What Matters Most (12 page)

“Hi,” she said, and hated the seductive tone of her voice. He looked at her for a second, picked her up and walked into her apartment with her in his arms.

“I need a kiss,” he said, wrapped her close and brushed her lips with his own. She opened her mouth for his tongue and got the impression that she’d done something wrong, because he dipped into her, and then moved away so quickly that she hardly felt the contact.

Miffed and not bothering to hide it, she said, “What’s with you?”

“I was about to start something that we probably wouldn’t finish before tomorrow morning, if ever. I quit while I could. Who was it who said, ‘Know thyself’?”

She could see that he was thinking hard, something she’d never seen him do. “Socrates, Christ and a lot of other people. It’s easier to know others than to know yourself.”

“This is true. I think I could handle a kiss now. But don’t lay it on too thick.”

She raised her arms to him, and he gripped her shoulders, stared down at her and suddenly crushed her lips with his own, as a hoarse groan poured out of him. She opened to him, sucked his tongue into her mouth and loved him. He released her, walked to her living room window and gazed out of it.

“What is it, Jack?”

“I left you with a terrible burden. Oh, it was important that I be at that meeting, but I worried about you. Are you going to tell me that you didn’t have a single problem?”

“No, I’m not going to tell you that, but you trusted me to run the office smoothly, and I did. I had a problem Tuesday night, and when Dr. Robb wouldn’t come, I couldn’t leave the other patients and take the boy to him. So he said take him to the hospital. I didn’t want to do that, because I couldn’t leave the office, and the boy was really sick, so…I called your father.”

“You did
what?
”

“I did. And after I challenged him, he told me he’d be there in twenty minutes, and he was.” Jack’s mouth was agape, but she ignored it. “What’s more, he stayed until after ten o’clock and treated every one of the twenty-one patients in that waiting room. He was there from five-thirty to ten-fifteen. He even forgot that he hadn’t eaten dinner, and I can attest that he had coffee, strawberries and two cranberry scones for supper.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

She went to him and put a hand on his arm. “Will you please call him and thank him? I don’t know what I would have done without his help.”

“Of course I will. I’ll call him as soon as I get home. You mean he didn’t resent it at all?”

“He was as gracious as a man could be. He was about to leave after taking care of the boy—I think his name is Joshua—but when he saw all those people waiting to see a doctor he dropped his bag on the floor and said, ‘Who’s next?’ Jack, I called him because I knew he’d come, because no matter what he thinks or says, he has to be proud of you.”

He walked from one end of her living room to the other and back to the window. “You know what I’d like? Suppose we get a bag of hot dogs, a couple of bottles of lemonade and some potato chips and go over to the Patapsco River. I want to be with you, but I think it’s best we…I feel like enjoying the outdoors. What do you say?”

“Do you know a place that sells good hot dogs?” she asked him, not that she was a connoisseur of good hot dogs. “I’m happy right here, but if you’d like us to spend some time in a park or at a lake or a river, I’m all for it.” She wanted him to know, without having to tell him, that if she wanted to keep them out of bed, she could do it.

“I definitely know a place. Let’s go.” She grabbed her straw hat and pocketbook, handed him her door key and told herself that she was foolish not to have put him to the test.

“Sure you don’t mind?” he asked, sensitive to her change in demeanor.

“I love the outdoors, and especially near the water. I also like hot dogs.” He locked her door, put an arm around her and headed for his Porsche.

At a quarter of eight that evening, after having rowed a canoe on the Patapsco River for two hours and punished every muscle from his waist to his wrists, Jack barely had the strength to kiss Melanie good-night. “I used muscles I forgot I had,” he told her when they reached her apartment, “and if they weren’t aching, I’d give you a proper kiss. Unfortunately, you’ll have to settle for kids’ stuff.”

“Not to worry. I’ll kiss you. I enjoyed every minute of our time together, Jack.” She kissed him quickly on the mouth. “Don’t forget to call your father.”

“I won’t. That’s the reason I’m leaving you so early. He doesn’t think the phone should ring after eight-thirty in the evening.” He let his hand caress her face. If she had any sense, she could see in his eyes that he cared.

