скачать книгу бесплатно
“After dinner last night, Dad went out onto the porch,” Norah began, her voice quavering.
As far back as Valerie could remember, after the evening meal her parents had adjourned for coffee to the sweeping front porch of their large colonial home. They’d sat together on the old wicker chairs, sometimes holding hands and whispering like teenagers. Valerie was never sure what they discussed, but she’d learned early on not to interrupt them. In the winters, they’d sat in front of the basalt fireplace in her father’s den, but during spring, summer and the early part of autumn, it was the porch.
“I should’ve known something was wrong,” Norah continued. “Dad hasn’t sat on the porch much since Mom’s been gone. After dinner he goes right into his office and does his bookkeeping.”
The guilt Valerie experienced was crushing. Norah had repeatedly told her how hard their father was working. She should have listened, should have demanded he hire an assistant, take a vacation, something. As the oldest, she felt responsible.
His heart was weak and had been since a bout of rheumatic fever in his thirties. By all accounts he should’ve died then, but a young nurse’s devotion had pulled him through. The nurse was Grace Johnson, who became David’s wife, and Valerie, Stephanie and Norah’s mother.
“I brought him a cup of coffee,” Norah went on, “and he looked up at me and smiled. He … he seemed to think I was Mom.”
“Was he in terrible pain?”
Norah bit her lower lip. “Yes, he must have been. He was so pale … Only he was too proud to admit it. I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn’t answer. He just kept saying he was ready.”
“Ready for what?”
Norah glanced away. “Ready to die.”
“Die!” Valerie cried. “That’s ridiculous! If there was ever a man who had something to live for, it’s Dad. Good grief, he’s worked hard all his life! Now, it’s time to reap the fruits of his labors, to enjoy his family, to travel, to—”
“You don’t need to convince me,” Norah said quietly as they reached the third floor and stepped out of the elevator. The Coronary Care nurses’ station was directly in front of them. Norah walked to the counter.
“Betty, would you tell Dr. Winston my sister’s arrived?”
“Right away,” the other woman replied. She appeared to be gentle, compassionate—and practical. No-nonsense. Valerie recognized those traits because Betty shared them with Norah. And with their mother.
Valerie had to suppress a sudden smile at the memory of her youngest sister lining up dolls in her bed and sticking thermometers in their mouths. She’d fussed over them like an anxious mother, bandaging their limbs and offering comfort and reassurance.
Norah came by this temperament naturally, Valerie supposed, since their mother had been the same. Although she’d given up her hospital job when she married David Bloomfield, Grace continued to nurture those around her. It had been her gift. It was Norah’s gift, too.
“Who’s Dr. Winston?” Valerie asked. She’d never heard of him before; he must be a recent addition to the hospital staff. But the last thing their father needed at a time like this was some hayseed family practitioner. He should be in a major hospital with the best heart surgeon available!
“Dr. Winston’s been wonderful,” Norah returned, her eyes lighting up briefly. “If it hadn’t been for Colby, we would’ve lost Dad in the first twelve hours.”
“Colby?” The doctor was named after a cheese? This didn’t sound promising.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done without him,” Norah said. “I wasn’t sure what to do at first. I could tell Dad was in a lot of pain, but I knew he’d object if I called for an aid car. He’d argue with me and that would’ve made matters even worse if it was his heart like I suspected.”
“So you phoned Dr. Winston?”
“Yes. Luckily I was able to get hold of him, and he drove out, pretending to drop in out of the blue. He knew the minute he saw Dad that it was a heart attack. He immediately gave him a couple of aspirin. Then he sat down on the porch and had a cup of coffee with him.”
“He drank coffee while our father was having a heart attack?” Valerie wasn’t finding this doctor too impressive.
“I believe it was what saved Dad’s life,” Norah said, her eyes flashing a protest. “Dr. Winston convinced Dad to go to the hospital voluntarily. It wasn’t until he’d been admitted that he suffered the worst of the attack. If he’d been at home arguing, no one could’ve done anything to save him.”
“Oh.” That took some of the heat out of Valerie’s argument. She suspected she was looking for someone to blame—in an attempt to ease her own guilt for having ignored Norah’s concerns about their father.
The door Betty had walked through opened, and a tall dark-haired man came toward them, his expression serious. Valerie couldn’t help noticing how attractive he was. In fact, the man had movie-star good looks, but good looks with nothing soft or insipid about them.
“Hello,” he said, his voice deep and resonant. “I’m Dr. Winston.” He held out his hand.
