me, even if you’re Mr. Alison.”
Alison burst out laughing and bent down to hug her mother, a thing she hadn’t done in a long time.
“So that’s that! I’m sorry I upset you, Aunt Clare. Aunt Bertie and Uncle Mike said I could share today.”
The group clapped for her and, where they could reach her, stretched out to hug her or shake her hand or give her the thumbs-up. Then Mike held up a pie.
“And now we have dessert,” Alison said. “I’ll be happy to answer your questions after dinner.”
By the time the night was finished, exhaustion set in. “I’m ready to leave, and we have a full day of surgery tomorrow,” Alison said to Rich.
“I’ll follow you,” he said.
He did, too, staying a couple of car lengths behind her all the way home. When they got home, he begged her to let him come in for a bit.
“I promise I won’t stay long.”
They got into the apartment, and he embraced her, smoothing her hair back, kissing her. “I’m so proud of you,” he said, his voice full of emotion. “You were really something back there at dinner.”
“Poor Aunt Clare.”
They laughed for a bit. “She’s a mess,” he said. “Her sons were mortified, by the way. They both came up to me later and said the same thing. They were proud of you.”
“It took more courage than I thought I had,” she replied. “It’s almost easier to live a lie. But I’m over it.”
“I’m with you.”
They kissed goodnight, and when she watched him drive off, glancing up at the moon shining on that sliver of ocean, a feeling of loneliness washed over her.
Chapter 3
Three weeks until Christmas. The OR schedule had been ramping up for days, people wanting their elective surgeries completed before the holidays. The first-year residents had melded into their positions in the hospital and, with a few bumps in the road, were doing what was expected of them.
Dr. Saint and Dr. Kravitz had established a truce of sorts. She stayed at a distance whenever possible, and when it was impossible, he behaved in a respectful manner. But he knew, and suffered for it, that she had the upper hand. He watched and listened, hoping for a way to even the score, although she’d done nothing to deserve his scrutiny or his wrath.
The OR staff watched and waited, and short of her leaving the program, there wasn’t a thing that Kravitz could do. The ethics board and the powers-that-be watched him too, not wanting him to slip up, but they weren’t going to let him get away with anything either. His past failings would haunt him, and he worked at not repeating them.
Then, one night a week before Christmas, fourth-year resident Violet O’Doyle and Alison were on call together when a fifteen-year-old girl came in through the ER with suspected appendicitis. Violet knew Kravitz was the attending on call and, loathing to call him at two in the morning, called Rich instead.
“I want to tell you to do it alone, Vi, but you can’t. Call him and let him tell you to do it alone, and then I’d say okay. I’d let you take my appendix out any day, but it has to come from the attending.”
Steeling herself for the incriminations when she woke him up, it was worse than she anticipated. Arriving at the hospital smelling of alcohol, all of his previous promises of good behavior flew out the door. Throwing a temper tantrum in front of the OR nursing staff on call, Kravitz sealed his fate. Barry, the anesthesiologist on call, refused to take the patient into the room, and that further enraged the surgeon.
“I’ll call Bushnell,” Barry said. “And, Violet, ask Rich Mortimer to come in. He can do the surgery without an attending if no one else will.”
Alison had taken the patient and her family into a small procedure room that was out of the way of the drama, hoping to spare them. She was dying to call her father, but it was the middle of the night, and she guessed he’d hear about it soon enough.
With the lights down low and after providing comfortable seating for the patient’s parents, Alison snuck out into the holding area to see what was going on.
“Rich is coming in,” Violet said. “Mack’s in Catalina.”
“What about Kravitz?”
“Barry told him he’d call the police if he came near the patient, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“In medical school, no one ever says you might have to