He parked in his garage and entered the house through the kitchen. If he ever redecorated, he’d get rid of everything that bore any shade of blue. It wasn’t a happy color, and he was in a mood to be happy. He took a long hot shower, dried off, wrapped a towel around his waist, went to the mini refrigerator in his office and got a bottle of beer.

After opening it, he phoned his father. “Dad. I can’t thank you enough for helping Ms. Sparks and taking care of my patients while I was in Atlanta. When she told me what you did, I was dumbfounded. You can’t imagine how happy hearing that made me.”

“Well, she’s got a fast tongue, that one, and she’s sassy, too, but she’s as good a nurse as I’ve ever worked with. Those people look to her as if she’s a saint.”

“In some respects, she is. I know she can sass, but how do you know it?”

“She challenged me, and I don’t remember the last time anybody took a shot at my pride as a doctor. But I was glad I went. I got a chance to see what’s going on there. You’re telling me you operate at seven, hold offices hours from ten-thirty to twelve-thirty and work down there from five to ten?

“It’s only twice a week, and I don’t operate every morning.”

“Well, I never dreamed conditions down there were so bad. Twenty-something patients scheduled for a two-hour period, and such a variety of ailments and diseases. Why do so many kids down there have pneumonia and asthma? You need an internist. That’s too much for a cardiologist to handle.”

“I know that, Dad, and I’ve arranged with a pediatrician at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to consult with me when I’m not certain about some of the problems the children have, especially sickle-cell anemia and HIV. I constantly bemoan the fact that I need an internist in that office, but right now, I’m all they have.

“Looks as if I’m learning internal medicine on the job, so to speak. Your patients and my Bolton Hill patients come to us at the very first sign that something’s amiss. They don’t wait half a day, and they are very well-informed about their health and their bodies. But in that neighborhood and other poor areas, people see a doctor as a last resort. Many of them don’t have insurance and can’t afford to pay for medical care, not even for medicine. So I get as many samples from pharmaceutical companies as I can.

“One woman made some elegant neckties for me. A boy gave me his bat signed by Derek Jeter. A woman does my laundry and mending. Others have polished my silver, cleaned my carpets, mowed my lawn, washed my car, trimmed my hedges, and I don’t know what else. They don’t want charity, so they do what they can for me. If I left my Porsche in front of my office unlocked, nobody would touch it. The neighborhood boys even protect my parking space. You didn’t have to look for a space, did you?”

“No. When I drove up, two boys came to the driver’s window and asked if I was substituting for Dr. Ferguson. When I said yes, they moved the orange cones.”

“They’re so protective of me, Dad, that I sometimes get a guilty feeling, especially when it’s sizzling hot, and I see kids sitting in open windows trying to get cool. Wherever I am—in my car, home or office—I have air-conditioning.”

“If you didn’t have air-conditioning, it wouldn’t make the people in that neighborhood any more comfortable,” Montague said.

“I know that, Dad.”

“Look, son. You built a fine office there with the latest and most modern furnishings and equipment, and you’re doing a fine thing. After experiencing once what you go through twice weekly, and I suspect at other times, too, I admire you more than ever, and I’m proud of you. But, Jack, what that area needs is a full-time clinic. I’ve been thinking about it, and I can get the resources to build one. You could still run it as you see fit, because you started something that’s needed.”

Jack had to digest that, to make sure he’d heard his father correctly. Never had Montague Ferguson told his son that he admired him or that he took pride in him. Yet the words had flowed out of him as easily as if he said them every day.

As if he’d heard nothing out of the ordinary, Jack calmly replied, “A clinic would be an enormous financial investment.”

“I can put together a group of silent partners to form a foundation, and you’d have enough money in no time, because they’d all take it off their income tax. You can work with an architect to build exactly what you want. Soon as the word gets around, you can get a couple dozen of the best doctors to spend three hours a week there, and you won’t have to pay ’em a cent.”

He had a tinge of anxiety. Would the people whom he’d come to regard as his patients and friends still get the personal attention that he tried to give them? Would the doctors consider going to Midge Hawkins’s non-air-conditioned house? He shook himself. If he’d been after glory, he’d have practiced his guitar more diligently and become a rock star. If he wanted those people to get the best care available, he’d do all he could to support his father’s idea of a clinic.

