What Matters Most (8 page)

He gave Midge the other cup of ice cream, patted her hand, turned to leave and stopped. Alice Hawkins trembled and tears cascaded down her face. “Now, now, Mrs. Hawkins. Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.”

The woman shook her head. “You’re the only doctor who’s ever been in this apartment. Doctors don’t visit the sick, Dr. Ferguson. When I called, I just wanted to ask you what I could do for Midge, and when Miss Sparks said you’d come if I needed you and asked me if I wanted you to come here, I almost said no. I won’t even try to thank you. You know I don’t have any money and no insurance. I don’t want public assistance, so we live off what I can make with bake sales, but with Midge so sick these past few days, I haven’t been able to bake a thing.”

Her eyes nearly doubled in size when he gave her two twenty-dollar bills. But he quickly explained. “Ms. Sparks orders four cranberry scones and four doughnuts—two plain and two chocolate—every Tuesday and every Thursday, and we’d as soon have you as our supplier.”

“I’ll do that gladly, Doctor, but I can’t let you pay me, not after the way you’ve been taking care of Midge for nothing.”

“Put it in Midge’s piggy bank, then. I refuse to take it back. See you tomorrow night.”

The following day, Thursday, he arrived at the South Baltimore office a few minutes before five o’clock, having decided to keep his emotions in check where Melanie was concerned. That morning, he had performed a difficult operation that had exhausted him so much he canceled his Bolton Hill office hours and went home to rest.

As he opened the door of an examining room, having told the patient to dress and come to the office, he noticed a young boy whose age he estimated to be around nine come into the waiting room carrying a baseball bat as if it were buried treasure.

“Ms. Sparks, can I see Dr. Ferguson?” he heard the boy say.

“All right,” she told him, “but he has a patient. He can see you in half an hour or so. How are you feeling?”

“Oh, I’m not sick anymore, but I want to see Dr. Ferguson.”

Jack went into the waiting room. “What may I do for you?” he asked the boy, looking down at the sketch pad in the boy’s hands. He recognized the beginnings of real talent. “Nice drawings.”

“Thanks. I guess you don’t remember me, sir. My grandmother—actually, she’s my great-grandmother—told me you saved my life. She said everybody at the hospital ignored her but you. I brought you this.” The boy handed him the baseball bat. “My name is Tommy.”

Jack scrutinized first the boy and then the bat. “Oh yes, I remember you, Tommy, but I can’t accept this. It’s very valuable.”

“I know that, sir. Derek Jeter signed it for me one day when it was raining, and you have to take it. Please. I want you to have it.” The boy’s eyes beseeched him.

Jack hunkered beside the boy whose illness had changed Jack’s life, awakening him to a world that he knew existed, but hadn’t understood or cared to investigate. The child gazed at him as if he were regarding a saint. He draped his arm around Tommy’s shoulder. “Thank you, Tommy. I’ll cherish this. I see you like to draw.”

“Yes, sir, and I can draw you. Can you sit there for a minute?”

He didn’t have time, but how could he say no? “Yes, but only for a couple of minutes.”

A few minutes later, the boy tore off the sheet from the pad and handed it to Jack, whose jaw dropped when he looked at it.

“This is unbelievable. It’s definitely me. Would you sign it, please? I’ll give it to my father.”

Tommy signed the drawing. “Friends?” he asked.

Jack felt his face crease into a wide, happy grin. “Good friends. How’s your grandma?”

“Fine, except she’s always tired. I have to bring her something from the store. See you next time.”

“Thank you for the bat, Tommy.” He made a mental note to see that Tommy didn’t slip through the cracks. His guardian was a woman in her late eighties or early nineties, and the boy would need support.

At home that night, anxious for some quick answers, Jack ate his dinner sitting at his computer. He wanted to learn as much as he could about St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, because an idea had begun to form in his mind, and he believed it had merit. Children under age twelve constituted half of his patient load, and he was even less of a pediatrician than he was an internist. Melanie was a quick study, and she could learn a lot during a six-week internship at the country’s leading children’s hospital. On the Internet, he found a telephone number and an e-mail address and, most importantly, encouragement to dialogue with St. Jude doctors about the health care of his patients. He made notes, signed off, went downstairs to the refrigerator and treated himself to a bottle of beer. He didn’t know when he’d felt so good. His dad wasn’t with him, but he could talk with doctors at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital who would sympathize with what he was trying to do.

