Of Flesh and Blood (18 page)

“Tyler,” Nikki said with an urgency that snapped him out of his introspection.

His eyes darted over to her. The skin exposed above her mask had gone pale as a sheet. “What is it?” he asked.

Nikki pointed at Nate. “His hands,” she said.

Tyler jumped to his feet and leaned over the bed to see what Nikki was pointing at. Both Nate’s hands lay palm-down on the bedsheet in front of his belly. They were trembling like leaves in a heavy wind.

Tyler’s breath caught in his throat. He shot a hand out and grabbed the nearby IV pole that held the Vintazomab running into Nate’s spine. He frantically rolled the dial to shut off the infusion. “Get four milligrams of IV lorazepam into him stat!” Tyler called out for the standard, first-line antiseizure medication.

He raced around to the other side of the bed just in time to see Nate’s eyelids go into a rhythmic spasm and his head begin to bob.

“Damn it,” Tyler muttered. “He’s going to seize on us.”

Within seconds, Nate’s mouth clamped down on his endotracheal tube. Then his arms and legs joined his eyes in uncontrolled convulsions. Unconscious, Nate thrashed wildly on the bed.

Tyler dove across the seizing child. It took all his strength just to prevent Nate from bucking right off the bed.

After breakfast, Dot Alfredson and Lorna Simpson returned to the wood-paneled living room with its substantial hearth, somber furniture, and unabashed clutter of erotic artwork. It was barely nine in the morning, but the dark, cavernous room, lit by a floor lamp and a dim chandelier, gave the feel of perpetual evening. Dot had yet to suggest drinks, but Lorna suspected that the vodka tonics would not be long in arriving.

Lorna was engrossed by her great-aunt’s story and was hungry for more details. “So after Olivia Alfredson and Evan McGrath shared that first kiss, what happened? Did they—”

“Like rabbits in heat, you might say.” Dot nodded in the direction of the ceramic copulating Japanese couple.

Lorna frowned as she considered the implications. Dot mistook her expression for disapproval. “How can you
possibly
blame them?” the old woman asked. “Remember that Evan’s wife had been disabled for years, and Olivia was a twenty-one-year-old virgin.
Imagine
how much lost time and opportunity both of them had to catch up on!”

Lorna smiled to herself at the absurdity of her great-aunt’s sexual fixation, considering that the woman was pushing ninety. “No one else knew?” she asked.

Dot’s bony hand took off like a bird leaving its perch. “The Victorians excelled at discretion,” she said vaguely.

“True, but in 1895, Seattle wasn’t a big town.”

“Not much more than a one-horse town, really.” She rolled her eyes. “And you know how well secrets are kept in small towns.”

“So their affair was exposed?”

Dot looked down at the tiger stripes on her leggings, lost in her own thoughts. “Nothing lasts forever, darling.”

Family meant the world to both men; Evan’s priority was his ailing wife, while Marshall’s focus was his motherless daughter. Mutual dedication to their loved ones only strengthened the bond between the two pioneers.

—
The Alfredson: The First Hundred Years
by Gerald Fenton Naylor

An unusually cold and early winter had besieged the Pacific Northwest. By late November, Seattle had already seen more snow than the whole season sometimes brought. Despite the coal burning in the corner fireplace, there was a chill in the room. But Evan was warm under the thick comforter, especially with Olivia pressed up tight against him in nothing but her petticoat. He was astounded, and hopelessly aroused, by how much heat her flushed skin gave off.

Until they began their tryst, Evan had never stayed at a hotel before. But over the past month, he had rented a room once a week, or more, at the Sherman Hotel, on Yesler Street behind Pioneer Square. The bearded old clerk with a blind, opaque left eye and dull stare always gave them the same second-floor corner suite with the coal fire already burning. Evan had heard of men using aliases for similar purposes, but he never falsified his name. However, he never dissuaded the clerk from referring to Olivia as Mrs. McGrath, though he doubted that the one-eyed man was fooled.

