The Prediction, page 8
“Sounds good.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve never liked gelatin.”
“I’ve never lain in bed for two days with only an IV either,” he grumbled.
She laughed. His grumble felt as good as his flirting. “Do you want me to leave so you can sleep?”
“Stay. I’ve slept enough. I like having you here.” He paused before asking, “Was Thea here, or did I dream that?”
“She was here. What do you remember?” she asked.
He frowned. “It’s hazy, but I think she stayed for only a few minutes. She said hello and got me a drink. That’s all I remember.”
“She came with a friend of hers, Monroe. I think they might be more than friends, even though she denies it.” She smiled at him. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
He didn’t return her smile. “Monroe? What’s his last name?”
“Dr. Monroe Carter. The new pediatrician. Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters.”
His sharp tone surprised her. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to her with that tone of voice. “Calm down. Let’s talk about something else.”
“What are the chances that my daughter would hook up with him?”
His flushed face alarmed her. “Ted, please. Do I need to call the nurse?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said impatiently. “How could this happen? Of all the people in this city, how did she end up with him?”
Before she could ask him anything about Monroe, Stacy appeared in the doorway. “Is everything all right, Dr. Whitaker? Your blood pressure and pulse have gone up.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” he said, waving her away with a shooing motion.
“If your blood pressure continues to stay this high, we’ll have to keep you in ICU longer,” she warned him.
“I’ll take care of it,” Anna said. “Can we close the door for a minute?”
“Sure.” Stacy closed the door as she went out.
Anna leaned forward and held his hand. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“I’ll make a deal with you.” The pulse pounding in his temple and his red, feverish look scared her. “You relax and forget about Monroe until you’re better, and I’ll watch every move he makes.”
“I can’t forget about him.”
At least his voice was quieter than a moment ago. “Then I won’t tell you what’s happening outside of these four walls.” She crossed her arms and stared him down.
He dropped his eyes first. “Okay. I’ll try not to worry. You were always better at that than I was.”
“Now you’re getting maudlin on me. I’m serious, Ted.” She doubted he could stop himself. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Is she going to visit me again?”
“I think so. We need to talk about this vision she had as soon as you’re well enough. You need to help by telling us everything you can.”
“I hope she comes back.” His flushed face turned pale again. “Ask her to come. Please.”
“I will. Now close your eyes and get some rest. I’ll be right here.” He did as she asked, which worried her more than anything.
“I love you, Anna.”
“I love you, too.” Her eyes misted, and she closed them before he could see the tears.
CHAPTER 14
Ted lay propped up against the pillows, half sitting for the first time since his surgery.
Dale walked into the hospital room and reached over and shook his hand. “How goes the battle?”
Ted was surprised to see him. He hadn’t expected a visit from his old friend. “The doctor assures me I’ll be able to do everything I did before this infernal surgery. They’re going to let me walk around tomorrow. I can’t wait.”
“I remember when I had my gallbladder surgery. Of course, that wasn’t as serious as your operation, but I was ready to get out of that bed, believe me. You had a triple bypass, right?”
“Yes. What brings you here today?”
“Just wanted to wish you well.” His voice sounded confident, but his hands constantly moved.
“I’m a psychiatrist, remember? Lying here in this bed hasn’t suddenly made my brain mush.” He looked Dale in the eye. “What’s worrying you?”
“I’m sure you’re as sharp as ever. My past as a psychiatrist hasn’t left me either.” Dale’s nervousness vanished, and he stood up straighter. “This is about Chance. I’d do anything for him.”
“Anything? That’s a scary statement.”
“Don’t mess with me, Ted. Have you told anyone what happened?”
“No. I promised I wouldn’t. You promised you wouldn’t either.”
“I certainly haven’t. You haven’t told Anna, have you?”
“No. It’s too late now. She would wonder why I kept it a secret all these years.”
Dale gave him a sympathetic look. “I know how it is, though, when you think you might die. You want to get everything out in the open. I’m speaking with you doctor-to-doctor now. You know as well as I do what people are capable of when they’re pushed.”
“Well, I didn’t die,” Ted said with some asperity. “And I don’t plan on revealing old secrets. What’s this all about?”
“Chance’s accident. You did the evaluation on him after his accident.”
“You know I can’t go into details. We’ve already talked about this.”
“He told me everything. I’m asking you to put the best spin on it. I’ll beg if I have to.”
“Or you’ll blackmail me.” Ted liked Dale. Had always liked him. Even all those years ago when everything depended on Dale getting him free. They’d been friends for years. Friends of a kind that no one guessed at or would ever know.
“Like you did to me” said Dale.
Ted sat up further, fumbling for the control that lifted the head of the bed. Dale helped him, which struck him as ironic. The ludicrous situation of two distinguished psychiatrists fiddling with the bed controls, while blackmailing each other amused him. “But you never killed anyone.”
“And Chance did.”
