She burrowed deeper into his arms. "If I switched to Psychiatry, would you lose all respect for me?"
"All respect. No doubt about it."
"You're such a jerk."
Laughing, he kissed the top of her head. "Many people think it, but you're the only one allowed to say it."
They stepped off on the first floor and walked out of the hospital. It was autumn already, but Boston was sweltering in the sixth day of a late-September heat wave. As they crossed the parking lot, she could feel her last reserves of strength wilting away. By the time they reached her car, she was scarcely able to drag her feet across the pavement. This is what it does to us, she thought. It's the fire we walk through to become surgeons. The long days, the mental and emotional abuse, the hours of pushing onward while bits and pieces of our lives peel away from us. She knew it was simply a winnowing process, ruthless and necessary. Mark had survived it; so would she.
He gave her another hug, another kiss. "Sure you're safe driving home?" he asked.
"I'll just put the car on automatic pilot."
"I'll be home in an hour. Shall I pick up a pizza?" Yawning, she slid behind the wheel. "None for me."
"Don't you want supper?"
She started the engine. "All I want tonight," she sighed, 'is a bed."
CHAPTER THREE
In the night it came to her like the gentlest of whispers or the brush of fairy wings across her face: I am dying. That realization did not frighten Nina Voss. For weeks, through the changing shifts of three private duty nurses, through the daily visits of Dr. Morissey with his ever-higher doses of furosemide, Nina had maintained her serenity. And why should she not be serene? Her life had been rich with blessings. She had known love, and joy, and wonder. In her forty-six years she had seen sunrise over the temples of Karnak, had wandered the twilight ruins of Delphi and climbed the foothills of Nepal. And she had known the peace of mind that comes only with the acceptance of one's place in God's universe. She was left with only two regrets in her life. One was that she had never held a child of her own.
The other was that Victor would be alone.
All night her husband had maintained his vigil at her bedside, had held her hand through the long hours of laboured breaths and coughing, through the changing of the oxygen tanks and the visits of Dr. Morissey. even in her sleep she had felt Victor's presence. Sometime near dawn, through the haze of her dreams, she heard him say: She is so young. So very young. Couldn't something else, anything else, be done?
Something! Anything!That was Victor. He did not believe in the inevitable.
But Nina did.
She opened her eyes and saw that night had finally passed, and that sunlight was shining through her bedroom window. Beyond that window was a sweeping view of her beloved Rhode Island Sound. In the days before her illness, before the cardiomyopathy had drained her strength, dawn would usually find Nina awake and dressed. She would step out onto their bedroom balcony and watch the sun rise. Even on mornings when fog cloaked the Sound, when the water seemed little more than a silvery tremor in the mist, she would stand and feel the earth tilting, the day spilling towards her. As it did today.
So many dawns have I known. I thank you, Lord, for every one of them.
"Good morning, darling," whispered Victor.
Nina focused on her husband's face, smiling down at her. Some who looked at Victor Voss saw the face of authority. Some saw genius or ruthlessness. But this morning, as Nina gazed at her husband, she saw only the love. And the weariness.
She reached out for his hand. He took it and pressed it to his lips. "You must get some sleep, Victor," she said.
"I'm not tired."
"But I can see you are."
"No I'm not." He kissed her hand again, his lips warm against her chilled skin. They looked at each other for a moment. Oxygen hissed softly through the tubes in her nostrils. From the open window came the sound of ocean waves sluicing across the rocks.
She closed her eyes. "Remember the time…" Her voice faded as she paused to catch her breath.
"Which time?" he prompted gently.
"The day I… broke my leg…" She smiled.
It was the week they'd met, in Gstaad. He told her later that he'd first spotted her schussing down a double black diamond, had pursued her down the mountain, back up in the lift, and down the mountain again. That was twenty-five years ago.
Since then they had been together every day of their lives.
'! knew," she whispered. "In that hospital… when you stayed by my bed.! knew."
"Knew what, darling?"
"That you were the only one for me." She opened her eyes and smiled at him again. Only then did she see the tear trickle down his lined cheek. Oh, but Victor did not cry! She had never seen him cry, not once in their twenty-five years together. She had always thought of Victor as the strong one, the brave one. Now, as she looked at his face, she realized how very wrong she had been.
"Victor," she said and clasped his hand in hers. "You mustn't be afraid."
Quickly, almost angrily, he mopped his hand across his face. "I won't let this happen. I won't lose you."
"You never will."
"No. That's not enough! I want you here on this earth. With me. With me."
"Victor, if there's one thing… one thing I know…" She took a deep breath, a gasp for air. "It's that this time… we have here… is a very small part… of our existence."
She felt him stiffen with impatience, felt him withdraw. He rose from the chair and paced to the window where he stood gazing out at the Sound. She felt the warmth of his hand fade from her skin. Felt the chill return.
"I'll take care of this, Nina," he said.
"There are things… in this life… we cannot change."
"I've already taken steps."
"But Victor…"
He turned and looked at her. His shoulders, framed by the window, seemed to blot out the light of dawn. "It will all be taken care of, darling," he said. "Don't you worry about a thing."
It was one of those warm and perfect evenings, the sun just setting, ice cubes clinking in glasses, perfumed ladies floating past in silk and voile. It seemed to Abby, standing in the walled garden of Dr. Bill Archer, that the air itself was magical. Clematis and roses arched across a latticed pergola. Drifts of flowers swept broad strokes of colour across the expanse of lawn. The garden was the pride and joy of Marilee Archer, whose loud contralto could be heard booming out botanical names as she shepherded the other doctors' wives from flowerbed to flowerbed.
Archer, standing on the patio with highball in hand, laughed. "Marilee knows more goddamn Latin than I do."
'! took three years of it in college," said Mark. "All I remember is what I learned in medical school."
They were gathered next to the brick barbecue, Bill Archer, Mark, the General, and two surgical residents. Abby was the only woman in that circle. It was something she'd never grown accustomed to, being the lone female in a group. She might lose sight of it for a moment or two, but then she would glance around a room where surgeons were gathered, and she'd experience that familiar flash of discomfort with the realization that she was surrounded by men.
Tonight there were wives at Archer's house party, of course, but they seemed to move in a parallel universe, seldom intersecting with that of their husbands. Abby, standing with the surgeons, would occasionally hear far-off snippets from the wives' conversations. Talk of damask roses, of trips to Paris and meals savoured. She would feel pulled both ways, as though she stood straddling the divide between men and women, belonging to neither universe, yet drawn to both.
It was Mark who anchored her in this circle of men. He and Bill Archer, also a thoracic surgeon, were close colleagues. Archer, chief of the cardiac transplant team, had been one of the doctors who'd recruited Mark to Bayside seven years ago. It wasn't surprising the two men got along so well. Both of them were hard-driving, athletic, and fiercely competitive. In the OR they worked together as a team, but out of the hospital, their friendly rivalry extended from the ski slopes of Vermont to the waters of Massachusetts Bay. Both men kept their J-35 sailboats moored at Marblehead marina, and so far this season, the racing score stood at six to five, Archer's Red Eye versus Mark's Gimme Shelter. Mark planned to even the score this weekend. He'd already recruited Rob Lessing, the other second-year resident, as crew.