Page 31 of Starry Tides
Dr. Marsh stepped into the room, glancing at Bethany’s family. “Hello. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“We’re just finishing up,” Bethany said, watching as Tommy threw his backpack over his shoulders and mussed up his hair. Apparently, that was the style he was after.
“I have a patient asking for you,” Dr. Marsh explained.
Rod pressed a kiss onto Bethany’s forehead and said he’d be back later, after he made sure the kids were all set up at home. She squeezed his hand and said, “You can sleep at home, if you want to.” She knew it wasn’t comfortable to stay overnight at a hospital. She’d spent more nights than she could count at hospitals, and they were never really quiet. Not fully.
“I’m coming back,” Rod said sternly.
Bethany and Dr. Marsh watched Rod go. Bethany tried to shift higher in her bed but discovered the angle was all wrong.
“Don’t,” Dr. Marsh said. “You’re on bed rest, remember?”
Bethany rolled her eyes. “So what’s the problem? With this patient?”
“She’s got a very advanced liver disease. Autoimmune cholangitis. Apparently, you were her doctor previously?”
Bethany searched her mind for any sign of liver disease. But she couldn’t recall anyone in the previous year or two. “Do you have a name for me?”
“Helena Rogers,” he said.
Bethany nearly jumped out of bed at that. “Liver disease,” she breathed, shaking her head. It made sense, now. The skeletal nature of the body. The strange coloring. “But she wasn’t my patient. I met her in the emergency waiting room. She’d brought someone else in, but then fainted on me. She refused to be helped. She didn’t have health insurance.”
Dr. Marsh looked surprised. “She has health insurance now. A very good one, in fact.”
“You’re kidding.” Bethany crossed and uncrossed her arms, feeling frantic. “And she’s here?”
“She’s here. She was out hiking and called an ambulance for herself.”
“Hiking?”
“She isn’t making a lot of sense,” Dr. Marsh said. “But it sounds like you don’t know anything I don’t know.”
“I don’t know anything,” Bethany said, thinking again of Matteo, of how he’d said that Helena had pushed him out of her life.
It struck Bethany at once—Helena thought she was dying.
She thought she had a limited time on earth. She’d given up. Perhaps she’d given up the moment she’d received her diagnosis?
Why, then, did she get health insurance? It didn’t make sense.
“I want to see her,” Bethany said, suddenly overcome. It had been a long time since she’d experienced such a connection with a patient. (Not that Helena was her patient.)
“You’re on bed rest,” Dr. Marsh reminded her with a funny laugh. “Remember? You have to look out for number one most of all.”
“I’m so tired of this,” Bethany groaned.
Dr. Marsh scratched his stubble, looking contemplative. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t mind if you make your way down there—room 33. But use a wheelchair, for crying out loud. Don’t stress yourself more than you already have. We know how you are, Dr. Sutton. You have all that big-city hospital energy. But we’re just on Nantucket Island. People come here to relax.”
“Relax?” Bethany smiled. “I don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Rod returned aroundnine that evening with a full report of dinner and what had gone down at home. Apparently, Maddie probably had a new boyfriend, as she’d spent all night talking on her cell in her bedroom. Phoebe had forced Tommy into a faux stage play on the veranda, yelling at him when he didn’t memorize his lines in a few seconds flat.
Bethany smiled. It was bizarre to hear stories about her real life from here, her second home at the hospital. More bizarre still was to be a patient at the same hospital where, normally, she walked faster than any human usually managed and saved lives.
“I miss you all,” she said to Rod, her heart gushing.
“We miss you, too. But we need you and the baby to be healthy!” Rod said.
