Suddenly Last Summer. Sarah Morgan
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Sweat pricked at the back of his neck. He saw the nurse’s eyes widen.
How had he got himself in this situation?
For the first time in years he’d made a misjudgment. He’d thought Veronica was the sort of woman who was happy to live in the moment. Turned out he was wrong about that.
“I have to go, Veronica.”
“All right, I’ll flex. I’m sorry, I’m being a shrew. Let me cook you dinner tonight, I promise I won’t complain if you’re late. You can show up whenever. I’ll—”
“Veronica—” he cut across her “—do not apologize to me when I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. You need to find a guy who will give you the attention you deserve.”
There was a tense silence. “Are you saying it’s over?”
As far as Sean was concerned it had never started. “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. There are hundreds of guys out there only too willing to flex. Go and find one of them.” He hung up, aware that the nurse was still watching him.
He was so tired he couldn’t even remember her name.
Ann? No, that wasn’t right.
Angela. Yes, it was Angela.
Fatigue descended like a gray fog, slowing his thinking. He needed sleep.
He’d been called to an emergency in the night and had been on his feet operating since dawn. Soon the adrenaline would fade and when it did he knew he was going to crash big-time. Sean wanted to be somewhere near his bed when that happened. He had the use of a room at the hospital but he preferred to make it back to his waterside apartment where he could nurse a beer and watch life on the water.
“Dr. O’Neil? Sean? I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have put the call through if I’d known it was personal. She said she was a doctor.” The look in her eyes told him she’d have no objection to being Veronica’s replacement. Sean didn’t think she’d be flattered to know he’d temporarily forgotten her existence.
“Not your fault. I’ll talk to the relatives—” He was tempted to take a shower first, but then he remembered the white face of the boy’s mother when she’d arrived at the hospital and decided the shower could wait. “I’ll go and see them now.”
“You’ve had a really long day. If you want to come by my place after work, I make a mac and cheese that is wicked good.”
She was sweet, caring and pretty. Angela would come close to most men’s idea of a perfect woman.
Not his.
His idea of a perfect woman was one who didn’t want anything from him.
Relationships meant sacrifice and compromise. He wasn’t prepared to do either of those things, which was why he had remained resolutely single.
“As you just witnessed, I am an appalling date.” He managed what he hoped was a disarming smile. “I’d either be working and not show up at all, or so tired I’d fall asleep on your sofa. You can definitely do better.”
“I think you’re amazing, Dr. O’Neil. I work with loads of doctors, and you’re easily the best. If I ever needed a surgeon, I’d want you to look after me. And I wouldn’t care if you fell asleep on my sofa.”
“Yes, you would.” Eventually they always did. “I’ll go and talk to the family now.”
“That’s kind of you. His mother is worried.”
HE SAW THE worry the moment he laid eyes on the woman.
She sat without moving, her hands gripping her skirt as she tried to contain anxiety made worse by waiting. Her husband was on his feet, hands thrust in his pockets, shoulders hunched as he talked to the coach. Sean knew the coach vaguely. He’d found him to be ruthless and relentlessly pushy and it seemed that surgery on his star player hadn’t softened his approach.
The guy wanted miracles and he wanted them yesterday. Sean knew this particular coach’s priority wasn’t the long-term welfare of the kid lying in the OR, but the future of his team. As a sports injury specialist he dealt with players and coaches all the time. Some were great. Others made him wish he’d chosen law instead of medicine.
The moment the boy’s father saw Sean he sprang forward like a Rottweiler pouncing on an intruder.
“Well?”
The coach was drinking water from a plastic cup. “You fixed it?”
He made it sound like a hole in a roof, Sean thought. Slap a new shingle on and it will be as good as new. Change the tire and get the car back on the road.
“Surgery is only the beginning. It’s going to be a long process.”
“Maybe you should have got him into surgery sooner instead of waiting.”
Maybe you should stop practicing armchair medicine.
Noticing the boy’s mother digging her nails into her legs, Sean decided not to lock horns. “All the research shows that the outcome is better when surgery is carried out on a pain-free mobile joint.” He’d told them the same thing a week before but neither the coach nor the father had wanted to listen then and they didn’t want to listen now.
“How soon can he play again?”
Sean wondered what it must be like for the boy, growing up with these two on his back.
“It’s too early to set a timetable for return. If you push too hard, he won’t be playing at all. The focus now is on rehab. He has to take that seriously. So do you.” This time his tone was as blunt as his words. He’d seen promising careers ruined by coaches who pushed too hard too soon, and by players without the patience to understand that the body didn’t heal according to a sporting schedule.
“It’s a competitive world, Dr. O’Neil. Staying at the top takes determination.”
Sean wondered if the coach was talking about his player or himself. “It also takes a healthy body.”
The boy’s mother, silent until now, stood up. “Is he all right?” The question earned her a scowl from her husband.
“Hell, woman, I just asked him that! Try listening.”
“You didn’t ask.” Her voice shook. “You asked if he’d play again. That’s all you care about. He’s a person, Jim, not a machine. He’s our son.”
“At his age I was—”
“I know what you were doing at his age and I tell you if you carry on like this you will destroy your relationship with him. He will hate you forever.”
“He should be thanking me for pushing him. He has talent. Ambition. It needs to be nurtured.”
“It’s your ambition, Jim. This was your ambition and now you’re trying to live all your dreams through your son. And what you’re doing isn’t nurturing. You put pressure on him and then layer more and more on until the boy is crushed under the weight of it.” The words burst out of her and she paused for a moment as if she’d shocked herself. “I apologize, Dr. O’Neil.”
“No need to apologize. I understand your concern.”
Tension snapped his muscles tight. No one understood the pressures of family expectation better than he did. He’d been raised with it.
Do you know how it feels to be crushed by the weight of someone else’s dreams? Do you know how that feels, Sean?
The voice in his head was so real he rocked on his feet and had to stop himself glancing over his shoulder to check his father wasn’t standing there. He’d been dead two years, but sometimes it felt like yesterday.
He thrust the sudden wash of grief aside, uncomfortable with