The Children's Ward (6 page)

Twenty-three

They descended at one o’clock.

Russell’s father, Tessi’s mother, and, sweeping into the room like a sudden whirlwind, Courtney’s parents.

The Whites were dressed in coordinated tennis outfits and he was carrying a racket which he used to tap on the end of Courtney’s bed.

“Smile, baby,” he said, “it can’t be as bad as all that.”

Tiffany White leaned over and almost kissed her daughter’s cheek. “How are you, baby?”

Courtney shrugged. “Ask the doctor.”

“Not a bad setup here,” David White said, looking around the ward. “At least it doesn’t smell like a hospital.”

“Nice and quiet,” Tiffany added. “You should be able to get a lot of rest.”

“I could use a rest.” He sat on the edge of his daughter’s bed. “Another late night last night.” He winked at her. “Your old man is getting in pretty tight with the powers that be in this town.”

Courtney did not respond.

“Well,” Tiffany said after the silence had lengthened, “I’m re-doing your room while you’re here…I found the most marvelous fabric for curtains, and I’ll have them make a ruffle for your bed.” She smiled brightly. “It’ll be the most beautiful room…wait and see.”

“Got another party tonight, baby, so we won’t be by for visiting hours this evening. You know how long it takes your mother to get ready.” His eyes wandered past his wife and appraised Tessi’s mother.

Courtney followed her father’s glance and then looked back at her mother. “What color?”

“What?”

“What color will my room be this time?”

“Pink and lavender.”

David White looked at his multi-function sports watch. “We’ve got the court at two. I think we’d better hustle on over there.”

“We’ve got plenty of time,” Tiffany protested.

“Yeah, but I need a drink before I play…a little hair of the dog to clear my head.”

“But we’ve hardly had a chance to talk…”

“Courtney understands, don’t you, Courtney?”

“Yes…I understand.”

“How’s Aunt Flo?” Russell asked.

“She misses you; it’s awful lonely without you there to keep her company at night when I’m at work.”

Russell reached up, grasping the trapeze that was mounted above his bed and pulling himself carefully into a sitting position. “You remind her to lock up at night…sometimes she forgets.” His face became wistful. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could surprise Aunt Flo…if I just walked in the door without saying a word?”

“That’d be a surprise, all right, although you can be sure that I’d catch hell for not telling her about something so important.”

“Could it happen? When you talked to Dr. Fuller, did he say there was a chance?”

“He seems to think he’ll be able to help you somehow,” Delano said, eyes intent on his son.

“Help me walk?”

“Not exactly.”

“What did he say, then?”

“You know how doctors talk…”

“But he didn’t say it couldn’t happen?”

“No,” Delano admitted, “but don’t get your hopes up too high; I don’t want you to be disappointed again.”

“I just have a feeling, Dad, that this time’ll be different…something’s going to happen…I can feel it.”

Tessi concentrated on smoothing the fur of her koala bear’s ears.

“Did you hear me?” Alicia asked.

“Yes.”

“Then answer the question.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

“I don’t know the answer.”

Alicia drew in a breath, struggling to keep her temper. “Tessi, you’ve lived out on that
ranch
,” she spit the word out, “for six months of the year ever since your father and I were divorced. Don’t tell me you don’t know how far it is to the nearest town.”

“I don’t know,” Tessi said cautiously, “how many miles. Daddy never told me.”

“Well, how long does it take to drive into town? A half hour? Forty-five minutes?”

Now Tessi looked up, measuring her mother’s expression. “About a half hour,” she said. The corners of her mouth turned down.

“So…this last time you got sick, it took at least thirty minutes to get you to a doctor.”

Tessi nodded, rubbing her thumb gently across the koala bear’s black button eyes.

“How often does your father leave you alone on the ranch?”

“Not very often.”

“But he has to work, doesn’t he? He can’t take you with him.”

“Maria’s there most of the time.”

“Maria?”

“The housekeeper.”

“You’ve never mentioned a housekeeper before.” The tone of her voice was accusing.

Tessi did not reply.

Alicia sighed, leaning back in the chair and watching her daughter’s rapt examination of the toy bear’s toes.