“Valerie Bloomfield,” she responded briskly, placing her hand in his. She’d always been taught that it was impolite to stare, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her father’s physician didn’t look much older than her own thirty-one years. “Excuse me,” she said, not glancing at Norah, who would, she suspected, immediately leap to Dr. Winston’s defense. “I don’t mean to be rude—but how old are you?”
“Valerie,” Norah groaned under her breath.
“I just want to know how long he’s been practicing medicine. Good grief, Norah, this is our father.”
“It’s quite all right,” Dr. Winston said, smiling at Norah. “If David was my father I’d have a few questions myself. I’m thirty-six.”
Valerie found it hard to believe, but she couldn’t very well insist on seeing his birth certificate. Besides, her thoughts were muddled and she was exhausted. Now wasn’t the time to question his qualifications. “How’s my father?” she asked instead.
“He’s resting.”
“When will I be able to see him?”
“I’d rather you didn’t go in right away.”
“What do you mean?” Valerie snapped. “I’ve flown across the country to be with my father. He needs me! Why shouldn’t I be able to go to him?”
“It’s not a good idea just now. He’s sleeping for the first time in nearly twenty hours and I don’t want anything to disturb him.”
“I think you should wait,” Norah seconded, as if she feared Valerie might be on the verge of making a scene.
Valerie sighed; her sister was right. “Of course I’ll wait. It’s just that I’m anxious.”
“I understand,” Dr. Winston said. But he spoke without emotion. He led them to a room not far from the nurses’ station. Two well-worn couches faced each other, and several outdated magazines littered the coffee table that stood between them. There was a coffeepot in one corner, with powdered creamer and an ample supply of disposable cups.
Norah sat first, raising both hands to her mouth in an effort to hide a yawn.
“How long have you been here?” Valerie asked, realizing even before she asked that Norah had stayed at the hospital all night. Her youngest sister was exhausted. “Listen, kid, you go on home and get some sleep. I’ll hold down the fort for a while.”
Norah grinned sheepishly. “I used to hate it when you called me kid, but I don’t anymore.”
“Why not?” Valerie asked softly, resisting the urge to brush a stray curl from her sister’s forehead. She wasn’t the maternal type, but she felt protective toward Norah, wanting to ease her burden.
“You can call me kid anytime you like because that’s exactly the way I feel, like a child whose world’s been turned upside down. I’m scared, Val, really scared. We almost lost him—we still could.”
Valerie nodded, hugging her briefly. Norah had suffered through the worst of the nightmare alone, not knowing from one minute to the next if their father was going to live or die.
“Valerie’s right,” Dr. Winston added. “There’s nothing you can do here. Go home and rest. I promise I’ll call you if there’s any change.”
“Okay.” Norah rubbed her eyes. “I’ll take a shower and try to sleep for a couple of hours. That’s all I need. Two, maybe three hours.”
Valerie wondered if Norah was too tired to drive; Dr. Winston must have had the same concern.
“We’ll phone for a cab from the nurses’ station. I don’t want you driving like this.” He placed his arm around Norah’s shoulders, apparently intending to walk her to the elevator. As they left, he turned to Valerie. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
While he was away, Valerie poured herself a cup of coffee. The pot had obviously been sitting there for hours; the coffee was black and thick and strong, just the way she needed it.
The urge for a cigarette was nearly overwhelming, so when Dr. Winston returned to the room she looked up at him and automatically asked, “Do you have any hard candy?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Mints, anything like that.” She was pacing the room, holding her coffee cup in both hands.
“I’m afraid not. Would you like me to see if I could get you some?”
Valerie dismissed his offer with a shake of her head. He was polite to a fault. The first thing she’d done had been to insult him, question his competence, and he’d taken it all in stride.
“Please, tell me about my father.”
They sat, and for the next fifteen minutes, Dr. Winston explained what had happened to her father’s heart. He did his best to describe it in layman’s terms, but much of what he said was beyond Valerie’s comprehension. She’d never been comfortable with medical matters. Her mother and Norah had always dealt with those. For her part, Valerie hated anything to do with hospitals or doctors. She detested being sick herself, and knew her father felt the same way.
“There’s one underlying problem that needs to be dealt with, however.”
“Yes?” Valerie asked, hating the way her voice betrayed her fear. Any show of weakness distressed her. If she’d ever needed to be strong, it was now, for everyone’s sake, including her own. She was the oldest, and the others would rely on her.
“Your father’s lost his will to live.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, battling the urge to argue with him. “My father’s life is brimming over, it’s so full. Why, he’s—”
“Lost without your mother,” Dr. Winston finished simply.
Valerie bolted to her feet and resumed pacing. What Dr. Winston said was absolutely true; she had to admit it. Her father had been crushed under the load of grief, and while Valerie and her two sisters struggled to regain their own balance, their father had been slowly destroyed by his loss.
