Patient Nurse (3 page)

“I beg your pardon,” he'd replied stiffly. And, taking the handkerchief back, he'd shoved it into his slacks pocket as if the sight of it angered him.

 

Over the years there had been other incidents. Once she'd been summoned by Isadora to drive her downtown when Ramon had refused to let her use the Jaguar.

She'd barely been admitted by the flustered maid when she heard the furious voices coming from the living room.

“I'll spend what I like!” Isadora was yelling at her husband. “God knows, I deserve a few luxuries, since I don't have a husband! You spend every waking hour at the office or in the hospital! We never have meals together! We don't even sleep together…!”

“Isadora!” Noreen had called, to alert her cousin to her appearance before the argument got any hotter.

“What's she doing here?” Noreen heard Ramon ask furiously as she walked toward the living room, hesitating for a second at the open door.

“She's driving me to the mall,” Isadora had told
him hatefully, “since you won't!” She glanced toward Noreen. “Well, come in, come in,” she called angrily. “Don't stand out there like a shadow!”

Ramon's hot glance told her what he thought of her and her usual, off-duty attire. She was the soul of neatness on the job, in her ward, but she still dressed like a farm girl when she was off duty.

“Honestly, Norie, haven't you got any other clothes?” Isadora asked angrily.

“I don't need any others,” she replied, refusing to supply her relative with the information that her salary barely covered her apartment rent and gas for the car, much less fancy clothes.

“How economical you are,” Ramon purred.

Isadora had glared at him, jerking up her purse and cashmere sweater. “You should have married her!” She threw the words at him. “She can cook and clean and she dresses like a street person! She probably even likes children!”

Noreen had colored, remembering being with Ramon in the soup kitchen downtown at Christmas.

“How would you know how street people dress?” Ramon asked his wife coolly. “You won't even look at them.”

“God forbid,” she shuddered. “They should round them all up and put them in jail!”

Noreen, remembering the woman and two little children who'd accepted their meal with such gratitude, felt sick to her stomach and turned away, biting her tongue to keep it silent.

“Spend what the hell you like,” Ramon told his wife.

Isadora's eyebrows had risen an inch. “Such language!” she'd chided. “You never used to curse at all.”

“I never used to have reason to.”

Isadora made a sound in her throat and stalked out, motioning curtly to Noreen to follow her.

 

Just a week before Isadora died, she was taken with a mild bronchitis. Ramon had promised to accompany a fellow surgeon to Paris for an important international conference on new techniques in open-heart surgery. Isadora had pleaded to go, and Ramon had refused, reminding her that flying in a pressurized cabin on an airplane could be very dangerous for someone with even a mild lung infection.

Typically Isadora had pouted and fumed, but Ramon hadn't listened. He'd stopped by Noreen's station in the cardiac unit at O'Keefe's and asked her to stay with Isadora in their apartment and take care of her in his absence.

“She'll find a way to get even, if she can,” he'd said, curiously grim. “Watch her like a hawk. Promise me you won't leave her if she takes a turn for the worse.”

“I promise,” she'd said.

“And get her to a hospital if there's any deterioration at all. She has damaged lungs from all that smoking she used to do, and she's very nearly asthmatic,” he'd added. “Pneumonia could be fatal.”

“I'll look after her,” she'd said again.

His dark eyes had searched hers relentlessly. “You're nothing like her,” he'd said quietly.

Her face had gone taut. “Thanks for reminding me. Are there any other insults you'd like to add, before you go?”

He'd looked shocked. “It wasn't meant as a insult.”

“Of course not,” she'd replied dryly. She'd turned
back to her work. “I know you can't stand the sight of me, Ramon, but I do care about my cousin, whether you believe it or not. I'll take good care of her.”

“You're an excellent nurse.”

“No need to butter me up,” she said wearily, having grown used to the technique over the years. “I've already said I'll stay with her.”

His hand, surprisingly, had caught her arm and jerked her around. His eyes were blazing.

“I don't use flattery to get what I want,” he said curtly. “Least of all with you.”

“All right,” she'd agreed, trying to loosen his painful grip.

