Doctored (25 page)

Deanna nearly smiled as she explained.  “To a degree, I’d say you are; however, if I were you, I’d get a new therapist as the one you’ve been seeing isn’t getting to the root cause of your problem.”

“But this Noso…” he began, grasping at the disease.

“It’s a phobia, Robby.  You have an abnormal fear of disease and that makes you a bit of a hypochondriac, a germaphobe even,” she explained.  “See a therapist for it, and if they can’t help you, see another,” she advised.

Sometimes, people like this just wanted a word for what they were feeling.  Robby didn’t care that he had a phobia, now he had a word for what it was.  That was a huge relief and he promised to get help for it. 

Deanna wasn’t so sure he would, but it was a nice thought.  She couldn’t help them all, she could only try her best.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Madison laughed as Deanna shared her many stories.  Her flair for the dramatic made them interesting and the common medical bond the two of them shared made it even better.  When Madison related her take on some of the stories, after all they shared some of the same patients now and then, it wasn’t quite as vibrant or exciting.  They even shared surgery from time to time, she recalled the first time at this modern hospital.

Madison looked across the surgery table, amazed at the transformation.  Deanna had removed her nose stud, her two sets of earrings, the stud in the upper part of her ear, as well as her necklace and of course, her family crest.  She was professional and efficient, but she looked naked without all the jewelry.  She wasn’t quite as…overwhelming…or as intimidating.  Even her high-tops had been replaced with the surgical stockings that everyone wore over their shoes, only Deanna was just wearing stockings.  She’d be barefoot if she could, but she needed the warmth of her socks—these were still flamboyant and very gay, rainbow colors and vibrantly loud.

Madison didn’t realize how often she had been seeing Deanna until someone mentioned something about seeing them out.  She froze at the question and then dismissed it.  They were friends after all, weren’t they?

Deanna wouldn’t classify it as that.  She had tried to steer them down a path that might revive their previous relationship, but she wondered if they could.  It had been a different time and place, and definitely so very long ago.  She wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about this grown-up Madison.  Her memories were all about the youthful adult named Maddie.  This responsible Madison with children conflicted with what she felt about the younger Maddie.  She couldn’t read Madison either.  She wasn’t sure Madison wanted anything more than friendship.  She was willing to wait to find out, but her time at the hospital was coming to an end.  She knew it and the hospital knew it….

As Madison listened to one of Deanna’s many stories about patients and her experiences, she couldn’t help but enjoy them.  Deanna told them so well.  She knew some of them, but never told Deanna when she repeated one because they were told slightly different each and every time.  She sometimes wondered if Deanna were courting her.  She appreciated getting out, but she worried that the doctor wanted more than she was willing to give.  Did she want to go back to that kind of a relationship?  She knew she admired Deanna—she had loved her—but could she be in a relationship openly with this woman?  She had to wonder if she was just bouncing back from her divorce from Scott.  Tom hadn’t been a good transition date even if initially he had intrigued her.  So going out with Deanna under the guise of friendship wasn’t the ‘next’ which she had heard was always a bad date…Tom certainly qualified as that.

Madison had heard that Tom had hit on Deanna.  She’d refused him of course, but then Deanna refused all dates, or so the gossip said.  For some reason this pleased Madison and as she analyzed it she wondered if she took some perverse pleasure that the busy doctor only took time out for her.  She’d made no play for her, hadn’t even brought up that Madison had left her so long ago.  That bothered her to a degree.  She remembered leaving Mamadu quite clearly.  The fear in the air about the camp being overrun was burned in her brain.  Also her fear over leaving Deanna and never seeing her again.  Ironically, she was driving Deanna’s donated Rover in their attempt to escape.  She remembered clearly that she had been crying.  She knew that she had to go.  She wanted to say something to her before she left, but she couldn’t.  She hadn’t wanted a relationship with a woman, she wanted children, and she had wanted…Deanna.  But the doctor had never told her that she loved her.  Madison had convinced herself that Deanna did not love her and this had helped her to make the decision to not only leave, but to break up with her.  It had made her last weeks in Mamadu horrible.  Even arriving in Lamish after a harrowing trip back, avoiding lines of soldiers, skirmishes, and an actual war that was going on around them, she’d not stopped the tears from trickling down and fogging her vision.  Those with her thought she was crying out of fear for what might happen to them, what could happen.  Their comfort had been unwelcome and unnecessary, but she accepted it rather than explain she was crying for what she had left behind…the first person she had ever loved wholeheartedly.

