The Doctor's Undoing (15 page)

He frowned, looking startled by the suggestion as he turned his attention back to the road ahead. “That's not it. I was just looking for a way to support myself, and those were the first options that presented themselves to me. Like I said, they were all debacles.”

But he'd tried. And despite whatever bitterness he carried from his childhood, he still hadn't cut off ties with his family. “Maybe things will get better in your family now that you're all out on your own. As long as you keep trying, it's certainly possible to have a cordial relationship with each other, even if it will never be exactly what you wish it could have been.”

He chuckled, and she braced herself for another slightly patronizing comment about her eternal optimism. It didn't come.

Deciding not to press her luck, and hoping she'd at least given him something to think about, she turned her attention to the screen in her lap, reading the first question to him.

The drive passed quickly as they studied. They discussed the material for an hour before taking a break. Ron insisted his brain was full, and he needed time to let the material settle in. Though she laughed, Haley set the netbook aside for a few minutes.

“Tell me everyone's names again. Your sister is Deb, right?”

“Yes. Her sons are Kenny and Bryce.”

“And she's a single mom?”

“Divorced,” he said with a nod. “Her ex was a real piece of work. Everyone told her that he was a loser before she even married him, but that only seemed to make her more determined to stay with him. He finally ran off with another woman and she hasn't heard a peep from him since. It's been more than a year now.”

“That's a shame for her boys.”

Ron shrugged. “They're better off without him.”

Putting that aside, she asked, “Your brother is Tom?”

“Tommy's the one in jail,” he reminded her. “Mick's the one who'll be there today.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No problem. You'll like Mick okay, until he has a couple of beers and gets mad at Dad over something. He gets pretty obnoxious then.”

“Maybe they won't quarrel today.”

“And maybe these gray skies will clear into a beautiful, sunshiny afternoon, but that's not what I'm expecting.”

She glanced at the heavy, dark, oppressive-looking clouds that were already spitting rain against the windshield and shook her head in response to his analogy.

“Is Mick married?”

“Not the last I heard. He's had a string of live-ins, but no one permanent. No kids, as far as I know.”

She put that aside for now, too. Other than his parents, who didn't seem particularly happy together from what he'd said, his family history of relationships was hardly encouraging. “What are your parents' names?”

“T.L.—Thomas Lane—and Carolyn Gibson. They'll insist you call them by their first names. Neither one of them likes formality. In Mom's case, she wouldn't want to be reminded
that she's that much older. She can't even bear for the kids to call her grandmother. They call her CiCi. Don't ask me why.”

She listened to his tone as much as his words when he spoke of his family members, hearing quite a few nuances layered there. Some bitterness. Somewhat dark amusement. But she thought she heard affection buried there, too, even if it was accompanied by old pain.

Or was she simply being an overearnest, aspiring psychiatrist? A common pitfall among medical students, she admitted with a self-chiding grimace.

“I think CiCi is a cute name for a grandmother,” she said simply.

He chuckled, but there wasn't a lot of humor in the sound. She noticed that the closer they came to his hometown, the more tension appeared in his face.

She opened the computer again. “Okay. A right hemicolectomy is performed on a fifty-seven-year-old woman with adenocarcinoma who had a preoperative elevation of carcinoembryonic antigen to 144.”

Ron nodded to indicate he'd followed her thus far. He seemed much more comfortable discussing colorectal cancer than his family.

They stopped for a stretch break thirty minutes out of Hurleyville, after being on the road more than two hours. Making use of a reasonably clean convenience-store restroom, Haley washed her hands, then fluffed her hair and freshened her lip gloss. She wanted to make a good impression on Ron's family, whatever he said about them.

She had to admit she was a little nervous about meeting them. Partially because of the things Ron had told her. Also because she knew he had called her his girlfriend when he'd told them that he was bringing her. Would that lead to awkward questions neither of them would know how to answer?