He seemed not to realize how tight he was holding her arm. He even shook it, having totally lost his self-control for the first time in recent memory. “Make her understand why she can't go on the plane. She won't listen to me.”

“I will. But you should be pleased that she wants your company so much.”

His grip tightened. “One of the men who will be at the conference is her lover,” he said with a short laugh. “That's why she's so eager to go.”

Noreen's face was a study in shock.

“You didn't know?” he asked very softly. “I can't satisfy her,” he added bluntly. “No matter how long I take, whatever I do. She needs more than one man a night, and I'm worn to the bone when I get home from the hospital.”

“Please,” she'd whispered, embarrassed, “you shouldn't be telling me this…!”

“Why not?” he'd asked irritably. “Who else can I tell? I have no close friends, my parents are dead, I have no siblings. There isn't a human being on earth who's ever
managed to get close to me, until now.” He searched her face with eyes that hated it. “Damn you, Noreen,” he whispered fervently. “Damn you!”

He dropped her arm and stalked off the ward, leaving her shaken and white with shock. He really hated her. That was when the mask had come down and she'd seen it in his eyes, in his face. She didn't know why he hated her. Perhaps because Isadora had said something to him…

 

She'd gone to their apartment that night, confident that Ramon had already left, to find the maid hysterical and Isadora sitting out on the balcony in a filmy nightgown, in the icy cold February rain.

She'd been out there, the poor maid cried, ever since her husband had left the apartment. She didn't know what had been said between them, but she'd heard the voices, loud and unsettling, in their bedroom. There had been a furious argument, and just after the doctor had gone, the madam had taken off her robe and gone to sit in the rain. Nothing would induce her to come inside. She was coughing furiously already and she had a high fever that she'd forbidden the maid to tell the doctor about.

Noreen had gone at once to the balcony and with the maid's help, had dragged Isadora back inside.

They'd changed her clothing, but the effort had made Noreen's heart, always frail, beat erratically.

While she was catching her breath, the maid announced that her husband had already phoned twice and was furious. She had to leave.

Noreen was reluctant to let her go, feeling sick already, but the poor girl was in tears. She gave permis
sion for her to leave, and then went to listen to Isadora's chest.

Her cousin was breathing strangely. She wasn't conscious, and her fever was furiously high.

She had to get an ambulance, she decided, and went to phone for one. But when she lifted the receiver, there was a strange sound and no dial tone.

Furious, she started out into the hall to ask a neighbor to phone for her. Suddenly everything went pitch-black.

She was really frightened now, and her heart was acting crazily.

She moved down the hall, feeling for the elevators, but they weren't working. There was the staircase. They were only four flights up. It wouldn't be too far. She had a terrible feeling that Isadora's lung had collapsed. She could die…

Making a terrific effort, she pushed into the stairwell and started down and down, holding on to the rail for support as her breathing began to change and her heartbeat hurt.

She never really remembered afterward what happened, except that she suddenly lost her footing, and consciousness, at the same time.

She came to in the hospital, trying to explain to a white-coated stranger that she must get back to her cousin. But the man only patted her arm and gave her an injection.

 

It was the next day before she was able to get out of the hospital and go back to Ramon's apartment. But by that time, the maid had found Isadora dead, and worst of all, Ramon had come home before she was moved.

Noreen had arrived at the door just as the ambulance attendants came out with Isadora's body.

Ramon had seen Noreen and lapsed into gutter Spanish that questioned everything from Noreen's parentage to her immediate future, eloquently.

“Oh, please, let me explain!” she'd pleaded, in tears as she realized what must have happened to Isadora, poor Isadora, all alone and desperately ill. “Please, it wasn't my fault! Let me tell you…!”

“Get out of my apartment!” Ramon had raged, in English now that he'd exhausted himself of insults. “I'll hate you until I die for this, Noreen. I'll never forgive you as long as I live! You let her die!”

She'd stood there, numb with shock and weakness, as he strode out behind the ambulance, his face white and drawn.

Later, at the funeral home, Noreen had tried to talk to her aunt and uncle, but her aunt had slapped her and her uncle had refused to even look at her. Ramon had demanded that she be removed from the premises and not allowed to return.

