Nocturne (17 page)

“Then I thought: maybe she could
draw
what she’s thinking. So I brought in a pad of paper and some crayons and left them with her. When I came back, she’d drawn a picture of a dog. I called back the interpreter and discovered that the family had a dog back home that she missed terribly. So I pulled some strings and talked to the right people, and by the end of the week, the Make-A-Wish Foundation delivered her dog to the hospital. When we wheeled the little girl outside and she saw that animal, her face lit up with such a big, toothy grin—I’ll never forget it. Every afternoon for a week, she got to spend some time outside with her dog. She rallied after that, and she beat the leukemia.”

“What a wonderful story,” Michael said. “That hospital—and those children—were very lucky to have you as their nurse.” He took one of her hands in his and kissed it. “How long did you work there?”

“Five years.” Tension filled her. Nicole knew what he’d ask next; waited for it; it was inevitable.

“And after that? You said you live in California.”

“Yes. I left Seattle when . . . I left nursing.”

“Why did you leave?”

Nicole felt the pressure building up in her chest; her throat felt as if it were closing, and perspiration broke out with sudden force on her brow. She couldn’t go there, couldn’t bear dredging all that up again. Leaping to her feet, she walked away, stopping by the grand piano several yards across the room. She felt Michael’s eyes on her from behind. When he spoke, there was compassion in his voice.

“I realize this is something you don’t like to talk about. If anyone can understand what that’s like, I do, believe me.
my
life, you must realize that absolutely
nothing
you say would shock me or cause me to judge you.”

Nicole nodded slowly, swallowing hard as she drummed up the courage to tell him. With her back still to him, she began.

“There was a little boy, two years old. His name was Ethan. He had leukemia but a good chance for survival. He was anemic after chemotherapy and required a transfusion to bring his hematocrit levels back up. He was under the care of a nurse I didn’t know well, a woman who’d just started at the hospital a month before. She was going off on her lunch break and said, ‘I just hung a bag of blood on Ethan. Would you check on him and move the rate up for me?’”

Nicole paused, turning around to glance back at Michael. “I know it’s been a long time since you practiced medicine, but when you hang a bag of blood you start it at a low rate, and if the patient is doing well, you increase it every fifteen minutes until you reach a particular prescribed rate.”

Michael nodded.

“We nurses helped each other out all the time, were required to double-check each other’s work, actually. But I wasn’t at my best that day. My father had died the week before. He’d been sick for a while, I’d known it was coming and—”

“I’m sorry.”

She felt tears threaten and had to clear her throat before she could continue. “I thought I had dealt with it. I guess I wasn’t ready to come back to work yet. But I did. I checked on

Nicole took a shuddering breath, on the verge of tears. “Michael, he was only two years old. He couldn’t say, ‘I’m having this really tight feeling in my throat, I can’t breathe very well.’ Still, I had that hair on the back of my neck feeling—you know, when you sense that something is wrong, even without evidence to support it?”

“Yes.”

“So I checked his chart. To my horror I discovered that the nurse had hung the wrong blood! The child was A positive and she’d hung a bag of AB positive blood.”

“Oh my God.”

“I stopped the transfusion immediately and called the doctor, but it was too late. The little boy coded; he had an acute hemolytic reaction that progressed very quickly to DIC.”

“DIC? I’m not familiar with that term.”

“It stands for disseminated intravascular coagulation. His blood lost the ability to coagulate. The team tried to save him, but right there in front of us, he, he—” Nicole’s voice broke and tears rolled down her cheeks. “That little boy didn’t have an incision or an open wound, but still he bled out. He bled out from the vein where the needle had been inserted, he vomited blood, and he bled out of his nose and eyes. Blood poured from his body until the bed and the floor were covered in it. And then he died.”

“Jesus,” Michael said. “That must have been horrible.”

“I’d never seen anyone bleed to death before. It was . . .”

“I know. I know.” He leaped to his feet and in one fluid motion he was across the room, holding her in his arms, stroking her hair. “I’m so sorry—for you, for the child, and for his family. But Nicole: it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t hang that bag of blood.”

“It
was
my fault, just as much as the other nurse’s. I should have caught the mistake when I checked her work the first time, before she hung that bag. I should have checked the blood type again when I first looked in on him, before I bumped it up. But I wasn’t concentrating that day. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“That’s understandable,” Michael said softly. “You were grieving. Your father had died.”