“How long has this Maria been working for your father?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was she there last year?”

“I guess so.”

“The year before?”

“I think that was the first time she came.”

“Did your father tell you not to tell me about her?”

“No…I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Upset me? Why would it upset me?”

Tessi’s brows knitted together in consternation. “She’s very pretty.”

Alicia stiffened. “Are you saying that your father and Maria…”

“No.” Her look was a plea for absolution. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” Alicia said, after it was clear that Tessi had nothing else to say, “I think Mr. Kraft would be interested in hearing about all of this…very interested indeed.”

Twenty-four

“Can you feel this?” Quinn ran her fingers across the instep of Russell’s left foot.

The boy shook his head. “Do it harder.”

She complied, watching his face for a sign. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling in fierce concentration.

“Russell?”

“Nothing.”

She replaced the covers over his legs and moved to the head of the bed. “You look much better today,” she said, wrapping the blood pressure cuff around his arm.

“They told me,” he said suddenly, “that whatever I couldn’t do six months after I fell, I would probably never do again. They never said straight out that I’d never walk again.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“About not walking?”

“About not being told directly.”

Russell hesitated. “It makes me mad. Everything that has happened, happened to
me.
Just because I’m a kid, they think they don’t have to tell me the truth.”

“Sometimes the truth can be very painful.”

“So can lies.”

Quinn waited for him to continue.

“Sometimes, they’d be talking in my room like I wasn’t even there. About options.” His eyes sought hers. “I used to wonder what would happen when they ran out of options.”

“Russell, you have to try and understand. Sometimes it can be very frustrating to be a doctor, to try your best to help a patient and not be able to. And sometimes the only way to deal with that frustration is to put some distance between yourself and the problem. Talking about options is a little easier than talking about the pain and suffering of a human being.”

“It just seemed to me like they didn’t care.”

“If you care about someone very much, it’s hard to stand by and not be able to help them.”

“I suppose…”

“All we can do is our best, and we haven’t given up.”

“Not yet, anyway.”

“Not any time.”

When he did not respond she waited, allowing the silence to lengthen. Watching him, she could sense his uncertainty but she knew that he had to find his own answers.

Finally, he looked up. “My dad won’t give up either.”

“And neither will you.”

“I guess I just forget that no matter what happened to me, it could have been worse. I could’ve been killed.” There was no self-pity in his voice, only a matter-of-factness which belied his years.

Now he pulled himself upright, holding onto the trapeze with one hand while he rubbed vigorously at his thighs with the other.

“I can feel it, sometimes. Transient tact…tact…”

“Transient tactile sensations.”

“Whatever it is, it feels good. I think maybe if I could just forget that I can’t walk, sort of surprise myself…do it without thinking…maybe I could do it.”

“Just maybe you could,” Quinn said quietly.

Twenty-five

“Alicia, calm down.” Howard Kraft leaned back in the leather chair and looked out the window of his penthouse office. The tinted glass made the afternoon sun look like a copper coin suspended in the hazy Los Angeles sky.

“How can I calm down?” her voice demanded and he frowned at the shrillness of her tone.

“Be still for a minute and listen. The fact that your ex has a housekeeper, albeit a pretty one, is not justification for denying him joint custody.”

“But if they’re having a personal relationship…”

“Very few judges expect parents to remain celibate until the child is eighteen.”

“I won’t stand for him flaunting his affairs in front of Tessi.”

“You don’t know that he did,” Howard said reasonably. “It’ll take more than suspicions to stand a chance in court. In any case, I wouldn’t recommend you pursuing that course. He can kick up a little dirt on you, I imagine.”

“I…we’ve been very careful,” she said pointedly.

He grimaced. “But careful enough? I’m not willing to chance it, whether you are or not.”

For a moment she said nothing.

“Then,” she said, just as he was beginning to hope that was the end of it, “we’ll concentrate on the isolation of his so-called ranch.”

“Alicia…”

“No, I intend to go through with this. You should have heard the way he spoke to me.”

“Revenge is never good motivation for going to court.”

“Then what about God-damned justice!”

