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“I know it’s early,” Mikki allowed sympathetically. She was an early riser, but she knew a lot of people weren’t. “But it’s the only vacant time I have until the following day—”
“No, that’s fine, really,” Maizie assured her. “I was just making sure I heard you correctly.” She knew Jeff’s restaurant didn’t open until eleven so, technically, he was free at that time in the morning. And from what Theresa had told her about the young man, even if he wasn’t free, he would still make the appointment. “I’ll have to call and make sure that he can bring her,” she said, just so Mikki wouldn’t suspect anything. “Is it all right if I call you back?”
“Of course it’s all right,” Mikki responded. “By the way, my office is in the medical building across the street from Bedford Memorial.”
“I know,” Maizie replied. “Just like Nikki’s.”
“Right.” Mikki realized that of course Nikki’s mother would be aware of that. Only her own mother had no idea where she practiced and what hospital she was associated with, Mikki thought ruefully. “Except that Nikki’s office on the fifth floor. I’m on the third. Suite 310.”
Maizie had already done her homework, but to keep from arousing Mikki’s suspicions, she repeated, “Suite 310. Got it,” Maizie said. “I really appreciate this, Mikki. Or should I say Dr. McKenna?”
“For you I’ll always be Mikki,” Mikki told the older woman.
“Yes,” Maizie said warmly, “you will.” And with all her heart, she sincerely hoped that this match, like the others so far, would work out. Very few young women deserved to be happy as much as Mikki did. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Mikki.”
“There’s no need to thank me, Mrs. Sommers,” Mikki told her with genuine sincerity. “I’m a doctor. This is what I do.”
“You mean fit patients in at the last minute and come in to see them at hours that are way too early?” Maizie asked, amused. That wasn’t a doctor, Maizie thought. That was a saint.
“Perfect description of my life,” Mikki told her friend’s mother with a laugh.
Memories from bygone days when her daughter and Mikki were just starting out on their journey came flooding back to Maizie. She found herself growing nostalgic.
“We really need to get together at your earliest convenience, dear.”
“You’re not feeling well, either?” Mikki asked, concerned.
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Maizie said quickly, not wanting her to get the wrong idea. “I just meant that I would love seeing you again. It’s been a while, you know.”
“Yes,” Mikki agreed. “It has.” And unlike her conversation with her mother a short while ago, Mikki found herself really wanting to get together with the woman on the other end of the call.
“Please call me the first moment you find time in that busy life of yours,” Maizie encouraged.
“I’ll be sure to do that. In the meantime, see if your friend can come in tomorrow morning. If he can’t, call me back and I’ll see what other arrangements I can make.”
“I will,” Maizie promised. “You were always one of the good ones, Mikki,” she added.
“Funny, that was always what I thought about you, too,” Mikki said before terminating the call.
The next second, her cell phone beeped again. “Dr. McKenna,” she answered.
“I know who you are, dear.” She closed her eyes. It was her mother again. “Have you had time to come to your senses about attending the party yet?”
“My senses are fine, Mother. And the answer is still no. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a patient to see,” she added quickly. “So goodbye again, Mother. Have fun at your party.”
With that, she ended a call from her mother for a second time and hurried off to her office in order to officially begin her day.
Chapter Three (#ud9ad6dfc-c045-5e53-bf8c-312562824536)
“I know you mean well, Jeffrey, but I don’t want to go to see any doctor,” Sophia Sabatino protested early the next morning.
The petite woman with salt-and-pepper hair was clearly in distress as she did her best to get her son to change his mind about “dragging” her off to some unknown doctor’s office.
Like his two siblings, Jeff loved his mother dearly, and he usually gave in to the diminutive martinet, but not this time. He had made up his mind. This was too important. His mother needed to see a doctor, and he was taking her to see one before it was too late.
“Sorry, Mom,” he told her. “I’m overriding you on this one.”
She looked at him in exasperation. “You’re taking advantage of the fact that I’m too weak to put up a good fight,” Sophia complained.
“Mom,” he said patiently, “try to understand. It’s because you’re feeling so weak that I’m taking you to the doctor.” Handing his mother her purse, he tried to get her ready to go with him.
Sophia defiantly dropped her purse to the floor. “I’m not going to see some quack and taking off all my clothes,” she declared. Lifting her small chin, she crossed her arms before her chest.
“This isn’t a quack—” Jeff began. This time, as he picked up the purse, he decided it was useless to return it to his mother. She’d only drop it again, so he slung the straps over his own shoulder.