Deanna had memories of that night too, that she didn’t share; she never talked about it with anyone.  They’d been so short-staffed and the casualties kept coming in.  Seeing Maddie leave in her Rover.  She couldn’t convince Maddie to love her, to stay with her, to
not
leave her…she couldn’t even get her to talk to her anymore…she had to let her go.  She had work she could throw herself into.  It had been never-ending and they needed her and her skills.

* * * * *

“You’re friends with Doctor Kearney, aren’t you?  Can’t you ask her?”

“What?” Madison looked up from the paperwork she was trying to process so she could move on to actual work, checking on patients.  She hadn’t been paying attention to the gossip around her, she had work to do.

“Doctor Kearney.  You see her a lot, can’t you ask her?”

Madison was confused and it showed clearly on her face.  “Ask her what?”

“If she’s staying?” Bonnie asked exasperatedly.  She knew Madison didn’t like to gossip, but she had hoped because of the friendship that the two shared, she would know.

“Staying where?” she was very confused and coming into the conversation midway wasn’t helping.

“Here, at the hospital.  They are saying she’s been asked to stay, but that she isn’t.”

Madison quickly thought,
‘Was the six months up?’
  Deanna hadn’t said if she was staying or not and Madison wouldn’t tell even if she had.  When asked what they spoke about, she usually mentioned that they had worked together in Africa and were friends from back then, but she didn’t share the same kind of exciting stories that the doctor was known for.  People had been surprised to find out that she had worked over there.  She shrugged off Bonnie’s questions and finished up her work so she could move on, but it didn’t stop her mind from wondering.

Madison had watched Deanna.  She showed the same care for patients that she had back in Mamadu.  She’d heard the gossip already.  Here in Los Angeles, it was thought odd how much time Deanna spent with her patients.  Normally it was the nurses who did all the work, but Deanna was different.  She got to know her patients, listened to them, and actually cared.  A standard joke was that for every twenty-four hours of care, only five minutes was actually provided by the doctors, the rest was by the nurses.  Deanna wasn’t like that.  If she had a patient who needed her, needed to express concerns, she was there, answering their questions, talking to them and alleviating their worries.  She could be found playing with the children, bringing in balloons—reminiscent of what she did back in Mamadu.  Madison wondered at that.  For someone who didn’t want to procreate, she really was good with children.

There was so much about Deanna that was a conflict of sorts, from stereotypes to just her personality…she was so different from the other doctors, from other women, from others…

* * * * *

“Hey, lady, whatcha doin’?” a voice called.

Madison was nearly in tears.  Her minivan was refusing to start and she had no auto service to have it checked.  She had been trying to start it for a good fifteen minutes and it was dead.  The voice had her looking up, her eyes full of tears.  It took a moment for them to clear.

“Hey, are you okay?” Deanna asked, concerned.  She was looking in the driver’s side of the vehicle, an umbrella keeping the rain off her nice clothes.

Madison realized how nicely Deanna was dressed, something she had noted the many times they had gone out to dinner.  She was relieved at the sound of her voice for some reason.  “I can’t get this bucket of bolts going,” she lamented, wondering if it was something serious that she wouldn’t be able to afford to get fixed.

“Do you have Triple A?” she asked, concerned, ignoring the tears.  If Madison wasn’t going to mention them she wouldn’t embarrass her by asking about them.  She could hear the frustration in the redhead’s voice.

Madison shook her head.  She wanted to put her forehead back on the wheel and in an attempt to do something she turned the key again…and again, nothing.