She hadn't been allowed at the service, either. She was an outcast from that moment until just recently, when inexplicably, her aunt and uncle had invited her for coffee just before her uncle's birthday. Ramon's attitude had been one of unyielding hatred.

Her feelings of guilt were only magnified by the attitude of Isadora's husband and parents. Eventually she realized that nothing was going to excuse her part in what had happened, and she'd accepted her guilt as if she deserved it. Her work had become her life. She never asked for anything from her relatives again. Not even for forgiveness.

I
t had been a long morning and Ramon was worn to the bone. He'd already done one meticulous bypass operation and a valve was scheduled first thing after lunch. It should have been his day off, but he was covering at O'Keefe for one of the other surgeons who was sick with a bad case of the flu.

He carried his tray into the cafeteria dining room and looked around the crowded area, hoping for an empty table, but there wasn't one. The only empty spot he glimpsed was at a table occupied by Noreen. He glared at her over his salad plate and coffee.

Noreen dropped her eyes back to her plate, furious with herself for flushing when he looked at her. He'd take his salad out to the small canteen adjoining the cafeteria and sit on the floor before he'd join her, and she knew it. If only she could outrun her own hated feel
ings for the horrible man. If only it didn't matter what he thought of her.

She almost dropped her fork when, without asking, he put his coffee and plate down on the table across from her, pulled out a chair and sat down.

He saw her surprise and was almost amused by it. He spread his napkin in his lap, took the plastic lid from his salad plate and picked up his own fork.

“Would sitting on the floor have been too obvious?” she asked in a faintly dry tone.

His dark gaze pinned hers for an instant before he bent his head toward a forkful of tuna salad.

“You do that so well,” she remarked.

“Do what?” he asked.

She finished a mouthful of fruit and sat back in her chair. “Snub me,” she said. “I suppose I irritated you from the day we met, just by being alive.”

“Don't talk nonsense,” he murmured deeply, and sipped his coffee. He glanced at the clock. “I thought you went to lunch at half-past noon.”

She crossed her long legs in their white knit slacks. “I usually do. But you weren't supposed to be operating at O'Keefe today,” she explained.

His black eyes twinkled a little. “You avoid me, then?”

“Of course I avoid you,” she replied tersely. “That's what you want me to do. You don't even have to say it.” She stared into her black coffee, idly noting that he took his coffee black, too.

His gaze ran over her averted profile. She wasn't pretty, as Isadora had been. But she was slender and had a nice shape, even though her features were ordinary. Her hair was neither blond nor light brown, but
somewhere in between. Her eyes were more gray than blue. She never wore makeup. In fact, she seemed not to care how she looked, although she was always clean and neat in appearance. She might be quite attractive with the right hairstyle and clothes. His eyes narrowed on the thick bun at her nape. He'd never seen her with her hair down. He'd wondered for a long time what it would look like, loosened.

She caught his speculative glance and her cheeks colored. “I feel like a moth on a pin,” she murmured. “Could you stop staring at me? I know you think I'm the nearest thing to an ax-murderess, but you don't have to make it so obvious in public, do you?”

He scowled. “I haven't said a word.”

She laughed, but it had a hollow sound. Her gray eyes were full of disillusionment and loneliness. “No,” she agreed. “You never have. You may be Latin, but you don't act it anymore. You never explode in rage, or throw things, or curse at the top of your lungs. You can get further with a look than most doctors can with arm-waving fury. You don't have to say anything. Your eyes say it for you.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “And what are they telling you?”

“That you blame me for Isadora,” she said quietly. “That you hate me. That you wake up every morning wishing it had been me instead of her in that casket.”

His jaw clenched, to keep the words back. His eyes glittered, just the same.

“You might not believe it,” she added heavily, “but there are times when I wish I could have taken her place. None of you seemed to realize that I loved her, too. I
grew up with Isadora. She could be cruel, but she could be kind when she liked. I miss her.”

He tried unsuccessfully to bite back the cold words. “What an odd way you had of showing your concern,” he muttered curtly. “Leaving her alone in an apartment to die.” The minute the words were out, he regretted them deeply, but it was already too late.