“Okay. After this, we’re even. I clear Chance. We keep our secrets. It won’t matter much longer anyway.”
#
Ted watched Anna as she read a book. It was his second day out of ICU, and they planned to send him home the next day. She hadn’t said anything about her mammogram. He didn’t want to hear her say she had breast cancer, but he knew he should ask her. She deserved his support, the way she always supported him. He sighed, and she put the square paper marker in her book before looking up at him.
“Why the sigh?”
“What were the results of your mammogram?” He saw her stiffen and fought not to close his eyes, while his heart screamed denial.
“I have cancer.” She could read him as well as he could read her.
“And the prognosis?”
“Ted, do you think you’re well enough to hear this right now?” She asked, tears in her eyes.
“Bad, huh?”
She nodded, eyes filling. He got up slowly from the bed, and she jumped up. “Stay there. I’ll sit beside you.”
He sat back down on the edge of the bed, and she sat beside him. Gingerly, she slipped her arm around his waist, and he wrapped his arms around her. He wanted to hold her tight, but his stitches didn’t allow him to hold her as tight as he wished without too much pain. He needed to stay focused on her. “What did Mark say?”
“I don’t think...”
“Shh. I’ll be fine. Tell me.” He patted her back.
“He said I need a mastectomy and chemo or radiation. It depends what they find when they do the surgery.” She looked up into his eyes.
“How...how much time before you need the surgery?” He held back his own tears, while holding her gaze.
“A month or two at the most.”
“I see. What you mean is that you need the surgery tomorrow, but you’re not having it because I’m here in this bed.” He hugged her closer in spite of the pain.
“Yes.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “I’ve been reading up about it on the internet the past few days. I’ve talked to Mark. I need the mastectomy soon.” She started sobbing, all the fear gushing out.
His heart hurt. Not from surgery, but from her pain. The fear was becoming harder to block. “I want to take you away on a trip. To Bermuda, or Tahiti, or Hawaii.”
She pulled away and smiled a watery smile. “Silly, you’re in a hospital bed. You’ve had major heart surgery.”
“We both need some time away to relax.”
“What about Thea?”
He stiffened. He couldn’t help it. He was jealous of his own daughter. Why did that knowledge come to him now after all these years? He was jealous of Anna’s love for Thea. Anna must have sensed his feelings, because she moved away from him, and he felt a chill. “Anna,” he pleaded.
“What?”
The stoniness of her face made his heart beat uncomfortably fast. He couldn’t lose her this way. “I didn’t realize.”
“Didn’t realize what?” Her expression didn’t soften, but her eyes held a hint of understanding.
“I don’t deserve you. You’ve always been better than me. Better at loving and understanding and caring.”
“You’ve always thought that you were less than other people for some reason. Are you going to tell me why?”
He was silent, weighing everything. Dale and Thea and Anna. Himself as a young boy, frightened and alone.
“An eminent psychiatrist told me one time that if you say the words out loud, the words don’t hold their power over you as tightly. It was a very eminent psychiatrist.”
“Who doesn’t know squat.”
“Slang from you? You’re upset.” Her face softened, and something in his chest loosened.
“How did we get from your cancer to my inadequacies?” She winced, and he cursed himself. “Sorry. Do you mind if I talk to Mark myself?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you, I don’t believe it,” Ted said.
“There are moments it’s so real. My brain comprehends nasty cells are converging and gleefully filling my body. Then there are other times. Times when I feel absolutely normal, like there is no way, no way this is happening to me. You know?”
“I know.”
He moved closer to Anna, and she relaxed against him when he put his arms around her. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
Ted relished the feeling of Anna beside him. The fresh fragrance of her soap. Her warmth. Lots of women went through this surgery. But none of them had been Anna. He hadn’t prayed this hard since he was five years old, and his mother locked him in the cellar. And he hadn’t been this scared since they locked him...
“What are you thinking about?” Anna asked.
He realized he was staring at the monitors beside his bed, not taking in anything external. Only what played out in his mind. “Nothing important.” He tried to shake off the ghosts of the past, but she wasn’t letting the subject go.
“Why won’t you confide in me?” She sounded ready to quarrel. Something unusual for her.
“It’s some stupid things that happened when I was a child.” He shrugged.
“You never talk about your childhood.”
“The most important part of my life has been spending time with you. The rest of it doesn’t count.”
“I bet that’s not what you say to your clients.” She kept at him and wouldn’t be distracted.
He tried to think of a way to change the subject. Why was she so insistent? How could the past possibly matter to her when they had more important matters to discuss? And he remembered Dale making him promise. “What difference does it make?” he asked.
“You mean because I’m sick?” She’d only been this angry with him one other time, and that was when Thea left home. “Do you think that because I’m sick, I don’t care about you anymore? Well, I’m not dead yet, Ted, so don’t you abandon me before it happens.” Anna’s breath came in quick pants, and her gaze sliced through him.
