Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

“Wowza…who’s the handsome prince on duty today?” a relief nurse filling in on the holiday asked one of the regular nurses as Bill left an exam room and moved on to the next one. He had dark hair and warm chocolate-brown eyes, and looked athletic in the hospital scrubs he wore. His smile, as he talked to the ninety-year-old woman who had fallen, lit up the room. The relief nurse had been observing him closely, and commented afterward that he was a hunk.

“He’s the head of trauma. He always works on holidays,” the regular ER nurse told her. “Don’t get too excited. I’ve worked here for ten years, and I’ve never heard of him dating anyone at work. He’s a serious guy.”

“Married?” the relief nurse quizzed her. He was too attractive to dismiss lightly.

“Divorced, I think. He must be to work the hours he does. He’s just another workaholic. You have to be, around here. I think he has kids somewhere far away, Australia, New Zealand. I forget. That’s why he works holidays.”

“That means no girlfriend either,” the nurse said hopefully.

“Or a very neglected one. The guys in trauma work crazy hours. You should find a nice dermatologist, they’re never on call,” the regular nurse teased her. “I worked with him on Christmas two years ago, and New Year’s Eve. And he signs up for Thanksgiving every year.”

“He probably just hasn’t met the right woman,” the relief nurse said. She was on a mission, which the staff nurse knew wouldn’t get her far with Bill.

“Yeah. Whatever.” They cleaned up the room and moved on to the next cubicle just as Bill was paged for another gunshot wound. It was an eighteen-year-old boy who died while Bill was examining him. The police had brought him in, and there was nothing Bill could do. He had almost bled to death by the time he arrived, shot in the stomach and chest. Bill looked grim as he walked to the nurses’ station and filled out the paperwork. It was his second gunshot fatality of the day. The boy’s family had been called but hadn’t come in yet. It was going to be a hell of a Christmas for them. He glanced up and saw the police paramedic he had seen before. The medic knew what the paperwork meant, and shook his head.

“He was just a kid,” he said. They’d arrived on the scene after the shooter had left.

“Most of them are,” Bill said with a somber expression, as they paged him to go to another exam room. He walked away a minute later, and the police EMT called out to him, “Merry Christmas, Doc.”

Bill waved, already halfway down the hall. “Yeah, you too.” It reminded Bill to take a look at his watch. His girls were in Switzerland, at a chalet Rupert had rented for the holidays, in Gstaad. It was four o’clock in the afternoon in San Francisco, one in the morning in Switzerland. Pip and Alex would be asleep by then, after a busy Christmas Day with their mother and stepfather and half brothers. He had called them at midnight on Christmas Eve, nine A.M. on Christmas Day for them. In another eight hours he could call them again. It gave him something to cheer himself as he grabbed a chart, and walked into the next exam room. He could already tell it was going to be a long night. Talking to his daughters would be his reward at the end of it. He hadn’t seen them since September, but he hoped he would soon. He lived from visit to visit, and for his work. It was the path he was on for now, and he had no regrets. As long as he had Pip and Alex and the trauma unit at SF General, it was enough.

—

Stephanie Lawrence had been up since six A.M. on Christmas morning when her two little boys, Ryan and Aden, four and six years old respectively, had charged into her bedroom and pounced on her and her husband in bed. Clearly the miniature cars and candy canes they’d put in the Christmas stockings in the boys’ room hadn’t distracted them for more than a few minutes. Ryan had the sticky candy all over his hands and face as he climbed into their bed, and Andy groaned, still half asleep.

They’d been up until three A.M., putting toys and the boys’ new bicycles with training wheels together, most of which they’d bought online since Stephanie never had time to shop. The boys were desperate to go downstairs and see what Santa had left for them, as Andy opened one eye and looked at his wife.

“What time is it?” It was still dark and felt like the middle of the night.

“Ten after six,” she said as she leaned over and kissed him. He put an arm around her, and then rolled over on his back, while the boys squealed with anticipation.

They lived in an old but comfortable house in the Upper Haight. They’d bought it before UCSF Hospital moved to Mission Bay. In its previous location, she’d only been a few blocks from work. Getting to the hospital’s new facility took longer, but they loved the house, so they stayed despite the longer drive to work for her.

Stephanie worked at UCSF as a trauma doctor. It was one of the most important teaching hospitals in the city, on a par with Stanford Hospital, where she had gone to medical school. Andy was a freelance journalist and writer. He’d had a job at the Chronicle, the local newspaper, when they were first married, until she got pregnant with Aden during her residency at UCSF, and Andy had volunteered to become a stay-at-home dad, which was a huge sacrifice for him. His hope was to win a Pulitzer one day for his stories about urban crisis. His dreams had gotten somewhat obscured by his responsibilities as a father. But he wanted to support Stephanie’s work. So his career was taking a back seat to hers. They had hired a part-time housekeeper so he could write a few hours a day. The arrangement had worked out well for the past six years, although as Stephanie’s career advanced, she had less free time instead of more and he was always picking up the slack with the boys. He loved them, but had less time to write. She was working harder than ever, and her secret ambition, which only Andy knew, was to become head of the trauma department one day. She had done residencies in neurology and trauma, and was thirty-five years old. Andy was the same age.

He published articles in local and California newspapers and magazines. His career hadn’t taken off as he had hoped it would. He talked about writing a novel one day, but hadn’t yet, and Stephanie wasn’t sure he would. He was a talented journalist but he wasn’t as ambitious as she was. His time with their boys took away from his writing, and Stephanie felt guilty about it. They were both busy, and it was hard to find time for everything. She was frequently involved in hospital politics, which ate up her time. She was on call that day from noon on, and hoped she wouldn’t have to go in. She wanted to spend the day with Andy and her boys.

They were both native San Franciscans, although they’d never met when they were kids. She’d grown up in Marin, with a doctor father, and gone to private schools. Marin Country Day, followed by Branson for high school, college at UC Berkeley, where she graduated early, medical school at Stanford, and her residency at UCSF. Andy had gone to public school and graduated as a journalism major from UCLA. They had met when he moved back to San Francisco and was working at the Chronicle, while she did her first residency. They’d been together for ten years, three before they married, and seven years since. Their marriage was solid, although he nagged her constantly to spend more time with the boys. As a busy physician in trauma, there was only so much she could do. The boys seemed to understand it better than their father, who constantly made comments about the important events she missed. She’d had to leave for an emergency in the middle of their recent Christmas school performance. A school bus got hit by a truck on the Golden Gate Bridge, and ten of the injured students were brought to UCSF. At least she’d seen Aden sing “Jingle Bells” onstage before she left. She was always being torn between her work, her husband, and her kids. Andy had never realized before just how busy she would be when her career took off. And she found all her roles harder to juggle than she’d expected.