A year ago, Mark Hodell had seemed a far from reassuring presence. Abby had been an intern. Mark had been a thoracic surgery attending — not just any attending physician, but a key surgeon on the Bayside cardiac transplant team. They'd met in the OR over a trauma case. The patient, a ten-year-old boy, had been rushed in by ambulance with an arrow protruding from his chest — the result of a sibling argument combined with a bad choice in birthday presents. Mark had already been scrubbed and gowned when Abby entered the OR. It was only her first week as an intern, and she'd been nervous, intimidated by the thought of assisting the distinguished Dr. Hodell. She'd stepped up to the table. Shyly she'd glanced at the man standing across from her. What she saw, above his mask, was a broad, intelligent forehead and a pair of beautiful blue eyes. Very direct. Very inquisitive.
Together they operated. The kid survived.
A month later, Mark asked Abby for a date. She turned him down twice. Not because she didn't want to go out with him, but because she didn't think she should go out with him.
A month went by. He asked her out again. This time temptation won out. She accepted.
Five and a half months ago, Abby moved into Mark's Cambridge home. It hadn't been easy at first, learning to live with a forty-one-year-old bachelor who'd never before shared his life — or his home — with a woman. But now, as she felt Mark holding her, supporting her, she could not imagine living with, or loving, anyone else.
'Poor baby,' he murmured, his breath warm in her hair. 'Brutal, isn't it?'
'I'm not cut out for this. What the hell do I think I'm doing here?'
'You're doing what you always dreamed about. That's what you told me.'
'I don't even remember what the dream was any more. I keep losing sight of it.'
'I believe it had something to do with saving lives?'
'Right. And here I am wishing that drunk in the other car was dead.' She shook her head in self- disgust.
'Abby, you're going through the worst of it now. You've got two more days on Trauma. You just have to survive two more days.'
'Big deal. Then I start Thoracic-'
'A piece of cake in comparison. Trauma's always been the killer. Tough it out like everyone else.'
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.'
