Deliver Me (31 page)

With a forlorn sigh,
she said, “I really need to be going.” Monica reached up on her tiptoes and
planted a kiss on his lips. “Thank you for the lovely breakfast.”

He reluctantly
released her, but held onto her hand for a second longer. “Wait. Just
breakfast?”

Monica looked back
at him over her shoulder. “Well, I left fifty bucks on the nightstand for the
services you provided last night.”

He gave her a
healthy tap on her butt. Monica covered her rear end with her hands and scooted
out of the kitchen.

Eli settled against
the counter with his coffee mug, shaking his head as he watched her ascend the
stairs. There was no mistaking it, he had it bad for this woman.

When he arrived at
the hospital a few hours later, after first stopping in to check on Mama, Eli
discovered that Amanda Daniels had been admitted the previous evening. Her
chart stated a fainting spell brought on by her anemia, but Eli wasn’t so sure
the medical condition was the only cause. Mrs. Daniels’ blackouts could very
well be stress-induced.

Given her mental
illness, the strained relationship between she and her husband, and the news he
had laid on her regarding the possible closing of the center, Amanda Daniels
had several reasons to block out the world.

Eli lightly tapped
on her door before entering.

Both Daniels were
there, and—
what?
—they were holding hands?
 
Well, he wouldn’t say Amanda was
reciprocating the gesture, but the fact that she allowed her hand to rest in
her husband’s palm was extremely telling.
 
Maybe the two were on the track to reconciliation.

“Good morning,” Eli
said at the foot of the bed.

“Dr. Holmes.”
Jeffrey Daniels rose from the uncomfortable chair he had apparently slept in.

Eli tucked the
clipboard under his arm and returned his handshake. “I heard you two had an
eventful night.”

“It wasn’t too bad,”
Amanda replied in a shallow voice.

“The good news is
that the baby is fine. He, or she,” Eli said, respecting the fact that the
couple did not want to know their baby’s sex, “is perfectly healthy.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the mother. You know what this means,
right, Amanda?”

She nodded, a
regretful look clouding her face.

Out of the corner of
his eye, Eli noticed Jeffrey’s head volleying back and forth as if he were watching
a tennis match. Eli didn’t have to be psychic to know Amanda had not clued her
husband in on yesterday’s discussion.

“When will I be able
to leave?” she asked in a voice so faint Eli could barely hear her.

“I’ll be back to see
you in a few minutes,” Eli said, patting Amanda’s covered feet. “The
phlebotomist will be in to take a little blood. I want to run a few more test,
then we’ll talk about releasing you, okay?”

At her nod, he
turned to Jeffrey. “Mr. Daniels, I’ll let you bear the burden of all the
paperwork. Follow me. The sooner you get started, that’s the sooner you and
your wife will be able to leave once she’s medically released.”

In the hallway, he
stopped Jeffrey, saying, “I think we need to go to my office for a few minutes.”

“There’s something
wrong, isn’t there? Something happened to the baby that you were too afraid to
say in front of Amanda.”

“No, nothing like
that.” Okay, he could have handled this better. He’d been in this business long
enough to know he should not make such a vague statement to a man who’s wife
was laying in a hospital bed.

“Do you know of your
wife’s visit to the hospital yesterday,” Eli asked.

Jeffrey leaned back
against the wall, dropped his head and sighed. “I found out she came to see you
after she was admitted to the hospital last night. I thought I had a list of
all of her scheduled visits.”

“Yesterday’s visit
wasn’t scheduled. Amanda called with a few concerns typical of a first-time
mother. It wasn’t anything too serious, but I did impart some important news
that I have a feeling she has not shared. It’s something that concerns you
both. Can we go to my office to discuss it?”

Jeffrey took another
deep breath and nodded, and to Eli’s relief, took the news about the center’s
possible closure rather well.

“As I said,” Eli
continued as he sat behind his desk back in his office, “we are giving it our
best effort to keep the facility open. I just want to make sure my patients
have alternate care lined up.”

“I’m not worried
about that,” Jeffrey answered. “The benefits with my new job will take care of
Amanda’s hospital bills.”

Eli’s eyebrows
lifted. “You have a new job? Congratulations.”

“Yeah, I got on with
the company I’ve been contracting with. It comes with benefits, and I don’t
have to worry as much about getting laid off. It happened at the best possible
time, too. This new job is going to free up a lot of my time. I won’t have to
take as many odd jobs, and I can give up my part-time job.”

“You were working a
full-time and part-time job?” And Eli thought he put in long hours.

Jeffrey Daniels bit
nervously on his fingernails. He glanced up at Eli, chewed a second longer,
then asked, “Can I get your opinion on something, Doc?”

Eli wasn’t sure he
wanted to hear this. He had a suspicion it had something to do with the state
of the couple’s marriage, and with the brand new relationship he and Monica had
just embarked upon, Eli did not want to think that people who were once in love
could end up like the Daniels.

But, it came with
the job. He had counseled frightened, uncertain husbands before. Besides, Eli
was curious as hell about what had gone wrong in this marriage. He didn’t want
to repeat the same mistakes with Monica.

“What’s on your
mind?” He picked up his favorite pen and rolled it between his thumb and
forefinger as he watched Jeffrey settle uncomfortably in his seat.

“I’m sure you’ve
noticed the relationship between my wife and I is somewhat...umm...strained.”

“I perceived some
distance between the two of you,” he said simply. “Women experience many levels
of emotion during pregnancy. I thought maybe that had something to do with it.”

