Passing Through Midnight (9 page)

But killing doctors for doing their job? No way.

"Get this guy out of here," she shouted to a police
officer, pushing her attacker away once more. "Take your big talk
somewhere else. I've got work to do."

"This ain't talk. This is war," he screamed at her as two
policemen grabbed him from behind. "Choose the wrong side, and you
die!" The emotion in his eyes was raw and soul-deep, and as pernicious
as any cancer she'd seen. She shook her head in regret and disgust as
they pulled him away, and climbed into the ambulance during his final
litany of threats. "You touch him, you die, bitch. You're wasting your
time. He's gonna die. So are you if you help him. Stay out of it. Let
him die. You touch him, you're dead."

It had been easy enough to put the angry young man out of
her mind as it filled with other, more important issues and events.
Fighting the mob to get both victims into the ER. Working frantically
to stop the flow of blood, while keeping one eye on the police
barricade and the efforts being made to disperse the crowd. Inserting a
chest tube and starting blood replacement on the stabbed patient and
sending the gunshot wound to surgery. Paperwork, lab tests, X rays.
Sutures, dressings, oxygen. Too much to do to give hollow threats a
second thought.

Much later, she would marvel at how precious and fragile a
thing life was, and how ugly and stupid it could be at the same time.

Her forty-eight-hour shift was over at midnight that
night. She had the next two days off and a million things to do, which
was what she was thinking about when she left the hospital.

It was a pitch-black night, heavy October cloud cover and
no stars. The parking lot was well lit, and the doctors' parking lot
was only a few yards from the exit. She wasn't thinking danger, and,
therefore, she didn't see any.

She unlocked her car and got in. She removed the For Sale
sign from the dash, thinking it was a good thing she hadn't yet sold
the little Bronco. With the Porsche in the shop so often, it might be
wise to keep it as a backup. She'd talk to Philip about buying out his
share of the second vehicle. Automatically she turned on the cellular
phone as there were invariably questions from her replacement or lab
work she wanted to hear about. She put the car in reverse and pulled
out.

A light-colored van that looked as if it had seen better
days pulled out behind her, but, again, she wasn't looking for danger.
People came and went from hospital parking lots at all hours.

She drove the ten blocks of stop-and-go traffic to the
freeway entrance. Lots of people used the freeway too.

Habit took her to the left-hand lane. She was tired, and
she wanted to get home. She ran the speedometer to five miles over the
limit, knowing cops wouldn't stop anyone for less than seven, and
hummed along with the old Beach Boys song on the radio.

The van was in a hurry as well, she noted absently, then
watched its lights as it switched to the middle lane and attempted to
pass her on the right. Obviously they were in a bigger hurry than she
was, and she let her foot off the gas to let them pass.

From that point on, time and events welded together in a
distorted sequence of bizarre pictures and abstract thoughts.

The bump from the right rear of the car. Wrestling the
tires for control of the car. A second impact, from the right side this
time. Headlights. Screaming rubber. There were sparks flying past her
window as she slid along the concrete meridian, turning sharply to the
right. A third impact—another car crashing into the retaining
wall Spinning. The cry of folding metal. Glass shattering. Complete and
absolute silence.

Then faint traffic noises. Horns. Lights. Distant voices.
She needed help. She reached for the phone beside her. So dark. Bright
lights. A light-colored truck coming her way. Cutting off traffic. Help
coming. No license plate—maybe it was in back. Light colored.
A van. Beat-up old van. Not stopping. Not stopping. Stop!

"I didn't know until later that he'd backed away from me
two more times after that before he drove off, before… he
left me for dead," she said, speaking into the darkness as if she were
alone; reviewing simple facts; trying to reconcile them in her mind.
Gil sat quietly, taking in the general whys and wherefores of her story
as she told it, sensing she was leaving twice as much unsaid. "He was
so angry, he couldn't even wait to get me alone. There were fifty-two
people willing to testify at the trial. The cops had him in custody
before the EMTs could cut me out of my car."