This is rapidly getting out of hand, he thought. “Darling,” he said, trying another tack. “Don’t forget how exhausting being a full-time mother can be…you always say that you never have time for yourself when Tessi’s with you.”

“I’ll manage.”

“Mm…I’ve got a call on another line. Why don’t you think about it, sleep on it, and give me a call tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow or whenever, I’ve made up my mind,” she said.

He hung up the phone and got up to fix a drink.

Alicia had surprised him, he had to admit. He had never heard her so emotional and in fact it was something he would not have expected from her.

She always impressed him as being made of ice; she was more than a little frosty in bed.

But she was beautiful and self-possessed, and offered a pleasant contrast to his wife’s Italian temperament.

This, however, would not do. Her passionate desire to thwart James Wolf could prove dangerous. He was well aware of her hatred for her ex-husband but it was suddenly clear that she wanted to destroy the man. He knew enough about human nature to know that, once begun, an act of vengeance could consume them all.

He did not intend to be fodder for Alicia’s rage.

Their affair was over.

He would have to be very careful from now on. Feeling betrayed, she might direct her bitterness at him. He had a lot to lose.

He would tell her, when she got back to Los Angeles, that his wife suspected something. He had worked with a number of private investigators…he knew enough about their tactics to be able to bluff her. Suggest that he was being followed. Suggest that they not see each other until everything died down…which would never happen.

It would be over quietly. Without fireworks.

It would work. It had worked before.

Twenty-six

Tiffany White stood in the living room, looking with satisfaction at the new rosewood end tables. They were perfect in the room, their highly polished surfaces reflecting the light from the fireplace.

The entire room was perfect. David had wanted a leather sofa but she had prevailed and even he had to admit that the burgundy crushed velvet lent just the right touch of…elegance? Or indulgence. Either way, the effect was right.

She moved to stand in front of the fireplace, turning to look at the room from that angle.

No, she wouldn’t change a thing.

David liked to remind her that she’d said that about the French Provincial furniture last year. It
had
looked nice in the summer, but somehow it seemed too cold for the winter, even a mild California winter.

She put her hands behind her back, warming them.

Upstairs, David was still in the shower. She could hear the water running and, faintly, her husband’s voice singing an unidentifiable song.

She had been ready for at least twenty minutes and it would be twenty more before David would be ready to go. It didn’t matter, though. It gave her a chance to wander through the house and admire her handiwork.

Tomorrow she would get started on Courtney’s room. The painters were due at ten and the new carpet would be laid at four. She had not made up her mind about the furniture—it was practically brand new—but the overhead lighting fixtures had to go.

So many details.

David liked to tell everyone that she had no business sense but she wondered whether he could coordinate so many projects at once. There were times when the entire house was filled with workmen, all of whom needed choices made, orders verified, and work approved.

David, despite his pretensions, was no businessman himself. He tended to forget that the money that paid for his downtown office and briskly efficient secretary was hers.

It had been quite a surprise; she never would have guessed that her thrifty widowed father would take out so many high value insurance policies. Or that he owned five hundred acres of land.

The only hint she ever had was her father’s sly remark that she’d get her reward—for being a devoted daughter—when he went on to his.

Now it was there, in dozens of bank accounts. More money than she had ever imagined.

It was a challenge to find ways to spend it.

David had ideas, naturally; the office and secretary were one. But she kept a tight rein on how much he spent, putting only a specified amount into his accounts each month. The rest was in her own private accounts and in trust for Courtney.

Courtney. She felt bad about how little time they spent with their child. Especially now that she was in the hospital.

The vacation to the Bahamas had been David’s idea of family togetherness, but for the most part, Courtney was left to amuse herself while they indulged in adult pleasures.

Shopping was the only activity she shared with her daughter, and even that had not gone right. Amazing that a child as beautiful as Courtney would care so little about her own looks.

If left to her own devices, Courtney dressed indifferently, making no attempt to highlight her best features. It had gotten to the point that Tiffany seriously wondered if the child was colorblind.

She had come to regard dressing Courtney as a form of decorating. With Courtney serving almost as an…accessory…to the rest of the house.

She honestly did not know what Courtney would do without her.

Well, that was what a mother was for.