
Several establishments he passed had catchy s
culptures in front of their doors; one even had a good Elvis impersonation and a man took a picture of his girlfriend giving the statue a kiss.
Danny kept going. On the corner of the next street he stopped and looked past the hired man at the door. The lights were dim inside but he could see a stage with musicians, tables for eating and a large room in the front with a circular bar. The man nodded at him and stepped to the side. Danny certainly qualified as over eighteen and didn’t look to be a troublemaker.
He walked into the room - the floor, the bar and the ceiling all made out of wood – and pulled up a stool and sat in front of the bartender. Past the room which was half-full of people eating from baskets of food, a country band tried to excite the early crowd with quick guitar strumming and lyrics about kissing a farm girl in the back of a pick-up truck.
The bartender put a napkin on the counter in front of Danny. “What’ll it be?” he asked.
“How about a Tennessee-crafted beer?”
“A Calfkiller Brewery beer is what you want. Their classic,” the thirty-something bartender said.
Danny sipped the drink, thinking it didn’t matter if he stopped off here because the paperwork he had to open at home wasn’t going anywhere. And what difference did it make if he ripped it open anyway? He hadn’t received a phone call from Cunningham announcing some kind of victory for Julia to continue with the present arrangement.
After the beer went down like a liquid slider, the attentive bartender placed another one down and also slid a bowl of seasoned popcorn over to him.
Danny knew this was it; the final straw. By some miracle, he’d had more time with Julia than he’d ever dreamt possible and had come to love her like his other girls. Oh, how he loved her; her beautiful eyes, her zesty spirit, her fast little-girl steps. She didn’t even qualify as a toddler anymore.
The man behind the bar raised his eyebrows at him. “Like the choice? Want to try a different flavor?”
“Tell you what,” Danny said. “I’ll continue to support our own state. I’ll take a Tennessee whiskey.”
“Coming right up,” he said. In a few minutes, he placed down another new glass. “Here’s a Jack for ‘ya.”
As the bar and the restaurant area began filling to capacity, Danny held onto saving his spot at the bar like a kid hoarding his seat in the back of the classroom away from the teacher. Meanwhile, the lyrics up front had changed to a country dude stripping his clothes off on a riverbank with the sheriff’s daughter.
Swirling around the whiskey, Danny didn’t know how many he’d had; all he knew and cared about at the moment was Julia. The situation wouldn’t be this way if it weren’t for the poor girl’s necromancer of a mother. But he blew off Rachel in his mind. She wasn’t even worthy of his thoughts. Julia was. His precious Julia. How could he bear to lose her? God, you’re being mean, he thought. I already lost Melissa and Sara had a miscarriage. Please, not another one, even if it’s by a different way.
He didn’t stop drinking and the bartender wasn’t counting either. In another two hours, after coming out of the men’s restroom, he sat on the bench in the hallway and dialed Casey’s number.
“Danny, where are you? I know you’re not on call and office hours are way over.”
“Casey, can … can you come get me? I can’t drive.”
Chapter 31
By the time Casey pulled into the garage at home, he had decided what he would do with Danny. Mary didn’t know about her brother’s night of excess drinking and would be sleeping. Sara was aware of the details, but not the girls. Casey wanted it to stay that way and told Sara he’d keep Danny upstairs and put him to bed on their couch.
Using all his upper body strength, Casey wrapped a grip around Danny’s chest and maneuvered him out of the front passenger seat. He held up his friend and supported his every stumbling step into his part of the house. When they got in front of the couch, Casey lowered him, took his shoes off and fluffed a pillow on one end. Danny went supine without much help as Casey straightened out his legs.
"Bad, isn’t it?” Danny mumbled.
Casey sat on the edge of the table. “What, the judge’s decision?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to open it and read it?”
“Yeah.”
Casey went to the counter, ripped open the envelope, and read Mark’s cover letter. He skimmed over the thick court document and scowled. From the custody decision to the financial aspects of hefty child support to paying Rachel’s legal bills, it was all really bad news and he muttered an expletive against Rachel.
Back at the couch, he sat down again and leaned over to Danny. “You’re right, buddy. But get some sleep.”
Danny’s face crumpled as he closed his eyes, hoping to sink further into an alcoholic stupor where he didn’t have to think about it.