“No.” Jeffrey shook
his head. “The problems started before Amanda got pregnant. In fact, she’d
filed for divorce the day the baby was conceived. It was one of those, you
know, for old time’s sake kinda things.” He paused for a moment. “As I think
about it, things started going downhill around the time of the first pregnancy.
You do know that Amanda miscarried once before?”

“We discussed her
miscarriage on her first visit.”

“Yeah, I guess you
would know, being her doctor. You seem to know more about my wife than I do,”
Jeffrey said with a grunt.

“Mr. Daniels—”

“No, it’s okay,” he
waved Eli off. “The important thing is keeping Amanda healthy, and that’s what
you’re doing. I just…I wish she would talk to me.”

The look he gave him
made Eli feel ten kinds of sorry for the poor guy.

“I love my wife, Dr.
Holmes. This divorce was her idea, and for the longest time I had no idea why
she wanted out. Then, the other day, she accused me of cheating on her. I have
never been with another woman the entire time we’ve been married. I don’t know
where she got the idea that I cheated.

“I can’t lose my
wife,” Jeffrey said pleadingly. “She and that baby mean everything to me.”

Jeffrey Daniels’s
face had taken on an expression that was a cross between a fanatical preacher
and a deluded serial killer. His eyes were wide and bright, like a man with
nothing to lose but…everything.

“Mr. Daniels,
I—”

“I’m only asking you
to talk to her,” he stated. “She listens to you, respects you.”

Okay, here was one
situation Eli had never found himself in before. This was not included in his
job description. The hospital provided marriage counselors for things like
this.

“You know, we have a
great counseling center.”

Jeffrey shook his
head, the defeated look on his face turning into one of determination. “I know
Amanda. She wouldn’t go for that.”

“What makes you
think my talking to her will make a difference?”

“You got her to move
back into our house,” he stated simply. “It’s a feat I could not accomplish
with months of begging. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but there’s something
about you that, I don’t know, calms her.”

He’d heard this
before. Back in med school, his classmates used to say he had the magic touch
when it came to pregnant women. His “gift” had aided him through a number of
eventful births, but right now, Eli was ready to give the gift back to wherever
it had come from. He did not want to be caught in the middle of this couple’s
marriage.

“Just think about
it, Doc,” Jeffrey said. No doubt, he sensed his discomfort. At this point, Eli
was doing very little to hide it.

“I can’t promise you
anything,” Eli said, rising from his desk, hoping the other man would get the
hint.

Jeffrey rose from
his chair and waited for Eli to round his desk. He grasped Eli’s hand between
both of his, and shook vigorously. The genuine hope and sincerity on his face
created a feeling of dread in the pit of Eli’s stomach. No use fighting it now;
he was already in the middle of this. Eli resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
How did he get caught up in these situations?

“I’ll see what I can
do,” he said, pulling his hand free. He looked up at the clock on the wall. He
had about twenty minutes before he had to start preparations for his first C-section,
one of five scheduled today.

If he got Jeffrey
Daniels out right now, he could sneak to the ER for a few minutes to see
Monica.

Eli had a feeling
working at the same hospital with his girlfriend would get him in trouble.
Maybe that was the real reason he never wanted to date doctors. Maybe it had
nothing to do with Elizabeth Graves.

Nah, that wasn’t it.
He had dated his share of nurses who worked here and had never broken his neck
to see them while at the job.

This time, it was
about the woman. Pure and simple.

Eli followed Jeffrey
out of his office, closing the door behind him.

“Hey, Dr. Holmes.” A
RN walked up beside him on the way to the elevator. “You hear about the strike?”

“What strike?” Eli
asked.

“In Hattiesburg.
Where have you been all morning? It’s all anyone is talking about.”

Eli glanced at his
watch. He was down to seventeen minutes.

“Nearly all the
physicians have walked out of the hospitals or closed their practices,” the
nurse continued.

Okay, that sounded
serious. Eli could only imagine the chaos that would ensue if something similar
were to happen to the healthcare system in this city. Like New Orleans,
Mississippi’s hospitals had been painfully understaffed since Katrina.

“What caused the
walk out,” he asked, keeping in mind his ticking wristwatch.

“Insurance premiums.”

Figures.

“I heard that some
specialists are paying as much as $200,000 a year in malpractice insurance,”
she said in awe. “As much as I gripe about the difference in pay between
doctors and nurses, even I have to agree that’s ridiculous.”

Eli nodded. He
empathized with the Mississippi doctors. He could have paid for his house three
times over if so much of his salary didn’t go for insurance. It was the price
for practicing in the litigious land of mass tort lawsuits.

“I also heard they’re
asking for docs from neighboring states to help out until everything is
resolved.”

A sense of
foreboding traveled down Eli’s spine at the potential implications of the nurse’s
statement. He only hoped neither he nor Monica were called out.

“Eli!”

His chin dropped to
his chest at the sound of William Slessinger’s jovial voice.

“I’ve been looking
for you all morning. I’m happy I caught you before the marathon of Cesareans
you have planned for today,” Slessinger said, draping his arm across Eli’s
shoulders. “I’ve got a really big favor to ask. Why don’t we go to your office
for a few minutes?”

The sense of
foreboding evolved into all out dread. Eli already knew what would happen next.

He was on his way to
Mississippi.

As she threw her
overnight bag on the backseat, Monica asked herself, once again, just what was
she doing? She didn’t even know how to get to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Relying
on directions she downloaded from the Internet, Monica could not believe she
was actually about to get in her car and drive to another state.

For a man!

Okay, so things had
not gone according to plan. Instead of staying man free for another year or so,
she had gone ahead and fallen in love.