“That’s no excuse. I was a professional. I had a responsibility to that patient and his family. When I tried to express my sorrow to the boy’s parents—the hatred I saw in their eyes—it will live with me for the rest of my life. It rocked me to my core. They sued the hospital and everyone who’d touched their child—including me.”

“And?”

“It was a long and traumatic legal process. For the first two months after the child’s death, I went to work like a dead thing myself, questioning my judgment, doubting every decision, checking and rechecking everything I did like someone with OCD. I was terrified that I’d make that kind of mistake again. Lawyers were breathing down my neck, questioning me, threatening to have my license revoked. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I quit my job. I left nursing for good. It was too painful to be around all my friends who were nurses, so I moved back to San Jose. I took the first job I could find, in medical claims, and I’ve been there ever since.”

“Was there a trial?”

“Yes. Six months ago. The nurse who hung the bag of blood did lose her license. The hospital paid out a huge settlement. In the end I was acquitted of any wrongdoing, but for two and a half long years I was under constant stress and worry. And now that it’s over . . .”

“Now that it’s over?”

Nicole heaved a sigh. “I thought I would feel relieved. I thought it would finally allow me to concentrate on my new life and move on. But so far I haven’t been able to do that.”

Michael hugged her tightly, then took her hands in his and urged her to sit down on the piano bench beside him. Quietly, he said, “We have a lot in common, you and I.”

“That’s true,” she said, although she wasn’t sure what, specifically, he was referring to.

Looking at her, he added, “We’ve both run away from our problems.”

“I didn’t run away,” she insisted. “I wasn’t functioning as a nurse anymore. I wasn’t doing my patients any good. It was time for me to start over in a different place and a new profession.”

He just looked at her, disagreement written all over his face.

“Okay, so maybe I did run away,” Nicole admitted with a sigh. “But I felt I had no choice.”

“I felt the same when I left England and when I came to Colorado. In my case I didn’t
have
a choice. But you did. You still do.” He paused, then quoted softly: “‘Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.’ Buddha.”

“I can’t go back to nursing, Michael.”

“Are you happy with the work you’re doing now?”

“No,” Nicole said, “but—”

“That story you told me, about the Native Alaskan girl and her dog—I think that’s far more emblematic of who you are than the boy you couldn’t save. When you talked about nursing just now and what you loved about it, there was an excitement in your voice and eyes that came from the depths of your soul. Nursing is what you are meant to do. Go back to it. You are so compassionate and giving. You have skills that can help so many people and make a difference in so many lives. You have to forgive yourself, Nicole. Don’t let one mistake alter the entire direction of your life.”

Nicole mulled over his words, knowing deep down that he was right. “I could say the same thing to you.”

“You could, and you’d be right—except for two tiny details. One: the things I did are so much worse than what you did, they’re not even in the same hemisphere. And two: you’re a human being. You can learn from your mistakes, and change. You can go back to nursing and be more aware and vigilant. I can never go back. I can’t trust myself to always do the right thing. I am what I am, and always will be.”

“You’re a human being to me, Michael, in all the ways that matter.”

“Oh my love,” he said, kissing her, “how I wish that were true.”

CHAPTER 18

T
HEY TALKED FAR INTO THE NIGHT, peppering each other with questions, each one fascinated by the life experiences and perspectives of the other on a multitude of subjects.

“It boggles my mind to think of all the changes you’ve seen in the world since you were born,” Nicole said, as they stood before the living room windows looking out at the night sky, which was brilliantly lit by stars.

“It has been a fascinating journey,” Michael admitted, wrapping his arms around her. “But the changes came slowly. When I first moved here, we still got about by train, carriage, and horseback. The biggest and fastest changes have come in the last hundred years, but I’ve seen a lot of them from afar.”

“Have you ever flown on a plane?”

“I hired a pilot a few times to take me up in a private plane. It’s spectacular, viewing the world from above, and such a feeling of freedom. I wish I could travel farther and more often, but I don’t like the idea of a commercial jet. Too many people in one enclosed space.”

“I think you underestimate yourself,” Nicole said. “What do you think about computers? Cars? Movies? Antibiotics?”

“All wonderful advances. Others have taken my breath away. Like radio and television and space travel. We take it for granted now, but if you had told me 150 years ago that someday we’d be able to transmit sound and pictures over the airwaves and fly to the moon, I would have said you were mad. I think people have forgotten how to marvel.”

“I think we have.”

“TV and the Internet have changed everything for me. I no longer feel isolated. I’m linked in to the rest of the planet. I can keep up with world news and every change without ever leaving my little fiefdom here.”

