Destroy (A Standalone Romance Novel) (20 page)

“No, dear, she’s in your
apartment. I had to let her in.”

I almost dropped the bags
I had in my arms. Tiffany stared at Mrs. Camborne and at me in turn.

We were both stunned. My
mother is an imposing woman, of course, but I never imagined she would come all
the way to D.C. without phoning me first.

“I’m sorry, Mrs.
Camborne,” I said, as the three of us walked back to the elevator, “but are you
saying that my mother just showed up today and you let her in our apartment?”

“Yes, yes, dear,” she
replied, pressing the call button for us.

“Why did you do that?”
Tiffany asked, and rightly so.

Apart from Tiffany, who
had only seen a photograph of my parents when she first moved in, no one else
knew what my mom looked like. She could have been a thief.

“Well, truly I didn’t
want to do it at first, but when she showed me pictures of you, Heather, and
then told me about your dad being sick and all, I thought I would let her in,
but I stayed with her until I thought I heard the garage door open.”

As the elevator opened
its doors upstairs, I was already seething with rage. There were limits to my
tolerance and my mother had crossed them all by showing up at my home unannounced.

Mrs. Camborne opened the
apartment door for us and said she would be downstairs if we needed anything. I
thanked her for her kindness and left it at that. As we walked in, my mother
stood up. She had been sitting on the couch. Tiffany and I ignored her. I
didn’t want to give her an audience. She was there under strong protest, and
she was not about to let herself down lightly.

Tiffany, who had lived
with her parents for all the four years it took her to get through university,
knew exactly how I felt. Although she hadn’t said a word since questioning Mrs.
Camborne in the garage, I knew she was not going to bend backward for my
intruding mother.

“Hello, Heather,” Mom
said, coming to the kitchen while we were putting the groceries away, “Aren’t
you going to introduce me to your roommate?”

I turned my face and
glared at her. “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

“I told you I’d come up.”

“Oh yeah, you did. But
you forgot the part about phoning me in advance of your arrival, didn’t you?”

“Oh well, I just wanted
to make it a surprise. That’s all.”

“Thank goodness for our
landlady,” I retorted, “otherwise, I wouldn’t have known you had attempted to
come in.” I put the last of the veggies in the crisper and straightened up.
“Anyway, since you’re here,” I said, turning to Tiffany, “This is Dr. Tiffany
Jensen, my roommate and friend. Tiff, this is my mother, Mrs. Williams.”

“Please to meet you,
ma’am,” Tiff said with half a smile draping over her lips. “But if you’ll
excuse me, I’ve got some studying to do,” she added, retreating down the
hallway. “I’ll put the pizza in the oven for us later,” and disappeared in her
room.

Mother stared at her back
as she went down the corridor.

“Are you telling me
you’re eating pizza now?” she asked me defiantly.

I shrugged in reply. “Do
you want a glass of wine?” I grabbed a bottle from the wine rack and opened it.
“We’ll have a nice cabernet with dinner.”

“No, dear, I’ll just have
water, thanks,” she said, going back to sit on the couch.

I followed her with a
glass of wine in one hand and a glass of water in the other. I sat in the chair
facing her, after depositing our drinks on the coffee table.

She looked at me as if
she saw me for the first time in her life. I wasn’t the girl who had left home
for university anymore. I was a woman and a physician to boot. She could not
talk down to me anymore, and she knew it.

“I’m sorry about showing
up like this.”

“So you should be. I
never did it to you or Dad. And I certainly wouldn’t do it to my brothers. Your
visit is welcome, of course, but a little respect for my privacy wouldn’t have
gone amiss. Truly, it was a rude thing to do.”

“Okay, Heather, I heard
you the first time. And it seems that I was wrong. I thought you were probably
living amid boxes and laundry racks in the middle of the living room sort of
thing. I certainly didn’t imagine your home being the way it is. It’s really
nice.”

