The Doctor's Meant-to-be Marriage

Found himself wondering if he wasn’t betraying her yet again by wondering about what kissing grown-up Chelsea would have felt like.

“You’d like it.” Connie interrupted his thoughts with words that sounded too close to the truth. He would have liked it, wherein lay the problem, the betrayal. “You should find a lady friend and go.” She stared at him a moment, then mused, “You’d have made my Rose a good husband, but Marvin is a decent man and treats her well, even if he is as dull as a cardboard box.”

Jared smiled at the older woman’s description of her son-in-law and ignored her suggestion to find a lady friend. The word “friend” just reminded him of the truce he’d called with Chelsea. Could they really be just friends? For the past two weeks they’d managed to pull it off, chatting at work, going out to lunch as part of a group of their coworkers, sushi on a couple of occasions after hours, and they’d fallen into a shared coffee at the break table before starting their work day.

They were going for the gold medal in friendship.

“Thank goodness my grandkids take after their mother’s side of the family,” Connie continued. She had two grandsons. One twelve and the other fifteen. Jared had met them once, at their granddad’s funeral. But he’d heard Connie mention the boys’ rambunctious ways on numerous occasions and always with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Any child who inherited your strength is lucky,” Jared agreed, directing his thoughts away from Chelsea and onto Connie. “Is Rose coming to stay with you while you have your chemotherapy?”

Connie’s pupils contracted the tiniest fraction, giving Jared a sense of unease.

“After going on the trip out West with me, she’s busy with the boys, catching up and such. If I decide to take the treatments, I’ve got a friend who’s going to stay.”

A friend? The word was haunting him.

Or maybe it was Chelsea who haunted him.

Certainly, she appeared each time he closed his eyes at night and troubled his dreams.

“Your neighbor?” he asked, trying to get back on track with what he was supposed to be focusing on. “The one who bakes those wonderful pies?”

“Darla Kamakinski?”

“That’s the one.”

“Yes.” Connie beamed, looking pleased he remembered the pies she’d had Darla bake for him.

Then what she’d said hit him, making him ashamed he had been so distracted with thoughts of Chelsea he’d almost overlooked what Connie had said. “What do you mean, if you decide to take the treatment?”

“I don’t want to take another living tour through hell, Dr Jared. I’ve decided not to have chemotherapy again.”

Bad vibes reverberated along his spine. Connie looked at peace with her plans.

“You’re a fighter, Connie, and you can beat this. Why won’t you at least try?”

Connie shook her head. “I’ve lived a good life and have no regrets. I’ve seen my Rose grown and happy. Without Paul, taking medicines that make me horribly sick just so I can stay alive doesn’t make much sense.”

He wished there was a truthful way he could guarantee a good response to her treatments, guarantee she wouldn’t suffer the horrible side effects she’d had previously. He’d never knowingly lied to a patient and wouldn’t start with one he cared about as much as he did the feisty older woman fiddling with her dragonhead walking stick.

“What about Rose? Your grandsons? You can’t just give up without doing all you can, Connie. What kind of memory are you leaving them if you just let the cancer take you without even giving the medicines a chance?”

She regarded him a long time. “You really believe the chemotherapy has a chance of working a second time?”

“I do,” he immediately answered, hoping Connie would draw strength from his belief in her. “If you fight this, I think you have a good chance.”

“You’re not going to let me just give up, are you?”

“Not in a million years.”

Weariness sagged her shoulders. “Then I guess I need to call Dr Goodall and reschedule the treatments.”

“I’ll do it now.” Jared pulled out his cell phone and called Dr Goodall’s office. “There,” he said when he’d finished. “You’re rescheduled to start treatments on Monday morning.”

Connie nodded. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you’ve opted to take the chemotherapy, Connie.”