Could I Have This Dance? (40 page)

John stared off at the outline of the Blue Ridge mountains, visible in the moonlight. Claire tried to read his face in the dim light. Could it be that he never really understood the risk that she was facing? Would knowing the real risk make him less enthusiastic about joining her family?

Finally, when John spoke, his voice echoed with nonchalance. “If your father has it, Clay’s the one that should be worried. He’s like a chip off the old block from what little I’ve seen. You’re nothing like your brother or your father.”

“Unfortunately, HD isn’t linked to any other trait that can be measured. You can’t say that just because Clay acts like Daddy, or looks like him, that Clay will or won’t have the HD gene. It doesn’t work that way.”

John sighed and fell silent.

Claire laid her head back on John’s shoulder. “Did you see the oak hutch in the dining room?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Clay made it at the cabinet shop. I used to think that Clay and I couldn’t be any more different. But when I started looking at the hutch, I wondered.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at it, John. It has quality written all over it. All of the drawers have dovetail corners. The scrollwork on the top is perfectly symmetrical. When I saw what kind of care Clay put into it, I started seeing the perfectionism that has driven me to get where I am. I enjoy working with my hands in surgery. Clay loves to work with wood.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’m not as different from my twin as I always thought.”

“What does Clay think about HD?”

“I haven’t talked to him. After bringing it up to Margo, I decided to wait until I knew for sure.”

“Probably a smart move. Best not to muddy the water unless you know for sure.”

Claire looked at her watch. The hour was getting late, and she needed to make an early flight in the morning. “I should go to bed. My flight leaves at seven in the morning.”

“Back to the grindstone, eh?”

She nodded. “It’s bizarre, John. It’s like I’m heading off for another life. It’s as if I’ve lived in two worlds. One here in Stoney Creek, a backwards
little place with a dysfunctional family that believes in town curses. And one in the big city, pursuing my dreams and hoping against hope that I could leave my upbringing behind. In Lafayette, I have so many new pressures, a daily stress to do the right thing for my patients while their lives hang in the balance.”

“But you haven’t left Stoney Creek behind, Claire. You can’t. It’s a part of you.”

“I’m learning that. But it has taken Daddy’s health problems to make me come back. It’s as if my two worlds are about to collide, threatening to destroy everything I’ve worked so hard to accomplish.”

John smiled. Claire studied him for a moment. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.”

She elbowed his ribs. “Tell me.”

He held up his hands as if he were holding two large balls, his palms up. He brought them together as he reiterated her words, “‘My two worlds are about to collide.’”

“Don’t laugh at me, Cerelli. This is serious!”

“I can’t help it. I’m not going to let myself get all worked up over what ifs.”

She pressed her long index finger into his chest. “Admit it! Knowing that I could end up like my father scares you, too. And don’t you dare say something to me about God’s sovereignty. You aren’t a human if you can’t admit that a future with HD scares you to death.”

His smile faded, and he looked away from her eyes. “Okay, I’m a little scared. I didn’t realize the odds were as high as you said.”

They sat quietly for a moment, the only noise being the crickets and the squeak of the old swing. He pushed his face into her neck and began to caress her with gentle kisses. “Let’s think about something else.”

Claire didn’t feel like kissing. She shivered and kissed his mouth quickly, not receptively. It was definitely a kiss that said “Good night,” not “I want more.”

John groaned and stretched. “When do I see you again?”

“I don’t know. I’ve burned up half my two weeks’ vacation.” She lifted her hand to cover a yawn. “So I guess it’s up to you.”

Claire thought about returning to her empty house in Lafayette. She wondered if her landlord had managed to repaint her front door. And wondered even more if Mr. Jones could find it in his heart not to blame her for his daughter’s death. Here on her father’s back porch, the pressures of residency seemed so far away, but as soon as she returned, she knew that she would wonder if her week away had only been a dream. Part of her wished she could stay in the Apple Valley. She wanted to marry John Cerelli and
forget about the Mecca. But part of her knew she could never be happy without pursuing her goal of being a surgeon.