-----
Danny put on a new white lab coat with his name embroidered in a different color. The thick red thread was a lot cleaner and readable than the medium blue that the group had been using. He had a brighter outlook lately after he’d finally dealt with and accepted the court’s ruling. And he was glad he headed his group and was making good business decisions, especially since Julia would be leaving his household to live out-of-town with her mother.
Cheryl pulled at her ponytail and motioned Danny into an examining room.
“It’s been weeks,” Danny said to David and his mother when he walked in. The youth looked summery wearing cargo shorts and a navy T-shirt with a sport’s logo. And, for the first time during their visits, Tara greeted him with a large, genuine smile.
Danny shook David’s hand and patted Tara on the shoulder; Cheryl stayed by the door. “Fill me in,” Danny said. He laughed and added, “By now, you know the routine.”
The whole time David carried on about still not having any seizures, Danny could feel his own tranquil heartbeat and felt assured that the young man’s troubles from his head traumas were over.
David finished his long update and added, “And by next year, Dr. Tilson, I’m going to be playing a little recreational basketball again with friends … thanks to you.”
“You are not going to be afraid to go back out on the court?”
“No, I don’t think so. But I sure wish it was the norm for players to wear some kind of a light helmet. Some device that doesn’t look dorky but gives some protection.”
“Yes,” Danny said, “some protection would be better than none.”
When the appointment ended, Tara gave Danny a big hug. “We can’t thank you enough,” she said.
“No problem,” Danny beamed.
“And tell Annabel I said hello,” David said with a smile.
Cheryl encouraged Danny to go straight to the kitchen when they were finished. Inside, Matthew swung his foot over his knee and Jeffrey pressed a letter into Danny’s hand.
“Hurry up and open it,” Jeffrey said. “We’re dying to know.”
Danny looked suspiciously at them and then glanced at the return address from the Tennessee Medical Society. He supposed it had something to do with their nominating him for that award they were so keen on him receiving. The envelope was thin, probably indicating they sent him their regrets, that another doctor deserved the award.
Peeling open the envelope, he pulled out the paper.
Dear Dr. Tilson,
We are pleased to announce that you have been selected The Physician of the Year. This award embodies excellence in medicine and your accomplishments in the field of medicine and neurosurgery are extraordinary. With your history, you have not only served Tennessee, the United States and the world with outstanding investigative work, research, and patient care this year, but several years in a row.
He stopped reading and handed Jeffrey the letter. “Are you happy now?” he asked.
Then he chuckled, gave them both an emotional ‘thanks,’ and said, “I guess we’ll all be going to a black-tie event.”
-----
The day he dreaded had
arrived. With Dakota by his side, Danny went into Julia’s room and helped her get dressed into purple shorts and a dinosaur T-shirt. He gave her a hug knowing it might be the last time doing so while she was this young and while she was in his house. With a small gesture, she returned the hug, turned and darted out the room. She ignored Dakota who followed her like the faithful companion he was and Danny held back breaking into tears.
He opened the back door and walked out into a foggy Saturday morning where Dakota relieved himself, Danny stretched, and Julia picked flower petals off a bush. Soon Rachel would be over to take Julia and, at this point, he felt he had exhausted all possible parting words with his daughter. How many more times could he tell her he loved her and how many more times could he tell her he’d miss her? Besides, he thought, she is so little … she won’t remember him telling her anyway.
The next hour dragged on like a funeral procession as Sara, Annabel and Nancy watched Danny check and recheck Julia’s duffel bag which would accompany her. Twice he picked her up and held her in his lap only to have her squirm and jump down. Once Dakota came over and sniffed her pink and white tennis sneakers and she pleasantly yelled out “Da-Ka.”
A knock came from the upstairs door, then Casey yelled down. “Danny, Rachel’s outside.”
“We’re coming,” Sara said.
With long faces, Annabel and Nancy went up; Sara picked up the bag and followed them. Danny picked up his daughter for the last time. “Come on, Dakota,” he said.
They proceeded up the steps and, at the top, Mary held a soggy tissue in her hand. They had shielded her from the disappointing custody news for quite some time but there had been no way to keep it secret the last two weeks.
Annabel took Julia from Danny’s arms. “Bye, little sister. I hope I see you soon.” Nancy stood close and gave Julia a kiss on her cheek. “Me, too. We love you,” she said.
Sara extended her arms, took Julia, and squeezed her like a stuffed animal. “You be a good girl. Remember us because we’re going to remember you every day.” Mary hung onto her sister-in-law’s arm and wrapped her free arm around both of them, kissing Julia’s hand.