“They’re all quacks,” Sophia informed him. “Your father, God rest his soul, thought all doctors walked on water, and look where it got him,” she pointed out. “Dead,” she declared when Jeff didn’t answer her.
With determination, Jeff took hold of his five-foot-one mother’s elbow and guided her out the front door. His goal was to get her to his car, which was parked in the driveway, as close to the front door as possible.
“They’re not all like that, Mother,” he said patiently. Bringing her to the passenger side, he held the door open for her. When she remained standing where she was, he very gently “helped” usher her into the seat. She remained sitting there like a statue, so he wound up having to strap her in before closing the passenger door.
Rounding the front of his car, he got in on the driver’s side as quickly as possible. Weak as she appeared to be, he wouldn’t put it past his mother to bolt from the car.
As he buckled up, then started the engine, his mother picked up the conversation as if there had been no long pause.
“Of course they’re all like that,” she insisted. “It’s all right, Jeffrey. Don’t trouble yourself about me. I’ve had a long, full life. I’m ready to go meet your father.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to postpone that meeting, Mom,” he told her firmly. “Tina, Robert and I aren’t ready for you to lie down and die just yet.”
“That is not your decision to make, Jeffrey,” Sophia sniffed.
“It’s not yours, either,” he countered. “Lying down and dying isn’t your style, Mom. You’ve still got years of nagging left to do.”
Sophia opened her mouth to protest his disrespectful attitude, but instead of words, she uttered a surprised gasp as a hot wave of pain washed right over her.
Torn between thinking his mother was resorting to even more theatrics and believing that she really was in acute pain, Jeff drove faster.
“Hang on, Mom,” he told her in the most calming voice he could summon. “It’s going to be all right. My old boss’s best friend’s daughter recommended this doctor,” he said, hoping that would give his mother some confidence.
Sophia’s breathing was labored, but she still managed to ask sarcastically, “Couldn’t find one on Doctors Are Us?”
It was more of a gasp than a question, and Jeff had to listen intently to make out what she was saying. He didn’t want her dismissing the doctor he was bringing her to before she even met her. “Mom, I’m serious. This is serious—”
“I know.” Pressing her hand against her abdomen, Sophia closed her eyes. “Which is why I just want to be left alone to die in peace, not have some wet-behind-the-ears would-be doctor try to earn back his entire medical school tuition by treating me and pretending he knows what he’d doing.”
“Mom—” Jeff’s voice grew sterner despite his concern about her condition “—you’re beginning to make no sense.” His mother grabbed his arm. Her long, thin fingers felt surprisingly strong as she clutched at him. “Mom?” Concerned, he spared her a glance as he made a right at the corner. The hospital and the adjacent medical building were just up ahead.
Jeff didn’t have to look closely to see the perspiration not just on his mother’s brow, but on the rest of her face, as well. She had to be reacting to the pain she was experiencing, because it wasn’t that warm a morning.
He’d waited way too long to strong-arm his mother. He just hoped it wasn’t too late.
“Hang in there, Mom, we’re almost there.” He did his best to sound encouraging.
Clutching the armrest on her right and her son’s arm on her left, Sophia waited for the pain either to pass or totally consume her. Her breathing was growing more labored.
“Do you think your father’ll recognize me? It’s been a long time and I’m not the young woman I was when we lost him,” she said hoarsely in between panting.
“He won’t have to recognize you, because you’re not dying, Mom.”
Parking in the closest spot available, which because of the hour was right up in front of the medical building, Jeff got out and quickly hurried over to the passenger side. Opening the door, he slowly eased his mother out and to her feet.
She looked rather unstable.
“Do you want me to carry you?” he offered.
“No.” Sophia pushed his hands away. “I’m going to walk into this charlatan’s office on my own two feet,” she announced with far more bravado than she was actually feeling.
He knew it was an act, but for once he encouraged it. “That’s my girl.”
She looked at him accusingly. “If you really cared about me, you would have let me stay home and—” Her eyes widened as a sudden new onslaught of pain seized her, causing her to clutch at her abdomen. “Oh, Jeff, it hurts. It really, really hurts,” she cried, all but sagging to her knees.
Jeff was torn between putting his mother back in the car and driving over to the hospital’s emergency entrance and taking her upstairs to see the doctor who was waiting for her. The doctor who Theresa Manetti had assured him would be able to calm his mother down and find out what was wrong with her.
Jeff quickly weighed the options. He knew his mother. She’d balk at the emergency room, but he had managed to half talk her into seeing this doctor.
He went with door number two.
“What...what...are you doing?” Sophia gasped as he closed his arms around her. “I’m too heavy...for...you,” she protested.