That had been a blow. That a virtual stranger could hate
her so much and want her dead so badly that he didn't care who saw him,
who else he hurt, or if he got caught. So much hatred.

There had been no misgivings or unpleasantness in dredging
up the event for Gil, for as surely as she'd known that he would catch
her if she fainted, she'd known he would listen, make no judgments,
preach no platitudes.

She was comfortable sitting silently in the dark. Silence
and darkness were her second home. For months now, she'd been actively
seeking out such places within herself. Hiding places, where her cries
for help and the sobs of her pain couldn't be heard; where the slide
show of horrified and commiserating faces couldn't reach her.

Something in Gil wanted to reach out and touch her.
Softly, tenderly, soothingly. He could practically hear the wind
blowing through the schism between the woman she'd been that night and
the woman sitting next to him. Closed up, shut down, out of business.

"I think I heard about it on the news or something," he
said at last, reaching out to her with words, afraid to touch
her… No, more afraid she'd push him away. "I remember seeing pictures of the car and
thinking…"

"A television news show ran those pictures during a
segment on Senseless Violence In America." She gave a soft laugh. "My
fifteen minutes of fame."

"The guy went to prison for attempted murder, right?"

"And manslaughter. The man who hit the retaining wall died
instantly."

That was something else that didn't make sense—
why him and not her?

Again they were cloaked in the stillness of the night, Gil
trying to imagine what she was feeling, Dorie straining to feel nothing
at all.

"And now you're a doctor who faints at the sight of
blood," he murmured, as if he'd arrived at the sum of her misery.

Not wanting to scream or cry or tear at her hair, she
chuckled weakly.

"Worse. I can't stand sick people. I hate the smells and
the sounds." She paused. "I remember being doped up and sort of out of
it, and hearing people moan in pain and… and consciously
deciding not to care. I actively fought against the impulses I'd
developed as a doctor to relieve suffering. I'd feel my own pain and
say this is what happens when you care about another person's agony;
this is what happens when you get involved."

"By the time I started physical therapy I was almost
immune to the sounds, except that I'd go back to my room exhausted and
half-asleep before I got there. Partly from the strain of the therapy,
but mostly to turn off my brain, to hide away in sleep." Another pause.
"My doctor said I was clinically depressed, that I was still in shock.
He ordered antidepressant drugs and told me it would pass. Obviously it
hasn't."

"It will."

"And the smell!" she said with a too-loud, too-scornful
laugh, as if she hadn't heard him speak. "There was an outside door on
the way to therapy, and if someone was coming in or going out when we
passed it, I'd get this head full of clean, fresh air, and then my next
breath would be that too-clean antiseptic and alcohol smell that's so
much a part of what I identify with as a doctor, and I'd get cold and
clammy and my stomach would roll with nausea."

Her voice faded into the darkness. Gil didn't know what to
say or how to help her. He couldn't imagine what it would be to feel
revulsion for something that was as much a part of who you were as the
color of your hair or the texture of your skin. He guessed, for him, it
would be like loathing the smell of a barnyard or the rich, heady scent
of fresh-cut wheat.

"I started getting headaches," she murmured, her voice
barely audible. "They thought it was part of the depression also, sort
of a release valve because I wasn't dealing with what
happened—just falling asleep every time I started to think
about it." A pause. "But when they got worse and worse, to the point
where I could barely see sometimes, they took a second look and found
my nose hadn't healed right. Deviated septum. I made them take me back
to surgery, rebreak and reset it, right then, because I knew I couldn't
voluntarily come back to the hospital once I was released."

"That's why your face was still black-and-blue when you
first got here," he said. She nodded, but he couldn't see it. "How long
have you been out of the hospital?"

"Almost ten weeks." Then she added, "I was there for three
and a half months… unconscious the first three weeks."

Again, he couldn't fathom the experience, but he felt a
need to say
something
.

