having the procedure. That way you can concentrate on your food instead of worrying for a while.”
They left Neetie and walked to the cafeteria. “You don’t have to be at the foundation?” Maggie asked Court.
“Nope, I have no intention of leaving you here by yourself. This is one time you don’t have to do it alone.”
“Thanks.” She meant it.
* * *
The day went by faster than Maggie had expected. After the hepatologist announced Neetie had come through the procedure like a champ, she spent the rest of the day sitting beside his bed. Normally he would’ve gone to the step-down unit but Neetie had been so sick before the procedure that his doctor wanted to err on the side of caution and keep him in ICU another night. Neetie would go to the step-down floor the next day if he remained stable during the night.
Court left to check in at the foundation an hour after Neetie had returned to the ICU. Maggie hadn’t realized how much she missed Court until he’d gone but even worse was the realization of how dependent she’d become on him.
They were a great team in medical situations, and they had worked well together when they’d been stuck. With Neetie’s care, they’d both done what had been necessary to save the boy’s life. She’d never shared the kind of connection with another person, on all levels, that she shared with Court. She’d miss him when she and Neetie returned to Africa.
For years she’d worked at being self-sufficient, always making the decisions, taking care of the task on her own. Trying to make things be just right. But during the past few days she’d had to bow to Court on decisions. She found she liked having someone besides herself to lead in a crisis. It had been comforting to have him shoulder some of the burden.
Still, her world was Ghana and he said nothing about wanting her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THAT evening, Court insisted Maggie leave the hospital as soon as visiting hours were over. He suggested they go to a restaurant but Maggie said she wasn’t interested in a big meal and would rather have a sandwich at home.
The amount of time they were spending alone at his place was starting to grate on his nerves. There was a comfort he’d never known to having Maggie around to come home to while at the same time he wouldn’t let himself get used to it. He was only helping her because of Neetie. For no other reason.
While he made some calls in his office, Maggie was supposed to be watching TV. Instead, he found her in front of the tall bookshelf where a few causal pictures of his family stood. His housekeeper had placed them after he’d left them piled on a shelf. He’d not bothered to remove them.
“Would you tell me about the people in these pictures?” She pointed to one full of women and children.
“Those are my sisters. All three of them with their children. Eight between them.”
“They look happy.”
“I guess they are. I don’t see them much. The picture was a Christmas present one year.”
“They don’t live close?”
“No, they all live here in town.”
“If I had that many nieces and nephews I’d make sure I was the aunt they all wanted to visit.”
“I don’t doubt that. And you would be too.”
“The holidays must be a lot fun with such a large family.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m always off snow skiing during that time.”
“And I thought my holidays were kind of sad.”
“How’s that?”
“They’re usually quiet affairs. But now I’m going to have Neetie I’ll make sure they are more festive, maybe cook for the staff. See if my mother would come for a visit.” She sounded so happy. He liked knowing he’d had a part in making her feeling that way.
She picked up another picture. “How old were you when this was taken?”
“Around sixteen.”
“You weren’t bad looking even then.” She bent over to get a closer look.
“Are you saying you think I’m good looking now?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“I think you know you are.”
“It would be nice to hear it coming from you.”
She ignored that statement and pointed to a small picture. “What about this one?”
He wished he’d steered her away from the pictures before now. “Five.”
She glanced at him. Had she heard the sadness in his voice? The picture was of his family. “Which one is you?”
Maggie didn’t say anything, just waited for him to fill in the huge, vacant questioning space between them. Court picked up the framed picture, studied it. “That’s me…” he pointed to the little boy standing beside his mother but not touching her “…and that was my twin brother, Lyland, sitting in my mother’s lap.”
It wasn’t a subject he discussed with even his family. It was a part of the iceberg of guilt that needed to remain under the water. He’d been jealous of his disabled brother. Had wanted some of the attention. Enough so that he’d caused trouble and had been sent to boarding school. But for some reason he wanted Maggie to know about Lyland. “It was taken a long time ago.”
She took the picture from him, ran her finger over the face of the little boy he had been. “It had to have been hard to lose your brother. Especially a twin.”
“It was. He was the other part of me. But in many ways he was already lost to me.” His family never talked about Lyland. The pain was so solid even so many years later.
Maggie cocked her head in question, and returned the picture to the shelf before picking up another one. This time it was a picture of him looking solemn as if he carried a boulder-size burden on his young shoulders.
“That’s me on my ninth birthday. It would’ve been Lyland’s also but he had died the week before,” he said drily.
Not even her sharp intake of breath made him look down at her. He didn’t want to see the pity in her eyes.
Maggie placed the picture back on the shelf, turned, wrapped her arms around his middle and hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
His chest tightened like it had the day his father had come to his boarding school to tell him that Lyland was dead. He’d learned early in life that if you didn’t care then you wouldn’t hurt. But it had been impossible to shut the guilt out the next morning after the gala when he’d found out about his friend’s child and the fear he’d experienced when he’d realized how deathly ill Neetie was and that he might not be able to save him in time. His close-your-heart-off motto had served him well until Maggie and Neetie had entered his life. Somehow having Maggie around eased the blame, which never disappeared totally except when he was with her.
“Will you tell me what happened?” she asked against his chest.
“Mother and Daddy have always loved to travel. During their trips they became more and more concerned about the living condit
ions of the countries they visited. That’s when they convinced my great-grandfather to start the foundation. They were working in Yemen when Mother started having trouble. She had no idea that she was having twins, she just knew that the baby was coming early.”
He took a halting breath and Maggie gave him an encouraging squeeze. “I was born first, Lyland came a while later. There were complications. With no real medical facilities near, Lyland suffered brain damage. He required special care all his life. Mother and Daddy pretty much devoted their lives to him. He died of pneumonia because he couldn’t move around enough to keep his lungs clear.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that was for you.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You were lonely after he died and no one noticed, did they?” The words were less of a question and more of a statement. She understood him. No one, not even his parents, had ever realized how alone he felt.
“Part of the reason I became a doctor was to help children like Lyland. Instead, I made the wrong call and caused another child to be like him.”
The dampness on his shirt let him know that Maggie was crying. For him.
The crack in this emotional shell grew larger. His strong, stalwart Maggie was crying for him, and the little boy he’d been. His chest tightened, and agony like he’d never known swamped him. She would be leaving him just like all the others.
Her arms went slack around him, as she pulled away enough to look him in the eyes. “For a smart, worldly-wise man, you should know better than anyone that you can’t control everything.” She cupped his cheek. “You’ve got to stop beating yourself up over things you can’t change, things that happened in the past or that you don’t have a say in.”
* * *
Maggie was thrilled when Neetie was released from the hospital the next morning. He would need to have a follow-up visit in the doctor’s office in a week. She, Neetie and Court visited Raja before they left the building. Maggie was equally tickled with how well she was doing as she practiced with her new leg. Raja had a smile on her face as she demonstrated what she’d learned. Court might try not to be emotionally attached to his patients but he failed miserably with Raja and Neetie because his actions demonstrated something wholly different.