Could I Have This Dance? (56 page)

“So you slashed his neck?”

He looked up. “Yep. But not until after the EMS crew arrived and couldn’t get the oral airway in. I thought he was a dead man. I knew it was his only chance, so I just went for it.” He smiled. “To tell you the truth, I was pumped, major. I had no idea this was your brother, understand?”

“I understand. I would have been pumped, too.” She paused. “Everyone’s talking about it. You’re a hero.”

He looked away. “I’m no hero.”

“You should hear what Dr. Rogers said about you.”

“Well?”

“He told me you were a great resident. He even said that the fact that you stopped to help a stranger says a lot about what kind of surgeon you’ll be.”

“Rogers said that?”

She held her right hand up palm forward. “I wouldn’t lie about something like this. It’s a clear indication that he has plans for you in this program.”

“You’re serious?”

“Of course.”

“Tom Rogers, our chairman?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Brett. You saved my brother’s life.”

“Why didn’t you tell me last night that you had family in town?”

“He was waiting for me when I got home. I didn’t know he was coming.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

She sighed. “It’s too early to tell.”

He shook his head.

“Brett, it’s okay to smile. You did something great.”

“There is nothing great about this.” Brett turned his face to the wall.

“Look, I know this is horrible, but this might be the break you needed for Rogers to recognize what a special guy you are.” She placed her hand on his shoulder, nudging him to turn to her.

His expression remained flat, serious.

“Claire, I’m so sorry about all this. I—”

She put a finger on his lips. “Don’t, Brett. I know you tried. You gave my brother a chance.”

His eyes locked with hers. This time he didn’t look away. Claire didn’t flinch. In a moment, she was aware of her desire to fall into his arms, to find comfort and pleasure.

Her head began to swim, as her emotions collided in a collage of contrasts. She was hurting over her brother’s accident, yet horrified that she could be capable of pushing that so quickly aside and feeling a desire for Brett. She was thankful, sad, and tempted, all at one time.

She closed her eyes. The darkness did little to settle her turmoil. She leaned forward and kissed Brett’s forehead, resisting the urge to do more.

Brett, normally unrestrained in his responses, remained unmoving.

She let her fingers drift from his face and turned to the door. “I’d better go.”

After rounds, Claire sat at Clay’s bedside and watched his cardiac monitor. He was comatose, with his head shaved and a long staple line running in an arc from in front of his left ear to the top of his scalp. His lips were crusted with blood and his tongue protruded from a mouth no longer capable of containing the swollen meat. His eyes were taped for protection. The man in the bed looked nothing like her twin. His identity was lost, suspended in a spaghetti tangle of tubes exiting his scalp, nose, neck, and chest.

She looked over his bedside chart and asked the nurse to call her if he changed. Then she responded to her beeper and trudged to the emergency room.

There, she carefully repaired a lip laceration on a fourteen-year-old girl who’d fallen during a cheerleading stunt. The girl’s mother had insisted that they call in someone from plastic surgery. The second-year surgery resident on trauma obliged the worried parent and called Claire, who had less experience than the second-year resident, but because she was on the plastic surgery team, the mother was happy.

The second-year resident was happy to be relieved of the job. And Claire was happy to get the experience.

Abby Sanderly, an ER nurse, interrupted as Claire was putting in the final stitch. “A man is looking for you.”

Claire looked up. “Me?” Her mind flashed back to Roger Jones tracking her down in the same location.

Abby pointed across the chaos of the ER. “Over by the waiting room chairs. In the wheelchair with a gorgeous escort.”

With suspicion and curiosity, Claire walked slowly toward the waiting area.

“Claire!” Della lunged forward from behind the Pepsi machine.

Claire gasped and hugged her mother. “You startled me.” Her eyes immediately fell to the wheelchair beside her. Wally looked up with an intoxicated grin.

“Hi, Claire.”

“D—Daddy!” She hadn’t even considered the possibility that Della would bring him along. He sat in a wheelchair with the assistance of a large Velcro strap across his chest, which anchored his trunk but did little to stop the continuous movement of his arms, legs, and head. Claire froze for a moment as she studied him. The months since a diagnosis of HD had not been kind.