"Dorie, you can't expect to be the same person you were
after something like that happens to you." He reached out and
unerringly found her hand. "It takes time. Time for your body to heal,
more time for the rest of you to heal, time to take control of your
life again."

"I know that," she said softly. "I've given that sermon to
a thousand people—I've given it to myself a few times too. It
doesn't change anything. It doesn't change the way I feel."

He gave a soft chuckle. "No. I guess it wouldn't," he
said, recalling his own encounters with disillusionment and devastation.

It was a relief to know that at least some of what she was
feeling he could understand. Only God or doctors who thought they were
God could give the old command, Physician, heal thyself. And she was
neither. For no matter how hard she tried to rationalize or how sternly
and forcefully she spoke to herself, she found she was nothing more
than a common human being, full of pain and fear. And there wasn't a
damn thing she could do about it.

"I can't seem to make myself care about anything. It's as
if the longer I'm sick, the longer I can hide and the longer I can
avoid my life, the longer it'll be before I have to rejoin the human race, which isn't a race at all.
It's more like… like lemmings rushing to the sea."

He wanted to lass her. Not in the sexual manner he'd
thought about all evening, but in the way his mother used to kiss his
boo-boos, the way he had kissed Fletcher's and then Baxter's, to make
them feel better. She'd fallen down, pushed from behind, and she was
angry, frightened, and hurt. He knew about falling down. He knew what
it took to get back on your feet and brush yourself off. He knew how
long it took scrapes and bruises to heal. He knew she'd survive and
maybe fall down again someday. But in the meantime, he wanted to kiss
her boo-boos and make her feel better.

"Lemmings." He was thoughtful. "It seems like that
sometimes, doesn't it," he said, rearranging his long legs to face the
front of the car, staring into the black cavity that was the garage.
"As if there's no rhyme or reason to it. As if it's hopeless. No matter
how you try to change it."

She had the sensation that he'd located and put his finger
into the middle of what she was feeling; stronger, though, was the
distinct impression that he'd already driven through her state of mind
and was familiar with the highways, byways, and dead ends. And he knew
a way out. She wondered if he'd tell her about it, and then half hoped
he wouldn't. She had a nagging hunch that his path wouldn't take her
where it had taken him; that this was the sort of territory you had to
find your own way out of. It was a different trail for everyone.

Then again, when he failed to expound on his
insightfulness and sat quietly keeping his own counsel, she was half
relieved and wholly annoyed. She'd spilled her guts to him like a whiny
baby, he should pay her the same courtesy. She'd let him into her life,
and she wanted to get into his. After all, wanting to be alone and
wanting to feel alone were two separate things entirely.

"Your life doesn't look so hopeless," she said without
hiding the wistfulness in her voice. "I envy you your children. They're
nice boys."

"Thanks," he said, agreeing with her once again. "But I
can tell you from experience that kids aren't always enough to live
for. You have to want to live for yourself."

"You know this from experience," she said, a question mark
in her voice; a knock at his door; a plea to know she wasn't alone.

She couldn't see it, but she felt it when he turned his
head to look at her, weighing the pros and cons of exposing his life to
her, planning a defense before he opened up to her, in case she was
potentially harmful.

When he finally began to speak, it was of Beth Averback
Howlett.

At eighteen, she'd had dreams that filled the Kansas skies
with sunshine. Added to those were Gil's dreams, broader, loftier, but
just as huge. They were in love and spent hours planning their future
together. This included going off to Kansas State University after high
school, but not the untimely creation of Fletcher in their sophomore
year.

However, one of the good things about dreams was that they
could be readjusted a little, remolded to fit most any unexpected
circumstance.

Their parents helped as much as they could, Gil got a
second job, Beth organized a child care co-op with some of her friends,
and their life together was back on track in no time.

"Fletch was about a year old when she started to notice
the weakness in her legs and arms. At first we thought she was just
tired and needed to rest. But it kept getting worse."