Kitabı oku: «New York Doc, Thailand Proposal / The Surgeon's Baby Bombshell», sayfa 2
He’d never doubted his decision either. He’d lived the traditional life for a while, and he’d lived this life. Ultimately, this was where he wanted to be. Where his heart was. And when he and Layla were together, that had always been the thing she couldn’t, or had refused to understand. Accepting a position elsewhere might have been easier, but easier didn’t mean better. At least, not for him.
“Anyway, I don’t really have good sleeping accommodations for you. Tallaja, my assistant, usually sleeps in the ward when we have patients or the office when we don’t. He’s pretty flexible about that, but I’m guessing you won’t be.”
“As long as I have mosquito netting, it doesn’t matter.”
“Seriously? You’ve been doing your homework, haven’t you?”
“I don’t step into things blindly, Arlo. Except maybe our relationship.”
“I never considered it being blind. Not one day of it.” Arlo stepped aside as Layla marched up steps and pushed past him into Happy Hospital, brushing up against him just slightly, but enough to raise goosebumps on his arms. It was a familiar feeling—one he didn’t want to have. But every time she’d ever touched him, even innocently like just now, she’d caused that reaction that would, inevitably, lead to another reaction, then another, until Damn. Why these thoughts? Why now when he was just coming to terms with the fact that he would never have enough to offer anyone else a decent life?
Even when he had been with Layla, Arlo had always known she would come to her senses about who he was and what he’d never have to offer her. It hadn’t stopped him from getting involved, but it had always held him back from getting too involved. Back at the beginning, he’d drawn his own line in the sand then taken good care never, ever to step over it, except for that one moment near the end when he’d asked her to come to Thailand with him.
Stupid mistake. He’d known that as the words had come out, and he’d still felt the sting of her rejection a week later when he’d walked away, even though he’d always known how she would answer if he’d asked. “So, look around. There’s not much to see, but it could be a lot worse.”
Layla stopped just inside the hospital door, looked around and turned back to face him. “How many people can you accommodate?” she asked.
“Ten on the worst day ever. We do a lot of our treatment in-home because people here prefer it that way. But for the most part we dispense our medicine and treatments any way we can. My goal isn’t so much the ‘where’ as the ‘what.’”
And it wasn’t an easy goal. Already he could tell that Layla was chastising herself for volunteering. She liked her creature comforts too much. And to think there’d been a time when he’d imagined they could work shoulder to shoulder here, that she wouldn’t be bothered by the overall difficulty of pretty much everything. Well, he’d been wrong about that. Stars in his eyes. That’s what he told himself afterward. Or maybe it had been the first time in his life he’d connected to a woman the way he had Layla.
Unfortunately, his situation doomed a relationship. But, if he were to pack up and leave for the sake of love, chances were nobody would come to take his place. The thought of letting down the people in his care made Arlo queasy and with that came the unrelenting knowledge that letting himself down was his course to follow. Forever alone. So, this is where he was, however it had happened. His choice, of course. And in that he’d been as stubborn or independent as he’d accused Layla of being.
“Your other option is to share my hut. It has a little more privacy—not much—but it’s someplace where you can get away when you need to. Unless there’s an emergency, people here know not to bother me when I’m in there.” Arlo hadn’t intended to ask her but now that he had, he didn’t regret it.
When they had been together, they’d had fun evenings. Sitting, talking. Laughing. So maybe that was a bit of nostalgia creeping in. But those had been nice times and he didn’t mind the reminders. Because once he and Layla had been very good together. Unfortunately, that had ended, but maybe having her here could shut the book on the bad and leave him with only the good. He hoped so as he didn’t want to carry the weight of the bad with him for the rest of his life and, if he planned to spend that life alone, he wanted the good memories to look back on.
“You don’t have to stand there looking so stressed, Arlo. I can do this job. Even more, I want to do this job.”
“Because it’s just another rung higher on your climb.”
“Yes. I won’t lie about that. Ollie needs team players in his surgery, and that’s what I’ve been for quite a while now.”
“Is it a struggle? Because I’ve never seen you as a team player. And I don’t say that to offend you. But you always prided yourself on standing alone.”
