The Doctor's Undoing (17 page)

He wasn't surprised his mother had provided a gift for Haley. Mom would consider it bad manners to open presents in front of Haley and not make sure she had something, too. He was certain Luis had at least one gift, also.

He watched Haley peel away the paper, her eyes alight with anticipation. She loved this sort of thing, he thought indulgently. Family. Traditions. Presents. She didn't even seem overly daunted by his family. Though she had certainly looked stunned when Deb had made a passing comment about Haley joining the family. Apparently, the very idea had been enough to send her figuratively reeling backward.

“Oh, Carolyn, this is beautiful.” Both looking and sounding awed, Haley lifted the thick, black knit scarf to her cheek, snuggling against the soft-looking yarn. There was just a touch of sparkle to the scarf, which echoed the glow in her eyes when she looked at his mom. “I love it. Did you really make this yourself?”

Carolyn nodded. “Wasn't sure what colors you like. I figured everyone can use a black scarf.”

“It's perfect. It'll go with almost everything I own. Thank you so much.”

Carolyn's lips curved, and Ron could tell she was pleased by Haley's sincerity. “You're welcome.”

“My grandmother tried to teach me to knit when I was a girl, but I could never quite get the hang of it. I know I'd never be able to knit a pattern this intricate.”

Ron was amused to see his mother actually preen a little. “It wasn't an easy pattern,” she admitted frankly. “Had to put
in some late hours to finish it since Ron didn't give me a lot of notice that he was bringing you. But I wanted you to have something nice to open.”

“You didn't have to go to so much trouble. But I'll treasure this.” Haley was already looping the scarf around her neck, even though it was warm enough in the room without it.

“Maybe I can give you a few pointers about knitting sometime. It's really not all that difficult. Your grandmother probably just didn't know how to teach it.”

“I'd like that,” Haley said simply, though Ron doubted she believed that knitting lesson would ever actually happen.

Deb was looking at Haley with a slight frown. Maybe Haley's visible pleasure in the gift made Deb aware of her own less-gracious reaction. “You never taught me to knit, Mom.”

“I tried, didn't I?” Carolyn retorted. “You wouldn't sit still long enough to learn. Never would listen when I tried to tell you anything.”

Ron made an effort to quickly lighten the mood by tossing his own red scarf around his neck with a flourish. “Thanks, Mom. Now all I need is a bull to fight.”

“Bullfighters don't wear scarves, Uncle Ron. They wear capes,” Kenny piped up.

“Smart boy,” T.L. approved with a nod for his oldest grandson.

“You don't let them watch bullfights, do you, Debra? That's much too violent for children.”

Deb sighed gustily. “Of course I don't let them watch bullfights, Mother. Honestly, what a question. He's only seen matadors on cartoons.”

“Sounds like you're letting them watch violent cartoons.”

“How do you like the earrings I got you, Mom?” Ron asked quickly. “Haley helped me pick them out.”

“They're nice,” his mother replied. “A little bigger than the ones I usually wear. Guess I can wear them to church. Lord knows I never get to go anywhere else where I can dress up nice.”

Haley made a little sound beside him that might have been a hastily swallowed chuckle. He didn't dare look at her, or he'd bust out laughing and they'd both be in the doghouse.

“Oh, wait, I forgot. I brought something for the boys,” Mick said, bounding to his feet. “Left them out in my truck. I'll run get them.”

The boys bounced excitedly, eager to see what else they'd collected for this early Christmas celebration.

Mick returned quickly, bearing an enormous stuffed animal beneath each arm. A purple gorilla for Bryce, and a big orange dinosaur for Kenny. The toys were almost as big as the boys, themselves—and looked suspiciously like giant carnival prizes.

The boys fell on the toys with hoots of delight, wrestling with their huge new friends on the carpet.

“Mick, what were you thinking?” Deb scolded, holding her hands to her face in distress. “How are we supposed to get those home? They'll take up the whole backseat of the minivan.”

“We'll manage, Deb,” Luis murmured, his expression rueful as he looked at his future stepsons, who clutched their newest toys possessively in response to their mother's criticism.

