Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

“It takes a lot of courage to let go,” he said simply, and she nodded. She liked talking to him. He was a sensible, down-to-earth person. She would have liked to get to know him better and be friends with him. She hadn’t even had room in her life for friends for years.

“Gabriel seems very taken with Stephanie,” she commented. They had all noticed it. “I wonder where that’s going to lead.”

“Into deep water if she’s not careful. They’re both married. That seems dangerous to me. And complicated when she goes back. It’s easy to forget that when you’re far from home and real life,” Bill said wisely.

“I like our group,” Wendy said, at ease with him. “And I like the French docs too. I wasn’t going to come on this trip. I’m glad I did.” She smiled at him.

“Me too. I leapt at it, as an excuse to see my girls for four weekends. But it’s been really interesting so far.” They agreed that they’d both been impressed by the emergency services drill that had been organized for them.

“I wonder what they have in store for us this week,” she said. They would get their schedule on Monday.

“A lot more hospital visits. How do you like working at Stanford?” he asked her, since he’d done his residency there.

“I love it. SF General must be a tough place to work.”

“It’s fantastic. It suits me. I love the cases we get, as long as I don’t get shot in the process.” He grinned at her. “It’s probably the only trauma unit in the city where patients shoot each other in the ER.”

“I can live without that,” Wendy said, horrified by the thought. They talked about work for a while. They both loved working at teaching hospitals, and he was on the faculty at UCSF, like the rest of the staff at SF General. Then he got up, and thanked her for dinner. It had been a nice end to the weekend for both of them.

“See you tomorrow,” he said easily. They both felt as though they’d made a friend, and Bill hoped to see her again when they got back to San Francisco. There was no pressure, no romance, no agenda. It would be nice to have a female friend for a change. They worked in a rough-and-ready world, which ate up one’s personal life, if you let it. It sounded like she needed to broaden her horizons too. It was easy to let your life shrink to the size of the trauma unit. It was a hazard of the kind of work they did. They went home too exhausted and emotionally drained to do much else. He always marveled at the doctors he knew who went home and managed to give more to their spouses and children. Some days he was too empty after work to even talk to another human being. You gave everything you had to give at work, and the people at home felt cheated. He’d seen it happen a lot in trauma work. There were easier specialties, but Bill knew they would have bored him. He loved what he did.

He went back to his apartment next door to hers, and was glad he’d had dinner with her. They were the gladiators of their profession, and they worked under constant pressure. A split second could make the difference between saving a life and losing a patient.

Wendy was thinking about him as she washed the dishes and put them away in the tiny kitchen. The apartments weren’t fancy but had everything they needed. She felt like a student being there, going to their meetings every day. And she liked what they were learning from their French partners. There were some new techniques and equipment they didn’t use in the States yet, and a different attitude about terrorism and trauma due to their more frequent incidents and present risks.

She admired Valérie too, and her take on the psychological aspects of the world they lived in. She wanted to get to know her better. Wendy had enjoyed everyone she’d met in the program so far. She would have liked to tell Jeff about it, but contact with him was taboo.

She knew he had left for Aspen that weekend with his wife and children, and what she had said to Bill was true. All hope for a future with Jeff had gone out of the relationship while she wasn’t looking. She knew now she’d never have more with him than their stolen Wednesday nights. She was angry at herself for settling for so little, but she didn’t know if she had the guts to leave him. She was so used to building her life around him and putting everything else on hold, even though she saw so little of him. Thinking about him with Jane in Aspen still made her sad. His wife had everything Wendy wanted and would never have. She was giving the relationship serious thought while she was in Paris.

It also occurred to her that most people in trauma and ER work didn’t seem to have stable home lives. She, Tom, and Bill didn’t have partners, and it sounded like Stephanie’s marriage was shaky. On the French side, Gabriel’s life wasn’t solid either, and Marie-Laure, Valérie, and Paul were alone too. They gave everything they had to their jobs. They had nothing left when they came home at night. At least Bill seemed to have a good relationship with his kids, when he saw them. But Stephanie had admitted to her how torn she was between her work and her family, and how guilty she felt because of it. Wendy wondered if she had a better life after all. Maybe if she were married to Jeff, they’d have nothing to give each other either. Jeff’s priority was his work, just as hers was. How much room did that leave for a relationship or another person? Maybe not enough.

It was a concept she wanted to explore with the others. They were all warriors in a cold, lonely world, fighting for each life they saved, more than in other specialties. Wendy had been challenged by the severity of the injuries they dealt with during her residency, and loved the work, but she hadn’t understood the high price they themselves paid until later. And few of their patients made full recoveries, which was disheartening. Most were just too damaged. Even when they saved patients, quality of life afterward was an issue, especially with head injuries. It was serious business. But she still loved being pushed to the maximum of her abilities, and the successes they had. They all did, which was why they stayed in it. She couldn’t imagine doing any other kind of work, and Bill had said the same during dinner. It was a victory every time they saved a life.

Wendy wasn’t even sure she wanted children anymore. She had given up the idea a few years before, because of the Jeff situation, but maybe having them wouldn’t have been right for her anyway. She wondered if you needed a nonmedical partner to have a family and do it successfully. Bill had admitted that his ex-wife was a good mother to their daughters. And he spent less than two months with them every year, although he would have seen more of them if they’d lived in San Francisco. He seemed like a good dad to Wendy.

There was a lot to think about when she went to bed that night. Then her mind drifted to Jeff again, in Aspen with Jane, and her heart sank as it always did when she imagined them together. She had become the willing outcast in his life, the dark secret. It was a role she didn’t want to play anymore, and she was sure of that now. She hadn’t told Bill her boyfriend was married because she was ashamed of it. All she had to do now was tell Jeff. That was the hard part. And then walk away, which was going to be the hardest part of all.

Chapter Eight

Feeling very Parisian, the four Americans rode rented Vélib’ bikes to their COZ meeting on Monday morning, to start their second informative week. Wendy and Stephanie complained that they weren’t wearing helmets, and Tom and Bill brushed it off, as they watched for cars and motorbikes in the erratic traffic patterns.

“It would be embarrassing if we end up brain damaged while on our mission here,” Stephanie grumbled, pedaling as fast as the men with her long legs. Wendy had to work harder to keep up, and Bill occasionally slowed down for her to make sure she didn’t get lost on the way.