Duby's Doctor (24 page)

“Ah,
oui
, I understand,” Jean
murmured, subsiding into his pillow, suddenly very, very tired.
Mitchell had arranged for him to go back to being Yves Dubreau.
Yves Dubreau had another place to live, and a doctor who was a man,
and a newly-met
maman
, who was the wife of a man who
should be in prison for nearly getting Mitchell killed. “I
understand.”

Captain Boone held out his hand. “Duby, we’ve
missed you. It’s great to see you among the living, and it’s great
to see you getting your life back.”

Jean shook the proffered hand briefly and
attempted a smile. “Thank you for coming, Captain.”

On his way out the door, Boone said, “You
come back and visit us sometime, okay? All the guys would like to
say hello.” Then he was gone.

He didn’t hear Jean answer faintly: “Come
back to where?”

By dusk, twenty-four hours had passed since
the rescue raid was launched at the Averell compound.

After a supper that went uneaten, Jean
received medication to help him sleep despite the pain in his leg
and shoulder. He received nothing for a shattered heart.

He would be awakened very early in the
morning to be prepped for surgery to repair his knee. “Mitchell’s
knee” he called it, in his own mind, though he would never say that
aloud again. Before he retired for the night, he made sure to sign
all necessary consent forms so that Doctor Goldberg could perform
the surgery.

When Hector passed the nurses’ station around
8 o’clock the next morning, Nurse Erskine called out to him before
he could knock on the door to room 2114.

“He’s already been taken to surgery, Hector,”
she said. “No breakfast or lunch for him today. We’ll let him try
to eat something at dinner this evening, if he’s up to it.”

Hector placed on his metal cart the breakfast
tray he was holding. He crossed the hall to speak to Nurse Erskine.
“So, Doctor Oberon showed up!”

“Actually, no. Goldberg is doing the
surgery.”

“Goldberg!”

“What, you don’t think he’s competent,
Orderly Velez? I’ll tell the hospital administrator to fire
Goldberg immediately—oh, wait. The administrator might still
remember that Goldberg was one of his professors in medical
school!”

“I didn’t mean Goldberg can’t do it,” Hector
said. “I meant I was surprised that Jean would let Goldberg touch
that knee. He wanted Oberon. You know that.”

Erskine dropped her voice to a whisper and
leaned across the counter to be closer to Hector. “Oberon is
nowhere to be found. She’s taking personal leave, and she’s not
answering her phones.”

Hector whistled two long notes indicating
this was big news indeed. He, too, whispered when he said, “You
sure it’s personal leave? It’s not sick leave?”

“Personal. Definitely. I talked to Madeleine
in Payroll.”

Hector took three seconds to process the
impact of Erskine’s statement. “When’s she comin’ back?”

Erskine reached under the counter and pulled
out a neatly folded set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle® bed linens.
“Found these by my locker in the nurses’ lounge this morning. They
were dropped off sometime between 3:30 yesterday afternoon and 7:15
this morning.”

Hector touched the linens with something
approaching reverence. “Jean’s sheets!”

“Yeah,” said Erskine. “She returned them with
a note thanking me for lending them to her. Didn’t mention him at
all.”

“Oh, no,” said Hector.

“Oh, yeah,” said Erskine. “So, we know a
couple things: one, she doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now.
Otherwise, why sneak in and out in the middle of the night to drop
something off?”

Hector nodded in agreement. “And, two, Jean
ain’t sleeping at her house no more.”

“Exactly,” the nurse said sadly.

Hector said a very naughty word in
Spanish.

“You got that right,” Erskine said, and she
sighed.

Hector perked up and turned to cross the hall
to Jean’s room. “Maybe when she dropped off the sheets, she left
him a note, eh? I’m just gonna look.”

Ordinarily, Nurse Erskine would have stopped
such a breach of patient privacy, but in Jean’s case, she felt that
she and Hector were like a surrogate family, which changed the
rules just a bit.

Hector came out of the room carrying not a
note, but Jean’s sketch of Mitchell Oberon holding a midnight mug
of cocoa. He held it up for Erskine’s perusal.

It was Erskine’s turn to whistle. “Wow!” she
whispered.