“Honestly, Mick, sometimes you just don't use good sense,” his mother chided, looking in disapproval at the gifts.

Ron couldn't hold it in any longer. He started to laugh, and a moment later heard Haley giggling beside him. Mick joined in, proving he'd known all along exactly what reaction the outsized toys would receive from Deb and his mother. Luis looked as though he would like to laugh, too, but didn't dare, while Deb and their mom watched them
all in exasperation. But Ron thought he saw his mother's lips twitch before she turned away to start gathering the discarded wrapping paper littering her carpet.

T
he boys finally gave in to exhaustion and were tucked reluctantly into bed for naps after the gift exchange. Deb and Luis planned to spend the night and leave for Florida the next morning.

“Don't know why you and Haley don't stay, too, rather than going out in that nasty weather,” Carolyn grumbled to Ron as she served coffee to the adults in the living room. She'd set out Haley's candies on a holiday plate on the coffee table, and Ron noted that his dad was helping himself liberally to the fudge, despite the huge meal they'd eaten so recently.

Carolyn noticed, too. She reprimanded her husband for eating too many sweets, then moved the plate a little closer to him so he could reach it better.

“We can't stay, Mom,” Ron said. “We both have to be at the hospital very early Monday morning. Before dawn. And we have shelf exams in two weeks, so we need to study as much as we can tomorrow.”

“What are shelf exams?” Deb asked, returning to the room after tucking in her sons.

“Medical board exams,” Ron explained. “We have them after every rotation to cover everything we were supposed to learn in lectures and practice.”

“You have tests all the time, don't you? Seems like every time I talk to you you're studying for a test,” Mick commented.

Ron chuckled. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Don't know why you'd want to go through that, as much as you hated studying back in school.”

Ron shrugged. “It's what I have to do to get where I want to be.”

“He didn't want to do real work,” his dad muttered. While he pretended to be joking, there was just enough of a dig in his tone to make Haley move a bit restlessly beside Ron.

“Doesn't like getting his hands dirty,” T.L. added, jerking a chin in the general direction of his garage. “He was worthless in the shop.”

The others laughed and nodded in agreement. Ron's smile was wry as he thought about just how hard and dirty medical school could get.

Sensing Haley was becoming indignant on his behalf, he rested a hand lightly on her knee. There was no need for her to waste her breath defending him. She would never convince his family he was physician material.

“You're right, Dad. I was a hopeless case when it came to working on cars.”

“Weren't any good as a carnie, either,” Mick asserted. “Nor at selling cars or doing landscape work.”

“Why do you think I went to medical school?” Ron shot back with a lazy grin. “It was pretty much the only thing I hadn't tried yet.”

“And people really let you treat their sick children?” Deb glanced toward the back of the house where her boys slept as if unable to conceive of trusting their care to her brother's hands.

“I'm not a doctor yet, Deb. I'm still just learning. I have a lot of supervision now, and several years to go before I'll be fully responsible for treating patients.”

“That's good, I guess.”

“Didn't Ron save your son's life once, Deb?” Haley seemed unable to resist asking.

Ron winced. The others all looked at him, as if wondering just how much he'd embellished that story in the retelling.

“I don't know if he saved Kenny's life,” Deb argued vaguely. “He just pulled a piece of candy out of his mouth.”

Ron bit his lower lip as he remembered the panic that had coursed through him when he'd seen Kenny's purpling skin. The child had been limp and still in his arms, his eyes already glazing, and Ron had been painfully aware that there'd been no time to waste getting air into the little lungs. Sticking his finger in Kenny's mouth had been pure instinct, half-remembered training from a high school first aid course. He'd never heard anything more beautiful than the boy's first ragged cough when the candy was dislodged.

“I seem to remember you doing a lot of screaming and hollering,” Mick murmured to Deb. “You sure thought the kid was dying at the time.”

“Takes more than pulling candy out of a kid's mouth to make a man a doctor,” T.L. commented.

“At least you're sticking with this course so far.” Carolyn's approval was cloaked in a touch of amazement as she spoke to her youngest child.