She thought about sleeping in her house in Lafayette alone. Could she ever feel safe knowing that someone had written a death wish on her front door? She had managed to push her fears about the situation aside while she tended to her family in Stoney Creek. But now the time was nearing that she would have to return to her other world and face the music that was being played there too.

She felt a knot welling up in her throat. She’d explained all of her residency trials to John earlier in the day. He was supportive, but Claire wasn’t sure he understood the pressure she endured. She turned to John and buried her face in his shirt, not wanting him to see the tears begin to flow. He wrapped his arms around her as she released a sob, finally allowing her emotions to overflow.

She cried for fear she wouldn’t make it through her internship, because someone wished she would die, because she had let down her team, and the university hospital could get sued.

She cried because she’d allowed a little girl to die.

She cried because she had to leave the man she loved.

She cried for her father and the disease that stole his body and robbed his mind.

And she cried because she might have solved the Stoney Creek curse.

And if she had, her life would never be the same.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

T
he next day, Claire resumed life in Lafayette and tried not to think about HD. She busied herself with internship life and waited for the call she knew would eventually come from Dr. V’s office. After two weeks, she rotated off of the cardiothoracic surgery service and onto vascular surgery. She went from “sitting hearts” to watching over the agonizing sequence known to the residents affectionately as the “fem-pop, chop, chop,” which referred to the process of performing an arterial bypass graft from the femoral artery to the popliteal artery to save a dying leg, only to watch the grafts eventually fail, necessitating higher and higher levels of limb amputation.

With new courage, she slept alone in her brownstone and downplayed her earlier fears that Mr. Jones was lurking, death wishes dripping from his paintbrush. She wouldn’t let a little orange paint keep her away from her own house. Death threats, if they were real, wouldn’t be broadcast out for everyone to see. No, she had a life to live, and she wouldn’t let Mr. Jones interfere.

She longed for a friend to talk to. She talked to John, but the phone had a way of clamming him up. After sharing her heart with him, night after night, she’d hang up the phone and wonder if he’d really listened. Girlfriends were sparse. She had little time for developing relationships, and the few women in the residency didn’t seem like appropriate confidantes. Especially not Beatrice, who always seemed to throw her shoulders back a notch and quote the surgical literature when Claire approached. Claire wasn’t intimidated by this tactic, but she wasn’t charmed, either. If she found a woman friend, it would have to come from outside the program.

And that left Brett. She’d fallen into a pattern of friendly visits, enjoying his company, all the while knowing that she was driving him crazy. She could see it in his eyes. She didn’t really want to frustrate him, but she had to admit she loved his attention, and he was so easy to talk to. Besides, she really didn’t have another friend who knew what she was going through as
an intern. Brett knew it firsthand. He’d been there, and Claire appreciated his encouragement.

On one Saturday evening in mid-September, Brett and Claire sat across from each other at Claire’s kitchen table. They were talking through the intern list, playing their own private version of “if I was the program director.” It was an act they’d made into a joke, as a way to trivialize and cope with the decisions that would face Dr. Rogers as he selected the residents who would be advanced up the pyramid, and those he would drop.

“McNeil,” Brett said, putting his thumb up.

Claire nodded, putting her thumb in the air. “A definite member of the top eight. He didn’t even flinch when they pulled him from the ER and made him do my week of CT.”

“Holcroft?”

“You mean Dr. Holcroft, MD, PhD?” She smiled and held up her hand before giving him a thumbs-down.

“No way,” Brett responded, holding his thumb up.

“You’d promote him?”

“No, but Rogers will. He loves geeky Ivy Leaguers. I think it reminds him of his own lot in life. Besides, Holcroft has been hanging around Rogers’ lab trying hard to get involved in one of the chairman’s pet research projects. He wants to be too indispensable for Rogers to cut.”

“Will it work?”

“Probably.”

Dr. Bearss and Carter, the two remaining Harvard grads, both got two thumbs-up. Button got one thumbs-up and one thumbs-down. Wayne Neal got two thumbs-up.

“Beatrice Hayes?”

“If I had the choice, I give her the axe,” Claire said, putting her thumb down.