The next morning as soon as he arrived at his Bolton Hill office, he telephoned Alice Hawkins and took a complete history of Midge’s ailments and treatments. Since the girl hadn’t been born in a hospital, but at home with the help of an old woman who served as midwife, she hadn’t been screened for sickle-cell anemia. He made a note to revise the questionnaire he used for the children he treated in the South Baltimore office to include whether they had been screened for that ailment.

When he reached his office at three-thirty that day, Melanie greeted him with raspberry scones and coffee. “These are the best scones I have ever tasted,” she said. “You only ordered them for Tuesday and Thursday, when
you’re
here. How could you? What about the other days? What’ll I eat then?”

He bit into the scone, savored it and let a smile drift over his face. “This is heavenly. I like you just the way you are, and eating two of these things five days a week would ruin your perfect figure.”

“Will not.”

“Will so. And nothing’s worse than a good figure gone bad.”

“You can’t be serious,” she said. “If I thought you were, I’d—”

“You’d what?”

She didn’t answer, just sat there eating the scone, sipping coffee and licking her lips. When she put the last piece into her mouth, she slumped down in the chair and moaned lightly. “Boy was that good!” She crossed her knees and closed her eyes.

He stared at her, so soft and so sensuous. He didn’t doubt that if they had been anywhere private other than his office, he’d have been inside her within five minutes.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked him, her face the picture of confusion.

“You can’t possibly know how sensual you are. Right now, I want you badly enough to steal you.” She sat up, clearly stunned. “Don’t worry, Melanie. I’ve been properly brought up.’

“What good will that do?” she asked him as she removed the cups. “You were, but I was shortchanged.”

His lower jaw hung. “What’re you saying?”

“That it takes two to tango. Wish me luck.”

Chapter 4

J
ack pushed thoughts of Melanie from his mind. He looked down his little patient’s throat, didn’t see any evidence of a problem, confirmed that she should see a dentist and was about to tell the twelve-year-old as much when, to his amazement, she smiled and winked at him. He could see that she’d reached puberty, but he wouldn’t have thought that she was already flirting with older men.

“What was that about?” he asked her.

“I just wanted to see if you’d notice.”

“Really? What do you think your mother would say if I told her how fresh you are?”

“Please don’t do that. She might tell my dad, and he’d kill me.”

He adopted his most serious expression. “In that case, I’ll mention it directly to your father. I dislike young women who tease men, and I may decide not to treat you again.”

“Oh, please, Dr. Ferguson. Please don’t do that. You don’t know my father.”

“Well, since you know him, behave yourself and act your age. That’s all for tonight.”

It hadn’t occurred to him that girls that young knew how to entice men. Just one more reason why children should be cared for by pediatricians. One day, he’d find one willing to share his office. For the time being, however, he’d do his best, and he refused to let anyone or anything—including a fresh, pubescent girl—disrupt his contentment and his sense of satisfaction with his work.

Toward the end of his evening office hours, Melanie rushed into his examining room. “Doctor, I’m sorry to disturb you, but I have an emergency. The patient is in the next examining room.”

“Who is it?”

“Alma, and it’s more than her asthma. It doesn’t look good.”

While they hurried to the other examining room, he pulled on a new pair of rubber gloves, nodded to the child’s father and examined her chest. “How long has she been sick?”

“Since Sunday, Doctor, but I thought she’d get better. We gave her aspirin and tea with honey and vinegar, but she didn’t get any better.”

Jacked turned to Melanie. “Get an ambulance. She’s got pneumonia.” He called the child. “Alma, this is Dr. Ferguson, your favorite doctor. How do you feel?” He tried several times, but she didn’t respond.

A boy knocked on the door of the examining room. “The ambulance is here, Dr. Ferguson.”

Jack went into the waiting room where two people waited to see him. “I have to take this patient to the hospital. Do you feel that you can’t wait to see me until Thursday? If you can wait till then, you’ll be first.”

