Danielle Steel - Changes

“I'm sorry, Mel … I just … I can't ever feel good about it when I lose a patient, and she was such a sweet girl … it's not fair …” His voice drifted off and Mel set down her cup and put her arms around his shoulders.

“You're not in a fair business, sweetheart. You know that. You know the odds each time you go in. You try to forget them, but they're still there.” He nodded, she was right. She knew him well. He turned to her then with a sad smile.

“I' m a lucky man.”

“And a brilliant surgeon. Don't ever forget that.” She didn't ask him about Mexico again until after he'd had breakfast with the children; he was strangely subdued and Mark asked Mel about it as they walked back upstairs side by side.

“What's wrong with Dad?”

“He lost a patient last night.”

Mark nodded, understanding. “H e always takes that hard, especially if they're transplant patients. Was it?”

“Yes. The one he did when I interviewed him in May.” Mark nodded again and looked questioningly at Mel.

“Are we still leaving for Mexico?”

“I hope so.”

Mark didn't look too sure. “You don't know how he gets with this kind of thing. We may not be going.”

“I'll do my best.”

He looked at her then and seemed about to say something else but Matt came along and interrupted them. He couldn't find his flippers and wanted to know if Mel had seen them.

“No, I haven't, but I'll look around. Did you check out at the pool?” He nodded, and Mel went on to her own room after he went his way and she found Peter there, sitting in a chair and staring into space, looking suddenly older than his years. His oldest son knew him well. He was taking Marie's death very hard, and Mel was beginning to doubt that they would be going anywhere that day. “Well, sweetheart”—she sat down near him on the edge of the bed—“what'll we do?”

“About what?” He looked blank, he was thinking of how her heart had looked when they'd opened her up.

“The trip. Shall we go or stay?”

He hesitated for a long moment, looking into Mel's eyes. “I don't know.” He seemed incapable of making that decision at the moment.

“I think it would do you good, and the kids too. We've all been through a lot lately, a lot of adjustments, a lot of changes, and there are more to come. It seems to me that a trip might be just what the doctor ordered.” She smiled and didn't point out to him that she was starting work at a new network in a week and would be under tremendous pressure herself. She needed a vacation even more than he did.

“Ail right. We'll go. I guess you're right. We can't disappoint the children, and I've already arranged for someone to cover for me.” She put her arms around him and hugged him tight.

“Thank you.” But he barely responded, and he spoke to no one on the way to the airport. Once or twice Mel and Mark's eyes met, but they said nothing until they were alone for a moment on the plane, after takeoff.

Mark filled her in on what to expect. “He could be like this for a while, you know.”

“How long does it usually last?”

“A week, sometimes two. Sometimes even a month, it depends on how responsible he feels and how close he was to the patient.”

Mel nodded. It didn't give her much to look forward to, certainly not on their honeymoon. And Mark was right. They landed in Puerto Vallarta and piled into two Jeeps to take them to their hotel where they had three rooms reserved, which looked out over the beach and water. There was an enormous open-air bar downstairs just below their windows, and three swimming pools filled with laughing, shouting people. And above all the other noises were the sounds of a steel band, interspersed from time to time with mariachis. It was a festive atmosphere and the children were thrilled, especially Jessica and Val, who had never been to Mexico before. Mark took them all downstairs to swim and have a soda at the bar, but Peter insisted on staying in their room. Mel tried to woo him out of his mood.

“How about a walk on the beach, love?”

“I don't feel like it, Mel. I'd really like to be alone. Why don't you join the children?” She wanted to snap at him that it was their honeymoon, not the children's, but she decided that it was wisest to say nothing at all. Maybe he would snap out of it quicker. So she left him.

But as the days rolled on, he didn't seem to improve. She went shopping in town with Pam and the twins and they bought beautiful embroidered blouses and dresses to wear in L.A. at the pool, and Mark took Matthew fishing twice. She took everyone except Matt to Carlos O'Brien's for Cokes and people-watching several times and she even took the older ones to a disco one night, but Peter never joined them at all. He was obsessed with what had happened to Marie, and several times a day he would spend an hour in the room trying to get a line to L.A. to check on his current patients.

“It really wasn't worth coming, for you to sit in your room all week long, calling Center City,” Mel finally snapped at him toward the end of their stay, but he only looked at her with empty eyes.

“I told you that at home, but you didn't want to disappoint the children.”

“This is our honeymoon, not theirs.” She had finally said it. She was bitterly disappointed. He had made no effort all week, and they hadn't even made love since Marie had died. A honeymoon to remember it was not.

“I'm sorry, Mel. It was just rotten timing. I'll make it up to you later.” But she wondered if he ever could. And suddenly she realized that she didn't even have her own home to return to when the trip was over. She suddenly missed the house in New York more than ever, and thinking of it reminded her of the photographs of Anne she wanted to put away when they returned. And she wondered what Peter would do with her portrait. It was her house now too, and she didn't want to look at Anne every time she turned around. That seemed normal, at least to Mel, but she wasn't going to broach the subject until they returned to Los Angeles. She still called it L.A. whenever she spoke of it, and never home, because it wasn't home yet. New York was. She noticed that with the twins too; when they were at Carlos O'Brien's, some boys asked Jessica where they were from and she answered “New York” without thinking and then Mark teased her and she explained that they had just moved to L.A. But other adjustments came more quickly. Mel noticed that they referred to each other as brothers and sisters, except for Mark and Val, who had reason not to adopt those titles.

And the only one to get sick was Valerie, on the last day. She bought an ice cream on the beach, and when Mel heard what she'd done she groaned as she stood by Val, while she threw up for hours and then had diarrhea all night. Peter wanted to give her something but she absolutely refused to take it, and when Mel finally came to bed at four in the morning, he awoke, his medical instincts alert.

“How is she?”

“Asleep at last. Poor child. I've never seen anyone so sick. I don't know why she wouldn't take the Lomotil you offered her, she isn't usually that stubborn.”

“Mel, is she all right?” He was frowning and thinking of something.

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know. I don't know her that well. But she looks different than she did in Aspen, and at Thanksgiving.”

“Different how?”

“I'm not sure what I mean, to tell you the truth. Just a feeling. Has she had a checkup lately?”

“You're making me nervous. What are you suspecting?” She expected nothing less than the threat of leukemia, but he shook his head.

“Anemia maybe. She seems to sleep a lot, and Pam says she threw up after Christmas dinner.”

Mel sighed. “I think it's nerves. Jess looks lousy to me too. I think the move was a big change for them, and they're at a tough age for that. But maybe you're right. I'll take them both to the doctor when we get back.”