Sidney Sheldon - Nothing lasts forever

“Hey! Wait a minute!” Leonard protested. “I can't eat the pap this hospital is giving me!”

“You'll eat it if you want to get rid of your ulcer.” Kat looked at the nurse. “Take it out.”

Thirty minutes later, Kat was summoned to the office of the administrator.

“You wanted to see me, Dr. Wallace?”

“Yes. Sit down. Tom Leonard is one of your patients, isn't he?”

' “That's right. I found him eating a hot pastrami sandwich with pickles and potato salad for lunch today, full of spices and—”

“And you took it away from him.”

“Of course.”

Wallace leaned forward in his chair. “Doctor, you probably were not aware that Tom Leonard is on the hospital's supervisory board. We want to keep him happy. Do you get my meaning?”

Kat looked at him and said stubbornly, “No, sir.”

He blinked. “What?”

“It seems to me that the way to keep Tom Leonard happy is to get him healthy. He's not going to be cured if he tears his stomach apart.”

Benjamin Wallace forced a smile. “Why don't we let him make that decision?”

Kat stood up. “Because I'm his doctor. Is there anything else?”

“I … er … no. That's all.”

Kat walked out of the office.

Benjamin Wallace sat there stunned. Women doctors.

Kat was on night duty when she received a call. “Dr. Hunter, I think you had better come up to 320.”

“Right away.”

The patient in Room 320 was Mrs. Molloy, a cancer patient in her eighties, with a poor prognosis. As Kat neared the door she heard voices inside, raised in argument. Kat stepped inside the room.

Mrs. Molloy was in bed, heavily sedated, but conscious. Her son and two daughters were in the room.

The son was saying, “I say we split the estate up three ways.”

“No!” one of the daughters said. “Laurie and I are the ones who have been taking care of Mama. Who's been doing the cooking and cleaning for her? We have! Well, we're entitled to her money and—”

“I'm as much her flesh and blood as you are!” the man yelled.

Mrs. Molloy lay in bed, helpless, listening.

Kat was furious. “Excuse me,” she said.

One of the women glanced at her. “Come back later, nurse. We're busy.”

Kat said angrily, “This is my patient. I'm giving you all ten seconds to get out of this room. You can wait in the visitors' waiting room. Now get out before I call security and have you thrown out.”

The man started to say something, but the look in Kat's eyes stopped him. He turned to his sisters and shrugged. “We can talk outside.”

Kat watched the three of them leave the room. She turned to Mrs. Molloy in bed and stroked her head. “They didn't mean anything by it,” Kat said softly. She sat at the bedside, holding the old woman's hand, and watched her drop off to sleep.

We're all dying, Kat thought. Forget what Dylan Thomas said. The real trick is to go gentle into that good night.

Kat was in the middle of treating a patient when an orderly came into the ward. “There's an urgent call for you at the desk, doctor.”

Kat frowned. “Thank you.” She turned to the patient, who was in a full body cast, with his legs suspended on a pulley. “I'll be right back.”

In the corridor, at the nurses' station, Kat picked up the desk telephone. “Hello?”

“Hi, sis.”

“Mike!” She was excited to hear from him, but her excitement immediately turned to concern. “Mike, I told you never to call me here. You have the number at the apartment if—”

“Hey, I'm sorry. This couldn't wait. I have a little problem.”

Kat knew what was coming.

“I borrowed some money from a fellow to invest in a business …”

Kat didn't bother asking what kind of business. “And it failed.”

“Yeah. And now he wants his money.”

“How much, Mike?”

“Well, if you could send five thousand …”

“What?”

The desk nurse was looking at Kat curiously.

Five thousand dollars. Kat lowered her voice. “I don't have that much. I … I can send you half and the rest in a few weeks. Will that be all right?”

“I guess so. I hate to bother you, sis, but you how it is.”

Kat knew exactly how it was. Her brother was twenty two years old and was always involved in mysterious deals. He ran with gangs, and God only knew what they were up to, but Kat felt a deep responsibility toward him. It's all my fault, Kat thought. If I hadn't run away from home and deserted him … “Stay out of trouble, Mike. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Kat.”

I'll have to get him that money, somehow, Kat thought. Mike's all I have in the world.

Dr. Isler had been looking forward to working with Honey Taft again. He had forgiven her inept performance and, in fact, was flattered that she was in such awe of him. But now, on rounds with her once more, Honey stayed behind the other residents and never volunteered an answer to his questions.

Thirty minutes after rounds, Dr. Isler was seated in Benjamin Wallace's office.

“What's the problem?” Wallace asked.

“It's Dr. Taft.”

Wallace looked at him in genuine surprise, “Dr. Taft? She has the best recommendations I've ever seen.”

“That's what puzzles me,” Dr. Isler said. “I've been getting reports from some of the other residents. She's misdiagnosing cases and making serious mistakes. I'd like to know what the hell is going on.”

“I don't understand. She went to a fine medical school.”

“Maybe you should give the dean of the school a call,” Dr. Isler suggested.

“That's Jim Pearson. He's a good man. I'll call him.”

A few minutes later, Wallace had Jim Pearson on the telephone. They exchanged pleasantries, and then Wallace said, “I'm calling about Betty Lou Taft.”

There was a brief silence. “Yes?”

“We seem to be having a few problems with her, Jim. She was admitted here with your wonderful recommendation.”

“Right.”

“In fact, I have your report in front of me. It says she was one of the brightest students you ever had.”

“That's right.”

“And that she was going to be a credit to the medical profession.”

“Yes.”

“Was there any doubt about …?”

“None,” Dr. Pearson said firmly. “None at all. She's probably a little nervous. She's high-strung, but if you just give her a chance, I'm sure she'll be fine.”

“Well, I appreciate your telling me. We'll certainly give her every chance. Thank you.”

“Not at all.” The line went dead.

Jim Pearson sat there, hating himself for what he had done.

But my wife and children come first.

Honey Taft had the bad fortune to have been born into a family of overachievers. Her handsome father was the founder and president of a large computer company in Memphis, Tennessee, her lovely mother was a genetic scientist, and Honey's older twin sisters were as attractive, as brainy, and as ambitious as their parents. The Tafts were among the most prominent families in Memphis.

Honey had inconveniently come along when her sisters were six years old.

“Honey was our little accident,” her mother would tell their friends. “I wanted to have an abortion, but Fred was against it. Now he's sorry.”

Where Honey's sisters were stunning, Honey was plain. Where they were brilliant, Honey was average.

Her sisters had started talking at nine months. Honey had not uttered a word until she was almost two.

“We call her 'the dummy,' ” her father would laugh.

“Honey is the ugly duckling of the Taft family. Only I don't think she's going to turn into a swan.”

It was not that Honey was ugly, but neither was she pretty. She was ordinary-looking, with a thin, pinched face, mousy blond hair, and an unenviable figure. What Honey did have was an extraordinarily sweet, sunny disposition, a quality not particularly prized in a family of competitive overachievers.