Evan reached out and stroked Olivia’s silky cheek. She nuzzled her face against his hand and kissed it. They had just made love, but he longed to possess her again. Though Olivia had begun the affair as a virgin, she was a fast learner and remarkably open-minded. Over the past weeks, they had quickly found new ways to touch, caress, and kiss to draw out the moment and heighten the ecstasy of each encounter.

Evan’s pervasive self-disgust at his own disloyalty did not dampen his desire for Olivia. It was all-consuming; as intense as his sexual awakening during his honeymoon. At the thought of his wife, another stab of guilt tore through him and he gently pulled his hand from Olivia’s face. Virginia
had fallen ill during their second year of marriage, and they had not been physically intimate in almost four years. Evan never once considered the forced abstinence as justification for his actions. On the contrary, he had sworn a commitment to her—“for better or for worse”—and in his eyes, Virginia’s condition made his affair with Olivia even more inexcusable. He had never before broken his word; nor would he have ever forgiven someone else in the same predicament.

With a sense of shame, he remembered how he had treated his mentor, Dr. Hugh Dundee. The gregarious Scotsman was a surgical genius, an unparalleled teacher, and a generous man. He had taken Evan under his wing professionally. Dundee had also shared his home in San Francisco with the young doctor, inviting Evan and Virginia to countless family meals with his charming wife and three children. The surgeon had helped entrench in Evan the principle of providing humane care to all patients, regardless of sex, social status, or race. Dundee’s adherence to the belief had caused a stir that rippled through the San Francisco medical community when the surgeon admitted a Chinese woman to the Morgan Clinic for removal of her infected gallbladder. Old Dr. Morgan, long retired, had intervened, intending to throw the woman out of the hospital, but eventually relented when Dundee threatened to quit.

However, the two men’s relationship had soured after Dundee admitted a prostitute to the clinic for a hysterectomy to manage her cervical cancer. The Scotsman readily admitted that he had met the woman at her brothel, which he frequented. Evan was outraged at Dundee’s conduct and told him so. The surgeon accepted his protégé’s consternation good-naturedly. He argued that not only what his wife did not know would not harm her, but that his weekly visits to the brothel made him an otherwise better husband and father. Evan tried to accept the explanation with worldly understanding but found it impossible to sit eating and laughing at the family table as though Dundee’s duplicitous behavior had no bearing on his family or the rest of his life. The two men soon drifted apart socially and then professionally, which influenced Evan’s decision to relocate to the Pacific Northwest.

Olivia grabbed Evan’s hand in hers. The sensual squeeze drew him back to the moment. “What are you thinking, my darling?” she asked.

He forced a smile. “I am reminiscing.”

She slipped her hand out of his and pulled back slightly. “Oh, about better times?” she asked with a spark of hurt.

“No, no, my love.” He reached for her shoulder and drew her closer again. “I have never lived a better moment than this one. I was just thinking about San Francisco and my work at the Morgan Clinic.”

Olivia assumed Evan was referring to his desire to see a similar clinic built in the Pacific Northwest. “You will have something comparable here in Seattle. Soon, Evan! I know it.”

Evan nodded, drinking in her shining green eyes and full lips. He would have been content to stare at that lovely round face forever.

“My fath—,” she started, but faltered. “I am certain it will work out for you. I feel it in my bones.”

“Oh, Olivia, I love your youthful optimism.” He leaned forward and ran kisses along her cheek. “I love you so very much.”

“And I you,” she said, kissing him on the mouth.

The pressure of her lips on his launched a fresh wave of arousal through Evan. He reached for the silky cloth of the simple slip she wore and ran a hand over it until his fingers touched her bosom. He squeezed through the fabric.

Olivia uttered a quiet noise that differed from the soft moan he had come to crave. He released his grip and pulled back to study her. She was sobbing.

He reached out and wiped a tear away with his finger. “Olivia?” he said softly.

She dabbed at her eyes. “Oh, it’s nothing really. I am just lost in a perfect moment.” She smiled again, though Evan could see that her lightheartedness was forced.

