to be WAITING ON A MAN. But waiting I was.
Never before had I been like this with Nick. Ever since we’d met, he’d been the one doing the pursuing, playing the traditional guy role.
Even the way he’d asked me out had been traditional…in an untraditional, totally Nick way. He’d left a note inside the double doors, so that the first time I went to watch TV—andhe’d installed it on a Thursday, knowing full well I was impatient for an ER fix—I’d find an invitation to meet him for dinner. At his place, where he’d had wine and burgers on the grill, about the only meal Nick ever mastered.
That night, he’d been waiting on me. And now, the tables had been turned.
I paced, the phone cold and heavy in my hand.
A doctor who barely looked old enough to have passed his boards poked his head into my mother’s room. “Miss Delaney?”
I left the uncomfortable vinyl armchair and crossed to the door. Ma had fallen asleep a few minutes earlier, so I shut the door most of the way and stepped into the hallway to meet the doctor. Paul Barton, M.D. scrolled across his breast pocket in dark maroon script. It seemed a trustworthy name. Had he graduated at the top of his class? Or at least somewhere in the upper ten percent? Did he have a degree from a medical college not located in a third world country?
Too bad there was no non-rude way to ask for a peek at his MCAT scores.
“I get the impression your mother is a bit…” His voice trailed off and his cheeks brightened.
“You don’t have to be polite. She’s as stubborn as crabgrass. She knows it, and so do I.”
He chuckled. “Then it’s a good thing she signed a HIPAA form allowing you to be included in her current medical decisions.”
“She did?”
Paul Barton, M.D., nodded. “We advise our patients to do that, in case they’re incapacitated. It’s good to have a family member on board, just in case.”
“She’s not incapacitated now.”
He gave me a lopsided grin. He was cute, in that young, fresh-out-of-med-school way, complete with a dark lock of hair across his forehead and a gee-whiz boyish smile. I refrained again from asking where he’d completed his residency—and whether he’d killed anyone in the process.
“Well…she’s asleep. Close enough for me. I simply want to make sure she doesn’t end up back in a hospital again. I’ve talked with her and she’s bound and determined to make this road trip, even though I advised against it. Vehemently, I might add.”
I bit back a laugh. My mother had undoubtedly had the poor young M.D. quaking in his lab coat. “And you want me to enforce your directions?”
He sobered, and again Mr. Dread knocked on my heart. “You have to.”
“But I thought it was just a bad cut, and she was bleeding heavy from the Coumadin and…” My voice trailed off. I took in the seriousness in his eyes, the way he pinched his lips together, gathering his words, reinforcements for his argument.
Preparing to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.
“Your mother is very sick. Right now, the most pressing concern,” he said, leaving me to wonder for a flicker, if there was something else, because he looked away, then back, but went on and I forgot about it because my attention became riveted on the next few words, “is what we call deep vein thrombosis. Blood clots develop in her legs and if they break free and travel through the body, they can cause a pulmonary embolism.”
The words slammed into me one right after another.
I may not have gone to medical school, but I knew enough to put those pieces together. Blood clots did awful things.
They were body bombs. Exploding in the lungs. The brain.
I glanced at my mother’s door, realizing that any instant, one of those bombs could go off and I could lose her.
“Blood clots?” I repeated, my throat so tight, the words nearly did make it out of my mouth. “Those are fatal, right?”
Damned ER and Grey’s Anatomy . Why did they put those stupid
Never before had I been like this with Nick. Ever since we’d met, he’d been the one doing the pursuing, playing the traditional guy role.
Even the way he’d asked me out had been traditional…in an untraditional, totally Nick way. He’d left a note inside the double doors, so that the first time I went to watch TV—andhe’d installed it on a Thursday, knowing full well I was impatient for an ER fix—I’d find an invitation to meet him for dinner. At his place, where he’d had wine and burgers on the grill, about the only meal Nick ever mastered.
That night, he’d been waiting on me. And now, the tables had been turned.
I paced, the phone cold and heavy in my hand.
A doctor who barely looked old enough to have passed his boards poked his head into my mother’s room. “Miss Delaney?”
I left the uncomfortable vinyl armchair and crossed to the door. Ma had fallen asleep a few minutes earlier, so I shut the door most of the way and stepped into the hallway to meet the doctor. Paul Barton, M.D. scrolled across his breast pocket in dark maroon script. It seemed a trustworthy name. Had he graduated at the top of his class? Or at least somewhere in the upper ten percent? Did he have a degree from a medical college not located in a third world country?
Too bad there was no non-rude way to ask for a peek at his MCAT scores.
“I get the impression your mother is a bit…” His voice trailed off and his cheeks brightened.
“You don’t have to be polite. She’s as stubborn as crabgrass. She knows it, and so do I.”
He chuckled. “Then it’s a good thing she signed a HIPAA form allowing you to be included in her current medical decisions.”
“She did?”
Paul Barton, M.D., nodded. “We advise our patients to do that, in case they’re incapacitated. It’s good to have a family member on board, just in case.”
“She’s not incapacitated now.”
He gave me a lopsided grin. He was cute, in that young, fresh-out-of-med-school way, complete with a dark lock of hair across his forehead and a gee-whiz boyish smile. I refrained again from asking where he’d completed his residency—and whether he’d killed anyone in the process.
“Well…she’s asleep. Close enough for me. I simply want to make sure she doesn’t end up back in a hospital again. I’ve talked with her and she’s bound and determined to make this road trip, even though I advised against it. Vehemently, I might add.”
I bit back a laugh. My mother had undoubtedly had the poor young M.D. quaking in his lab coat. “And you want me to enforce your directions?”
He sobered, and again Mr. Dread knocked on my heart. “You have to.”
“But I thought it was just a bad cut, and she was bleeding heavy from the Coumadin and…” My voice trailed off. I took in the seriousness in his eyes, the way he pinched his lips together, gathering his words, reinforcements for his argument.
Preparing to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.
“Your mother is very sick. Right now, the most pressing concern,” he said, leaving me to wonder for a flicker, if there was something else, because he looked away, then back, but went on and I forgot about it because my attention became riveted on the next few words, “is what we call deep vein thrombosis. Blood clots develop in her legs and if they break free and travel through the body, they can cause a pulmonary embolism.”
The words slammed into me one right after another.
I may not have gone to medical school, but I knew enough to put those pieces together. Blood clots did awful things.
They were body bombs. Exploding in the lungs. The brain.
I glanced at my mother’s door, realizing that any instant, one of those bombs could go off and I could lose her.
“Blood clots?” I repeated, my throat so tight, the words nearly did make it out of my mouth. “Those are fatal, right?”
Damned ER and Grey’s Anatomy . Why did they put those stupid
Similar Books