“But you don’t. You’ve got to vote like our attendings will.” He paused and lifted his index finger. “She won the first-blood award.”

“That can’t really count for anything.”

“Maybe not, but no one who’s received it has ever been cut.”

“That’s ridiculous. It just means she was the first intern to do a real case.”

“Yeah, but the attendings think it represents the type of go-get-’em attitude they’re looking for.” He held up a second finger. “Besides, the word is getting around the senior male residents that she is willing to do just about anything to keep the men on her team smiling.”

Claire frowned. “You don’t believe those rumors.”

“I didn’t say I believed it. But if it’s true, Rogers is likely to keep her around for a year just to see.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

Claire huffed. “She won’t get a thumbs-up from me. She’s too cutthroat.”

Brett gave her a thumbs-up. “Sorry, Claire, I’m only voting the way I think the boss will vote. Besides everything else Beatrice has going for her, Rogers knows it looks bad to have only matched two women. He won’t be quick to get rid of them.”

“Oh, so you think the women have an unfair advantage?”

“I didn’t say that.” He shrugged. “But it doesn’t hurt.”

“That’s not the way I see it. He’s from the old school, so a woman has to be twice as good as a man to make it through the program.” She emitted a thin smile. “Fortunately for most women, that’s not too difficult.”

Brett rolled his eyes.

Crabtree and Rudy both got thumbs-up. It was common knowledge that Padgett wanted a spot in orthopedics and Griffin was looking for a urology spot, so both of them got thumbs-down.

“What about Kowalski? You have to decide whether he comes back from the lab into a second-year spot.”

“I don’t know him at all.”

Brett held up his fingers and counted off. “Doesn’t matter. We’ve already filled eight second-year slots.”

“But we haven’t even considered ourselves.”

Brett mumbled a curse. “You’re a woman. Rogers will probably keep you.

“Wait a minute, Daniels! You have no idea what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world!”

He held up his hands, but Claire didn’t stop.

“Do you know how hard it is to be noticed for doing excellent work in the OR instead of being noticed for how you look in a bathing suit?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Don’t tell me it’s an advantage to be a woman in surgery. Every attending looks at you like you should be in nursing. And don’t even think about whining. If a male resident whines, it’s okay. If I whine, I’ve got PMS!”

“Okay, okay, I get the picture.” He slumped. “But I still say that if all other things were equal, I’d choose you over me any day of the week. Unless I get a big grant and get Rogers’ name in a prestigious journal, I’m hosed.”

“What if Mr. Jones sues the university? It’s not likely that Dr. Rogers will want me if I’m a liability.”

“Then you’re hosed, too. But Mr. Jones hasn’t shown signs of suing, has he?”

Claire sighed. She wasn’t enjoying the conversation. “Other than what he said to me in the ER that day, and the paint on my door, I guess not.”

The phone rang. Brett stood up as if he may pick up the phone. Claire didn’t like that idea for two reasons. Number one, if it was John, she’d have to explain her friendship with Brett, which was, in her mind, just that—a friendship. And number two, she wanted her answering machine to screen her calls in case Mr. Jones might have weird ideas about harassing her.

“Don’t get that. My answering machine will pick up.”

“Why not?”

She flipped her hands over in nonchalance and attempted a smile.

“You don’t want me to talk to your fiancé, do you?” Brett winked. “You’re keeping me a secret from him, aren’t you?”

She hardened her expression. “You wish,” she responded, rolling her eyes.

After the answering machine picked up, she heard a female voice, “Claire? This is Dr. Nadienne Rice calling. I’m—”

Claire nearly stumbled over a kitchen chair in rushing to pick up the phone. “This is Claire.”

“Oh, hi. I just wanted to get back with you about coauthoring a paper for
Contemporary Neurology.
I wanted to be sensitive to your feelings about this, but really the credit for solving the Stoney Creek curse mystery belongs to you, so I wanted to give you an opportunity—”

“Wait, Nadienne,” Claire interrupted, her mouth suddenly dry. “I still haven’t heard anything from my father’s genetic test.” She gripped the phone with both hands to try to keep it from trembling. “Are you telling me that his test results are in?”