“About what? The weather? Sports? What is it you talk to them about? Because I got the impression they didn’t know quite what to say to you tonight.”
“There were no conversational lulls.”
“No, there weren’t, but no thanks to you.”
“
I warned you that I wasn’t big on company.”
“Family is not the same thing as company. Family is everything.” But not to Dirk. He’d lost the only family that mattered to him, couldn’t see what was within his reach. And Abby had had enough. More than enough. She leapt from her sofa, flung open her front door. “Get out of my house, Dirk.”
“Abby—”
“Leave!” she shouted. “And don’t ever bother me again.”
Without another word, he gave her one last angry look, then left.
Abby started a hep lock while Dirk shined a light into their patient’s eyes.
Since he’d left her house the night before, she’d been fighting melancholy. She’d hoped he’d say he wanted to change, that he wouldn’t leave, that he planned to spend Christmas Day with her. Every day with her for the rest of his life. But she’d known better.
With as much time as they’d spent together over the last week, she’d thought she wouldn’t be alone this Christmas, had believed deep in her heart that she’d spend the day with Dirk. How could she have been so foolish as to get her hopes up? Her hopes had been higher than the North Pole.
What would Dirk do today? Sleep? Flip through television channels? Pretend it was no different from any other day of the year? He wouldn’t be driving to his mother’s for Christmas, wouldn’t be embracing the wonderful family she envied. More the pity for him.
But that wasn’t her problem. Not any more. She’d meant what she’d told him. She didn’t want him in her life. Not when he refused to acknowledge that what they’d shared had been more than friendship. Not when he refused to open his heart to love again. To open his heart to his family.
Which was why she’d ignored his phone calls today. Why she’d ignored his attempts to talk to her tonight. What was left to be said between them?
She loved Christmas.
He hated Christmas.
She loved family.
He’d shut his out.
Could they be any further apart? She didn’t think so.
“How did you fall?” Dirk asked the patient, pulling Abby back to the present. She bit the inside of her lip. She had to stay focused just a little while longer. Her shift was almost at an end. She could do this. Would do this. Then she’d talk to the nurse supervisor about having her schedule changed, changed to dates when she wouldn’t have to work with Dirk.
“My wife was complaining about the angle of the star on top of the Christmas tree. I climbed a stepladder, and it tipped.”
Dirk’s lips compressed into a tight line. Clearly, he blamed Christmas for the man’s tragedy. Was it easier for him to blame the holidays than to accept that accidents happened? He’d sure been quick enough to point out that accidents occurred when it had been her village pieces involved.
Village pieces that she’d painstakingly spent the day trying to glue back together.
“Do you recall how you landed? What you hit? How your weight was distributed?”
“It happened kind of fast, Doc.” The man scratched his head with the hand Abby didn’t have stabilized. “I know I hit my head.” The pump knot on his forehead attested to that. “And my right ribs are sore.”
“This happened about eight last night?”
The man nodded.
“What made you decide to come to the hospital this morning?”
“I woke up and couldn’t breathe. I think that’s what woke me.”