“Where would we put it?”

“In that vacant lot diagonally across the street from your office. That way, you could keep that office.”

Lights seemed to go on in his head. “You bet. I’d reorganize it and fit it for a diagnostic laboratory. What do you say?”

“I say we’re onto something. That would take care of the high cost of laboratory tests. I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow morning. Get a lawyer to draw up papers for a silent partnership, a nonprofit foundation. I should have the group I want within a couple of days.”

“I don’t know how to thank you for this, Dad. I don’t mind telling you that not having your support has been a source of painful grief to me. I…I feel as if my life has…that a light is shining on me now. I don’t want to be maudlin, but I…I love you a lot, Dad.”

He waited, holding his breath, and then he heard the words, “I love you, too, son.”

Thirty-four years. How many people waited thirty-four years, a third of a century, to hear their father say that he loved them? At least he’d said the words. He wiped the tears that dripped from the corners of his eyes, took a swallow of the beer on his night table and dialed Melanie’s number.

“I’m so happy for you,” Melanie told him after he related to her the gist of his conversation with his father. “I couldn’t imagine that a man of your father’s accomplishments wouldn’t be proud of you, Jack. If the two of you succeed in getting a clinic for that area, it will be a miracle and a blessing, and all because you tried to help.”

“You can count that clinic as built, Melanie. My father has the connections and the clout, and he does what he says he will do. Besides, I got the feeling that he’s taking it as his mission.”

“What will you do with your current office there?”

“We’ll refit it into a diagnostic laboratory. Gosh, I have my dad on my side at last. All I need right now is to have you here with me. If it hadn’t been for your gutsiness in getting Dad to help you, none of this would have happened. Once he saw what I’ve been trying to do, his attitude changed. I need you to be with me right now, but we’ll make up for it. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“I think I do.” They talked for an hour about everything but themselves, but each knew that the feeling they shared was a time bomb that would explode one way or another. And soon.

When she and Jack left the office that Thursday night after having treated the last of twenty-two patients, she didn’t want to remind him of her graduation. He had the invitation. So she said, “Do you remember that I won’t be in tomorrow?”

“Of course I remember it, Melanie. At eleven o’clock, you are graduating from Towson University, and I’ll be there to see you. I kept my calendar clear of appointments at my Bolton Hill office, so I’ll be free all day. I expect there’ll be a crowd. Where should I wait for you?”

“At the end of the ceremony, come up to the front. I’ll find you.”

The next morning at about ten minutes to twelve, the dean called her name. “Melanie Sparks, Registered Nurse.” With her eyes blinded by tears of joy, Melanie could hardly make her way to the podium, but her voice rang out when she said to the Dean, “Thank you, ma’am.” She turned to go to her seat, saw that a lone man stood, applauding, and thought her heart would bounce out of her chest. His smile eclipsed his face, and when she waved at him, he waved back.

At last, the ceremony ended, and she went to the foot of the podium to wait for Jack. To her astonishment, he didn’t shake her hand or kiss her cheek, but picked her up, swung her around and around, laughing and hugging her, before he set her on her feet, took her hand and said, “Let’s go. I have your whole day planned.”

After a light lunch at the reception for the graduates and their families, he drove them in his Town Car to Harborplace at the corner of Light Pavilion Street. “We’re taking a duck’s-eye-view, historic, land-water tour of Baltimore, seeing it all in the same vehicle. It’s great fun,” he told her. After getting their tickets, he bought them triple-scoop ice-cream cones of their favorite flavors.

“Does the boat have wheels?” If it didn’t, she couldn’t see how it could travel on water and land.

“It does indeed. Wait. You’ll see how much fun it is.” He handed her a Wacky-Quacky that came with the tickets. As they sailed or rode past different monuments, their fellow travelers squeezed the Wacky-Quackys to sound like ducks, and she and Jack joined them, laughing and enjoying the outing, unencumbered by life-and-death problems.

She would not have thought that, as serious as he was about most things, Jack would consider using time in that way.
I know the public Jack and only a little of the private man, but whatever eases out of him is likeable.
When the vehicle returned to Harborplace, they walked hand-in-hand to his car.