“Sonny! You know. Sonny and Cher! He’s got you, babe!” she sang.
Sassy kept grinning, and Marion laughed, her heart full. She didn’t know about the whole Sonny thing, but Sassy’s reaction was enough. Growing up, she had wondered if she’d missed out, never having had a best friend. That question no longer mattered.
Now she had Sassy.
eighteenMARION
Marion made sure she was at work early on Wednesday. She had prepared for this day, and yet she felt completely at a loss. When she walked into the staff room, Paul was leaning back in a chair, reading what looked like a letter.
“Good morning,” she said with a smile, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“Good for you, being upbeat. How many of yours are leaving today?”
“I wasn’t being upbeat, just polite. Two more. I submitted the last of their paperwork this morning. Six left last week. Two of those were taken in by family, but the others were not welcomed. Hardly a surprise.” She sipped her coffee and with a studied nonchalance said, “Your former patient, Daniel Neumann, is leaving soon.”
“They assure us,” Paul said, studying the tattered arm of his chair, “that we don’t need to worry.”
“In all our years at med school and beyond, I don’t remember learning who ‘they’ is.”
They heard the sound of Dr. Bernstein’s footfalls approaching, and Paul chuckled softly. “Speak of the devil. Here comes ‘they’ now.”
“Doctors,” Dr. Bernstein acknowledged, reaching for the coffeepot. “How are we feeling today?”
“Actually, we—”
Paul’s hand clamped onto her forearm. “Can’t complain. It’s a fine morning.”
Dr. Bernstein’s eyes narrowed at Marion. “Seems a bold place for the two of you to meet, right here in the open, doesn’t it?”
Marion’s jaw dropped, and she whipped her arm out of Paul’s reach. “Pardon me?”
“I do not encourage fraternizing among the staff, but seeing as you are both professionals, I—”
“Dr. Bernstein! I object to your assumption. Dr. McKenny! Tell him.”
Paul smiled. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid your conjecture is incorrect, Dr. Bernstein. As charming and beautiful as Dr. Hart unquestionably is, she and I are only friends and colleagues. We have well-established boundaries.”
Those boundaries had been set months before, when she’d finally agreed to go for dinner with him a second time. After a delicious meal, he had chased after a different kind of dessert, and she’d surprised both of them by slapping his face. He had sheepishly admitted she’d warned him, then he backed off and apologized. Since then, there had been no suggestion of a third date, but she was glad they were still friends. Plus, he was someone with whom she felt comfortable discussing cases, and sometimes that could be hard to do.
Still, her face burned. “Dr. McKenny, I find it disrespectful when you refer to my charm and beauty. I am your colleague and your equal. I would appreciate it if you would keep that in mind.”
The men exchanged a glance then turned back to her. Apology softened Paul’s expression.
“Understood,” Dr. Bernstein said, his lips slightly pursed. “I do hope you will not reprimand me for pointing out that your job is not to sit around, talking. Your patients are waiting.”
“A lot fewer of them,” Paul muttered as their boss walked away.
At first, Paul had been like so many of their generation, caught up in fashionable new ideas about treating people with psychiatric problems: a clean sweep of these old institutions, and a fresh start with communityhealth centres. The plan had been popular until recently, when the consequences Marion had feared had started to occur: increased vagrancy, addiction, crime. Now Paul was completely on Marion’s side, but it was too late.
“None of it makes sense to me,” she said.
Paul rolled up his letter and was tapping it thoughtfully against the arm of his chair. “I’ll tell you what else doesn’t make sense. My friend wrote to me about hospitals in Vietnam. Did you know they’re being targeted out there?”
“What do you mean? The hospitals specifically? Aren’t there rules in war? Like no bombing medics or field hospitals?”
He unrolled the paper. “He wrote about this woman, Claire Culhane. She was a medical administrator at Grace Dart Tuberculosis Hospital in Montreal. Last spring she felt moved by a front-page photograph inWeekend Magazinethat showed a young Canadian nurse caring for orphaned infants in Vietnam. She decided to go there herself and see what it was all about.”
“Gosh. That’s brave.”