Layla laughed. “Because when you knew me, that’s all I’d ever done. Stood alone. So, it’s always a struggle joining in, and I know that. So does Ollie. But this promotion means everything, so I’ve got a lot of work to do if I want to earn it. That demon of ambition is still there, Arlo, chipping away at me, and I thought something unexpected, like coming here, to the last place I thought I’d ever want to be, would help me learn what I need to know outside what I already know.”
Arlo cocked his head and looked at her for a moment, then smiled. “I thought maybe he’d twisted your arm.”
“You’re the only one who ever tried to twist my arm and look how that turned out.”
“I still can’t believe you chose this, Layla. What were his other options?”
“Going to a sister hospital in Miami or working as assistant surgeon for a football team. Both short-term, fill-in positions like this. So, to be honest, I’m as surprised as you that I raised my hand for this. Especially since it scares me that I won’t have what it takes to give your patients what they need. And you scare me, because—well, you fit here, and I don’t.” Layla bit down hard on her lip, and for a moment stared off into space.
“I—I don’t want to fail, Arlo. I want to be the kind of person who can step into a situation—any situation—and do what needs to be done. I mean, you’ve always known I have a huge fear of failure. And look at me now—marching into the center ring, pretty much without a clue. For me, this is really pushing the envelope, as they say. And while the whole you and me relationship thing is off the table, I need to be able to depend on you to help me, or at least point me in the right direction so I can figure it out myself.
“Even though being here and doing what I’m about to do scares me, I don’t want to take the easy way out.” Like giving in and going with him when she’d always known the life he led would make her miserable. Oh, she’d weighed the decision, for months. Made the mental pros and cons list. But in the end one thing had always tilted out of proportion to everything else—to be the best doctor she could be meant she had to be satisfied with her lifestyle.
What Arlo offered would never satisfy her. And, sure, maybe that was the leaning of the materialistic girl in her, but it was something that couldn’t be overlooked. Layla had lost sleep over it, paced a rut in the carpet, bitten her nails to the quick, trying to figure out how to change herself, but, in the end, even her feelings for Arlo hadn’t been strong enough to bring that about. Sadly, that was the answer. If she’d loved him enough, she should have been able to make the necessary changes in herself. But she couldn’t, which meant she hadn’t.
“Nope. You never were easy, and you never took the easy way out.”
Arlo was decked out in tan cargo shorts and a faded navy blue T-shirt with the Voltaire saying on it: The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. He looked like he belonged here. Layla was glad for him because she’d never really found that yet—a place where she belonged.
Working with Ollie in his hospital was good, and she liked it. But did she love it? She wanted to, but because there seemed to be such a long distance between like and love, she wondered if love could really exist—for what she did, or for the person she might spend her life with. The bottom line was she didn’t know. Wasn’t even sure she knew what love was.
“Maybe not being easy was some of my charm?”
“You had many charms, Layla. Trust me, you had more charm than you ever gave yourself credit for.”
“You’re just saying that because I was convenient.”
“You were a lot of things, but convenient was never one of them.” He chuckled. “Even if I hadn’t been raised in the jungle where I really didn’t have much of an opportunity to get to know women, I’d have never called you convenient. Not in anything.”
“Should I take that as a compliment?”
“There were many, many times I took it as a frustration. But it’s who you were. Maybe still are. And, yes, it is a compliment because I did like your independence. It made you different from the others.”
“Ah, yes. All the girls chasing after jungle boy. You did have your fair share, didn’t you?”
“None who could hold my attention the way you did.”
“Do you have someone now, Arlo? Are you married, or otherwise committed? I mean, I think Ollie might have told me, but you know how he is, the way he keeps as much to himself as possible. And I think he’s gone out of his way not to mention you because, well—you know. It was awkward.”
“There’s no one. I did see someone in Bangkok for a while after I got back, but it didn’t work out. She wanted attention all the time, and I didn’t often have time to get there to give it to her. And she wouldn’t come here. Eventually, she got to be very clingy, then demanding, when I refused an offer in one of the hospitals there. She’d set it up, assuming I’d take it but, well—you know me. You can take the jungle doc out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the jungle doc. I didn’t conform enough for her and I certainly didn’t want her to assume she could control me with a good job offer.”
