Chapter 12
Jane
Jane stumbled down the hallway, tears pricking at her eyes and fury guiding each step as she made her way back to her office.
She knew Rosalind was lying to herself—and to her as well—if she really believed that there was nothing between them.
Then, to top off the insult with injury, she insinuated that Jane would never leave this small city.
Well, Rosalind didn’t know anything, she had no idea what Jane’s plans were or what she was going to do.
The knife twisted in her chest as she flung the door to her office open to find Dr. Mars standing in front of her desk.
“What are you doing here?” Jane snapped before she could reel in her emotions.
“Is this going to be a problem, Doctor Roberts?” Doctor Mars asked without preamble.
“I’m sorry,” Jane said, and her eyes dropped to the floor. “What do you mean?”
“I mean whatever’s going on with you and Doctor Maxwell,” she said and pressed her lips.
“Don’t worry, there’s nothing going on between the two of us,” Jane answered with a little more venom than she intended.
“You know as well as I do that this is only temporary,” Doctor Mars said, her voice softening with empathy.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Mars, I don’t think I understand what you’re telling me,” Jane said, starting to become annoyed with the woman in front of her.
“Doctor Maxwell won’t be here long. I had hoped it would be longer than this, but I knew as much as anyone that as soon as her father passed, she would be out the door again,” she said with a sigh. “But I need to know if you’ll still be here once she’s gone.”
“Well, she certainly doesn’t want me to come with her,” Jane said with a childish sniff.
“I wasn’t really worried about that,” Doctor Mars said and rolled her eyes.
“Then what do you mean?” Jane asked.
“Jane, it’s no secret that you want to get out, that you want to travel, but life has held you here,” Dr. Mars took a deep breath.
“I knew that bringing in Doctor Maxwell would inspire you, at least in some way, and I just need to know, when you do, finding another trauma surgeon that can double as the ER director is going to be challenging to say the least.”
Jane blinked. The thought of leaving had not so much as crossed her mind—not in any realistic sense anyway.
Sure, she always had it in the back of her mind as some sort of pipe dream, or wishful thinking, but there was no way that she’d really be able to just drop everything and go. Was there? Jane shook her head.
“Doctor Mars,” she began then shook her head again.
“I’m sorry, but this is not a good time for this conversation.
The job always comes first, but anything not immediately work-related is so far outside anything I can even wrap my mind around right now.
Ask me again in a few weeks and I’ll have a better answer, but for now I have no immediate plans to stop working here. ”
“Well, that makes me happy,” Doctor Mars said with a slight smile. “But what about you?”
“I don’t know what I want,” Jane said and sat down heavily behind her desk.
“Well, maybe figure it out. We will all be better off if you do,” Doctor Mars smiled a knowing smile, but Jane just furrowed her brows as the Chief of Medicine walked out the door and closed it behind her.
Jane struggled to figure out what she meant by that, but it certainly felt like there was some sort of hidden meaning in the words.
Jane highly doubted that Dr. Mars was really worried about hiring someone else for the hospital.
Jane shook her head. She wasn’t going to figure it out right now anyway.
She had bigger problems. Rosalind. What was she going to do about this situation?
The thought of running into her in the hospital was infuriating, but she knew it would happen eventually.
Hell, Rosalind had all but forced her to take on her father as a patient, there was no way that she’d be able to just avoid her.
She would just do her best to put it out of her mind.
If Rosalind was going to be this cold toward her, then she would just be cold back, simple as that.
There was no reason to think about it any further.
She definitely wasn’t going to risk her career over it.
She got up and checked her make-up in the mirror, suddenly feeling like she could handle whatever was thrown at her.
She would be fine, of course, nothing Rosalind could do would change that.
Her phone pinged as though reading her thoughts.
She closed her eyes, her shoulders drooping as she read the message, then headed out her door.
She walked quickly down the hallway, Rosalind and her mother were both in the room with Robert Maxwell, and a team of nurses flurried around him.
Jane didn’t rush, Robert had signed a Do Not Resuscitate order when he first came in, so there wasn’t much anyone could do regardless, but he certainly seemed agitated.
Rosalind’s mother was crying again, and Rosalind was stone-faced as she held on to her mother’s shoulders.