Ron waited for her at the car, leaning against the hood to postpone climbing back beneath the wheel. “Ready?”

She nodded and slid into the passenger seat again, reaching for her seat belt.

“Guess there's no need to pull the notes out again. We'd barely have time to get started studying before we arrive.”

“Yeah. We'll start again on the way home.”

“I hope your family likes the candies I brought.”

“They'll love them. You really didn't have to go to all that trouble to make homemade Christmas candies for them.”

“Well, your mother told us not to bring anything for the meal. I hated to arrive empty-handed. Besides, I like making Christmas treats. I just wish I'd had time to make and decorate sugar cookies.”

“Trust me, the fudge and homemade caramels you brought will be well received. I came by my sweet tooth genetically.”

She smoothed her dark brown slacks beneath the seat belt. She'd chosen to wear them with a thin, deep red sweater because the outfit wouldn't wrinkle during the long drive. And maybe because Ron always complimented her when she wore this fitted, scoop-neck sweater, she had to admit privately.

He looked good today, too. She liked the hunter green twill shirt he'd worn with his khaki slacks. It looked good with his sandy hair and bright blue eyes. But then, Ron always looked good to her.

He glanced at her with a smile. “You're looking at me.”

“Admiring the view,” she quipped, reaching over without thinking to pat his knee.

He caught her hand and lifted it to his mouth, brushing his lips across her knuckles and for just that moment, everything was okay between them again. “Careful, Haley. That was almost a compliment.”

She laughed softly, feeling tingles rippling from her hand to her heart. “I'll have to watch that. Wouldn't want your head to get too big.”

He squeezed her fingers and released her. Just for fun, she lightly punched his right arm before withdrawing it.

Ron laughed. “Now, that's my Haley.”

“His” Haley. Why was it that her breath caught in her throat every time he said that?

The winter-bare rice and soybean fields that made up so much of the northeast Arkansas scenery gave way to the outskirts of Jonesboro, the largest city in the area. Ron pointed out the university where he'd obtained his undergraduate degree as they passed. “Go, Red Wolves.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Go, Bears,” she insisted, naming her own college team.

“Are there any old friends you'll want to see while you're in town?” she asked, following that line of thought.

He shrugged. “Not really. I still have a couple of friends from high school in the area, and a few college buddies scattered around, but there's no one in particular I want to see today. To be honest, I feel closer to Connor and James these days than anyone from my past. Even Hardik, to an extent. I guess it's that bond forged by getting through those first hellish two years.”

“I know what you mean. As much as I still love my old friends, I consider Anne my very closest friend now. And you and James and Connor, of course. I'll always treasure the time we've spent together.”

He slanted a frown in her direction. “Not sure how I feel about being just another name on that list.”

She flushed a little. “I didn't mean it like that. Of course you're special to me apart from the study group.”

“Hmm.” He looked ahead again as they left Jonesboro behind and entered the outskirts of a smaller, more rural
burg. The road now was an uneven two lane lined with small frame houses and mobile homes and a few newer-looking brick homes.

Downtown Hurleyville showed evidence of a once thriving little community now victim to a changing economy. The old buildings that had once held clothing and fabric and furniture and hardware were now either vacant or filled with secondhand merchandise and dollar store wares. She supposed the locals drove into Jonesboro to the shopping malls and super-stores there for their purchases. Ron pointed out the old train station that had long since been abandoned to nature.

Crumbling old towns like this always made Haley a little sad. She loved nothing more than to visit one of the many rural towns in Arkansas that had reclaimed their heritage and managed to revitalize their old downtowns with new attractions. Perhaps Hurleyville's administration would figure out some similar strategy in the future, she suggested.

Ron shrugged. “We've had the same mayor for almost as long as I can remember. He's content to just watch the town die, apparently, and no one seems to have the time or energy to contest him. My dad actually considered running against him a couple of times, but he's not exactly a pillar of the community, himself.”