Jeff had lifted his mother up into his arms and proceeded to carry her into the medical building. “I’ve carried bags of rice heavier than you,” he informed her, heading over to the elevator bank.
Because it was so early, there was an elevator car standing on the ground floor with its doors wide-open. It was empty.
He walked right in.
“Can you press three, Mom?” he asked, taking nothing for granted.
He could see more perspiration forming on her brow. She had to be in pain, he thought.
“This...is...a waste of...time,” Sophia told him, trying hard not to gasp between each word. With visible effort as well as a show of reluctance, she weakly raised her hand and pressed the number three.
The doors barely closed before they opened again on the third floor.
Getting out, Jeff glanced at the signs on the wall, saw the arrow, then went right. Reading the numbers, he looked for suite 310.
Arriving in front of the door, he tried to angle the door latch with his elbow to push it down. When it didn’t give, he tried again.
When the latch still didn’t move, he used his elbow to bang on the door, hoping there was someone inside who would hear him and let them in.
* * *
Mikki had arrived at her office even earlier than she normally did. She’d let herself in through the back door because Angela, her receptionist, and the two nurses who worked for her, Virginia and Molly, weren’t due in until regular hours, which officially began at nine.
Just because she was doing a favor for Maizie Sommers didn’t mean that her staff had to be inconvenienced and come in earlier than usual, as well, Mikki thought. They worked hard enough as it was.
Mikki had just slipped on her white lab coat over a simple gray pencil skirt and blue-gray blouse when she heard a loud thud against the front office door.
Actually three thuds, she amended. Someone with a very heavy hand was either knocking on the door or trying to break it down.
Since she didn’t keep a weapon in the office, she slipped her cell phone into her lab coat pocket after first pressing nine and one. All she had to do was press one more digit and the police would be on their way, she thought confidently. Bedford had next to no crime to speak of, and the well-trained police force, from what she’d heard, were eager to exercise their muscles.
Hopefully they wouldn’t have to, she thought as she carefully approached her front office door.
“Who’s there?” she called out.
“Dr. McKenna?” a deep male voice asked. “I’m Jeff Sabatino. I’ve brought my mother in to see you.”
Relieved, Mikki quickly unlocked the main door—she hadn’t had a chance to entirely open up the office yet.
She was about to say as much when she saw that the man she was speaking to was carrying an older woman in his arms.
“What happened?” Mikki asked, immediately opening the door wider and stepping aside to allow him to walk in.
“My mother started complaining of this stabbing pain on our way over here, and then when she got out of the car, her legs suddenly seemed to give way and she collapsed.”
“I didn’t collapse,” Sophia protested indignantly. “I had a twinge of weakness. But I’m all right now,” his mother declared with determination. “My son exaggerates things. I just want to go home and get into bed.” She said the latter as if she was issuing an order to her son.
“Soon, Mrs. Sabatino,” Mikki promised. “But I’d like to examine you first, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind,” Sophia retorted stubbornly.
“She’s very grateful,” Jeff corrected. His mother still in his arms, he looked around the general area. “Do you have an exam room?” he asked, then mentally upbraided himself. He hadn’t meant to ask her that, he’d meant to ask where her exam room was.
Mikki smiled. “Actually, I do. I find they come in very handy in my line of work. Right this way,” she told Jeff, leading him to the back of the office.
There were three exam rooms located in the back, one right next to the other. She opened the door to the first room and gestured for him to bring his mother into it.
“If you just have her lie down on the exam table,” Mikki instructed, “I can get started.”
Jeff did as she asked, placing his mother gently on the paper-covered examination table. Mikki couldn’t help noticing that he had a very sensitive manner about him. It seemed almost in direct contradiction to the masculinity the tall, dark-haired man exuded.
“I’ve got her insurance cards and her driver’s license,” Jeff said, reaching for his mother’s purse in order to produce the items.
But Mikki shook her head. “Don’t worry about that right now. My receptionist isn’t in yet. She handles all that. Right now, I’m more interested in why your mother had to be carried in—other than the fact that she didn’t want to come to see me. Mrs. Sommers told me that you don’t have any confidence in doctors,” Mikki said, turning to her patient.
“I don’t trust them,” Sophia all but growled, keeping her hand firmly pressed against her lower right abdomen and grimacing.
“Mom!” Jeff admonished. He knew his mother had a take-charge attitude and she had no problem with making her opinion known, but he’d never seen her acting rude before, and it surprised him. It also wasn’t any way to behave toward a woman who had gone out of her way to come in early and see her before office hours.
