Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Houston
ZOEY WAS BURNING HER candle at both ends—and in the middle, too. She spent, on average, twenty hours every day in one hospital or another, and she did most of her sleeping in the chair beside Jennifer’s bed. In the past seven weeks, something inside her had changed. She’d grown to hate being in hospitals. She didn’t like the work anymore. She didn’t like the people with whom she worked.
She didn’t like herself.
She hadn’t been treating Cooper very nicely. She was freezing him out and pushing him away. She wouldn’t talk to him. She wouldn’t let him offer comfort. She wouldn’t even eat the food he went out of his way to make for her. Cooper didn’t deserve that. He was worried about her.
For the first time in her life, she’d flunked an exam. For the first time in her professional career, she’d lost her temper with colleagues during a particularly needlessly tragic case. On top of all that, she was avoiding her dad. Adam didn’t deserve that, either. He’d gone above and beyond the call since he arrived home from his conference a week ago, taking shifts at Jennifer’s bedside when Zoey had to be at the hospital, and she knew he’d rather be just about anywhere else. Zoey thought her mother was managing to break her father’s heart all over again. That’s what she was doing to Zoey.
Same song, second verse. Twenty-second verse. Too many verses to count!
Zoey didn’t know how to fix things. She didn’t know how to fix herself.
She told herself things would get better soon. She’d be done with the fellowship in just over a month. By then, based on her mother’s doctor’s best guess, Zoey’s vigil beside Jennifer’s bed would be behind her.
Jennifer had been unable to tolerate the experimental treatment. Her condition had deteriorated quickly, and she’d been moved to hospice care the week before. Nevertheless, she continued to cling to life. Jennifer Hillcrest was running away from death as hard as she’d run away from everything else in her life.
And Zoey still didn’t know why the running began. She still didn’t have the answers she wanted more desperately with every passing day. Oh, she’d discovered a few bits and pieces while sitting beside Jennifer’s bed daily, but nothing concrete. As Jennifer’s time ran out, so did Zoey’s. It was making Zoey miserable. It was making her angry. Cooper was about to blow a gasket, too.
Last night, with her mother mostly insensate due to the pain meds she was on, Zoey had finally cut her visit short and come home to catch a few hours of sleep. She’d slept fitfully, tossing and turning the entire time. Twenty minutes ago, Cooper had rolled from the bed with a curse and headed for the shower.
Now, she sat with her legs crossed on the right side of the king-sized bed they shared. The low-pitched hum of an air conditioner died as the unit cycled off, and a heavy silence descended on the room. An emotion that was as hot and heavy as the air on this muggy morning in June rolled through her.
She suddenly felt naked in Cooper’s Michigan Wolverines T-shirt as her fiancé emerged from the bathroom wearing a towel around his waist. Zoey tugged the smoke-colored sheet up over her lap. Judging by the set of his jaw, a confrontation was coming.
She didn’t blame him. How could she expect him to understand when she didn’t understand herself?
Having donned a pair of running shorts, Cooper turned toward her, obviously braced for battle. He set his hands on his hips. “Did you really go off on Martin Green yesterday?”
Zoey stiffened in shock. “How did you find out? Do you have spies in the ER?”
“He’s a doctor in my practice who was there to see a patient. He is my friend. He knows that you are my fiancée, so he called to warn me. He said scuttlebutt around the ER is that you are one more eruption away from flaming out of the program with less than a month to go. Is that true?”
Sullenly, she folded her arms. “He shouldn’t have called you. That’s totally unprofessional.”
“Well, there seems to be a lot of that going around your hospital,” he snapped back before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He walked over to his nightstand and pulled a slip of paper from beneath his phone. He handed the paper to Zoey.
She read a name and an address. “What’s this?”
“She’s a therapist. She has an opening this afternoon at four o’clock if you will concede to take it.”
A therapist. Her stomach rolled. “I’m scheduled to work this afternoon.”
“Dr. Lawrence is available to cover for you.”
The sick feeling in her stomach transformed into anger. Zoey threw back the covers, climbed out of bed, and glared at Cooper. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Dr. MacKenzie. I haven’t asked for your input. It’s not your place to interfere in my professional life or pick out my effing shrink!”