Arlo shook his head. “We lasted six long, difficult months then she met someone who could—and eventually did—give her all the things she wanted that I couldn’t.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m not. She did much better than me. Besides, it’s the story of my life. I can’t bring anything to a relationship but me. I’ve got no money. Where I live—well, you’ll see that for yourself. I don’t own things. I work ridiculous hours. It wouldn’t be fair of me to expect anybody to live that life, and it wasn’t fair of me back then to ask you to, then end it the way I did, when you told me all the reasons you couldn’t. At the time I was soangry. Eventually I realized that anger was disappointment, and not in you. But in myself for expecting that I could ever have any kind of real relationship in my life since I have nothing to offer.”
“You have yourself. If someone loves you, that should be enough.”
“But that’s not enough, Layla. You know it and I know it. But I made this choice, it was a promise to my mother. Now a lot of people depend on me. And if not methere’s nobody.”
Layla shook her head as well. “I almost got myself into something once, but it’s a long, complicated story. Girl on rebound meets wrong boy, mistakes his overtures for true love, boy tries to change girl to fit his mold, girl’s not the type to bend into anybody’s mold. In the end not a heartbreaker so much as an eye-opener and a huge caution that I’m better sticking to something where my heart doesn’t get involved.” And the last sentence of it went something like: Besides, he didn’t measure up to Arlo. But Arlo didn’t need to know that.
“Sorry to hear that. Even sorrier that I had a part in it.”
She forced a sad smile to her face. “The truth is, I don’t know what love is, Arlo. I recognize the kind my parents gave me—more obligatory love than the genuine thing. And don’t get me wrong. They’ve spent a lifetime trying hard, not always getting it right, but trying. Which, I suppose, is love in some variation. At least the only way they knew how to give it. Then there’s what I felt for you, which came with a time limit. I thought if I ignored it, it would magically disappear. Then Brad I don’t get it right, or don’t do something right. Not sure which.”
“Your parents you can’t help. With me—us—the boundaries were there before we” He swallowed hard. “Before we turned our friendship into something it wasn’t meant to be. And with Brad, everybody makes that mistake sooner or later. The rebound affair. That’s what I had with Gayle, I suppose. Someone to fill in the gaps.”
“Then you were rebounding from me even though we weren’t”
“Readjusting,” he said.
“I like that. And maybe that’s what I was doingreadjusting.” Readjusting to life after Arlo. Yet here she was, the one place she didn’t belong given the feelings for him she’d had. But this time she was prepared. At least, she hoped she was. Because she needed to close this chapter. Even after all this time. “So, now that we know each other’s biggest mistakes, how about showing me your hut?”
“Are you sure you’d actually stay with me after”
“Just consider it like sleeping in on-call. Remember those days during our residency after long, hard hours where you barely had time to eat, let alone sleep, when any bed would do as long as the person occupying the bed next to you didn’t snore?” She paused for a moment, and despite herself laughed. “You didn’t start snoring, did you?”
“Haven’t had any complaints. At least, on the nights when I sleep in the hospital, the patients I’m watching haven’t said anything. Neither has Chauncy.”
“Who’s Chauncy?”
Arlo chuckled. “You’ll meet him soon enough. And probably get to sleep with him as well.”
She didn’t know what this was about, but his eyes were sparkling with laughter the way she remembered. It was nice seeing that again. Nice being part of it.
“No door?” she asked, as he pulled back the mosquito netting on his hut to let her in.
“Not yet. It’s on the list of things I want, but the hospital gets the little funding we raise, not me, so it’s not a priority.”
A quick look revealed a small area where he prepared food, a desk off in one corner, a couple of rough-hewn chairs and a thin curtain separating a small area at the back from the rest of what was, essentially, a one-room hut. It was clear, and as basic a space as she’d ever seen, and she could picture Arlo living here. He’d always been a man of simple needs—something she’d admired about him. “Sono facilities?”
“Over at the hospital. Once you get used to it, it’s not so bad.”
“Bad, as in?”
“Adequate. A hose through a window that brings water from a tank outside and takes a while to prime and get running. Or you can heat a bucket of water on the stove over there if you prefer a warm bath.” He smiled. “I’ve lived in much more primitive digs than this so, to me, this is all good.”