Claire glanced back toward the ER. Everyone was working, apparently oblivious to her new guests. She spoke in a quiet voice. “Have you seen Clay?”

Della put her hands on her hips. “The lady at the front desk said there were no visiting hours for the ICU patients.”

“That’s true, there aren’t really visiting hours per se, but family members are allowed back in small numbers.” She looked at the hallway leading past the ER. “Come on, I can take you.” She took charge of her father’s wheelchair and skirted up a side hallway to a lone elevator used for patient transport. On the second floor, they headed back toward ICU.

As they neared the entrance, Beatrice Hayes greeted Claire, who was trying to stare straight ahead and ignore anyone who might know her. “Here we are again, eh, Claire? Where’s a medical student when you need one, huh?”

She thinks I’m transporting a patient!
“Huh? Oh, right.” She pushed her father on by and into the ICU. There, at the nurses’ station, with his characteristic silver hair, sat Dr. Tom Rogers, his back to Claire and the entrance to the ICU. She pushed her father into Clay’s cubicle and pulled the curtain. Clay’s nurse was attending his vital signs. His body appeared lifeless, except for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and the eerie sound of the ventilator.

Immediately Della dissolved into tears, her hand clutching at the neck of her blouse.

Claire coaxed her forward. “It’s okay to touch him, Mom.” Claire leaned over Clay. “Clay, Mom and Dad are here.” She looked at her mom, whose face was etched with anxiety. “He can’t answer you now, but you can let him know you’re here.”

Wally stayed in the wheelchair, and Claire pushed him forward so he could reach his son. After two attempts, Wally clasped Clay’s hand and cried, “Save him, God.”

The scene was both pitiful and overwhelming. A distant father, racked with sobs over years lost to alcohol, begging for God to give him one last chance.

Della was a wet statue, crying, unmoving, her eyes frozen on the image of the one who bore little resemblance to her son.

Wally’s hand was still for a few moments before jerking away. His chorea wouldn’t let him rest. His head bobbed and his legs pulled against the restraints. Claire watched him from the corner of the room. How much had his Huntington’s disease been responsible for his explosive temper, his need to find a respite in the bottle? She lowered her head. Embarrassment, anger, and pity filled her heart. Silently, she slipped from the room.

She wanted to talk to Dr. Rogers away from her family, hoping that if she talked to him at the center unit console, he wouldn’t feel compelled to visit with her in Clay’s room. She was sure he’d hear of her father’s HD because of Ramsey Plank’s investigation into her life, but hearing of HD and seeing her father were different items altogether. It was hard enough for Claire to see her family like this. She didn’t want to color Dr. Rogers’ opinion of her by letting him experience the McCall clan firsthand at their worst.

She approached Dr. Rogers quietly. He looked up from the chart he was examining. “Hi, Claire.”

“Hi, Dr. Rogers.”

“How’s your brother?”

“He’s stable for the moment. It’ll take a few days before we know.”

He nodded slowly. “Look, Claire, I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure, what with the upcoming trial, all your intern work, and now this. If you need some time away, I—”

“I’m fine, sir. There’s no need to lighten my load. I can stop and see my brother during the day while I work. I’m not the type to want to sit around.”

He seemed to be studying her face while he chewed the inside of his cheek. “You’re not invincible, Claire. Surgeons have difficulty understanding that.”

She watched as he returned to examining the chart in front of him. Claire didn’t know how to respond. She’d thought that Dr. Rogers would be pleased with her ability to continue in the face of extraordinary adversity. Instead, she felt rebuked. She wanted to crawl away. “Of course,” she mumbled.

Claire backed away and returned to Clay’s cubicle. She pulled the curtain to see Wally’s hand on Della’s back as she leaned forward. “Oh, Clay,” she cried. “You didn’t need to do this, honey. I’m so sorry. I should have
told you.” She lowered her face to his and whispered something in his ear before turning back to face Claire. She pressed her hand to her mouth.

“Mom, it’s—”

Della looked at Claire. “I have to know. Was he drinking?”

“He was sober, Mom. They tested his blood for alcohol. He was clean.”

“Did the police think it was a suicide attempt?”

Claire shook her head. “They said it looked like Clay just fell asleep at the wheel.”