“Well, thank you. And
Mrs. Camborne has been a great help to get me and Tiff organized. The hours at
the hospital are sometimes very long and extremely tiring, so she watches over
us.”

“Yes, that’s what she
said. She told me that you two sometimes work until the middle of the night.
That must be really exhausting.”

“And it is, Mom. But what
is good about Tiffany and me, is that we like the same things and we do many
things together. She is a fantastic cook and a great housekeeper, whereas I am
the one who keeps her exercising and studying, so she doesn’t become a couch
potato while she’s home.”

“It sounds like you have
it all figured out, haven’t you?”

“Just about,” I said,
getting up from my seat. I knew Tiffany must have been hungry by then and
waiting for her glass of wine.

I went down the corridor
and knocked on her door.

She poked her head
through the gap when she opened it.

“Are you ready for a
glass of cabernet?” I asked, grinning.

“Am I ever,” she replied,
coming out of her room. “Besides, I think I better turn the oven on if we want
to eat anytime soon.”

She walked ahead of me
and smiled at my mom as she went past the living room.

“Aren’t you having a
glass of wine?” she asked, noting that mom was drinking water.

“Oh no, dear. I got used
to drinking water since my husband’s operation. But thanks for asking.”

“Okay then, I hope a
pizza with everything on it is okay with you, because on Friday night we’re not
cooking,” Tiffany declared, pouring herself a glass of wine after turning the
oven on. “It’s our movie night actually.”

“Oh? And what were you
planning to watch?” Mom asked me as I returned to my seat after I set three
plates and cutlery on the coffee table.

“We’ve got Netflix, so
we’ll choose once we’re ready to watch.”

“Do you think there is a
possibility for us to have the same thing at home?”

“Of course you can, Mom.
It’s not exclusive to D.C. you know.”

Mother heaved a sigh. “I
don’t know about all this modern technology,” she remarked, as Tiffany came to
join us. She deposited a huge salad bowl on the coffee table and smiled at my
mother.

“Wow! That looks
amazing!” Mom said, throwing Tiffany a gentle smile. “Do you use Grandma’s recipe
for the dressing by any chance?”

I nodded and returned the
smile. I don’t know if it was the wine or maybe the fact that my mother had
been sorry about her intruding on our lives, but I felt my earlier anger
abating considerably.

“Now, are you going to
tell us how Dad is faring since he’s home?” I asked, taking another sip of
wine.

“Sure. He’s doing just
fine. As I said on the phone to you the other day, you were right. He’s settled
down a lot since his operation. He’s even returned to doing some crosswords in
the morning. But it’s in the evening that he gets tired and impatient. The
doctor told me that I would have to install a lock on the bedroom door because
it’s usually at night that dementia patients get disoriented and try going to
places they knew when they were young. He said it’s like sleepwalking. Except
that if they realize the door is closed, they give up and return to bed.”

“I didn’t know that,”
Tiffany said. “There are so many aspects to medicine that we don’t know, and
will probably never appreciate, that it’s not surprising that there are so many
specialists these days.”

“Yes,” Mom said. “When
Heather said she wanted to become a transplant surgeon, I wondered why.”

“But you know why, Mom,
don’t you?”

“Yes, of course, I do. I
mean now I do. But back then, it surprised me a little. I thought why not
choosing general practice or something less involved or less dangerous.”

“You mean you were afraid
for me?” I queried.

“Of course, dear. I knew
how hard it is for transplant patients to survive. I thought it must be very
depressing to lose so many lives during one’s career.”

“That’s true, Mrs.
Williams, but it’s also extremely rewarding when you succeed in giving someone
a second chance at life.”

“Besides,” I added to
Tiff’s comments, “we’ve made huge progress in that branch of medicine. Today,
we’ve got a lot less rejections than we did even ten years ago.”

“Why don’t you tell your
mom about the two little girls you’ve got in your ward?”