“Primitive for me was that weekend you took me to a cabin in the Catskills. Remember that?”
“It had indoor plumbing,” he said defensively, smiling.
“And I had to carry in wood to the fireplace. In my life, a fireplace is turned on with a little knob off to the side. One little flick, gas turns on and, voilà, a fire.” That had been a nice holiday, though. A wonderful holiday. No trappings like her parents required. Just simplicity and—the two of them. Snow outside, safe and warm with Arlo inside. Feeling protected by him. Drinking hot chocolate. Playing chess for hours on end. Making love for even more hours. Watching, through the plate-glass window, the snow coming down outside and being glad she was in Arlo’s arms, inside. Perfect.
He chuckled. “I always did say you were a wimp.”
“So, where’s the switch to turn on your lights?” she asked, looking around for it.
“I have a generator, but fuel to run it’s pretty expensive and hard to come by out here, so most of the time I light the place with a kerosene lamp. And candles. One of the women here makes candles for me.”
While Ollie had tried to prepare Layla for Arlo’s lifestyle, he hadn’t come close. Yet she was here anyway. But it was only for two months, which did concern her—not the lack of amenities but being so close to Arlo because, already, memories she didn’t want coming back were flooding in. The Catskills. Going to farmers’ markets on the weekends. Reading out loud to each other at night—she liked Charles Dickens, he liked Stephen King. The way he’d always shown up at the hospital to walk her home when it was dark. Or check the oil and battery in her car, then go fill it up to make sure she wouldn’t get stranded somewhere on the road. The big thingsthe little things. The things she’d taken for granted. So many of them were coming back to her now.
She’d expected some of that, but not so much, which made her wonder if what she’d thought of as a nice romance, or even an intense one at times, had really been much more. She knew she’d fallen in love with Arlo, but suddenly some of their memories were tearing at her heart. Even so, she didn’t regret her decision to come to Thailand as there was a possibility she needed closure much more than she’d thought she did.
“And this is how you get along on a daily basis?” she asked, wondering if she could as well. Because she didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of Arlo. There’d been too many times when he’d teased her about being a spoiled little rich girl, which had bothered her more than she’d expected it to. What she wanted more than anything was to show him she could do this on her own. Live this way. Be a good doctor. Be someone he respected. Because that’s the one thing she’d never been sure she’d had from him—his respect. And now, even after all this time, she wanted it. Why? She didn’t know. But it mattered. Mattered much more than she’d have ever guessed it would.
CHAPTER TWO
“SERIOUSLY? YOU CAN’T get antibiotics?”
Layla was reacting to a definite lack of supplies in Arlo’s medicine lock-up. She’d taken a peek while she was over there and had been totally shocked. In comparison to what she’d had available to her all the time this was crazy. Yet it was Arlo’s crazy, and he seemed good with it.
“I can, but it’s not as easy as you’d think. Medical care is free, but I have to wait for my allotment, then it’s sent to the regional hospital for me to pick up. Getting there isn’t always easy. I don’t always have time. And I can’t have someone do it who isn’t medically qualified.”
“But don’t you have an assistant?”
“He’s a student, Layla. A college graduate who’s getting ready to go to med school. And he’s a good medic in the field. Trained by me, though. So he’s not licensed or certified in any medical capacity yet, which means he can’t make that trip. I have a nurse who’ll bring my supplies out when he can, but doctors and nurses are in critically short supply outside the big cities, so he’s not always free to help me either. Meaning if I need something immediately, sometimes I can go get it, sometimes I must wait, depending on what else is going on.
“Bottom line—what I need is available, but the ability to go after it is often lacking. So we wait, and make do until we can rectify the situation.”
“I guess I never realized how difficult some medical situations can get, even when supplies are available.”
“Most people don’t. It’s not their fault, but who wants to hear about what I do here when what’s happening with medicine in Bangkok’s hospitals is a huge contributor to the medical world in general. That’s just the way it is.”
In her medical world, a quick call to the pharmacy or central supply got her what she needed within minutes. Layla couldn’t even begin to imagine the frustration of knowing you had what you needed available, yet you couldn’t get to it. Maybe that was something she could fix. Something where her admin skills would prove to him she was good at what she did. Certainly it was worth looking into.