Jane could hear the shouts coming from the room, but nothing coherent, apparently his mind had slipped away again.
She quickly gave the order to give him a sedative as he thrashed and grunted at the team surrounding him.
One of the nurses complied, pushing the drug through his IV, and he slowly settled onto the bed.
His heart rate was sporadic at best, and his blood pressure was almost nonexistent; it was a wonder his heart was still beating at all.
“Mr. Maxwell? Can you hear me?” Jane asked as she shined a light into his eyes and gauged the reaction.
“What? Where am I?” Robert barked at her and Jane stepped back.
“You’re in the hospital, Dad,” Rosalind said as she stepped up beside Jane. Jane could feel the warmth emanating from her and forced herself not to think about it.
“Dad? Why are you calling me that, it’s strange, Lyla,” Robert said, and Jane could feel Rosalind’s muscles tense. Jane’s eyes narrowed, and she wondered who Lyla was.
“How do you feel, Robert?” Jane asked.
“I’m fine, Denise, what am I doing here? Why are you here?” he asked, then his eyes rolled back and he started snoring. Jane pressed her lips together and turned to Rosalind and her mother. “I’m sorry, with the DNR there’s not much we can do from here, it’s only a matter of time.”
“I understand,” Mrs. Maxwell said with tears in her eyes.
She knew all the information, but Jane couldn’t imagine how hard this must be on her.
Jane turned to Rosalind. She had no intention of saying anything other than what was professionally necessary, but the expression on Rosalind’s face was unreadable.
It was twisted in pain, but it seemed like something more than the situation at hand; there was something wrong, and Jane was compelled to find out what it was.
She wondered if it had anything to do with the names Robert was throwing out.
Rosalind didn’t say anything, but she turned on her heel and headed for the door. Acting on what was likely a childish impulse, Jane followed her.
“What happened?” Jane asked when Rosalind finally came to a stop in the hallway.
“That just got to me, that’s all. My father doesn’t even recognize me,” Rosalind said with a shudder.
Jane narrowed her eyes. “Who’s Lyla?” she asked then added, “and Denise?”
“No one, it doesn’t matter,” Rosalind said.
“I think it does,” Jane countered.
“They were… family friends,” Rosalind said with tears in her eyes. “They passed away a few years ago, they were much older than my parents, sort of like mentors to them, I don’t know. They were like a bonus set of grandparents to me. We used to spend the summers with them at the lake.”
“Why would that set you off?” Jane asked, still trying to figure out what was happening.
“They were married,” Rosalind said. “They were happily married for over sixty years, though legally was a different matter.”
“I don’t understand,” Jane said.
“They were a huge inspiration to me and my family, they had to fight tooth and nail for their love their entire lives, even when marriage between two women became legal, they didn’t bother with it because their lives were so intertwined a piece of paper no longer mattered.
I’ve never known two people who cared for each other they way that they did. ”
Jane blinked in surprise.
“Back in the seventies, they had their names changed to a hyphenate of both their last names because their families disowned them,” Rosalind continued. “But nothing ever came between them, even when they passed,” Rosalind’s voice broke.
“Wait, are you talking about Lyla and Denise Ryder-Strauss?” Jane whispered.
“Yeah,” Rosalind said with conviction. “You knew them?”
“Only briefly,” Jane said, “I was here when they passed. It was… it was magical, they were together for so long and they both died in their sleep next to each other, on the same night, I’m pretty sure everyone in the hospital cried over them.
” Jane’s throat tightened at the memory.
Lyla had come in with heart palpitations and Denise had stayed with her, sometime that night Denise had climbed into the bed with Lyla and they were both found the next morning, both of them having passed from natural causes.
It was a beautiful story, almost legendary in this small city.
Robert had mistaken Rosalind and Jane for those two, and the thought sent a warmth through Jane that she couldn’t explain, but it made her that much more determined.
Rosalind would not be able to keep up this charade.
Jane walked in silence with Rosalind back to her office, though she didn’t notice their destination until they were at the door.
“Is there something you need?” Rosalind asked, her voice cold.
“Yes,” Jane said. “I need you to come to your senses.”
“What are you talking about?”