Frustration flared in his brown eyes. “Maybe it’s not, but somebody needs to do it because you’re not taking care of business yourself. I love you, Zoey, and you’re scaring me. You need sleep. You need help. Let me help you.”
The fight went out of Zoey as quickly as it had come. “I just need to get through these next few weeks.”
“If you don’t kill yourself first. You’re not a hospice nurse, Zoey.”
“She’s my mother, Cooper.”
A hint of temper joined his frustration. “Is she? Is she really? It seems to me that the aloe vera plant you keep on the windowsill fills that role as well as the woman you’re vigiling yourself to death for.”
“I don’t think ‘vigiling’ is a word. And you don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “You won’t tell me. You won’t talk to me.”
Zoey opened her mouth, then shut it without speaking. She didn’t know what to say to him. She had no explanation for her actions. She knew she was blowing up her career and maybe her relationship, too, but she couldn’t seem to help it. Wasn’t certain she even cared. “My mother is dying, Cooper. She’s dying, and she has no one else to care for her.”
He went down on his knees in front of her and took hold of her hands. “Honey, she does. She has hospice professionals. Your father sits with her. I’ve offered a dozen times to sit with her in your place.”
“But she has no one who loves her.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Zoey closed her eyes. He was right. Jennifer Hillcrest had created her solitary existence through her own actions. Or, more concisely, her lack of actions.
Cooper said, “Sweetheart, I know this isn’t about me. Nevertheless, it’s tearing me up to watch what she’s doing to you. You’ve told me what it was like. She’s never been there for you. Never once. Not when you had an emergency appendectomy. Not when you graduated from high school. Not when you earned your white coat. She’s never been there when it matters, and it hurt you! You can’t let her take this from you, too.”
“That’s why I have to be there now.”
“That makes no sense. You’re ready to throw everything away because of her.”
“I’m not throwing anything away,” she protested, even as her stomach made a sick roll.
“Aren’t you? You’re a ticking bomb. If you can’t talk to me or to your dad, then talk to a professional before it’s too late. Otherwise, I’m afraid another visiting physician will ask you another stupid question, and you’ll explode again. They’ll boot you from your fellowship a month short of graduation.”
“Fine. If that happens, it won’t be the end of the world. So, I won’t be an ER pediatrician. I’ll still be a doctor.” If that’s even what she still wanted.
He released an exasperated sigh, dropped her hands, and stood. Staring down at her, he snapped, “And you’ll be making half of what you could be making for the rest of your career.”
Feeling defensive, she lifted her chin. “It’s not all about the money, Cooper.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it. His lips stretched into a grim line.
“What?” she challenged.
“Not all of us are lucky enough to have family who can pay for our education. Having medical school debt on top of college debt is a heavy burden.”
“Not all of us are lucky enough to have a two-parent family who was there for us,” she fired back. “You don’t understand what it’s like, Cooper. Your folks might not have had much money, but they were there for you. Your mother was there for you.”
“Yes, she was. Yours wasn’t. I get that. But I don’t understand why you feel like you have to be here for her now under the circumstances you are facing. She doesn’t need a pediatrician. She needs palliative care, which professionals are providing.”
“ I need her. I need this time with her. It’s my last chance to find out who I am!”
“You know who you are! You are Doctor Zoey Hillcrest, a strong, tenacious, brilliant, beautiful woman. You’re the woman I love.”
“That’s not enough.”
He jerked back as if she’d hit him. After a moment’s pause, he said, “Well. Okay, then.”
A wave of despair rolled over Zoey. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Try to understand, Cooper. I need your support. I need to understand why I wasn’t enough for her. Why she couldn’t love me. I need her to tell me that.”
“Oh, baby. You are breaking my heart. She hasn’t told you those things in the past. What makes you think she’ll tell you now? What are you going to do if she doesn’t?”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“Will you? I hope so, but right now, I’m less than confident. That’s why I want you to take an hour and talk to a therapist. You need help, Zoey. I’ve tried to help, but this is beyond me.”
He folded his arms and stared at her without speaking for a long moment. Zoey’s heart began to pound. Quietly, he asked, “Will you please take the therapy appointment? Do this much, if not for yourself, then for me?”