Nicole smiled. “Do you know that I haven’t once thought about television, or missed it, since I got here?”

He kissed her. “Neither have I.”

Later, Michael told her the story of how he met Charles Dickens.

“In the summer of 1858, Dickens undertook his first series of public readings in London for pay. He was a tireless and enthusiastic public speaker but worked at a grueling pace, sometimes giving both a matinee and an evening performance seven days a week. I treated him for exhaustion and a sore throat, and he was so grateful, he saw me every time he was in London thereafter and signed two books for me.”

“Did you like him?”

“Very much. He was a great talent, a philanthropist, and a passionate abolitionist. He believed in ghosts, was fascinated by the paranormal, and I think some of his ideals and work ethic rubbed off on me.”

They talked more about Nicole’s childhood and her family. She told him about her father, a hard-working and brilliant scientist who used to enthrall her with his nightly bedtime stories. Nicole shared how close she was with her mother, a feisty, independent soul who had always been supportive of her activities and goals, and was still her go-to person when she needed advice. She talked about her older sister, Jessica, a busy and successful architect who lived in Seattle, and her sister’s two young daughters, whom Nicole adored.

“I used to spend a lot of time with the girls every week when I lived up there,” Nicole said nostalgically. “Ever since they were babies, I’ve been taking them shopping and sledding and to the beach and the park and the movies. Whenever I came over, they’d always squeal and come running. ‘Aunt Nicole! Will you read me a story?’ Lenora would cry. Or ‘Aunt Nicole, will you build a tent with us?’ One time we made a hundred silver paper stars and hung them from their bedroom ceiling. One year, I helped coach Devon’s soccer team. It was great fun.”

“You must miss them.”

“I do. I visit whenever I can. But . . . it’s not often enough. I miss Seattle, too. I lived in a great house there with my best friends. They keep asking me to come back. We had a big garden, and they insist I’m the only one who took care of it right.” She sighed.

“Have you ever asked yourself why you left Seattle?”

“I told you: it’s because I left nursing. Because it was too hard to be around my friends who were always talking about what was going on at the hospital.”

He looked at her. “I think, deep down, you were punishing yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“You felt you’d done a terrible thing and didn’t deserve to be happy. So you left behind everything that had meaning for you: the city you loved, your work, your friends, your family, your skis, even your piano. And every day that you’ve been away from them is part of the penance you think you deserve.”

Nicole took that in with an uncertain shrug, and said nothing.

Michael asked about the man Nicole had dated, the relationship she said had not worked out.

“We were together for four years while I was working at the hospital,” Nicole explained. “It was a mutual parting. He was a good man. For a while we thought we loved each other, but something was missing.”
Now that I’ve met you
, she thought,
I know what was missing. I know what true love is.

They talked about the early years when Michael homesteaded his property, and how difficult it had been to build his first log cabin on his own and put up a barn. They pulled out the journals he’d kept over past 150 years and spent hours reading sections aloud to each other. Many of the entries were humorous, others were deeply heartfelt, and they brought back dozens of memories that Michael had long since forgotten.

They talked on until the first rays of the morning sun began to light the sky. They talked about everything except the

“This whole nocturnal thing is hard on a human,” Nicole said, yawning, as they climbed into Michael’s bed. “Don’t you ever get tired?”

“I am a little sleepy now,” he admitted, pulling her into his arms.

Nicole closed her eyes, burying her face in his shoulder. “How are you holding up in other ways?”

“Other ways?”

“You know. With the whole
I shouldn’t drink her blood
thing.”

“Oh, that. I’m determined it won’t happen again,” he said firmly. As if to prove his resolve, he lifted her curtain of hair and planted a kiss at the side of her throat, then settled back on his pillow.

“I admire your restraint, but I have to admit . . . I wouldn’t mind if you bit me again.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“No.”

“Well, I would. Don’t tempt me, Nicole. I told you, it’s dangerous. Once was enough.”

His eyes flashed darkly as he spoke, sending an unexpected shiver of alarm through her.

“Okay,” she said, chastened, trying to hide both her disappointment and her fear, “but is it . . . difficult for you when we’re lying so close together like this?”

“Like what?” he asked. His hand slid down past her collar bone to stroke her naked breast with infinite slowness, a touch that made her shiver with delight. “Like this?”

“Yes. Like . . . that.”

“It is exquisite torment,” he whispered huskily. Then he rolled on top of her and brought his mouth to hers.

NICOLE AWAKENED HOURS LATER to a light-filled bedroom. Michael was lying naked beside her, gazing at her from the next pillow with affection, holding a perfect red rose and a small spray of white orchids.

