Radclyffe - Love On Call

Carrie laughed. “Not right away—by the way, it was totally professional, except of course, for the two of you having pizza together. That was news.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“Glenn leaving the hospital before nine at night for any reason other than softball is newsworthy.”

Mari smiled. She liked knowing Glenn’s friendly overtures had been unusual. “She was kind enough to keep me from starving.”

“Uh-huh. Anyhow, when Glenn mentioned your name, I didn’t see how it could be a coincidence. You’re from the West Coast, right? LA?”

“That’s right. I’ve lived there all my life. What about you?”

“I grew up in San Francisco. Where our moms did.”

“My mother did grow up in Northern California, but she never talked about her family except to say they were all gone. I’m sorry, is your mother deceased?”

“My mom?” Carrie’s eyes glowed. “Not by a long shot. She’s a political organizer, and when she’s not doing that, she’s the head of a large community food service, a nonprofit that provides meals to homeless and underprivileged people. My dad is a philosophy professor at Berkeley.”

“Our families couldn’t be more different,” Mari said. “My mother and father own a small grocery store and, other than going to church, don’t do much else.”

“Mine are sort of next-generation hippies, like my grandmom, but I don’t think they’re called hippies anymore,” Carrie said.

Mari’s head was starting to spin. “Well, that can’t be right, then, about us being related. I don’t have any relatives on my mother’s side. She told me that, told all of us kids that, whenever we asked about our other grandparents.”

“Your mom’s name is Diane, right? And your father is Hermano Mateo?”

“Yes, that’s right. That’s all in my hospital paperwork—”

“Oh, I didn’t get it from there,” Carrie said quickly. “That’s private information. I know because my mother told me about her sister’s family, the ones she’s not supposed to have any contact with.”

“But why?” Mari asked, her confusion turning to hurt. Could this really be true? Could her mother have actually lied to her about something so important? Could she really know so little about her parents? She’d thought the foundation of her life couldn’t get any shakier, but now she wasn’t so sure. “Why would my mother pretend to have no one?”

“Well, this is the part that I hope doesn’t cause problems, but apparently your dad didn’t get along with my mother and father. They’re atheists and socialists, and like I said, modern-day hippies, I guess. And your dad is pretty…um, traditional.”

Mari snorted. “That would be putting it rather mildly. My dad is extremely conservative and both my parents are very religious. But I can’t believe my mother would just break off ties with her sister because my father didn’t get along with her.”

“Well, she didn’t, not really. They talk on the phone at least a couple times a year, and I think this past year they might have even FaceTimed. However they manage it, my mom knows the names of her sister’s children. That would be you and your brothers and sister. So when I heard your name, I just had to believe that it was you.”

“Oh my God,” Mari whispered. “I can’t believe there’s—are there more of you, more of my mother’s family?”

“There’s my baby sister, Kelly, and I have an uncle James, so he would be your mom’s older brother. Your uncle. He lives in the UK and I don’t see him very often. He’s gay, and he and his husband moved there, gosh, probably twenty years ago. I guess I don’t have to point out where the problem would be there.”

“No,” Mari said softly. “You don’t.”

“My mom thought it was important for me to know that there was more family, even though she said we’d probably never meet face-to-face. That’s how I knew about all of you. I called her last night.”

“I don’t really believe in coincidences like this,” Mari muttered, but she couldn’t disbelieve the story, either. “We certainly don’t look anything alike.”

“I’ve seen pictures of our moms when they were younger, and they look a lot alike, but my dad is as Irish as they come and I got most of my coloring from him.”

“And I got mine from my father.”

Carrie nodded. “I love your hair, by the way. It looks like thick black velvet.”

“Thanks. I love yours. I always wanted curls like that.”

“It’s funny how we always think we want someone else’s hair.”

Mari grinned. “I can’t believe we’re cousins. I have others, most of them are in Mexico, though.”

“I’m not totally sure it’s coincidence, you ending up here, I mean.” Carrie fiddled with the cellophane wrapper of her sandwich. “My mom told your mom that I moved here because Presley’s company had purchased the hospital. Mom thought your mom might have said something to one of your old instructors about the new program here.”

“My mom? God, I can’t see her doing that,” Mari said, but she wasn’t really sure about anything any longer. She clearly didn’t really know her mother at all. Her program director had visited a lot, especially when she’d first gotten sick, and had helped her parents understand the medical system and the barrage of treatments that came on in rapid succession. Her parents liked him, and they’d become friendly enough she could almost imagine her mother mentioning something to him. She didn’t really know her parents at all, as she’d learned the hard way the last year. If her mother had been keeping a secret relationship with her sister all these years, one that Mari’s father disapproved of, she wasn’t nearly as passive and nonconfrontational as she’d always appeared.

“I don’t know whether to be angry at my mother, proud of her, or just plain sad.”

“It seems pretty terrible from the outside,” Carrie said, “but I guess we can’t ever know that whole story.”

“Well however it came about, I’m really happy to be here,” Mari said, “and I’m really happy to meet you too.”

“I know, it’s great, isn’t it?” Carrie touched her hand tentatively. “I hope I haven’t upset you by telling you all of this.”

Mari shook her head. “You haven’t. And crazy as it all sounds, somehow I can totally believe it. Nothing you told me seems too impossible given the way a lot of things happen in my family.”

“Now that you’re here, we’ve got to spend more time together. Glenn probably told you about softball. Do you play, by any chance?”

“Oh my God, you too?” Mari groaned jokingly. “Glenn mentioned you pitched. I don’t play. I hope you’ll overlook that.”

Carrie squeezed her hand. “That’s okay, you’re forgiven. After all, you’re family.”

Chapter Thirteen

Glenn’s shift had been over for an hour, but they’d gotten hit with the late-afternoon rush that happened sometimes in the summer when everyone was reluctant to interrupt their vacation or poolside relaxation to deal with the irritating cough or persistent pain or low-grade fever that had been plaguing them all day. She didn’t mind working late, and today she had a good excuse. She would have hung around anyhow to interact with the new staff and to see how her students did on a night rotation. Sometimes, the different kinds of cases that showed up when the sun started to go down could be a challenge. Fewer consultants were readily available, and often, the first one to evaluate the patient made more critical decisions out of necessity. Great training, but overwhelming at times for a newbie. She’d just finished signing off on her last patient when she got the text from Flann to meet her in the cafeteria. She passed Abby and Mari, who also had stayed late without being asked, on her way out.