“I know! I almost didn’t recognize her! Who
knew Doctor Oberon was so hot, y’know?
Ay, Chihuahua
,”
whispered Hector.

Nurse Erskine took two steps down the counter
and picked up the nurses’ station phone. She ran a finger down a
typed directory taped to the file cabinet beneath the counter.
Finding the number she wanted, she made a call.

While she listened to the phone ringing at
the other end of the line, Erskine held up one finger to Hector in
a “just-a-minute” gesture. The ringing stopped and an answering
machine picked up the call.

After the electronic beep, she left a
message: “Hi, Doctor Oberon, it’s Nurse Erskine. Just wanted to let
you know I got the sheets and your note. You’re very welcome, of
course, and if you need them back for any reason, you just let me
know. They’re always available for you. And, ah, we, ah, we found
something of yours that you probably want to have there at home, so
if we don’t hear from you before lunch break today, Hector’s going
to drop it off at your house. Thanks. ‘Bye.”

Hector looked at the nurse. He lifted one
hand, palm up, in a silent question. When she didn’t respond, he
shook the hand to call her attention to it, adding for emphasis:
“
Qué
?”

“You’re going to take this picture to Doctor
Oberon’s house on your lunch break.”

“Are you kiddin’ me? Dude! She lives way the
heck in Coconut Grove!”

Nurse Erskine opened a drawer near her feet,
rummaged in the purse she had secreted there, and produced a
twenty-dollar bill. Handing the money to Hector, she said, “So,
you’ll take a long lunch break. Won’t be the first time, right? And
it’s kinda hospital business, anyway. This is for lunch at the
drive-through and gas for your car.”

Hector seemed to calm himself. As he pocketed
the cash, he said, “What if she don’t wanna talk to nobody?”

Erskine shrugged. “Tape it to her door. What
could you say, anyway? He’s thinking of her like that” - she
gestured to the romanticized drawing - “and she can’t be bothered
to even call and check how he’s doing? I don’t want to talk to the
witch.”

“
Claro
!” said Hector, before rolling
up the sketch and placing it carefully in his cart. “Later,” he
said as he pushed the breakfast trays onward down the hall.

“Later,” said Erskine, and resumed her
routine duties.

Around 1:30 that afternoon, Hector taped the
rolled sketch to the front door of Mitchell’s condo unit. He knew
her car was there, so she was almost certainly at home, but she
didn’t answer the door. He inhaled to shout something sarcastic and
accusatory through the door, but instead he shook his head, with a
sigh, and left.

Around 3:00 that afternoon, Doctor Goldberg
dialed Mitchell’s home phone number and left a message on her
answering machine. He told her the surgery had gone as well as
could be expected. He told her that with some weeks of diligent
physical therapy, Jean should be able to walk virtually normally,
but not engage in many of the “demanding” physical exploits that
(judging by his scars) had been a large part of his past. He told
her Jean was resting fairly well in Recovery and would be returning
to his own hospital room in an hour or so.

He implied that she should call Jean when he
was back in his room, but silently he held small hope of that
happening.

He closed with, “Mitchell, I know you must be
going through a tough time, personally, and I don’t want to stick
my nose in your business. But, I am still your friend. Please call
me if I can do anything, anything to help. Take care of yourself.
See you soon, I hope.”

Between 5:30 and 6:00 that evening, Jean was
rolled back into room 2114, bandaged, connected to an intravenous
drip, and groggy. He would sleep until morning, unaware that dinner
was delivered and removed, an important drawing had been stolen
from him, and no lady doctor called him that night on the
telephone.

When the sun went down, forty-eight hours had
passed since the rescue raid was launched on Kyle Averell’s
compound.

On the third day following the raid on
Averell’s mansion, Jean alternated between periods of
twilight-consciousness (due to painkillers) and periods of
near-explosive agitation (when the meds wore off long enough for
him to become alert).

Hector recalled the early days of Jean’s
first hospitalization, when Hector wore protective gear to deliver
food to Jean’s room, and when inanimate objects often became
abstract art splashed across the walls. Jean wasn’t that bad this
time, but he wasn’t happy, and he certainly wasn’t peaceful.