“Well, there is nothing you can do in this,” Deanna pointed out, indicating the rain.  “Why don’t I give you a ride and maybe tomorrow the weather will be nice and I can give you a jump-start?”

Madison looked up and realized that was sensible.  She knew she was tired after a sixteen-hour shift.  Her frustration over the car not starting really had nothing to do with her tears over her fatigue.  The combination was sending her over the edge.  She pulled the keys from the ignition and nodded, reaching for her purse and looking around the minivan for anything she shouldn’t leave in it.  She rolled up the window that had been ajar to let in air and clear the fog from the windows.  She opened the door.

“Are your lights on?” Deanna gently asked.

“What?  Why?” she was confused.

“Because if you left them on this morning because of the rain, I’ll bet your battery is dead from that.”

The sense of that comment had her checking and sure enough, the button was pulled out fully.  She ruefully pushed it back in and wondered if the battery would regain enough of a charge to turn over tomorrow.  She closed and locked the door behind her.  Deanna had raised the umbrella high enough to cover them both.

“Come on, let’s get out of this,” she said and led Madison to her Rover in the next lot.

“Are you sure?  I could get a cab…” she began, but she wasn’t so sure she could afford one.  A bus this late wasn’t really a good idea in L.A.

“Come on…” Deanna encouraged her, taking her arm.

“But I’ll still need my car….”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow and we can jump-start it, okay?” she promised.

Madison let herself be led to the much newer Rover and it wasn’t until she was tucked inside that she realized how chivalrous Deanna had been.  It was odd and she mentally began to realize how many times over the past months with their weekly dinners how often Deanna had held doors, even chairs for her, and she had accepted it without thinking.

Deanna had turned on her vehicle with a remote starter so the heater was already going full blast and their breath, which would normally have fogged up the cold windows, soon dissipated.  The efficient heating system was already warming their legs and she turned it down slightly as the blower was too loud for chatting.  “You’ll have to give me directions,” Deanna commented, looking over at Madison curiously, wondering what was on her mind.

Madison was thinking too hard.  Was Deanna courting her?  She woke up at Deanna’s statement in order to direct her.  She sat admiring the expensive Rover, knowing she would never be able to afford such a luxurious vehicle with her nurse’s pay.

“You’re very quiet,” Deanna commented, wondering if she should turn on the radio to cover the silence.  The windshield wipers were loud and the rain slapping at them was the only noise.  “Are you okay?  Rough day?” she asked, concerned.  They’d never had any trouble keeping a conversation going.

Madison, in an attempt to keep her thoughts from being spoken out loud, grasped at that.  “Yeah, rough day,” she sighed, managing to sound tired even though she really wasn’t.  “You know how it is,” she added.

“Yeah,” Deanna sighed loudly in sympathy.  “I do know.”  She had so much more to deal with, but she never belittled the nurses’ contributions.  She was very thoughtful of the staff who helped keep her patients clean and healthy.  They were the ones who dealt with the vomit and bodily functions.  The interns were supposed to contribute, but many times they were well aware of the fact that they would be doctors, and learned their arrogance early.  Deanna never had.  She could frequently be seen helping the nurses, or rather they willingly helped her, cleaning and administering to her patients.  Those interns who worked with her were expected to do just as much and they appreciated her differently from the other doctors.  Deanna also had to administer her family’s company and that led to long nights.  She insisted on having time to herself, which had led to some resentment when she had weekends off, but that was her own time and her own business.  She didn’t talk about that and many had wondered.

They chatted easily and were soon at Madison’s little house.  Deanna looked curiously at the WW2 bungalow, but didn’t ask about it.  “I’ll pick you up tomorrow.  Is 7:30 okay?”  She glanced at the clock.  It had taken them twenty minutes to drive from the hospital.  That would get them to the hospital in the morning with time to spare.  She wasn’t due until ten, but that was okay.  It would give her time to go over paperwork and she wanted to accommodate Madison.