Nursing The Doctor by Bobby Hutchinson Page A

Greg it was simply a biological accident. He and Elise had come to a parting of the ways when he was a small child. She’d made it plain then that she didn’t care about him. His love and his loyalties would always be with his grandparents, whether they were alive or not.
    As for Elise, it was far too late for her to play the doting-parent role with him. He reminded himself that when he was a very small boy and needed her love and attention desperately, she’d been the one who packed him and his brothers off to live with their grandparents without a second thought. She was young, and three little boys must have really cramped her style.
    Then, when the boys had finally adjusted to the change and settled in happily to small-town living, she’d snagged a new husband and decided she wanted them back in the city.
    So without a thought for their feelings, without so much as asking them what they wanted, she’d simply arrived one day, packed them up and moved them back to Vancouver, expecting them to accept her overbearing new husband as their daddy.
    Greg’s brothers had resisted initially and then made uneasy peace with their new stepfather, but Greg had rebelled. At seven, he’d run away twelve times, trying to get back to Greenwood and his grandparents. When that didn’t work, he’d simply stopped eating, and finally Elise got the message.
    Furious with him because he’d bested her in a battle of wills and knowing that her father considered her useless as a parent—Stanley had always been vocal on that score, Greg remembered—she’d had to swallow her pride and take Greg back to her father’s house.
    There he’d stayed, happy and content, during all his growing up years, only returning to Vancouver when it was time to attend university and med school.
    Over the years he’d seen Elise and his brothers for a week, maybe two, each summer. She’d divorced the stepfather Greg hated and married again, then a few years ago divorced a third time. As far as he knew, she now lived alone.
    She’d invited him, but he’d never been to her apartment. Since he’d lived in Vancouver, there were maybe a half-dozen occasions when they met, always at Elise’s instigation. That was more than enough as far as he was concerned. He saw no reason for their non-relationship to change just because he was no longer able to avoid her.
    “Greg, you’re an adult now,” she was saying in a trembling voice. “Don’t you think we could at least try to be friends, you and I?”
    He held himself rigid, willing her to leave, forcing the terrible sadness and shock he felt over Gramps’s death to stay hidden until he was alone.
    “I don’t see much point, Elise,” he managed to say. His voice was flat and emotionless, and he was sure she had no idea what it cost him to maintain that facade. “I don’t need your pity. I don’t need you snatching precious time out of your busy life for me.”
    He intended to stop there, but weakness and emotional agony were potent allies. The overwhelming guilt and loneliness he felt made him want to hurt her.
    “I really don’t need a mommy at this stage in my life,” he said, sneering. “As you said yourself, I’m an adult. And I’m afraid I’m kinda wiped out at the moment, so I’d really like to be alone if you don’t mind.”
    Elise made a sound in her throat, a kind of drawn-out whimper. She thrust her arms into her raincoat and cinched the belt tight.
    “All right, Greg. Your brothers are driving through to Greenwood with me tonight. The funeral will be sometime next week. I’ll call the hospital and tell them so you know which day.” She turned and walked out.
    For a second he wanted to call to her as she disappeared out the door, her scent still fresh in his nostrils, but the nurse with his pain medication brushed shoulders with Elise, and like a junkie, all Greg could think of was the oblivion that the pills would provide him for a couple of hours.
    He gulped them down, far too