“I love you,” he said again, self-conscious but unable to help himself.

She nodded. “I love—,” she began to say but her voice quavered and more tears flowed down her cheeks.

His chest ached. “What is it, Olivia? Tell me. Please.”

She did not bother wiping the tears from her eyes. “I have never dreamed that I could be so happy, Evan.”

“Then what is wrong?”

She pointed from Evan to her own chest. “How can
this
possibly last?” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “My father . . . your wife . . . Oh, Evan, how much longer can we continue to go on like this?”

Evan took both her hands in his. “As long as we have to, Olivia. Until we can find a better . . . more suitable . . . way to be together.” He squeezed her hands tightly and stared deep into her eyes. “I want us to be together forever.”

“There is no such thing as forever,” she said in a steady voice.

“There is for us, Olivia,” he insisted, but his chest was burning as he spoke the words. He suddenly felt on the verge of tears himself, because he knew she was right.

They parted later in the afternoon, committing to another rendezvous soon. Heavyhearted, he checked out of the hotel. Rather than ride the cable car up the hill to his house on Capitol Hill, he chose to walk through the biting wind and crisp layer of snow. He had forgotten his gloves at home and the pockets in his wool coat offered minimal warmth. His fingers were tingling from the cold when he finally reached the door to his house.

Mrs. Shirley, whose son had miraculously rebounded from his latest bout of pneumonia, was in the kitchen preparing dinner. The smell of roasted chicken wafted out to Evan accompanied by the high-pitched, and at times off-key, strains of her singing. The tune today, “It Is Well with My Soul,” was one of her favorite hymns.

In the drawing room, Virginia sat alone in her wheelchair, covered, as usual, by the blanket and shawl. Her face had grown even more drawn. She looked frailer every day. But her mind had cleared over the past weeks. Her memory was keener, and she had not voiced a single irrational or delusional thought in weeks.

Virginia’s lips broke into a lopsided smile as Evan neared.

As always, her proximity heightened his guilt. He felt two inches high as he leaned down to kiss her forehead softly and squeeze her bony arm. “How is today, Ginny?”

“I am afraid I am not yet ready for a tennis match,” she said in her halting speech pattern.

Virginia had maintained her sense of humor throughout her ordeal, but her sarcasm often left Evan at a loss for words. “Did you sleep this afternoon?” he asked.

“For an hour or so,” she said. “Mrs. Shirley read to me. It was
The Jungle Book
today. The poor woman struggles with some of Kipling’s more challenging verses.” She looked away. “I wish we had toured India together,
Evan. It sounds so very exotic. I think it would have made for a wonderful adventure.”

Evan smiled sadly. “Providing, of course, we did not come face-to-face with any tigers.”

“There are worse fates to confront.” She lifted a shaky hand to him. “How was the hospital this morning?”

He cleared his throat. “Quite manageable. Of course, I will have to return for evening rounds after dinner.”

“You work too hard, Evan,” Virginia said.

He shrugged. “No harder than most doctors.”

“Most doctors have wives who tend their homes and offer them a place of rest and sanctuary at the end of a long day’s work. Whereas I merely add to your burden.”

Evan squeezed her arm lovingly. “Come now, Ginny.”

She stared at him, her left eye twitching. “There is so much you deserve. So much which I cannot provide you.”

“Oh, Ginny, please,” Evan said, his voice cracking. “Do not talk like this. You are the one who has suffered. I wish with all my heart that there was more I could do for you.”

“You are a good husband.” She struggled to show him another smile.

Feeling like an utter fraud, he hollowly returned her smile.

“Evan?”

“Yes, Ginny?”

“There is a small favor I would like to ask.”

“Anything.”

“Miss Alfredson . . . Olivia.”

Evan went cold. He dropped his gaze to the blanket covering his wife’s lap. “What of her?”

“Mrs. Shirley has returned,” Virginia said. “I believe I am well cared for now. I would like you to please thank Olivia for her generosity of time and spirit. However, I was hoping you might inform her that I no longer require her visits or her companionship.”