She glanced at Haley. “I have to warn you, Ron's never been known as the stick-to-it type. I can't tell you how many clubs he joined and sports he started, only to up and quit when
he got bored or when it got too hard. I saved and bought him a clarinet 'cause he wanted to be in the band, only for him to quit after just a few weeks…”

“I asked for a trumpet,” Ron mumbled.

“…and then I got him an electric guitar when he was in high school, but he didn't stick with that, either.”

She didn't add that she'd forbidden him to play the guitar in the house because it made too much noise.

“Yeah. Hard to see Ron hanging in for another five or six years of schooling,” Mick said with a skeptical grin. “What's the next plan, bro? Going to try fighting fires?”

“I just might. Or maybe I'll be a mortician. I've been keeping that as a Plan B in case I wash out of med school. You know, if I can't save 'em, might as well bury 'em.”

The others laughed again, but Haley was notably un-amused.

“I think you're all underestimating the commitment it has taken for Ron to get as far as he has,” she said firmly, unable to keep quiet any longer.

Ron gave a slightly muffled groan, which he knew she heard, but she swept on.

“Ron had to finish college with a grade point average in the top ten percent of his entire class. He had to study for and take the six-hour-long MCAT, and earn a score high enough to get him an interview for medical school—which he did. He had to make a good enough impression on his college professors so that they would write excellent recommendation letters for him—which they did. And then he had to do well in his medical school interviews to be accepted over quite a few who were turned away.”

“He was an alternate, wasn't he?” Deb asked with a slight shrug.

Ron saw the rare temper leap into Haley's amber eyes, but she appeared to make an effort to bank it.

“He was still one of the select students chosen to start medical school immediately after earning his bachelor's degree. Since then, he's made it through two and a half grueling, relentless, horribly difficult years of lectures and memorization and exams and evaluations. He did well in his classes, he passed Step 1 of the licensure process on his first attempt, and he has excelled in clinical rotations. He even saved another child from choking at the ballpark a few months ago. I don't know how close your little Kenny was to choking, but that other little boy was already turning blue by the time Ron took over.”

“Kenny was turning blue, too, remember, Deb?” Carolyn looked at her youngest son as if seeing him in a slightly different light. He didn't delude himself that Haley was actually changing the way his family viewed him, but he appreciated her words, anyway.

“He was, a little,” Deb conceded. “I thanked you at the time for what you did for him, if you'll remember, Ron.”

Ron shrugged self-consciously. “He's my nephew, Deb. Of course I was going to do whatever I could to help him.”

Grinning behind his scruffy five-o'clock shadow, Mick nodded toward Haley. “This one's got your back, bro. Better hang on to her.”

“I'm doing my best,” Ron replied as Haley fell quiet beside him again.

He didn't add that hanging on to Haley was probably another challenge that would prove to be too much for him.

A few minutes later, Ron stood and walked to the window, looking out at the sky. The rain had subsided some, and the winds were calmer. A low rumble of thunder sounded occasionally, following distant flashes of lightning, but he thought maybe the storm was easing. There were still tornado watches between here and Little Rock, but most of the really bad weather seemed to be west of them. TV forecasters predicted
another round of storms to hit central Arkansas during the night, but Ron thought they had just enough time to get home before it all began again.

“We'd better leave while we've got a break in the weather,” he said, glancing toward the moving radar on the television screen. Green bands of rain striped the western half of the state, all moving this way, but there were no active tornado warnings at the moment. They were probably going to hit some downpours on the way home, but his all-wheel-drive car was dependable on wet roads, despite his dad's derision of the model.

His mother protested, of course.

“Let 'em go, Carolyn,” her husband ordered. “They don't need to be out too late in this weather.”

Conceding the point, she bit back any further arguments.

Mick helped Ron carry his gifts out to the car. They came back in shaking off water droplets and earning another reprimand from their mother.

“Thanks, Mick.”

His brother nodded. “I'll see you when I see you, bro. Good luck with your cabinet exam.”

“Shelf exam.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Ron shook his brother's hand. “Take care of yourself.”