Noreen's eyes closed. She felt faint, as she did so often these days. Her breath came in short little shallow breaths. She clenched her hands in her lap and fought to stay calm, so that she wouldn't betray herself. Ramon was an excellent surgeon. She wouldn't be able to hide her condition if he looked too closely. He might say something to administration…

She lifted her head seconds later, pale but more stable. “I have to go,” she said, and slowly, carefully, got out of her chair, holding on to it for support.

“Have you had any sleep?” he asked suddenly.

“You mean, does my guilty conscience keep me awake?” she said for him, smiling coolly. “Yes, if you want to know, it does. I would have saved Isadora if I'd been able to.”

She was fine-drawn, as if she didn't eat or sleep. “You never told me exactly what happened,” he said.

The statement surprised her. “I tried to,” she reminded him. “I tried to tell all of you. But nobody wanted my side of the story.”

“Maybe I want it now,” he replied.

“Two years too late,” she told him. She picked up her tray. “I would gladly have told you then. But I won't bother now. It doesn't matter anymore.” Her eyes were empty of all feeling as her gaze met his, betraying noth
ing of the turmoil he kindled inside her. “It doesn't matter at all what any of you think of me.”

She turned away and went slowly to the automatic tray return to deposit her dishes. She didn't look back as she went out the door toward the staff elevators.

Ramon's dark eyes followed her with bitter regret. He couldn't seem to stop hurting her. It was the last thing she needed. She moved more slowly these days. She didn't seem to have an interest in anything beyond her work. The hospital grapevine was fairly dependable about romances and breakups, but he'd never heard Noreen's name coupled with that of any of the hospital staff. She didn't date. Even when she was living at home with Isadora's family, she was forever walking around with her nose stuck in a medical book, studying for tests and final exams. She'd graduated nurses' training with highest honors, he recalled, and no wonder.

He sipped his coffee, remembering his first glimpse of her. He'd met Isadora at a charity dinner, and they'd had an instant rapport. Isadora's date had been appropriated by his boss for a late sales meeting, and Ramon had offered to drive the beautiful blonde home. She'd accepted at once.

She lived in a huge Georgian mansion on the outskirts of Atlanta, in a fashionable neighborhood. Her parents had been in the living room watching the late news when she'd introduced Ramon to them. They were standoffish at first, until Isadora told them what he did for a living and how famous he was becoming.

Noreen had been at home. She was curled up in a big armchair by the fireplace with an anatomy book in her hands, a pair of big-rimmed reading glasses perched on her nose. He remembered even now the look in her eyes
when he and Isadora had approached her. Those soft gray eyes had kindled with a kind of gentle fire, huge and luminous and full of warm secrets. He'd made an instant impression on her; he saw it in her radiant face, felt it in the slight tremor of her small hand when they were introduced. But he had eyes only for Isadora, and it was apparent. Noreen had withdrawn with an odd little smile.

And in the weeks that followed, while he courted Isadora, Noreen was conspicuous by her absence. She hadn't been invited to be part of the wedding. Later, it shamed him to remember how insulting Isadora had been about her cousin. She hadn't wanted to include Noreen among her entourage. Isadora had been viciously jealous of her cousin. She seemed to delight in looking for ways to put Noreen down, to make her feel unwelcome or inferior.

Isadora had been beautiful, socially acceptable, poised and talented. But she was empty inside, as Noreen wasn't. That jealousy had led to a bitter argument before Ramon's trip to Paris just before Isadora's death. He closed his eyes and shuddered inside, remembering what had been said. He'd blamed Noreen for everything, even for that, when the blame was equally his.

The movement of people at the next table brought him back from his musings. He glanced at his watch and hurriedly finished his lunch. It was time to go back to work.

 

Noreen was anxious to get back to her apartment after she finished her day's work. She was feeling weaker by the minute, breathless and faintly nauseous, and her heartbeat was so irregular that it bothered her.

She got into bed and lay down. She was asleep before she realized it, too tired to even bother with so much as a bowl of cereal for supper.

But by morning, she felt better and her pulse seemed less erratic. She had to continue working. If she lost her job, she could lose her medical insurance, and she had to depend on it for the valve surgery she needed. It was an expensive operation, but without it she might not live a great deal longer. She knew that the damaged valve was leaking, the specialist had told her so. But she also knew that people could live a long time with a leaky valve, depending on the amount of leakage there was and the level of medical care and supervision she had. Until now, she'd had very few problems since Isadora's death.