“I just need some more medicine, Doctor,” one man said. “I don’t have any more pills.” He handed the empty bottle to Jack.

“The nurse will give them to you.” He looked at the woman who sat across the room reading the newspaper. “I’m fine, Doctor. I just came tonight to read the paper. At least I get to read one twice a week.”

He patted her shoulder, and handed the empty pill bottle to Melanie. “Get four samples and give them to Mr. Bond, please. I’d better hurry. Call the taxi when you’re ready to leave and lock up, will you?” He beckoned to Alma’s father. “We’re going to General.”

Jack knew that with chronic asthma, pneumonia in both lungs and a temperature at one hundred and four degrees, the child was in grave danger. He also suspected that she’d lapsed into a coma. He put on his professional face, the impassive expression he donned when a patient wasn’t doing well. The worst part of being a doctor was pretending that you didn’t want to scream and shake your fist at the heavens when Providence removed a patient’s well-being from your hands, and all of your skill and expertise amounted to nothing.

He and the child’s father rode in the ambulance. It wasn’t something he’d ordinarily do, but he knew the man didn’t have insurance, and he remembered the predicament in which he found Tommy’s great-grandmother well after midnight alone in a waiting room ignored by all who passed her. Of course, help was available for the indigent; the problem was that they didn’t know their rights. He had the child admitted and joined the father in the waiting room.

“Thanks for coming with me, Doc,” the man said. “You don’t know what it means to me. No way would they take my child in ten minutes if I came here by myself.”

A little more than half an hour later, Melanie joined them. “Any news yet?”

Jack shook his head. “I’m sure they’re doing everything possible for her.” To the father, he said, “Would you like me to run down to the cafeteria and get some coffee and a sandwich? You probably didn’t have dinner.”

“Thanks. I won’t forget your kindness, but I couldn’t eat a thing. My wife is probably going out of her mind.”

Melanie opened her cell phone and handed it to the man. “Do you want to call her?”

Jack moved to Melanie’s side while the man went outside to talk with his wife. He had a feeling that the longer they waited, the worse the news would be. With his elbows resting on his thighs, he lowered his head to his hands. In eight years of practice, he hadn’t lost a patient. Several had died, but not from an ailment that he treated. He hated the feeling of helplessness. Melanie’s hand eased into his palm, and her fingers locked with his. Her other hand stroked his cheek. He looked at her, saw the compassion in her eyes, knew it was for him and leaned back in the seat, trying to come to terms with the inevitable.

The news they finally got did not surprise Jack. The child had come to him too late. Jack watched as Melanie sat beside the child’s father, put her arms around him and tried to comfort him. After accepting her ministrations for a few minutes, he stood and shook hands with Jack. “You did everything you could, and I won’t forget it.”

“Come with us,” Jack said. He called for a taxi, took the man home and he and Melanie went back to the office where he’d left his car.

“Maybe we should get something to eat,” he said to Melanie. “It’s almost midnight, and we haven’t had dinner.” He opened the front passenger door of the Town Car, fastened her seat belt after she got in and then seated himself. He sat facing the steering wheel, and finally circled it with his arms and rested his head there.

“I’ve never felt so lousy in my life,” he said. “If he’d brought her to me night before last, she’d still be alive, but he hated asking for favors, and he didn’t come until he was desperate. I have to find another way.”

“Maybe if…” Her hand stroked his back. “Oh, Jack. It hurts me, too, but I know you feel it more. Maybe if you tell them to pay whatever they can afford, from a dollar on?”

“Some don’t have a penny for medicine, Melanie. You know that. If they had to pay the cost of transportation to get to my office, half of them wouldn’t come.”

“Do you want me to drive?” she asked him. “I’ve never driven a Town Car, but I don’t think I’d wreck it.”

“Thanks, but I can drive.”

He parked in front of an all-night White Castle. They ordered the famous hamburgers and coffee and sat beside each other in a booth near the window. “I wonder how that poor man faced his wife,” Jack said.

“It couldn’t have been easy,” she replied and handed him a tiny envelope that contained a hand-sanitizing wipe, explaining that she always carried a few of them in her pocketbook.