That Space In Your Heart

Chapter 7. Hyperbaton





He had sent her away.

He still could hardly believe it, though he had thought of nothing else since he woke up this morning (not even the headache that raged between his temples, reminding him that last night for the first time he had tried to drown out his inner voices with alcohol).

Goddamned bad luck, too, that he’d chosen last night to do it. When she showed up, he should have slammed the door in his face, recognizing the danger. Of course, instead he opened the door, invited her inside. His brain was a fog, except for the image of her face, that auburn hair gilt by the dim porch light.

He’d seen the way her eyes flew downwards to his mouth, then fiercely fought their way back up to his eyes, in that electric second when he touched her waist. That path was well known to him, he so often had to restrain himself from looking at her lips. Another reversal, seeing the process from the other side.

He had often wondered how Elizabeth Corday might look at other men. At Mark, at Benton. Or that slimy Dorsett. Now he knew. Widened eyes, as if she were coming to a realization as she looked at him; a silvery brilliance overlaying their pellucid blue. Her lips had fallen slightly, unconsciously, open.

God damn you, Lizzie, he thought as he stormed into the hospital and stalked into his office, it was only a chase. I always thought if you showed up at my door one night – if you stayed – the curiosity would be gone. When I ended up seeking you out, allowing you to come too close – sending you ice cream, touching your face – regretting it afterwards, it was just manipulation. Just maneuvering.

He doubled back on his own lies, because he despised cowardice. In fact, he knew as well as Lizzie did, it had been a long time since that was true.

He had been out on the balcony last night because sleep was impossible. In his dreams, he always reached out and took her face in two hands. He would wake up and feel the imagined shape of her body recede from his senses, the healthy warmth of his lost arm would become an inferno of cold, shadowy pain, and he would send a slow and accepting exhalation into the empty side of the bed.

*

Weaver accosted Elizabeth as soon as she entered the hospital, still aching and sore from a sleepless, feverish night.

“Can you see Carrie Lambert?” she said. “She asked for the first doctor that saw her.”

Typically, she walked away before Elizabeth could answer, crutching down the hall in search of Pratt, who was being Pratt again. Sighing, Corday made her way towards the elevators. She would wait till she was in the privacy of an empty elevator before paging Romano, who was probably the doctor Carrie had wanted to see.

But he was already outside of recovery, as if waiting for her, when she emerged from the elevator. His face didn’t change when she approached: it was set, cool, indifferent. His eyes lacked the deep shadows of sleeplessness that adorned her own.

“Lizzie,” he greeted her, as she walked by him on her way into the room.

She hesitated, but didn’t turn around. Would he never be done? Flirting and insulting, teasing and mollifying; from moment to moment, impossibly sweet and then unbearably sadistic; sometimes her friend but much more often her tormenter. He’d invented that name purely to irritate her, but after awhile – especially recently, since that Sunday afternoon on the bridge – it had become more like something they shared. The name only he was allowed to use. And now he was using it, in spite of last night.

“Robert,” she said at last, with impeccable coldness.

“Shirley paged me before you did.”

“Good. Then let’s go in.” Pointedly, she held open the door for him. He stared at her for a split second, then slunk by, recovering his swagger only in time to say hi to Carrie with his typical forcefulness. Elizabeth felt dizzy, but she leaned her head against the door and her vision cleared, allowing her to walk in like a professional. He wasn’t going to win this round: this one was hers.

*

He was keenly, painfully aware of her footsteps behind him as he walked over to Carrie’s side, where she lay with a hint of a welcoming smile on her face. “Morning,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. “It’s Dr. Romano, right? They told me that’s your name.”

“Robert’s fine,” he said. From the other side of the bed, Elizabeth shot him a surprised look. What? he wanted to say. I can be friendly, too.

“Good morning, Carrie,” she said in her cool, hard voice. It was a hardness meant, he knew, for him. Her bedside manner needed work, but not this much work. “I’m Dr. Corday. I treated you when you first came into the ER. Did Dr. Pratt fill you in?”

“No, Dr. Dorsett, I think. He did the surgery,” Carrie said. “He told me everything that went on.”

Elizabeth looked quickly up at Robert and then down again, her face flushing a little. But he stared stonily at Carrie, pretending the name Dorsett meant nothing to him. She said softly, “All right, then. Did you have any questions?”

Carrie shook her head. “I just wanted to say, you know, thanks for your help,” she said.

“Do you have family here with you? Anyone for us to call?” Robert asked as Elizabeth smiled down at the pillow.

She closed her eyes briefly, then smiled. “Not unless you want to call the pizza place for me.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think pizza is a very good idea—” Elizabeth started.

Carrie grinned again. “I know. It was worth a try.”

For a moment the eyes of the two doctors met in gentle amusement at their charming patient, but Elizabeth quickly broke her gaze. He licked his lips, steeling himself: it was so hard to keep his distance from her. Always had been.

“Do you want me to pick you up something to read?” Robert asked.

Again that surprised look from Lizzie, which burned into his scalp as he bent to hear Carrie ask for the new John Grisham.

“Brain candy,” he said. “You got it. Lizzie, do you want some coffee?”

“I’m fine.”

“It might help,” he said. “You look like hell.”

She had been checking the clipboard in her hand, but at that comment she whirled on him, her face blazing. “I have to go,” she snapped. “I’ll stop by later, Carrie. Good-bye, Dr. Romano.”

High heels clicked on the tile floor as Carrie raised her eyebrows at this swift exit. Romano wanted to call after her, but instead he commented with a sardonic grin, “British women. So touchy.”

“She doesn’t seem to like you much,” Carrie observed.

He grimaced, but it turned involuntarily into a smile. “We have our moments.” Oh, yes, they certainly did have their moments.

Carrie raised her eyebrows skeptically. Romano sighed. “Look, I should go talk to her. I’ll be back with that book, all right?”

In front of Carrie, he exercised enough restraint to walk slowly out of the room. Then, safely out in the hallway, he sped up, chasing after Elizabeth’s back as she strode away.





Chapter 8: Good Care