She sipped orange juice and grimaced as she recalled how sick Isadora had been and how desperate she'd been to get help. Ramon wanted to know all about it now, and that was tragic, because she wasn't going to tell him a thing. She had no place in his life at all, nor did she want one. She'd paid too high a price for her feelings already. She wasn't going to fall back into the trap of loving him. Loneliness was safer.

Sometimes Noreen wondered about the argument with Ramon that had sent her cousin out into the cold rain with pneumonia. She'd had antibiotics for the bronchitis, which she insisted that she could give herself, without Noreen's help. Later, Noreen had discovered the full bottle of antibiotic tucked between the mattress and box springs.

Isadora had been furious with Ramon for not taking her with him to France. Or at least, that was what she said. But the maid had alluded to a furious argument
before he left, and that had never been mentioned again. At least, not to Noreen. Ramon had said something about Isadora punishing him for not letting her go along. There had been the mention of a lover, as well. Despite Isadora's attempt to portray her marriage as perfection itself, Noreen had known better.

Odd how Ramon tried to idolize the marriage, now that Isadora was gone.

Noreen wondered if Isadora had really meant to die, or if she'd just miscalculated about the dangers of any such drastic exposure with pneumonia, and she'd died because of it. Perhaps it hadn't occurred to her that damaged lungs could collapse and become fatal. Despite living with a surgeon for four years, she hadn't seemed to know much at all about medicine or illness.

Ramon didn't know that Isadora had deliberately exposed herself to the rain and cold. The maid, after finding Isadora's body, had collapsed in hysteria and never came back, even to get her check. Noreen hadn't seen her again. So Ramon only knew that Noreen had left Isadora alone, and Isadora had died. Neither he nor Isadora's parents would let Noreen tell her side of the story. They grieved and cursed her and even two years after the fact, they all still blamed her.

It wasn't as if they loved her, of course, or as if they cared about her own grief for her beautiful, selfish cousin. Despite their spats, Isadora and Noreen had grown up together, and they felt some sort of affection for each other. But the Kensingtons locked Noreen out of their lives. It had come as a gigantic surprise when her aunt had invited her over for coffee and cake the week of her uncle's birthday. The conversation had been stilted, and Noreen hadn't enjoyed it. She supposed that
people were talking about their avoidance of Noreen and their refusal to forgive her. She couldn't think of any other reason they'd have wanted her company. Her aunt did hate gossip.

She went to work and managed to get through her shift without much difficulty, but the amount of breathlessness she was having disturbed her.

That afternoon, she got an appointment with a colleague of her Macon surgeon, and was worked in at the end of the day.

He had tests run, and he listened to her heart. He was a tall, fair man with an easy smile and a nice disposition.

“You're a nurse,” he reminded her. “Can't you tell when a heart isn't working properly?”

“Yes. But I hoped it was just overwork.”

“It is,” he said. “And that valve is leaking a little more than it was. You need to schedule the surgery, and it should be soon. I don't want to alarm you, but if that valve goes all at once, there may not even be time to get you to a hospital. Surely you know that?”

She did. How could she tell him that at times she thought it might be a relief not to have to face another day of Ramon's cold antagonism and accusation?

I'm dying of unrequited love,
she thought to herself and laughed out loud at the whimsical thought.
I have a broken heart, in more ways than one.

“It isn't cause for levity,” the doctor said firmly, misunderstanding her chuckle. “I want to talk to Dr. Myers, the surgeon, and get you scheduled for surgery.” His eyes narrowed. “Your late cousin was married to Dr. Ramon Cortero. He's the very best heart surgeon
around. He trained at Johns Hopkins. Why can't he do the surgery?”

“He doesn't know there's anything wrong with me, and I don't want him to know,” she said flatly.

“But why not?”

“Because he hates me. He might let something slip about my condition and I could lose my job,” she told him. “I can't afford to let that happen. My medical insurance is critical right now. I don't dare let them know that I'm having such terrible problems with my health.”