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Brent knew what Rebecca was like. He knew she wasn’t the sort of woman you could wrap up in a tidy package and park in a humdrum medical practice and he’d never ask that of her. He shared her need to live on the edge. They’d scuba dived with sharks in Florida. Learned to parachute in jump school. Trained together for a half marathon. Hard to find a guy who could keep up with her like that. But marriage? What was the point?
“I told him no way,” she said.
Dorothea toyed with her stir-fried vegetables. “You think you know what you want, babe,” she said, “but you only know what you think you want.”
Rebecca scowled. “What the hell does that mean?”
Dorothea shrugged, and Rebecca knew she’d get no answer from her. She knew Dorothea better than anyone. She knew that when she was snippy, it was the pain of her loneliness coming out. Since Louisa, her partner of thirty years, died last year, Dorothea’s usual prickliness had taken on a whole new dimension. But it was her ornery nature that had led Dot to create Doctors International Disaster Aid twenty years ago, when people told her it was too ambitious an idea for one woman to take on. Her stubbornness and passion had made DIDA the respected organization it was today. The work was unglamorous, unprofitable and sometimes unsafe, but it was so very necessary. During the past few years, Rebecca had become one of DIDA’s few full-time physicians, Dorothea’s right hand in the field. Rebecca had met her at a fund-raiser in Chapel Hill, and Dot had recognized the seedling of passion in her, the fearlessness and the longing to do something truly meaningful with her medical skills. Dot had exploited those qualities with vigor. She became Rebecca’s best friend. Mentor. Mother. At a small gathering at the home Dorothea shared with Louisa, she introduced Rebecca to her partner, who immediately understood what Dorothea was plotting. Louisa pulled Rebecca into the pantry, out of earshot of the other guests. “Dot’s seducing you, Rebecca,” she said.
Rebecca’s eyes flew open. “What?”
“She’s nearly sixty years old,” Louisa said. “She’s been talking for years about finding someone who’ll eventually take over the leadership of DIDA.”
“She hardly knows me,” Rebecca had said.
“Dot reads people,” Louisa said. “She knew just by looking at you that you were the one.”
Louisa had been right, of course, and while Rebecca had never come out and said, Yes, I’ll take over DIDA when you’re ready to turn over the reins, it was one of those things that was understood between them without needing to be discussed.
Although Louisa’s use of the word “seducing” had at first startled her, Rebecca knew Dorothea had never had any sexual interest in her. Dorothea labeled Rebecca a “one.” She believed sexual preference was inborn and fell on a continuum, with complete heterosexuality a “one” and complete homosexuality a “ten” and bisexuality a “five-point-five.” When she described people she’d met to Rebecca, she might say “he’s a cardiologist, practices in Seattle, a three.” A few years ago, Rebecca had been interested in a guy when she was on assignment after an earthquake wiped out a village in Guatemala. When she told Dorothea she was attracted to him, Dot had clucked her tongue. “He’s a seven,” she’d said. “Can’t you see that?”
“Oh, come on,” Rebecca had said. “He’s totally hetero.”
Dot had shrugged. “Just warning you.”
He was a seven. Maybe even an eight. He’d told
Rebecca he wasn’t married, but she soon learned that Paul, the man he shared a house with, was doing more than just paying his share of the mortgage. Dorothea had sized the guy up with one quick look. She could be spooky that way.
She had that skill as a physician, too, an ability to diagnose with a glance or the lightest of touches. Rebecca had learned so much from her. Dorothea had made her a better clinician, as well as nurturing her longing to work in disaster areas. “You need a wild streak to do this work, babe,” she’d told her during that early seduction period. “And you’ve got it. But you also need discipline.”
“I’m disciplined.” Rebecca had been insulted. “How do you think I got through medical school?”
“Different kind of discipline,” Dorothea said. “It’s a focus. No matter what’s going on around you—power out, buildings caving in, mud up to your ankles—you see only the patient. You need blinders.”
Rebecca had developed the blinders and the focus and the love of the work. She would never love that there were disasters in the world, but when she’d get a phone call in the middle of the night telling her there’d been a quake in South America and she needed to get to the airport immediately, she felt a current of electricity whip through her body.
“Brent,” Dorothea said now, “is a good man.”
Rebecca had expected Dot to give her a host of reasons why she shouldn’t even consider marrying Brent—or anyone else, for that matter. But Dorothea probably thought of Brent as the best match for her, given their shared commitment to DIDA. Their relationship was built on friendship and mutual respect. That was the best foundation for a marriage, wasn’t it?