He turned to hug his sister. “Kiss the boys for me when they wake up. Sorry I can't stay to visit them longer, but I'd like to get Haley home before those storms fire up again, if I can.”

While his brother and sister told Haley how much they'd enjoyed meeting her, and bade her to join them again sometime, Ron shook Luis's hand. “Hope you know what you're getting yourself into, Luis.”

The older man smiled. “I've got a pretty good idea. Deb's worth it.”

“Take care of her and my nephews.”

“I will.”

Ron felt the familiar tension in the back of his neck when he turned to his father. He'd spent his entire life trying to please his dad, and always feeling as if he fell short. “See you, Dad. Thanks for the gifts.”

“Your mama did all the shopping. But, uh, thanks for the hunting jacket. That's a nice one.”

“Mom said she thought you could use another one.”

“She shouldn't be telling y'all anything to get for me. Need to save your money for yourselves.”

“I'm doing okay, Dad.”

His father nodded shortly. “I know you are, son. You keep at that doctoring, you hear? Sounds like you're doing pretty good with it.”

So maybe Dad had listened to Haley, after all. At least for now. “Yeah, I'll stick with it. I'll talk to you later, okay?”

“Yeah. Get a move on now, and call your mama when you get home safe. She'll be worried.”

“I will.”

His mother walked them to the door. She looked out with a worried eye. “I don't like the looks of those clouds. I wish you'd just stay the night.”

“We'll be okay, Mom.” He leaned over to kiss her lined cheek. “You outdid yourself today. I know it was a lot of trouble, but everything was perfect.”

“It was a lot of trouble,” she agreed, then smiled faintly. “But it was worth it. Felt good to have my kids home.”

He saw the sadness darken her eyes, and he knew what she was thinking. “Tommy will be out soon, Mom. Maybe he'll turn his life around for the better this time.”

She sighed heavily, glancing quickly at Haley, her embarrassment plain. His mother took her oldest son's failings very personally, and refused to accept that Tommy's demons—and
his choices—were his own. “Your dad and I are going to see him next weekend. Want me to tell him anything from you?”

“Tell him I said hello.” He almost added a Merry Christmas for his brother, but decided that sentiment might not be quite appropriate.

Haley thanked his mother prettily for welcoming her to the family holiday celebration, expressing her gratitude one more time for the hand-knit scarf.

“We hope to see you here again soon,” Ron's mother replied, and he could tell she was sincere in the invitation. She slanted a look his way. “Assuming you two don't think you're too good for the likes of us once you're fancy doctors and all.”

Ron frowned. “Don't even think that, Mom. Whatever issues we might have among us, this is still my family. Nothing's ever going to change that. Maybe someday we'll even figure out how to just love each other without the other stuff.”

She patted his arm. “I do love you, Ronnie.”

“I love you, too, Mom. I'll call you Christmas, if not before, okay?”

Blinking rapidly, she nodded and motioned toward the door. “Get on now. You drive carefully, you hear? If it starts storming, pull over.”

“We will. 'Bye, Mom.”

She closed the door behind them when they ran out into the gray drizzle.

 

The windshield wipers beat a steady rhythm against the glass as Ron drove south, away from his family home. It was just after 4:00 p.m., and darkness was already falling, partly because of the short days of early winter, partly because of the thick cloud cover.

Haley didn't immediately reach for her netbook as they got underway. She just wasn't up to studying right then. Judging from the slight weariness in the set of Ron's shoulders, he wasn't, either.

“Well?” he said without looking at her, when he'd been driving for almost twenty minutes in silence. “Were they what you expected?”

She turned her head against the back of the seat to study him in the gloomy gray light. “I've seen much worse families.”

“So have I, for that matter, but they're still difficult. I will say that everyone was on their best behavior pretty much today. Maybe because you and Luis were there. Dad only had a couple of beers, he and Mick only got into two or three arguments, Deb didn't burst into tears once and Mom didn't complain nearly as much as usual.”

Haley found it hard to imagine the woman complaining any more, but she supposed Ron knew best. “Maybe they're just trying harder to get along. And maybe Deb was in a better mood because she's happier. She looked crazy about Luis.”