Lydia
sipped her coffee and watched her children banter scathingly back and forth about their respective love lives with a tangible
kind of glee. For others, this was dysfunction, for them, this was progress. Still, when Ollie came back at Ben with a particularly nasty barb, she lent him a
swift kick to the shin for his effort. When he looked up at her, she only smiled
at him, her eyebrow raised in stern warning. She could still kick his ass at
thirty-five.
Not
wanting to acknowledge her influence, but knowing better than not to, he straightened up and changed the subject. He was nothing if not an obedient son.
“So,
mom, what are you doing Wednesday night?”
She
sat down her mug, fingers still wrapped around it for warmth. “Nothing that I know of. Why?”
Oliver
then took on an expression that Lydia found not at all comforting. “Well,
Ben’s got two tickets to see Madame Butterfly and I know how much you love that one.”
She
looked between her boys suspiciously, sensing Ben’s anxious gestures whenever her eyes would turn away from him. “No, that’s all right. I’m
sure he’d like to go with that girl in his building, Brenda isn’t it?”
When
she looked at him, his mouth was open, but he snapped it shut. “Yeah, yes,
Brenda. Her name’s Brenda and I wanted to take her, but of course, I could
take you, mom.”
“Oh
no, darling. Take your date. I’ll
be fine. And Oliver, stop foisting me onto your siblings. I might begin to think you don’t like spending time with me.”
“Why
mother,” he laid a hand dramatically against his chest in mock indignation, “Where would you get such a preposterous
idea?”
She
finished off her coffee and rose to leave. “Save it, Ollie. I gave birth to you, I know you better than your girlfriends ever will.” She went around the table kissing each of her children. “I
will see you all later, assuming you just don’t run when I’m not looking to find a replacement mother.” She smiled faintly and waved over her shoulder as she walked out the glass doors.
She
was so set in her thoughts at that moment that she didn’t see the handsome man watching her discreetly from the booth
she’d passed. She also didn’t see the
smile on his face or hear him tell his niece the he would marry her someday, someday soon. Maybe it would’ve brightened her day.
“She’s
onto you, Ollie,” teased Regina.
“Oh,
yeah, it’s just me. She’s onto all of us.”
“Nope,
just you , big brother. I heard nothing about the two of us. She just wanted poor Ben to get a date and she forgot to rag on me at all this morning. Apparently, joy does cometh in the morning. This will definitely
be a good day.” Regina took another gulp of hot chocolate and went on her
way. “See ya.”
After
she left, Oliver leaned conspiratorially over the table. “You really think
she’s onto me?”
Ben
just grinned. “Oh yeah. Get
used to spending a whole lot more time with her, kiddo. I am officially out of
dodge.”
“No,
no!” Ollie’s anguished cries followed Ben all the way to work and
he still arrived with a smile on his face.
Unfortunately,
Lydia not only didn’t arrive in such high spirits, but her mood deteriorated within forty-five minutes of her day beginning. One of her oldest patients, one of the first she’d ever treated was rushed in
with a ruptured aorta. At its early stages, which were brief if they existed,
it was damn near undetectable and once it was diagnosed, the damage was certainly done.
The aorta was such a vital blood passageway that once it burst, the person would bleed out momentarily. No amount of know-how, of luck, or help could’ve saved Jeffrey Miers today. It was his time to go and her time to let him.
And
yet, as she leaned back in her office chair and stared at the meticulous fiberglass ceiling tiles, she found no solace in
knowing that he’d gone to a better place. She could only think that had
she been a better doctor, been faster, been better prepared Evelyn Miers would still be a wife and not a widow. There was only a few letters between the two words, but they made all the difference.
They
made all the difference to Evelyn and they made it to her. Clutched tight in
her hand was her wedding band. She held it so desperately that it left an angry
mark on her palm, but it gave her that tenuous connection she needed at the moment, to life.
And while she held it, she didn’t hurt quite so intensely. It wasn’t
God, but it would do in a pinch.
When
nearly an hour had gone by, she snapped free of her daze and woke up, because grief or none, she had patients to attend to,
live and breathing patients that needed her. She couldn’t neglect them.
Her
faculties tightly bound and collected, she called for her secretary Renee to send the next one in. The day wasn’t over yet.
In
fact, it was about to greatly improve. Because not two seconds later in walked
the very man who’d spied her into the café that morning.
Lydia
stood and extended her hand to her new patient. “Hello, my name is Lydia
Barnes.”
He
smiled handsomely and to the proffered hand. “It‘s a pleasure to
meet you. I’m Anthony Richards.”
“Of
course. Please have a seat.” They sat in their respective seats. “So, Mr. Richards, what can I do for you?”
He
sat uneasily for a time. He was a youthful man, vibrant and active. He hadn’t been sick since early childhood, but recently his health had changed. He’d begun
to feel weak and had trouble lifting his daughters. There was pain that came
unexpectedly and often. He wasn’t used to being sick.
“My
doctor referred me to you because I’ve been experiencing symptoms he thought to be related to the heart defect I was
born with. He wasn’t sure but he didn’t want to take a chance.”
Lydia
slipped on her glasses to thumb through his file. “When did you first notice
a change in your condition?”
“About
two months ago.”
“That’s
a while,” she noted without looking up.
He
fidgeted restlessly. His mother spoke to him that way more often than he cared to recall.
“I lead a busy life.”
Having
read enough to know he’d be dead by forty-five, she removed her glasses and brushed her hair from her eyes. “Not for much longer if you don’t start taking better care of yourself.”
TBC...