“That’s what he wanted it to look like.” Her mother sniffed loudly. “He was so upset about his future. He shouldn’t have done this. I could have stopped him.” She dropped her eyes to the floor.

“Mom, you couldn’t have—”

Della brushed past, crying into her hands. “I should have told him the truth.”

Wally’s glassy stare disappeared momentarily as he focused on his wife. “Della!”

Claire watched as her mother fled from the unit. She turned and tried to read her father, but his HD gripped his face again. His head weaved, and his face was an expressionless mask. If anything, Wally appeared as confused as Claire felt.

They waited a few moments together, father and daughter adrift in a haze of high-tech gadgetry. Claire’s mind whirled between her conversation with Dr. Rogers, her shame of her family, and her confusion over her mother’s remorse.

She touched her father’s shoulder. “Would you like to stay longer?”

“No.” He struggled with a Velcro strap. “Let me out of this chair. I want, I want, I want to find Della.”

Claire grabbed the handles on the back of the wheelchair. “I’ll push you, Dad. It will be faster that way.”

She wheeled him away, dodging a steel cafeteria cart, and nearly colliding with a nurse pushing an EKG machine. She punched the wall switch to activate the automatic doors and dared not glance back to see if Dr. Rogers was watching.

Celia Jones plunged another greasy plate into the sudsy water. She really didn’t mind doing the supper dishes by hand, although Roger had been promising to buy a dishwasher for more than two years. She tilted her head toward the den where ESPN blared. She walked to the entrance of the den,
drying her hands on a paper towel, and frowned at the sight of Roger passed out on the couch with six empty beer cans stacked in a neat pyramid on the floor beside him.

She was just starting to think about nudging him when the phone rang. She muted the TV and picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“Celia! Ramsey Plank here.” His voice was soothing. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything by calling you at home.”

“Of course not.”

“Listen, could I talk to Roger, or could you give a message to Roger for me?

She looked over at the log on the couch. “I’ll give him a message.”

“Franklin Peters, Dr. McCall’s attorney, called. It seems that Dr. McCall has notified him again today, making claims that she is being bothered by your husband.”

“Roger wouldn’t—”

“Just hear me out, Celia. She claims that he followed her in his car last night, that she had to race back to the hospital just to get away from him.”

“That’s ridiculous. We saw her in the church parking lot and—”

“Church, huh? Oh, well, spare me the details, would you? Mr. Peters is trying to focus the attention away from where it belongs, you understand? His client is a bad doctor, and he’s trying anything he can to get the attention off the truth. And that’s why he brought up all of that smoke about someone threatening his client during the deposition.”

She looked at her husband as she listened to Ramsey. Roger had been awfully moody since Sierra’s death. Sure he had blown off steam that day in the ER, but Roger wasn’t the type that would try to get even. Or was he? “So you think Mr. Peters just made up that stuff about the phone calls?”

“Of course. He just wants you to feel sorry for his client and take the attention off of her mistake.” He paused, and Celia could hear the chink of ice falling in a glass. “But listen, I don’t want to hear about any contact between your husband and Dr. McCall. I can understand him being upset, but, just between us, if Roger threatens her, and Franklin can prove it, it will make us look pretty silly. So please watch him. We are very close to victory in this case. I think Franklin is running scared, and I don’t want anything to mess up my—uh—our chances for a big win.”

“I don’t care about the money, Mr. Plank.”

“I know you don’t, Mrs. Jones. But you remember the concern you expressed on the first day you came to my office? You wanted to protect the public from this resident, to be sure others won’t have to suffer at her hands.” He cleared his throat. “Well, believe me, you won’t have to worry about that when we’re done. The university will rue the day they hired
her.” He chuckled, then his voice became serious again. “So tell Roger to lay low, you hear? I don’t want anything getting in the way of our victory.”

“But he’s no threat to anyone. He just had a little too much to drink. He don’t mean any harm.”

“Keep a lid on him, Mrs. Jones. And remember why we need to do this. It’s for the community. Legal action like this is a civic duty. It helps keep our hospitals safe for all of us.”

She looked out the back door to an empty tire swing and sighed. “I remember, Mr. Plank. I remember.”