At mid-morning, Doctor Goldberg even had a
serious talk with Jean about his attitude. Nurse Erskine peeped in
the door at one point, to bring in a fresh water carafe, but she
backed out, and stayed out, when she realized both men were
shedding tears. (This caused serious psychological realignment for
a nurse who had been trained to treat doctors—especially those of
Goldberg’s caliber—as gods.)

Goldberg and Jean had a frank discussion
about Mitchell and the relationship Jean had tried to cultivate
with her. They agreed that Jean could not force Mitchell to do or
to feel something against her will—even if Jean was certain she
would be happier doing as he wished. Both men grieved the loss of
Jean's hopes, but Jean was forced to accept that he might never see
Mitchell Oberon again. And, he might never know exactly why.

Both men were more sanguine when they parted,
and Nurse Erskine could find no evidence of weeping on either man’s
face when Goldberg left the room and she passed him on her way in.
She delivered fresh ice water for Jean’s bedside table, fluffed his
pillows, adjusted his linens, brought him his over-bed table and
sketching materials. Like a mother hen, she fussed around until she
felt her chick was as safe and comfortable as possible, for the
time being. Then, with a comforting smile, she left.

Just before lunchtime, Dan Kavanaugh sneaked
five-year-old Debbie into Jean’s room for a visit, which lifted
Jean’s spirits considerably. They delivered get-well wishes from
the nuns and students at St. Luke’s Daycare, where Debbie attended
the after-school program, now that she was in K-5 morning classes
in public school.

Jean showed Debbie his colored pencils and
sketchpad. He set her to work drawing a picture for him, and while
she was thus engaged, he motioned Dan closer to the bed. Dan leaned
over, and Jean said very softly, “I need to ask you for a
favor.”

Mitchell Oberon answered her door at about
2:00 that afternoon, thinking it was the grocery delivery she was
expecting. It was, and it wasn’t. The person holding a box of
groceries was no delivery boy. Indeed, at a different season of the
year, Mitchell would have thought Mrs. Claus was delivering a
present.

“Oh! Hello,” said Mitchell. “Here, let me
take that.” She lifted the box from the small, round lady’s little
hands. “I was expecting one of the usual boys...”

“Quite right,” the lady said with a smile. “I
met him in the parking lot and offered to bring it up, save him a
trip, since I was coming anyway.”

“Oh. Ahm, thanks. Can I help you with
something?”

“You are Doctor Mitchell Oberon, aren’t you?”
the lady said pleasantly.

“Y-yes...,” Mitchell answered warily,
uncertain of the visitor’s purposes.

“Of course you are,” the lady seemed happy in
the knowledge. “Someone told me you were beautiful, and I can
certainly see what they were talking about.”

Mitchell scoffed. “Different Mitchell Oberon,
I’m afraid. I am many things, but nobody ever called me
‘beautiful.’”

“Oh, they did, dear. You just weren’t around
to hear it,” the lady said, playfully shaking an index finger at
Mitchell. “That’s sort of what I’d like to speak with you
about.”

Mitchell studied the supposed North Pole
resident standing before her and decided there was no danger. She
opened the door wider and stepped back. “Won’t you come in?”

The lady nearly took a step but stopped
herself. “I’d better tell you who I am first. My name is Mandy
Stone.”

Mitchell stared at her, saying nothing.

“Do you still want me to come in, dear?”

“Are you alone?”

“Oh, goodness, yes. I won’t subject you to
any more of Francis in this lifetime, if I can have my way, and I
usually can.” Mandy’s smile was all kindness.

“Sure, sure, come in,” said Mitchell. “Would
you like some iced tea, diet soda, distilled water?”

“If you’re having something, thank you.”

“Okay, well, um, come on in the kitchen.”
Mitchell led the way, carrying the box of groceries. After pouring
them both a tall glass of iced tea, Mitchell put away the groceries
while chatting with Mandy, who sat at the small kitchen table.

“I’m so sorry about the horrible things that
happened to you in the last week — kidnappers, rescuers, guns,
violence — you’ve really been through the mill!” Mandy
commiserated.

“Yeah, it was, was pretty awful,” Mitchell
mumbled.

“I wanted to come see you sooner, but, of
course, Duby had surgery yesterday, so I was at the hospital all
day.”