She didn’t have it in her to delve into the riotous emotions boiling inside her. It wasn’t just her mother dying or the answers to questions she might or might not get. It was more. It was her misery at work. It was the fear that had been eating at her for months, fear she recognized existed, but didn’t understand. “Not today. I can’t today.”
Cooper’s expression went grim. “If not today, then when?”
“When it’s over.”
“When what is over?” he asked, a note of bitterness in his tone. “Us?”
Maybe. She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything about anything right now. She sucked in a quick breath. Her voice trembling, Zoey asked, “Cooper, please, I need your support.”
Sadness and another emotion Zoey did not want to name dimmed the light in his eyes. He nodded once and grabbed his sneakers off the floor. “Okay, then. I’ll be here.”
To pick up the pieces. Though he didn’t say it aloud, she heard the message loud and clear.
Cooper turned away from her, dressed quickly in hospital scrubs and his sneakers, then headed for the door. “Call me if you need me.”
The flatness in his voice conveyed that he didn’t expect to receive a call from her.
“Have a good day, Cooper,” Zoey called after him. His response was a wave. Moments later, she heard the front door open and then close firmly.
She managed to hold her tears until she took her own shower, at which point the sobs erupted. She slid down the tile wall and sat on the floor, her arms wrapped around her legs, her face buried against her knees as the hot water pounded her. Zoey didn’t cry often, but when she did, it was ugly. She sobbed until the hot water ran cold, grieving for her mother, herself, and the relationship she’d always desired but never had. Crying over the cracks in her relationship with Cooper these last months had created.
Finally chilled to the bone, her tears exhausted, she exited the shower to the ringing of her phone. It was the hospice facility.
Her mother was awake, aware, and asking to see her.
Twenty minutes later, Zoey entered her mother’s room. A nurse was seated beside the bed, filing her mother’s nails with an emery board. She gave Zoey a sympathetic smile. “Hi, Dr. Hillcrest. She asked for pain meds shortly after I called you. So…”
The nurse shrugged, and Zoey nodded that she understood. The “aware” part of the phone call might no longer be in evidence. “I’ll take over for you, Liz.”
The nurse rose and handed Zoey the file. “I hope you have a nice visit.”
Zoey took a seat and picked up her mother’s hand. She was shaping the nail on her ring finger when Jennifer’s eyes flickered open. Her eyes shifted and focused on Zoey. “You came.”
“I did. How are you feeling?”
Her tone was thready and fragile as she replied, “Drugs in the eighties were more fun. I’m thirsty.”
“Well, we can fix that.” Zoey lifted the covered tumbler from the nightstand and guided the straw to her mother’s lips. Jennifer sucked weakly and then grimaced. “Hot.”
“I’ll add some ice.”
The ice bucket was empty, so Zoey carried it down the hall to the machine in order to fill it. Returning to her mother’s room, she removed the lid from the tumbler, added ice, and then filled it with bottled water. When she looked up from her task, she found her mother watching her. Jennifer said, “You’re not like me.”
Zoey didn’t know how to respond to that.
“More like Becca than me. That’s good.”
Zoey felt her heartbeat speed up. “Becca?”
“My sister. She was smart, too. Like you. Like Adam. You’re mostly Adam.” She closed her eyes and added, “I’m glad.”
Her mother had a sister named Becca. Zoey licked her dry lips. “Was Becca older or younger than you?”
“Younger.”
That’s something. Casually, Zoey asked, “What was her last name?”
One corner of Jennifer’s mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “Good try, smartypants.”
Zoey wanted to fling her mother’s hand away and throw the nail file across the room. She quashed the childish reaction and gently went to work on shaping her mom’s little fingernail.
Keeping her voice calm, she asked, “Why did you ask to see me this morning?”
“Because I trust you to tell me the truth.”
Wish I could say the same.
“How much longer do I have?”
Zoey had thought she’d cried out her daily ration of tears already. Apparently not, because her eyes suddenly stung. “I honestly don’t know.”
“You’ve looked at my chart.”
“It’s not my specialty,” Zoey said, shaking her head. “I’m not qualified to say.”
“Guess.”
“Okay, but a guess is all it is. Maybe a couple of weeks.”
