JoAnn Ross - No Regrets

Having taken an intro psych course in college, Lena recognized the Jungian shadow term. Although she’d received an A in the course, she’d never thought of the concept in relation to her own personality.

She stared down at the unappealing card for a long time, allowing another silence to stretch between them.

“Although it’s not wise to take the cards too literally,” Ophelia said quietly, “the devil often symbolizes the removal of fears and inhibitions that hinder personal growth.”

“Like not being able to love openly?”

“That could be an example. In the fifth position, this is a very good card. You’re facing a time of great growth. A time when much good could come from apparent evil.”

Lena knew a lot about evil. The trick was to somehow learn to accept the good.

“Thank you.” She reached into her purse and added more bills to the ones she’d already paid when she’d first sat down. “You’ve given me a great deal to think about.”

“It was your own willingness to open your heart and your mind to the message of the cards,” Ophelia reminded her.

Open your heart. The words reverberated over and over again in her mind as Lena drove away from funky Venice to the privileged enclaves of Pacific Palisades. That was something she’d never been able to do. Not since that long-ago Christmas Eve.

She’d tried to tell Reece that she didn’t have it in her to love him the way a wife should love her husband. Oh, she admired him, of course. And respected him without question, which wasn’t difficult since he was the most noble, honorable, caring man she’d ever met. And she was truly fond of him.

Her mind drifted back to that day, six months after they’d first met, when he’d taken her hand and led her to a secluded bench in Griffith Park.

“I love you, Lena.” His handsome face had been so earnest, so sincere, it almost made her weep.

She’d dragged her gaze from his to the children pouring out of the yellow school bus that had pulled into the planetarium parking lot. Dressed in a parochial school uniform similar to the one she’d once worn, they were laughing and obviously enjoying their field trip. Lena had been unable to remember a time while growing up when she’d felt even half as carefree as those children looked.

She’d been about to tell Reece yet again that she couldn’t marry him. But as she watched the children lining up in double lines, something inside her moved. The response to the children was as unbidden as it was unfamiliar. Perhaps, she’d thought, if she married Reece and had a child, she wouldn’t feel so empty.

She’d drawn in a deep breath and hoped she was making the right decision. “If you’re really serious…”

“Of course I am,” he’d answered in that calm, rational way she assumed he must have learned growing up in that mansion in North Carolina.

Feeling as if she were perched on the edge of a steep and dangerous precipice, she’d taken another deep breath and leapt daringly over the edge. “Then my answer’s yes. I’ll marry you.”

His joyous whoop had drawn the attention of the children, who’d laughed at the sight of the man picking the pretty woman up and twirling her around in his arms. What neither they, nor Reece had seen, was the shimmer of tears in Lena’s eyes.

The memory of that day, along with the knowledge of how unfair she’d been to the only man who’d ever loved her, made Lena’s eyes fill with tears all over again.

Open your heart. Dear Lord, how she wanted to do that! For Reece, and for herself.

As she turned onto the winding road leading up the cliff to their ocean-view house, Lena realized that unfortunately she had no idea where—or how—to begin.

Then the answer came to her, so bright and vivid, she wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her before.

Molly could help her sort this out. As she had every other problem in Lena’s life. Even before that horrifying night their daddy had gotten drunk and made them orphans.

She’d talk to her big sister first thing tomorrow, Lena decided. After Christmas dinner.

Although it had been a very long time since she could remember having anything to feel hopeful about, Lena was smiling as she pulled her Jaguar into the half-moon driveway.

Chapter Two

“Emergency department.” Impatience crackled in Molly’s usually calm and reassuring voice. She sighed and prayed, as she was so often forced to do, for patience.

“Hello?” There was a slight pause. “Is this Mercy Samaritan Hospital?” Molly thought the hesitant female voice sounded slightly slurred.

“Yes. You’ve reached the emergency department. How can I help you?”

“It’s my husband.”

Molly groaned inwardly, realizing this was going to be one of those calls in which she had to drag the information out one word at a time. Frustrated, she pushed a long jet curl that had come loose from the knot at the back of her neck.

“Has he been injured?”

“Not yet.” There was a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Although I’m thinking about cutting his prick off with the electric carving knife.” The words were definitely slurred.

“I’d advise against that, ma’am. The police frown on such things. Meanwhile, if your husband isn’t hurt right now, I’m afraid we’re very busy and—”

“He’s got the clap. And he didn’t get it from me.”

Molly rubbed unconsciously at her temples where a headache hammered. “I see.”

“And now I have this goddamn rash, which is the only reason the son of a bitch confessed to screwing around in the first place. So, I guess I’d better come in for a test.”

“That would be my suggestion. You need to be seen by a doctor and get started on antibiotic treatment,” she told the caller. “You should also have an AIDS test.”

“You think I have AIDS?”

Molly heard the sudden panic in the woman’s voice. “I’m only suggesting the test as a precaution,” she said as soothingly as possible. “Since your sexual relationship with your husband was not the monogamous one you believed it to be—”

“I’m not taking any AIDS test.”

“It can be done confidentially, if you’re worried about—”

“If you have AIDS, you die. And if I’m gonna die, I damn well don’t want to know it. I’m also going to kill the bastard if he gave it to me.” That said, the woman slammed down the receiver.

Her ears ringing, Molly took a deep breath, said a quick prayer for both the philandering husband and his angry wife, then returned to the fray.

Her next patient was a two-year-old child who’d been nipped by the family’s new German shepherd puppy.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Molly soothed as she cleaned the puncture wound, gave the little girl a tetanus shot and advised the mother to keep the child away from the puppy until things quieted down after the holidays.

“I need a prescription for a seven-day course of penicillin,” she told Reece, when he paused at the desk to pick up the next chart. “It’s for a dog bite.”

He pulled a prescription pad from a pocket bulging with tongue depressors, a pen light and ampoules of medications.

“I wish people would listen when the Humane Society tells them this is the worst time of year to try to introduce a new animal into the home.” He scribbled the order onto the pad. “Was that a VD call I heard you taking?”

“You’ve got good ears.” Molly wondered how he could have heard anything over the din.

“Nah. I’m just nosy.” He ripped the script off and handed it to her. “So, have you heard the county health department’s new venereal disease slogan?”

“I don’t think so. What is it?”

“VD is nothing to clap about.”