The M.D.'s Surprise Family. Marie Ferrarella

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      “Look, Miss—” He stopped, looking to her to fill in the gap.

      “Songbird,” Raven supplied. “But you might find it easier to call me Raven.”

      Songbird. It figured. The woman was definitely as flighty as they came. She meandered around enough to imitate the flight pattern of a slightly dizzy bird.

      “Miss Songbird, is there a point to this?” he asked impatiently, looking at his watch. He felt as if he was wasting precious time here and as he spoke, Peter began to rise from his chair. “Because if there isn’t, then I have got—”

      The woman with the mesmerizing, almond-shaped eyes reached out and placed her hand on his, staying his exit. For half a second, immobilized by surprise, Peter left his hand beneath hers. The next moment he pulled his hand back, staring at her as if she were some kind of alien creature. He was willing to concede the point without debate.

      “Sorry, still getting a feel for you. You are awfully tense. Are you operating soon?”

      Not a retro-hippie, he decided, but a Gypsy. All that was missing was a tambourine and a colorful scarf around her head. She already had the bright outfit. “Just who are you?” He wanted to know.

      “No,” she said as if he’d asked her another question entirely—or was about to, “I don’t believe in tarot cards, or fortune-telling, but there is such a thing as an aura and I can feel yours.” She felt it prudent not to tell him about her mother’s heritage. It might only served to spook him, or worse, to make him more cynical. “It’s very, very uptight. Brittle, you might say,” she added.

      Beyond brittle, he thought. Damn close to broken. His aura, if there was such a thing, had long since been destroyed. Lisa and Becky had been his only reason for living and now they were gone. If he was alive, it was just because he’d been going through the motions for so long, he’d forgotten how to stop.

      He looked from the boy to the woman. She’d come in with a manila envelope tucked under her arm. He assumed this visit had something to do with that. “Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”

      “My brother’s pediatrician thought we should come to see you.” This time, she did slide forward on the seat, as if what she was saying made her uneasy and she wanted to say it quickly. “Blue has three tumors along his spinal cord. He needs to have them removed as soon as possible,” she recited as if she’d rehearsed the words for hours in her vanity mirror. “I have an X ray.” She laid the large manila envelope on his desk.

      With a barely stifled impatient sigh, Peter took out the X ray she’d brought and looked at it. He was aware that the boy was leaning forward and had propped his chin on his fisted hands, staring at the same X ray.

      “That’s my spinal cord,” he said as if he knew exactly what a spinal chord was. “Kind of messed up, isn’t it?”

      Peter looked at Raven. “How old did you say he was?”

      “I’m seven,” he said.

      “Seven,” Peter repeated. The same age that Becky had been before… Before. He didn’t remember Becky sounding this old. “He doesn’t sound seven.”

      “He was reading at three,” Raven told him proudly.

      Peter nodded. “Impressive.” He turned his attention to the X ray.

      It was the barest of introductions to the problem. He would need extensive films taken if he decided to undertake the surgery. But what he was looking at was enough to tell him that the boy’s pediatrician wasn’t mistaken. There were indeed tumors clustering at the base of the boy’s spinal cord.

      “Your brother’s pediatrician is right,” he informed Raven crisply, sliding the X ray back into the manila envelope.

      “Yes, I know.” She looked at him. “Dr. DuCane’s been Blue’s doctor ever since he was a week old and I trust her implicitly. That’s why we’re here.”

      He looked from the boy to the woman. “What kind of a name is Blue?”

      Blue grinned at Raven and launched into an explanation. “It was the color of the sky my mother was staring at when she gave birth to me in the field.”

      Peter looked sharply at Blue’s sister. Had the boy’s mother gone into premature labor while they were out on the road? “‘In the field’?”

      Raven pressed her lips together, obviously struggling with something. “My mother didn’t like hospitals. She said they always made her think about people dying.”

      He noticed the grim set to the woman’s mouth, such contrast to the smile that had been there seconds ago. The change vaguely stirred a question in his mind, but he let it go. He didn’t indulge in personal questions, unless they had something to do with the outcome of the surgery. “Is that why she’s not here right now?”

      “No.” Raven took a breath, as if that could somehow buffer the pain that assaulted her each time her mind turned to the subject. “She’s not here because she died in a car accident when Blue was two. Both of my parents died in the crash.”

      She didn’t add that they, along with Blue, had been on their way to her college graduation. They’d gotten a late start because her mother had been finishing up a project that was due. In a hurry, they weren’t paying strict attention to the road. The highway patrolman told her that a trucker who had fallen asleep at the wheel had plowed right into them.

      Blue, in the back seat, had miraculously managed to survive, but both of her parents had died instantly.

      She saw an odd expression come over the doctor’s face. She was accustomed to looks of pity or sympathy. This was neither. “Is anything wrong, Doctor?”

      The words “car accident” had instantly raised myriad thoughts in his head, bringing with it an unwanted image that he strove, every day of his life, to erase from his mind.

      He’d been on the scene only minutes after it had taken place.

      The surgery had run over and he’d been hurrying home to his family because he’d promised to be there early for once. Lisa and Becky were taking him out for his birthday. He’d had no idea that they had been on their way to the hospital to surprise him. Driving fast, with one eye out for the highway patrol, he’d passed an overturned car on the side of the road.

      The scene was already behind him when the delayed recognition had hit him.

      He didn’t know how many seconds had passed before he’d realized that the mangled blue Toyota hadn’t just resembled Lisa’s car, it was Lisa’s car.

      He remembered praying as he’d spun his car around. Praying he was wrong. That someone else’s family was there, beneath the sheets, and not his.

      It was the last prayer he remembered praying. Because the answer had been negative.

      Peter blew out a breath slowly, shutting away the memory. Shutting away the pain.

      “No,” he told her in a dead voice, “nothing’s wrong.”

      Chapter Two

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