“What can we do?” she asked, trying to swallow her fears and her guilt.
“Support him, give him your love. The only thing keeping him alive now is his desire to see all three of his daughters before he dies.”
“But … Okay, then don’t let him know I’m here.” It was the obvious solution. And if that was what it took to keep him alive, she was willing to play a little game of hide-and-seek. Norah could make up a series of excuses. No, forget Norah, Valerie mused bleakly. Her youngest sister couldn’t tell a lie without blushing.
“How well do you lie?” she asked, thinking fast.
Dr. Winston blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“We can’t let my father know I’ve arrived. And that means lying to him.”
“Miss Bloomfield—”
“Ms.”
“Whatever,” he said, sounding impatient with her for the first time. “We aren’t going to be able to fool your father. Norah talked to him shortly after you phoned from … where was it? Chicago? He knows you caught a flight out of New York. No one’s going to make him believe something more important came up that’s kept you from him.”
“Steffie!” Valerie cried. “When Norah spoke to her, she said there was a transportation strike.”
“Yes, but these are only stop-gap measures. Your father feels there’s nothing left to live for. He talks about your mother constantly, almost as though he’s waiting to join her. We need something concrete that’ll give him the will to fight, to hold on to life.”
Again Valerie knew the doctor was right, but her confused brain was having trouble assimilating the most basic details, let alone a situation as complex as this.
“He’s all we have,” she whispered despondently. “Surely he realizes that.”
“Yes, but at the same time, he believes you have one another.”
“We have nothing in common,” Valerie told him. “Steffie’s a crazy woman who flies off to Europe to study the Italian Renaissance, and Norah’s main goal in life is to become another Clara Barton. We don’t even look alike.” Valerie was grasping at weak excuses, and she knew it. Anything she could think of to enlist Dr. Winston’s help in keeping her father alive.
“That has nothing to do with me, Valerie,” he told her gently. “However, I’ll do everything I can to see that your father regains his health and lives to a ripe old age.”
Blinking away tears, Valerie nodded, reminding herself once again that she was the oldest of David Bloomfield’s daughters. In a crisis everyone looked to her; she was the one who needed a cool, decisive head, who couldn’t let her emotions dictate her reactions.
But it was different this time.
The man in that hospital bed, barely holding on to life, was her father, the man she idolized and loved beyond reason. Her emotions were so close to the surface that the force of them frightened her.
“I’d—I’d like to see him as soon as possible. Please.” She’d grovel if necessary. She had to be with her father. “I won’t make the least bit of noise, I promise.” She certainly didn’t want to disturb his rest. Somehow, though, she had to reassure herself that he was still alive. She’d never been more frightened.
Dr. Winston hesitated. “Wait here, I’ll go and check on him.”
He returned a few minutes later. “David’s awake and asking for you.”
Valerie was so eager that she nearly vaulted out of the room, but Dr. Winston stopped her. “Before you go to your father, let me prepare you for what you’re going to see.” He spent the next five minutes explaining the different medical devices used to monitor his patient’s heart. He explained how the small electrodes on her father’s chest detected the electrical impulses that signal the heart’s activity. He warned her about the tubes going in and out of his body.
But nothing he said could have prepared Valerie for what she saw. Her father was connected to a frightening number of tubes, machines and devices. His face was ashen, so pale and bloodless that his skin seemed iridescent. His eyes, which had always sparked with vitality, revealed no emotion, only a weariness that was soul-deep.
“Oh, Daddy,” Valerie whispered, fighting tears. She locked her fingers around his hand, careful not to disturb the intravenous needle.
“Valerie … so pleased you’re here … at last.”
“Where else would I be?” she asked, managing a smile. With the back of her other hand, she brushed a tear from her cheek.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” her father said, apparently talking to Dr. Winston, who hovered in the doorway. “Only … what did you do to your hair?”
“Do you like it?” Valerie asked, rallying somewhat, surprised he’d even noticed that she’d changed the style. “I had it cut.” The new look was short and tousled.
“She’s got the temper to go with that red hair, you know.”
Her father was speaking to Colby Winston again.
“My hair isn’t even close to being red,” she argued, annoyed by the doctor’s effort not to grin. “It’s auburn.”
“Looks like you haven’t combed it in a month,” her father mumbled.
“Dad, I’ll have you know I paid good money for this.”
“In that case, you should demand a refund.” His voice was weak, and speaking had clearly depleted him of what little energy he possessed.
“Dad,” Valerie said, trying to disguise her concern. “Instead of complaining about my hair, you should rest.”