He braked to allow a couple of farm-equipment trailers to pass, then made a left turn onto a rutted asphalt road. They drove past a pasture full of cattle, another that held a few horses, and then a mobile home on concrete blocks with broken toys scattered across the yard.

Considering the way Ron had spoken of his home, she was rather surprised when he finally pulled into the driveway of a tidy buff-colored brick and off-white siding ranch house styled similarly to her parents' home. The grass and flower beds were brown for winter now, but she saw signs that flowers bloomed around the house in the summer. The concrete
driveway looped around the house and she could see a large garage in the back, surrounded by vehicles of all different makes and models.

“It looks like your dad's car repair business is thriving.”

“Yeah. He does a good job. Folks around here can't always afford new vehicles, so they depend on Dad to keep their transportation running. He works on farm equipment, too, sometimes. Tractors, mostly.”

Climbing out of his car, she studied the surroundings again while he retrieved the basket of candies and a large bag of wrapped Christmas gifts from the backseat. Ron might not have grown up in luxury, but it looked as though the family hadn't exactly lived in abject poverty, either. She imagined they had struggled at times, but then so had her own family. Neither of them had been raised in the financial comfort Anne and James seemed to take rather for granted.

Anne and James weren't obnoxious about their privileged backgrounds, but Haley always sensed that neither quite understood what it was like for their families to have to worry about whether they could pay the light bill from month to month. Her family had been in that position a few times, and Ron's probably had, too, while his dad had established his auto repair business. It was another bond between them, she supposed, despite the other differences in their childhoods.

Ron drew a deep breath as he looked at the unassuming house. And then he turned to Haley with a crooked smile. “It's not too late to change your mind.”

Shaking her head in reproach at him, she reached for the candy basket. “Let's go see your family.”

 

Ron didn't bother to ring the bell at the front door, but turned the knob and stepped inside, motioning for Haley to accompany him.

“Hey,” he called out in the small entryway. “I'm here.”

At first glance, Haley noted that the inside of the house was as neat as the outside. A few inexpensive prints hung on the white painted walls, and three red silk poinsettias in craft-store-decorated pots were arranged on an old-looking sideboard in the foyer.

The smells wafting into the foyer from the back of the house were mouthwatering. Haley could hear children squealing in another room, Ron's nephews, she assumed. All very homey and welcoming.

A short, comfortably padded woman with tousled, collar-length hair the same sandy color as Ron's bustled out to welcome them. “There y'all are. We were wondering what was keeping you.”

“We're exactly on time, Mom.” Ron leaned over to kiss his mother's cheek. “Something smells great.”

“It should. I've been cooking for three days getting everything ready for today.” Carolyn turned to Haley with open curiosity. “Hello. Since my son hasn't bothered to introduce us, I'm Carolyn—we don't bother with the Mr. and Mrs. part here. You must be Haley.”

She hadn't even given Ron a chance to introduce them, but he didn't bother to protest, merely smiled wryly.

“It's very nice to meet you, Carolyn. Thank you for having me today.”

“Haley made Christmas candies for the family, Mom.”

Carolyn took the offered basket with a light of anticipation in her blue eyes, though she shook her head with a cluck of her tongue. “Dad and I don't need all this candy on our diets, but it was nice of you to think of us, Haley. Y'all come in.”

“They'll eat and enjoy every piece of it,” Ron murmured into Haley's ear as they followed his mother into the living room. “That was her idea of expressing gratitude.”

She didn't have a chance to respond.

Two men sat in recliners facing the television in the living room, one younger, one older, both holding cans of beer.
Another man sat on the worn couch next to a blonde who had to be Ron's sister, judging from the resemblance. Two little boys—maybe five and three—played on the carpeted floor in one corner of the room beneath a colorfully decorated Christmas tree.

Only one of the men stood when Haley entered, the dark-haired, dark-eyed man from the couch. With his Hispanic coloring and features, it was obvious that he was not Ron's brother.