“So, can you stock ahead? Keep a few things back in case of emergency?”
“I do, but I don’t have a lot of storage capacity here. And sometimes no electricity for days, which means the drugs that require refrigeration go bad.”
It kept getting worse. No easy access to drugs that were his. Sometimes no ability to store them properly. And Arlo had chosen this over his grandfather’s surgery? “Can’t say that I understand any of this, Arlo. When you used to talk about coming back here, what you have isn’t what you described. I pictured a modern facility tucked away in the jungle. Not a rundown structure that lacked supplies, personnel and anything that could be construed as convenient or up to date.”
“But that’s who we are. And this is what I knew I’d be getting when I came back.”
“Do you have a bed?”
“Sure do. And it will be yours if you want it. Also, it’s not a bed so much as a cot.”
“And with the facilities across the street”
“Consider it a little bit of rustic camping.”
“For two months, Arlo. I can do that. But this is the rest of your life and even though I can see it, and I do have a better understanding of the need here”
“Let me guess. You still don’t get it?”
“Oh, I get it. But this isn’t who you were when we were together. You talked about this life, but you didn’t live anything close to it.”
“Consider that as me being on holiday.”
“And I was part of that holiday?”
Arlo didn’t answer the question. Instead, he pulled back a thin sheet separating the main part of the room from what looked to be a tiny space for a bedroom. “And you’re in luck. Chauncy isn’t here right now. So the cot is all yours if you want to rest until I can find someone to get your car.”
Layla looked out the window above her cot and sighed. It was beginning to rain. Big fat drops. Hitting the dirt road and turning it into instant mud. And here she was, in a hut without a door, assigned to sleep with something or someone called Chauncy, and just now learning that what she’d thought might have been love in some form had been merely a holiday for Arlo. She’d been merely a holiday. Well, she was here. And she had to make the best of it while she was. But her spirits were as dreary as the gray sky outside. She’d hoped for something different, something more. And the truth hurt.
“I don’t suppose this Chauncy happens to have an umbrella, does he? I’d like to go back across the road and get myself acquainted with the hospital.”
“Actually, I have an umbrella. But you should be careful because some snakes love the rain and come out to play, while others are making a mad dash to get out of it.”
Yep, that’s all she needed to add to her mood. Snakes in the puddles. “Seriously?”
“Seriously, but the good news is we have a nice supply of antivenin always handy. That’s the one thing that’s delivered to my door because the pharmaceutical reps deem my snakebite findings useful to them. So, use the antivenin, fill out some paperwork, answer some questions and they keep the supply coming.”
Snakes and snakebites. Somehow none of this was brightening her day. Not this holiday girl.
“You trying to get rid of me already, Arlo?” Layla asked, walking into a small room, one of only three with real doors in the hospital, then stopping halfway inside to look around. It was a basic exam room. One hard, flat, old-fashioned exam table, an open cabinet with supplies like gloves, bandages and tongue depressors. The medicine cabinet she’d already seen. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t hopeless either. More like something new in her collection of medical experiences.
“So, do you have a usual time to order supplies?”
“On a PRN basis.” As needed.
“And you get that order sent by?”
“Going to an elephant rescue near here and getting on their internet.” Arlo smiled. “It may seem difficult, but it works out.”
But would she work out inside Arlo’s system? That was the question that kept coming to mind. She wanted to help him, to do a good job, but practically speaking, could she? “And I’ll fit into this how?”
“Any way you want to. I operate on the same system as my orders are submitted. PRN. It works, as long as I don’t get distracted. And that’s when everything falls apart.”
“What distracts you?” Layla was curious, as Arlo had never seemed the type to get distracted when they’d been together.
“A lot of things. Too much need, too little of me to go around. Medicines I can’t get when I need them. The hole in the roof over my cot. Actually, now that you’ve displaced me that’s one less distraction I’ll have to deal with.”
“Did you always feel that way about me, Arlo? That I distracted you?”
He gave her a questioning look. “How do you mean?”
“That I was a distraction you didn’t want to have?”