“Well, yeah.” She sipped her wine. “He is. But I don’t see the point of marrying him.”
“It’s probably a bad idea,” Dorothea agreed. “But have you thought about what it would be like? The two of you sharing the leadership of DIDA together? Could be amazing, actually. Very fulfilling for both of you.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes. “You know, it irritates the hell out of me when you talk like you have one foot in the grave.” It also irritated her to think of sharing DIDA’s leadership with Brent. With anyone.
Dorothea shrugged. “Just being a realist.”
“A fatalist is more like it.”
Dorothea leaned toward her across the table. “I want you to be ready to take over the day I can’t do it any longer,” she said. “It may be twenty years from today or it may be tomorrow.”
“Well, I’m pulling for the twenty years,” Rebecca said. She added reassuringly, “You know I’m ready, willing and able, Dot. Don’t sweat it.”
“So back to you and Brent,” Dorothea said, and Rebecca realized this was not the first time Dot had considered their sharing DIDA’s helm. “You do squabble a lot.”
“Squabble?” Rebecca smiled at the word, but she had to admit that Dorothea was right. “True,” she said, “but only about the small stuff.”
“You both have the fire in your belly for disaster work, that’s for sure. He’s as wild as you are. Almost, anyway,” she said with a wry shrug. “You’re positively feral.”
Rebecca laughed. She liked the description.
“Neither of you has ever wanted kids or a house in the burbs with a white picket fence,” Dorothea continued. “You’ve got the same values.”
Right again, Rebecca thought. She’d never wanted to settle down. She didn’t care where she lived, and kids had never been part of her life plan. When she witnessed Maya and Adam’s battle to have a baby, the lengths they were willing to go to to get pregnant, she knew she was missing the maternal gene.
“You surprise me, Dot,” she said. “I didn’t think me getting married would be something you wanted.”
“I don’t particularly, but it’s your choice. Why would I care?”
“Because you like having me living upstairs from you, for starters.”
“Get real.” Dorothea took a sip from her water glass. “You’re pushing forty and—”
“Thirty-eight!”
“And you’re not my prisoner. I can’t really see you and Brent as husband and wife. As the leaders of DIDA, though, you’d make a splendid team.”
“Well, I’m not interested in getting married. And besides, I don’t—” Rebecca glanced across the room at Brent again “—I’m not sure I love him.”
“You either do or you don’t.”
“Well, isn’t there something in between? With Louisa, wasn’t there a period of time when you weren’t sure?”
They never tiptoed around the subject of Louisa, but Rebecca could still see the sadness in Dorothea’s eyes at the mention of her name. Rebecca had learned so much about grief working with Dorothea. You didn’t hide from it, but you didn’t let it rule your life either.
“I met Lou on a Monday.” Dorothea looked off into the distance. “I knew I loved her on Tuesday. But it’s not always that neat and simple.” She returned her gaze to Rebecca. “Don’t marry him unless you’re sure,” she said. “Not fair to him or to yourself. You’re an independent woman, with a capital I. That’s what makes you so perfect for DIDA. Not so perfect for marriage.”
Rebecca’s cell vibrated in her pocket and she checked the caller ID.
“Maya,” she said.
“Ah,” Dorothea said. “The princess.” She motioned toward the phone. “Go ahead. Take it.”
Rebecca leaned back in her chair and flipped the phone open. “Hey, sis,” she said.
“It’s happening again.” There were tears in her sister’s voice, and Rebecca sat up straight.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, shit. Are you sure? Where are you?”
Dorothea stopped her fork halfway to her mouth and Rebecca felt her eyes on her.
“I’m walking Chauncey and I’m … now I’m just leaning against this damn tree because I’m half a mile from home, and I … it’s like I think if I just stand here very still I can stop it somehow, but I know I can’t. It’s over, Becca.”
Rebecca stood up, mouthing to Dorothea, She’s losing her baby, and walked through the restaurant in a blur.
“Bec?”
“I’m right here. Just wanted to get out of the restaurant.” She walked into the ladies’ room, locked herself in a stall and leaned against the wall. “Where’s Adam?”
“At the hospital. I’m sure he’s still in surgery.”
Rebecca felt helpless. She was three thousand miles away. “Are you bleeding?”
“I’m pretty sure,” Maya said. “It feels like it. I’m going to call Katie Winston—one of my neighbors—to come get me. She doesn’t even know I’m pregnant. We’d only told you so far. I’m sorry I disturbed you but I just wanted to—”
“Oh, shut up, you goof.” Rebecca leaned her head against the tiled wall, eyes closed. “I’m so sorry, Maya. I thought this time it would be okay.”
