The Nurse He Shouldn't Notice

While Court loaded Neetie, she dressed and stuffed her belongings into her bag. She grabbed up both bags and was out the door in record time.

The trip to the hospital was little more than a fast-forward nightmare. Maggie sat in the backseat, holding the limp Neetie as Court steered the car through the quiet streets, all the while talking on his cellphone at the same rapid pace. With a squeal of tires he pulled into the circular drive of the emergency entrance of the hospital.

The hospital staff came running to meet them. Neetie was lifted from her arms. Court stayed close to the gurney, leaving Maggie to follow behind.

She sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair and Court stood against the wall as they waited on the results from a battery of bloodwork and X-rays. She shivered more from fear than cold. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she wished Court would hold her, reassure her. Instead, he was on the other side of the tiny room with his arms folded tight across his chest. He was more remote than she’d even seen him. She wondered if he was beating himself up inside about Neetie’s relapse but he could have been on the other side of the world for the amount of emotion he showed. It was as if he had gone to a place where she couldn’t reach him.

Joy filled her when Neetie came to moments after being wheeled back into the room. He opened his eyes briefly as he lay on the gurney between her and Court.

“Honey, you’ll be better soon. Eating ice cream again.” She kissed him.

Neetie’s doctor entered the room.

Maggie jumped up and faced the doctor. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Neetie’s experienced hepatic encephalopathy. It’s sometimes a complication to the TIPS procedure. We think a toxic product from the intestines that is normally removed by the liver went to the brain. This can cause a range of brain issues from mild memory loss to a coma.”

Maggie saw Court stiffen. There couldn’t have been a more devastating diagnosis for Court to hear. Was he reliving his experience with Jimmy and his brother all over again?

“Thankfully it seems to have been caught early. With care and a few days in the hospital Neetie should be fine. He’s young enough that if he has any complications he should outgrow them.”

As soon as the doctor left Court said without looking at her, “I’ll stay until Neetie gets in a room but then I’ll need to go. I have a meeting at the foundation this morning.”

The emotionally removed doctor she’d known during those first few days he’d been in Teligu had returned with a vengeance. He’d not touched Neetie since they’d left the house. Even now he couldn’t seem to make eye contact with her, much less the boy.

“Why don’t you go on? We’ll be fine,” Maggie said, working to keep the hurt out of her voice.

“Are you sure?”

The words were said so dispassionately she knew he was only being polite. “I’m sure.”

Court gave her a curt nod and was gone.

Had they really been in bed together just hours earlier? Had the emotional bond she thought they shared been a lie? Had she once again misread a man’s feelings? She had the sudden urge to throw something, to stomp her feet, to shake some sense into Court.

* * *

By the time the sun set, Neetie was still not feeling well enough to eat, but his doctor said he was improving. The plan was to watch Neetie a few more days and then he could be discharged. Maggie asked if he could go home to Ghana—after all, Court had made it perfectly clear there was no life for them together in Boston. When Neetie’s doctor hesitated she explained she was a nurse and Neetie would be living with her. The doctor gave his halfhearted consent.

Neetie had been in the hospital for two days and Court hadn’t visited even once. He’d made a short impersonal call asking about Neetie but nothing more. As attentive and considerate as Court had been when transporting Neetie to help from Ghana and later after surgery, he seemed to have deserted them now. What was going on with him? Had his concern over Neetie dying choked off his emotions?

Maggie tried to make excuses, but she couldn’t find a satisfactory one. She was hurt and Neetie was too.

Late that evening, Maggie looked up when the door opened from where she made her bed on the plastic window seat. Court stood in the artificial light from the hallway.

“Hey,” she said. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but there. Could her heart break more?

Court wore no smile and seemed reluctant to enter the room, as if he’d come to see them out of obligation instead of true concern. Could he turn his feelings on and off so rapidly? Did nothing that had happened between them matter? The more Maggie thought about his actions, the more annoyed she became. She’d stewed for days, and now she was ready to boil.

“How is he?” Court closed the door behind him, but didn’t move any closer or look at the sleeping Neetie.

“The doctor says he’ll be well enough to go home tomorrow. You’d know that if you’d come around.” The statement was petty but she couldn’t resist saying it. She wanted to shake him out of his self-imposed one-person world.

“I’ve had pressing foundation business.”

“Right. Who are you trying to fool? You can’t even look at Neetie. You even showed up after his bedtime. Had you hoped I would be asleep also so that way you wouldn’t have to speak to us?” Court just looked at her. The fact he didn’t argue the point telling in itself. With a huff of disgust she asked, “Do you even care?”

“Maggie, that isn’t fair. Of course I care.”

“You’ve a funny way of showing it. So please don’t stay if it’s too difficult. You’re only here to appease your conscience anyway.”

He shifted on his feet as if the shot had hit its mark. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Oh, come on, Court. You exited our lives the other night. I know this is too close for comfort for you.” He blanched. She’d read him correctly. He was running scared.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do. You care but you don’t want to.” She waited until his look met hers. “You need to know that you haven’t failed Neetie or me.”

“I never thought I had.”

“Really? That’s not true from what I’ve seen. You left your practice because you thought you’d failed a patient.” When he started to speak she held up a hand. She couldn’t resist giving him both barrels. “I’ve watched you care for people in

Teligu, in the village and most of all with Raja and Neetie. Court, you have a gift. A gift that shouldn’t be wasted. Your kind of compassion and caring—when you let go and allow yourself to show it—not everyone has. You’re a brilliant doctor who won’t let himself practice. In that area, yes, you are failing.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I think you’re wrong there also. I understand better than most. I know what it’s like to feel like a failure. My ex-fiancé had me believing I was one. What I learned is that sometimes you have to stop running and face what is chasing you.”

“This isn’t about you and Neetie.”

“You’re right. It’s about you. Neetie and I need someone who can commit for the long haul. Who cares enough to take a chance on us. From what I’ve seen, you can’t trust yourself to do that.”

“How I feel isn’t your business.”

“You’ve made that clear. But you have been, until recently, a good friend. I care enough to be a friend in return. That’s what I’m trying to be. It’ll be your fault if you don’t start doing what you should be doing, what makes you who you are, makes you happy. You can’t control everything. It wasn’t your fault your brother died or that your parents treated you like you didn’t exist. It wasn’t your fault that a patient had a reaction to medicine. And it certainly isn’t your fault Neetie got sick again.”

“No one is perfect, Maggie.” Court couldn’t help but go on the defensive. Maggie was the queen of fix-it. Make it perfect. Just like her father had wanted it. That’s how he’d ended up going to Ghana in t

he first place—because she was trying to fix the hospital. “I can’t be fixed, not even by you.”

“I don’t want to fix you. I want you to do it for yourself, because you need to do it. Carrying guilt or whatever is keeping you emotionally distant from people will never let you truly live life. I’m tired of trying to find the perfect life. I’m going to start building the best life I can. And you should too.”

Maggie was right but he refused to admit it to himself or to her out loud. “You have it all figured out, don’t you?” The words came out as if he’d bitten into something unpleasant. He was starting to dislike himself even more, if that was possible. He wanted to punch something. More than that, he wanted not to care. For it not to hurt so badly.