“But my past doesn’t matter.” He did not want to get into this now. “It’s a waste of the time we have left.”
“I want to know everything.” She wasn’t giving an inch.
“It was...ugly and degrading.”
“Then it’s time to get everything out into the open. Let some light into the memories.”
He laughed, and the depth of his bitterness surprised even him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why?” She stood in front of him and forced him to look up. “Because you’ve seen the bottomless pit of human despair as a psychiatrist, and as a dermatologist, I only see skin deep? Don’t you think that’s unfair? And condescending too. Doesn’t say much for my intelligence or understanding.”
That got him on the raw. “I know you’ve always been better than me. You’ve proved that time after time. And quit saying dead over and over.”
“Good. Now we’re getting to some real emotion.” Her smile scared him. “I’ve got all day.” She plopped down in the chair beside his bed and studied his face.
Anger, fear, and confusion mingled with the pain in his chest. Should he tell her? Or shouldn’t he? Maybe part of it? All of it? He looked down at his bare feet and suddenly felt naked in his thin hospital gown. She wouldn’t let go until he told her the whole, sordid story. He shivered and sat back on the bed, sliding his legs under the sheet and blanket. He could sense her looking at him.
“Why don’t we start with your prediction ability?” She smiled.
His mouth opened and then closed. Who was this woman? Had she changed this much since his heart attack or had he ignored parts of her? Parts that he didn’t want to acknowledge?
“I’ve had a lot of time to think while you were in ICU. Especially since you insisted on my getting the mammogram,” she said. “I think that’s when it became evident to me. I was so oblivious to what was going on.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Looking back, it’s so obvious.”
“I can’t...” he started to say.
“Don’t deny it. I won’t believe you anyway.”
He lay against the pillows, defeated. “Okay. I can predict the future. Like Thea.” His voice turned monotone. “My mother used to lock me up in the cellar. She called me a witch. An evil boy.”
“Little boys aren’t evil.” She hopped up from the chair and sat on the bed and grabbed his hand. “Your mother was plain mean.”
“There was nothing plain about her evil. You never met her, fortunately.” He smiled slightly at her defense of him.
“I always wondered why you never said anything about your family.”
“Now you know.”
“Oh, I don’t think I know everything yet,” she said firmly, but her gentle tone soothed him. Her anger had lessened, and what remained was aimed at his mother.
CHAPTER 15
Ted sat up against the raised head of the hospital bed. Anna sat beside him and held his hand.
“I don’t want to talk about my childhood. You know that, don’t you?”
She patted his hand as if he were a boy again. “I know. But it’ll be good for you.”
He hated his words coming back at him. How many times had he said those same words to his patients? How many times had they experienced the reluctance he felt, hating to delve back into the horror of those moments they thought were over forever? Now that he found himself in the same position, he wondered if it was necessary.
Anna brought him back to the present. “What did your father think when your mother locked you up?”
“He wasn’t there. Dad worked at a farm and stayed away most nights. Once in a while he got a few days off and came home. He died in a tractor accident one summer.”
“How old were you?”
“Five.”
“That’s horrible.”
“I missed him so much. He was a kind man. We didn’t have much money, and I learned early that I didn’t want to live that way all my life.”
“So you became a doctor.” Anna smiled at him, rubbing his hand.
“That wasn’t when I decided to become a psychiatrist. I planned on being a paid assassin.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re joking, right?”
“No.” He shook his head, and a smile lit his face for a moment at being able to surprise her. “I was fat, and I wanted to kill all the kids who made fun of me.”
Anna laughed again. “I should be appalled, but I guess it’s because I know you could never shoot anyone that I think it’s funny.”
“You’d be surprised.” His voice turned grim.
“You didn’t kill anyone, did you? Is that your deep, dark secret? You know I’m determined to hear every detail.”
“No. I didn’t kill anyone. It’s much tamer than that.”
“So, what made you decide to become a shrink?”
“Honey, please.” His silence didn’t deter her. He knew she could wait him out.
“You might as well get it said.”
A nurse came in to check on him, and Anna moved out of the way while she took his pulse and compared it to the monitor. She adjusted an IV bag and left the room.
Anna sat down on the bed again. “I’m waiting.”
“I spent four years in a psychiatric hospital.” He didn’t feel any different after he said it. He expected something, but nothing happened. No anxiety at having his secret known. No relief that finally revealing a secret usually brought.
“You were a patient?” Her shock registered by the tight grip on his hand. She shook her head. “Why?”
“My mom thought I was crazy because I could predict the future. Or she found me a bit of a trial. I’ve never been sure. Her thoughts were always a mystery to me. I never understood her.” Even now, the memory of her locking him in the basement, and her confining him to a psychiatric hospital, baffled him.
“How old were you? Where’s your mother now? I’ll beat her up.” Anna’s fists clenched. Even though she was smaller than his mother by several pounds, he wouldn’t put it past his feisty Anna to be the winner when she was in one of her furies.
