Sidney Sheldon - Nothing lasts forever

As Paige walked through the parking lot, she was reminded of Harry Bowman and his red Ferrari. “How many lives were destroyed by the poison Harry Bowman was selling?” she wondered. “Drugs were so seductive. And, in the end, so deadly.”

Jimmy Ford showed up with a small bouquet of flowers for Paige.

“What's this for, Jimmy?”

He blushed. “I just wanted you to have it. Did you know I'm getting married?”

“No! That's wonderful. Who's the lucky girl?”

“Her name is Betsy. She works at a dress shop. We're going to have half a dozen kids. The first girl is going to be named Paige. I hope you don't mind.”

“Mind? I'm flattered.”

He was embarrassed. “Did you hear the one about the doctor who gave a patient two weeks to live? ‘I can't pay you right now,’ the man said. ‘All right, I'll give you another two weeks.’”

And Jimmy was gone.

Paige was worried about Tom Chang. He was having violent mood swings from euphoria to deep depression.

One morning during a talk with Paige, he said, “Do you realize that most of the people in here would die without us? We have the power to heal their bodies and make them whole again.”

And the next morning: “We're all kidding ourselves, Paige. Our patients would get better faster without us. We're hypocrites, pretending that we have all the answers. Well, we don't.”

Paige studied him a moment. “What do you hear from Sye?”

“I talked to her yesterday. She won't come back here. She's going ahead with the divorce.”

Paige put her hand on his arm. “I'm so sorry, Tom.”

He shrugged. “Why? It doesn't bother me. Not anymore. I'll find another woman.” He grinned. “And have another child. You'll see.”

There was something unreal about the conversation.

That night Paige said to Kat, “I'm worried about Tom Chang. Have you talked to him lately?”

“Yes.”

“Did he seem normal to you?”

“No man seems normal to me,” Kat said.

Paige was still concerned. “Let's invite him for dinner tomorrow night.”

“All right.”

The next morning when Paige reported to the hospital, she was greeted with the news that a janitor had found Tom Chang's body in a basement equipment room. He had died of an overdose of sleeping pills.

Paige was near hysteria. “I could have saved him,” she cried. “All this time he was calling out for help, and I didn't hear him.”

Kat said firmly, “There's no way you could have helped him, Paige. You were not the problem, and you were not the solution. He didn't want to live without his wife and child. It's as simple as that.”

Paige wiped the tears from her eyes. “Damn this place!” she said. “If it weren't for the pressure and the hours, his wife never would have left him.”

“But she did,” Kat said gently. “It's over.”

Paige had never been to a Chinese funeral before. It was an incredible spectacle. It began at the Green Street Mortuary in Chinatown early in the morning, where a crowd started gathering outside. A parade was assembled, with a large brass marching band, and at the head of the parade, mourners carried a huge blowup of a photograph of Tom Chang.

The march began with the band loudly playing, winding through the streets of San Francisco, with a hearse at the end of the procession. Most of the mourners were on foot, but the more elderly rode in cars.

To Paige, the parade seemed to be moving around the city at random. She was puzzled. “Where are they going?” she asked one of the mourners.

He bowed slightly and said, “It is our custom to take the departed past some of the places that have meaning in his life—restaurants where he ate, shops that he used, places he visited …”

“I see.”

The parade ended in front of Embarcadero County Hospital.

The mourner turned to Paige and said, “This is where Tom Chang worked. This is where he found his happiness.”

Wrong, Paige thought. This is where he lost his happiness.

Walking down Market Street one morning, Paige saw Alfred Turner. Her heart started pounding. She had not been able to get him out of her mind. He was starting to cross the street as the light was changing. When Paige got to the corner, the light had turned to red. She ignored it and ran out into the street, oblivious to the honking horns and the outraged cries of motorists.

Paige reached the other side and hurried to catch up with him. She grabbed his sleeve. “Alfred …”

The man turned. “I beg your pardon?”

It was a total stranger.

Now that Paige and Kat were fourth-year residents, they were performing operations on a regular basis.

Kat was working with doctors in neurosurgery, and she never ceased to be amazed at the miracle of the hundred billion complex digital computers called neurons that lived in the skull. The work was exciting.

Kat had enormous respect for most of the doctors she worked with. They were brilliant, skilled surgeons. There were a few doctors who gave her a hard time. They tried to date her, and the more Kat refused to go out with them, the more of a challenge she became.

She heard one doctor mutter, “Here comes old iron-pants.”

She was assisting Dr. Kibler at a brain operation. A tiny incision was made in the cortex, and Dr. Kibler pushed the rubber cannula into the left lateral ventricle, the cavity in the center of the left half of the brain, while Kat held the incision open with a small retractor. Her entire concentration was focused on what was happening in front of her.

Dr. Kibler glanced at her and, as he worked, said, “Did you hear about the wino who staggered into a bar and said, 'Give me a drink, quick!' 'I can't do that,' the bartender said. 'You're already drunk.' ”

The burr was cutting in deeper.

“If you don't give me a drink, I'll kill myself.”

Cerebral spinal fluid flowed out of the cannula from the ventricle.

“I'll tell you what I'll do,” the bartender said. “There are three things I want. You do them for me, and I'll give you a bottle. ”

As he went on talking, fifteen milliliters of air were injected into the ventricle, and X-rays were taken of the anterior-posterior view and the lateral view.

“ 'See that football player sitting in the corner? I can't get him out of here. I want you to throw him out. Next, I have a pet crocodile in my office with a bad tooth. He's so mean I can't get a vet to go near him. Lastly, there's a lady doctor from the Department of Health who's trying to close up this place. You fuck her, and you get the bottle.' ”

A scrub nurse was using suction to reduce the amount of blood in the field.

The wino throws out the football player, and goes into the office where the crocodile is. He comes out fifteen minutes later, all bloody, and his clothes torn, and he says, “Where's the lady doctor with the bad tooth?”

Dr. Kibler roared with laughter. “Do you get it? He fucked the crocodile instead of the doctor. It was probably a better experience!”

Kat stood there, furious, wanting to slap him.

When the operation was over, Kat went to the on-call room to try to get over her anger. I'm not going to let the bastards beat me down. I'm not.

From time to time, Paige went out with doctors from the hospital, but she refused to get romantically involved with any of them. Alfred Turner had hurt her too deeply, and she was determined never to go through that again.

Most of her days and nights were spent at the hospital. The schedule was grueling, but Paige was doing general surgery and she enjoyed it.

One morning, George Englund, the chief of surgery, sent for her.

“You're starting your specialty this year. Cardiovascular surgery.”

She nodded. “That's right.”