“Well, as long as it
remains between us, maybe I will,” I replied, sniffing the air. The pizza was
ready.

Tiffany smiled, got up
and rushed to the kitchen.

As we started eating, we
heard a knock at the door. We looked at each other. We were not expecting
anyone else to join us. Mother threw me a querying glance.

“I’ll go and see who it
is,” Tiffany offered, getting up.

I couldn’t see the front
door from where I was sitting. I only heard Tiff say: “It’s for you, Hattie,”
as she came back to sit down.

“Who is it?” I mouthed to
her, shooting a glance at my mother.

I only got a shrug of
Tiffany’s shoulders for a reply.

As soon as I walked down
the corridor, I saw him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Jeff was standing in the
doorway, a broad smile affixed to his lips.

My heart jumped in my
chest. I would have fired that gun if I had one in my hand.
God, the gall of the guy,
I thought.
Why doesn’t he get under someone else’s
skirt for a change?

Chapter
22

“Hi,” he said to my
frowning brow. “I was in the neighborhood and I thought I would see how you
are.”

“Well, it’s kind of you,
Dr. Aldridge, but…” I fell short of completing my sentence when I sensed my
mother’s steps come down the hallway.

“Hi,” Jeff said again,
smiling at my mom.

“Mom, this is Dr. Jeff
Aldridge, one of our resident surgeons at the hospital,” I said, crossing my
arms over my chest defensively I suppose.

“Well, very nice meeting
you, Dr. Aldridge. I’m Mrs. Williams, Heather’s mom.”

“Now I know where she
gets her good looks from,” Jeff remarked tritely, while I raised my gaze to the
ceiling in abhorring tedium.

“Oh my, thank you,
Doctor, how flattering of you to say so,” Mom replied, while I thought,
Please, give it a rest, will you?

“Why don’t you join us
for dinner, we’ve just started.” She paused to look at me. I shot her a glare
of displeasure. She was taking over my life again.

“I don’t think so, Mom,”
I interposed. “I mean, I know Dr. Aldridge has other plans, I’m sure.”

“No, not really, Heather,”—
why don’t you call me Honey while you’re at
it, you bastard
—“I had other plans but they fell through, and I would love
to have dinner with you.”

Why are people so obtuse
when it comes to one’s privacy? I felt like slamming the door in his face and
dragging my mother to the living room for a serious scolding– I was so angry.

But, and once again, I
returned to being the obedient daughter and let the “dear Dr. Jeff Aldridge”
into our home.

When she saw him come
through, Tiffany got up and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “How nice to see
you again, Dr. Aldridge. How are you?” she mumbled after swallowing a mouthful
of salad. “Let me get you a plate and a glass of wine. I hope you eat pizza,
because that’s all we’ve got on the menu,” she added jocularly, while everyone
sat down.

I pointed at the couch to
him, where he sat beside my mother. I regained my seat in what had become my
favorite chair.

“So, tell us about your
work,” Mom said, rather enthusiastically. “It must be interesting.”

“I don’t know about
interesting, Mrs. Williams, but it certainly keeps one busy.”

“Yes, my daughter was
telling me how she and Tiffany sometimes stay until midnight at the
hospital–why would that be?”

“It’s the nature of the
work…” He stopped to take the plate, cutlery and napkin from Tiffany’s hands.
“Thanks,” he said, looking up at her and then returning his gaze to my mother.
“As I was saying, it’s the nature of the work we do. You can be sick any time
of the day or night. A road accident can happen at any time. We simply have to
be there for the patients who need us.”

“But you’re not all
attending emergency situations, are you?”

While he put some salad
on his plate, Jeff shook his head. “No, of course not. But take Heather for
example, she works in the transplant department”—
with your wife; why don’t you say it?
—“and when an organ comes in,
she has to be there, ready to perform surgery. Mind you it does not happen
every day, but in every department, there are times when we have to stay the
night.”