“You were always a distraction, Layla. But I wanted that distraction. Wanted that time we had together. It meant—everything.”
To her, it had. But she wasn’t sure about Arlo. One thing was certain, though. He’d been her distraction. And he’d displaced her feelings in a way no one would ever do again. Before him, she’d been sure what she wanted. But after him there had been times when she hadn’t been so sure.
“Well, however it worked out, I’m glad you have everything you wanted,” she said, walking out into the short corridor leading to the single room holding ten beds. All empty now. And everything bare bones. Meager. Medicine on a level she’d never seen. “Do you think Ollie might have provided you with more, had he known how bare your hospital is?”
“He knows, Layla. He’s been here. But he’s so heavily invested in his surgical practice—putting me through med school was enough. It was a very generous thing to do, especially considering that if he hadn’t done it, I might still be struggling to earn enough money to get through. Besides, my parents were able to manage under difficult circumstances and so am I.”
“I hope so. For your sake, as well as your patients’.”
“You think I don’t do what’s best for my patients? You’re here all of an hour and you’re already making judgments?”
“Not at all. I’m beginning to realize how difficult it must be to exist here.” She was almost gaining a deeper insight into him now, seeing him differently than she had in those years they had been together. And this side of Arlo wasadmirable. He was someone to be respected. And it was so frightening, knowing he was out here, practically on his own, trying to make a difference she still didn’t understand. “Since I’ve come a long way to work with you, I have the right to wonder. And worry, if that’s the way it turns out. If that bothers you, sorry. But there’s nothing I can do about it. At least, not until I understand more.”
As Layla passed by Arlo on her way to the tiny kitchen at the rear of the ward, she paused when they were almost chest to chest and looked up at him. “I never worked directly with you when we were residents because of our personal situation. Fraternization wasn’t allowed. But now it’s different. And what we had, or what we meant to each other, can’t get in the way. OK? The past is the past. So, keep in mind, Arlo, that this can’t turn into something that’s only about us. Taking offense too quickly at things not intended to be offensive, overreacting—we can’t do that. We can’t wipe the slate clean either. But we’ve got to find a way to make this work for a while. If that’s what you want for your hospital. If it’s not”
She shrugged, then ducked into the tiny kitchen to assess the two-burner stove, the small utility table, and the knee-high refrigerator that looked to be a decade past its prime. It was working off a small generator that ran only the kitchen. Well, for now she’d have to get used to it. For better or worse, she had to make a go of this. And of Arlo.
For the first time, Layla really wondered why she had raised her hand so quickly. But it was too late to worry over that, especially when she had so many other things to fret about now. Snakes, something called Chauncy, rain, difficult conditions, Arlo It was almost too much. Still, she was here, trying to convince herself she could do this. She had to. Arlo might suffer a little if she backed out, but his patients were the ones who really counted. Because of them, Layla would fight her way through and hope she was good enough. No matter what Arlo or anybody else thought, she was about being a doctor. A good doctor. As good a doctor as Arlo.
“What happened to your back?” Layla asked, as they both went to greet a patient who’d wandered in the door. A little boy with a scratch on his arm. He couldn’t have been more than five or six, and Layla escorted the child to the exam room and pointed to the table, indicating for the child to hop up.
“I strained it a little,” Arlo said, surprised and even flattered that she was paying that much attention. But Layla had always been observant. Sometimes too observant, especially when she’d picked up on one of his moods—moods he’d tried hard never to show. Yet she’d always known, just like now. “I fell off a roof. Actually, the roof caved in a little under my weight. That accounts for the hole over your cot.” He said something to the child, who giggled with delight then made hand gestures to indicate someone falling. “Which is tarped, by the way. So the leak is only a drip.”
“Should I ask what you were doing on a roof?” Layla found the antiseptic and scrubbed the child’s wound, then dressed it with a bandage.
“Not unless you want to hear all about Chauncy.”
“Ah, yes, my mysterious bed partner. So, why were you up on the roof with this Chauncy?”
“He got stuck. I had to help him down.” Arlo dug into his cargo pockets and pulled out a sweet for the child, said something to him again, then sent the boy on his way, holding onto his sweet like it was the best prize in the world.