“Hello,” he said softly, laying the red rose on the pillow beside her and reaching out to tenderly tuck the delicate orchid blossoms behind her ear.

“Hello back.” Her first thought was that she’d never awakened to find him beside her before, and it made her smile. Her second thought was the memory of her eager wantonness under his hands in this very bed, just . . . how many hours before? She stretched and glanced at the bedside clock over his shoulder. It was nearly one o’clock in the afternoon. “That was a good sleep.” Picking up the rose, she inhaled its fragrance. “Mmm. What a beautiful rose. And thank you for the orchids.” Remembering what he’d told her before about his limited need for rest, she asked, “How long have you been awake?”

“Awhile.”

Damn
, she thought.
I wish I didn’t have to sleep at all. Every minute with you is so special, I hate to miss any of it.
It dawned on her that this was probably their last day, and a melancholy washed over her.

Aloud, she asked tentatively, “Has the highway been cleared yet?”

“No. Still piled high with snow.”

“Good.” She said it with such enthusiasm that they both laughed.

“Not too eager to get back to work, I see,” Michael observed.

“Not so much,” Nicole replied.
Not so much about work
, she thought.
I just don’t want to leave you.
How
could
she leave him? She loved him with all her heart—she burned to tell him so. “What have you been doing, besides picking flowers?”

“I fed the horses, watered the garden, and worked awhile in my study.” As he spoke, with one hand he sensuously grazed the naked curve of her back, causing tremors to cascade through her.

“Considering the outside temperature,” she replied, “I hope you didn’t do all of those activities naked.”

“I assure you, I was fully dressed,” he returned softly. “One wouldn’t want to shock the horses or frighten the neighbors.”

“But you’re naked now.”

“All the better to watch you sleep.”

Nicole laughed, her heart pounding. “That doesn’t sound very exciting.”

“Oh, but it is, my love.” The deep tenor of his voice seemed to penetrate her skin and ripple like a caress through her veins and nerves, as luscious as a warm bath. “It’s a rare and wonderful thing to have a beautiful woman in my bed. I admit, I’ve spent the last two hours very happily just lying here looking at you.”

His hand now swept up to tenderly caress the vulnerable flesh of her throat, before he lowered his head to kiss her.

The kiss was long, hard, and rapturous, and sometime during the length of it he whispered against her lips, “I love you,

“I love you, too, Michael,” she whispered, her heart soaring with wonder and joy.

Blood slapped in hot gushes through Nicole’s heart. As they made love, their gazes found each other, and the meeting was as sweet and rapturous as their physical union. Nicole felt as if an essential part of herself was being unlocked, as though they were two distinct beings who had melded one with the other, to form another, greater self.

As their passion soared, Nicole saw red flames burning in the blue of Michael’s eyes, and gave a little gasp. His face and fangs revealed that other desperate longing he could no longer hide. Her pulse raced in anticipation and alarm, desperately wanting it yet fearing it. Would he bite her again?

Some deep inner strength seemed to take hold of him, taming the impulse. The fangs receded and he brought his mouth to hers in another deep, searing kiss. His lips and tongue felt hot against her own. In an urgent communion they shared sweet liquids and scorching breaths. It was like drinking fire; it was like hurtling through sizzling nectar; it was like being swept away by a shooting star into a blissful oblivion.

THEY DECIDED TO WALK TO THE LAKE.

It was cloudy and overcast as Michael drove down the back side of his hill and parked outside the barn, where his road ended. From there, they were obliged to strap on snowshoes and begin the quarter-mile trek over rugged backcountry terrain which was buried in deep snow.

“I’ll go first and make a path,” Michael insisted. His snowshoes sank a good twelve inches into the soft snow with every step, and he took care to tamp it down firmly to make it easier for Nicole to follow. Even walking in his footsteps, he knew, would require a great deal more energy for her than it did for him. As he glanced back, Nicole did seem out of breath, so he kept conversation to a minimum.

It was very cold. The clouds hung low on the mountains around them, completely obscuring the sun, but visibility was good in the protected valley where they walked. The world was a winter wonderland, the pine trees heavily draped in white, the slender, naked branches of the aspens reaching for the sky. Some areas, where the wind had blown hard, were barren, revealing numerous rocky outcroppings and dark expanses of dead underbrush beneath the trees. After a while they came to the frozen stream and walked along its snow-covered banks until it opened up onto the gentle crest above the small frozen lake.