Jennifer turned her head away and looked out the window. Following a moment of silence, she nodded. “More than I expected, to be honest. I think maybe it’s a generous guess. Thanks for being here for me, Zoey. It’s more than I deserve.”
“Will you please tell me who you are?”
Jennifer glanced back at Zoey, met and held her gaze. “No.”
Then she closed her eyes.
Zoey rose and stood beside the bed, fighting back tears. She was so pissed and so sad and so exhausted and so… so… she didn’t know what she was feeling. Maybe Cooper’s shrink could tell her.
Maybe she should go talk to the woman after all.
Zoey remembered the name, so she googled the number and placed the call. The afternoon appointment had been filled, but the doctor was willing to meet with Zoey that evening. Zoey agreed to the time, disconnected the call, then dialed the hospital. Following a somewhat uncomfortable conversation with her boss, she agreed to work the overnight shift. Afterward, she wanted to crawl under a bed and hide.
Instead, she stepped into the hall and called Cooper. He didn’t answer, of course. He was in surgery this morning. Zoey waited to be connected to his voice mail.
“Hi. It’s me. I wanted to let you know that I have an appointment with Dr. Rios late this afternoon. I’m going to have to work the overnight shift, so I won’t be home tonight. I guess I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.” After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “I love you. Bye.”
Zoey then returned to her mother’s bedside. Jennifer lay still and quiet. Zoey took the opportunity to pull out her laptop and review for her upcoming exam. She was knee-deep in administrative policy and procedure rules when Jennifer’s eyes opened once again. This time, though, the lucidity was missing.
When her mother began murmuring, Zoey made out only nonsensical words. Nevertheless, as she’d been doing since her vigil began, Zoey pulled up the recording app on her phone and set it on the bedside table. Then she opened a file on her computer that she’d titled “Mom” and began to list each legible word her mother spoke.
Gibberish, she thought glumly, until she heard “Becca” and then a new name—“Harry.”
“Harry?” Zoey murmured. She made the note and underlined it twice. Rising from her seat, she moved closer and concentrated, but her mother had, for the most part, fallen silent. So hard was she listening that when she heard the light rap on the door and then its opening, she didn’t glance away from her mother.
A deep, raspy voice asked, “Zoey?”
Cooper? Here? This time of day? Startled, she jerked up and twisted around. He stood just inside the room and looked haunted. Everything inside her went cold. “What’s wrong? Who’s hurt?”
“Nobody’s hurt.”
“Then why are you here instead of in surgery?”
His gaze shifted past her to the bed. “I’d like to speak with you for a few moments the next time she’s sleeping peacefully.”
Zoey glanced at her mother. “She seems to be settling. Let’s give her another few minutes.”
“Okay. There’s no one in the conference room. I’ll get some coffee and wait for you there. Would you like a cup?”
“Sure.”
Less than five minutes later, Zoey decided her mother was soundly sleeping. It took another couple of minutes for her to work up the courage to join Cooper. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know whatever had put that haggard expression on her fiancé’s face.
Maybe she had crossed a line with him this morning. Maybe he’d decided to break up with her after all.
Well, fine. If he can’t understand my situation, then good riddance.
Really, maybe this was all for the better. They hadn’t exactly had the best of relationships over the past few months, had they? If she were being perfectly honest, things between them hadn’t been easy since she got sick in February. She’d blamed it on stress, but maybe what really had happened here was that it highlighted weaknesses in the relationship.
They’d have to call off the wedding. Oh, joy. At least the invitations hadn’t gone out, though they had sent Save the Date cards with information about the location in February, right before she got sick.
Despite her bravado, Zoey’s stomach was churning as she leaned over, kissed her mother’s forehead, and exited the room, turning toward the conference room down the hall. Outside that door, she paused and drew in a deep breath. She could do this. She told parents their children had passed. Nothing could be harder than that.
She hated doing it, too.
She’d thought that those children whose lives she saved would offset those that she lost. It should work that way. She did save lives in the ER. Why didn’t she find that rewarding?
Why was she thinking about work now when her fiancé was about to dump her?
Maybe she should call off the wedding first. Get out in front of it. Be the dumper rather than the dumpee.
You’ve got this, Zoey. You are Jennifer’s daughter. Becca’s niece.