“Me, too.”
It was going to be very hard for Maya to tell Adam. This would kill him. Rebecca’d had lunch with him at the hospital the week before, and he’d been unable to keep the smile off his face when he spoke—with cautious joy—about their “Pollywog.” His eyes had sparkled, and only then did Rebecca realize how long it had been since she’d seen him look so happy. As much as Maya wanted this baby, Adam wanted it even more. He’d changed in the past couple of years. He was still handsome, of course. Still sexy as hell, even though Maya never seemed to get that about him. But the energy and enthusiasm that had been his hallmark had left him bit by bit as he and Maya failed to create a family. Now Rebecca felt their hope for the future breaking apart like glass. Their relationship, though, was solid. They’d get through this the same way they’d gotten through it the last time. And the time before that.
“Do you want me to come home?” she asked, counting on Maya to say no. “I can catch a plane in the morning.”
“Absolutely not,” Maya said.
“Look, you call your neighbor and then call me right back and I’ll stay on the phone with you till she gets there, okay?”
“I’m all right now. I don’t need to—”
“Call me back, Maya. I’m going to worry if you don’t.”
“Okay.”
She hung up her phone but didn’t budge from the stall of the restroom. She knew all about life not being fair. She saw it every day with her disaster work. She’d seen it when she and Maya lost their parents. But some things felt less fair than others, and this was one of them.
3
Maya
“ADAM?” MY VOICE CAME OUT IN A WHISPER, ADAM’S NAME on my lips even before I opened my eyes.
“Right here, My,” he said. “Sitting next to your bed, holding your hand.”
I opened my eyes, squinting against the bright lights in the recovery room. “I’m sorry.” I felt crampy from the D and C as I turned my head to look at him.
“You have to stop saying that.” Adam moved his chair closer. “It’s not your fault.”
“I know. I just … what did Elaine say? Boy or girl?”
Adam hesitated. “Boy,” he said.
Another boy. Two sons lost. At least two.
“Elaine wants us to come in next week to talk,” he said. “To figure out where to go from here.”
What did that mean, where to go? Did we dare try again? Could I go through this one more time?
“Okay.” I shut my eyes.
“Don’t go back to sleep, My,” Adam said. “You know how it is. They’re going to want you up and out of here soon.”
I groaned, forcing my eyes open again. “Why do we do that to patients?” I asked. “It’s inhumane.”
“I’ll take you home and later, if you feel up to it, I’ll make you some of my special chicken soup, and I think we have a couple of movies we can watch, and I’ll surround you with lots of pillows on the sofa and—”
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Be all … Adamy.”
He laughed, though there was no mirth at all in the sound. “All ‘Adamy’? What’s that mean?”
“All chipper and cheery and energetic and … caretakery.” Was I making any sense? I desperately wanted to go back to sleep. I wanted to sleep away the weeks—the months—of mourning I knew were ahead of me.
“How would you like me to be?” Adam asked.
I thought about it, though my mind floated in and out of consciousness. Adam could be no other way. His cheeriness was ingrained. It was what I usually loved most about him, what had drawn me to him in the first place.
He smoothed my hair away from my forehead, then let his fingers rest on my cheek. “Want me to be serious?” he asked.
Did I? “Yes,” I said. “I know you’re sad. Beyond sad.” I looked at him again. He’d lost his false smile. His fake cheer.
“Yes, I’m sad,” he said. “I’m as brokenhearted as you are. But I want to take care of you today. Today and tomorrow, bare minimum. Let me do that, okay? After that, you can worry about me.”
” ’Kay,” I said. What woman wouldn’t kill for my husband?
“I’m going to find out when I can spring you,” he said, getting to his feet.
I nodded and once he’d walked away, I closed my eyes again, hoping sleep would return to me quickly.
I’d first met Adam in the hospital room of one of my patients. The girl was tiny for eight, dwarfed by the mechanical bed. I could tell she hadn’t yet received her presurgical medication, because she was shivering with anxiety when I walked into her room. Sitting at her bedside, her mother held the little girl’s hand, and the anxiety was like a ribbon running from mother to daughter and back again.
I had seen them only once before, when I evaluated the girl, Lani, in my office and discussed the surgery I’d perform to lengthen her leg. Lani’d been playful and talkative then. Now, though, reality had set in.
“Good morning, Lani,” I said. “Mrs. Roland.” I sat down next to the bed. I liked doing that, taking the time to sit, to be at my patient’s level. To act as though I had all the time in the world to give them although the truth was, I had three long surgeries that day and really no time at all.
