The Ranch

They both ordered ravioli, and he offered her wine but she refused, and then they settled down to talk about work again. They were halfway through dinner when he looked at her with his boyish grin, and something warm and friendly in his eyes that made her feel surprisingly easy with him, more than ever.

“Don't you do anything but work?” he asked gently. He admired her, but he felt sorry for her too. She did so much for so many people, and he knew firsthand how draining it was. But there didn't seem to be anyone to do anything for her. And he couldn't imagine her deriving any real comfort from her relationship with Dick Franklin, or anyone like him.

“Not lately,” she answered him, “except for Jade.” And then he wondered about something.

“Have you ever been married?” He didn't think so, and he realized he'd been right when she shook her head.

“Never.” She didn't seem in the least bothered about it. She was comfortable with her life, and happy with her daughter. Her life seemed enormously fulfilling.

But Sam was curious about it. “Why not? If you don't mind my asking.”

She smiled. She didn't mind at all. Except for her illness, she had no secrets from him. “I never really wanted to, when I was young. And the only man I probably should have married died over ten years ago. He contracted AIDS from a transfusion. Thanks to him, I started the clinic. He was in research and he was brilliant. He had bypass surgery at forty-two, and eventually it killed him. He didn't live a year after the transfusion. I thought about going into research with him. I'd always been intrigued with unsolved mysteries, and remote diseases. And then AIDS came along, and I got caught up in the physical-care end of it and not the research.”

“It would have been a real loss to a lot of people if you'd done something different,” he said gently, and he meant it. She was a fantastic physician. He knew about the doctor who'd died too, but he'd heard about him from other people. And he watched her as she told him. She looked sad, but not devastated, and he sensed that she'd recovered, although she'd obviously never found anyone who meant as much to her. “Before AIDS, I was fairly involved in juvenile diabetes. In its own way, that's another scourge like this one, although it gets a lot less attention.”

“I've always been interested in it too. And I guess I'm a scavenger of sorts, I love visiting other people'd practices, picking up little bits and pieces of information, and solving problems, doing what I can, and then moving on. It probably sounds irresponsible, but I've never wanted my own practice. That just seems like a lot of paperwork and red tape, and issues that have nothing to do with medicine or patients. I like doing hands-on work, I don't want to waste time with contracts and insurance and worrying about property, and all the politics established doctors get involved with. Maybe I just haven't grown up yet. I keep waiting for it to happen, I keep thinking that one of these days I'll want to associate with a group of docs and join their office, but I never do. What I see of most of them turns me off completely, except on a rotating basis, the way I do it with you. This way, I get to do all the good stuff.”

She smiled at what he said. It was a little bit like the philosophy of emergency room doctors. They wanted to deal with the patients and not the paper or the overhead or the problems. But in her case she would have missed the long-term relationships she developed. “You remind me a little of the Lone Ranger,” she said, smiling,“… who was that masked man, Tonto?… My patients love you. You do a great job. And I can't really blame you for avoiding all the crap that goes with an ordinary practice. I've really missed not having partners, it's so much more work like this. But I also like not having the headaches, the arguments, the petty jealousies, and all the problems. When Adam died, he made it possible to set up the kind of clinic I wanted, and do it exactly the way I thought it should be. But it's still awfully hard not having adequate help, except on occasion.” She smiled at him again, and he found himself wondering again how involved she was with Dick Franklin, but he was afraid to ask her.

“Were you planning to marry Adam before he got sick?” He was curious about her, about them, about the baby she'd adopted and why, and why she seemed so comfortable alone. She was an intriguing woman.