Whoever the hell they are.
You’re a mental case. That’s what you are. Cooper is right. You should be in a psychiatrist’s office right this very second.
And he shouldn’t be dumping her now while her mother was dying during the last few weeks of Zoey’s fellowship.
Zoey stepped into the conference room, braced for battle but trying to hide it. Cooper stood at the coffee machine, filling a paper cup. A second cup already sat on the conference table. Zoey’s gaze fastened on it. Calmly, she asked, “Is that for me?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t need any more acid in her stomach, but holding the cup gave her something to do. He took a seat across the table from her and set his cup in front of him. Neither of them sampled their drinks.
Zoey decided to wait for him to speak first. Instead, he picked up from the floor a white paper shopping bag with handles that she had not previously noticed. He set the bag on the table and shoved it toward her. “What’s this?”
Not a calling-off-our-engagement gift, surely.
Cooper nodded toward the bag. “I made some calls and tracked these down. I think this would help you a lot.”
Zoey couldn’t read the expression in his eyes as she reached into the bag. She pulled out a box. A single-party DNA test. Her brows arched, and her gaze briefly flew toward a stoic Cooper before returning to the bag to retrieve another one of the boxes. Another test kit. Five more boxes, including different tests and different manufacturers of the identical test. He’d covered every available base.
He was suggesting she put her DNA into the wild and see what turned up.
Zoey recoiled from the idea. It was something she’d considered and rejected in the past. “This is a Pandora’s box.”
“It could be. But you need answers, Zoey. I see that now. You told me that previously, your father gave you his blessing to do this, so maybe now is the time.”
What Cooper said was true. Adam Hillcrest had no pressing desire to learn his former wife’s true identity. That ship had sailed years ago. However, he didn’t oppose Zoey’s going down that road if that’s what she wanted to do.
“I can’t take my mother’s DNA. It’s probably illegal. It’s definitely an invasion of privacy.”
“What’s she gonna do? Sue you? Look, she owes you answers. If you want them, I think you should take advantage of the tools that science has provided.”
“I can’t do it, Cooper. It would make me feel scummy.”
“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “Then you test your DNA. See if you find out anything that way.”
Zoey thought about her mother’s ramblings. She thought about her computer file with the notes she’d made. “I’ve never thought it was a good idea to put private information out there in the ether. You don’t like the idea, as I recall. We’ve talked about it in the past.”
“True. But if this is the only way for you to get the answers you need, maybe it’s worth the risk.” As Zoey picked up one of the boxes and began reading the back, he added, “Look, Zoey, it’s become obvious to me that you need the answers. However, I’m not trying to pressure you. I simply wanted to make it easier for you. This is totally your decision.”
“Thank you. This means a lot to me, Cooper.” Acting on instinct, she reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Did you get my voice mail?”
“I did. I’m glad you’re going to talk to Dr. Rios. I hope it helps.” Rising, he said, “I’ve got to get back to work. I hope you have an easy shift tonight. I’ll see you in the morning at home.”
He left without giving her a good-bye kiss, which was unusual. Zoey let out a slow breath. Okay. Well. At least the wedding was still on.
For now, anyway. He might not have come here today to break up with her, but things were obviously not right between them. Had their relationship been healthy, the thought of breaking up wouldn’t have popped into her brain so easily. But it wasn’t healthy. It might not be on hospice, but it was definitely in intensive care. Except, she hadn’t been giving it care, had she? What kind of doctor are you? A lousy one. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
Sadness, shame, and regret washed through her, and she closed her eyes against a flood of tears. If she started crying now, she wouldn’t stop.
When Zoey returned to her mother’s room a few moments later with a heavy heart and the sack full of DNA kits in tow, Jennifer was stirring again. Zoey grabbed her notebook and sat with her mother until long after she’d quieted. When Zoey finally left the hospice facility and headed for the hospital, she wasn’t looking forward to the shift. She had, however, made one momentous decision.
She dropped a pair of envelopes containing DNA samples into the mailbox on the corner.
Jennifer Hillcrest passed away three days later while Zoey worked her shift at the hospital. She left a handwritten will leaving all her worldly goods to her only relative, her daughter, Zoey.