The Ranch

“What exactly do you want to know, Dr. Warner? How serious is it? It isn't. As a matter of fact, I'm not seeing him anymore. I'm not seeing anyone, and that's the way I intend to keep it.” There was something very firm about her voice as she said it that startled him. He couldn't figure out what she was saying. But there was a message there for anyone who chose to listen.

“Are you planning to go into a convent sometime soon?” he teased. “Or are you just going to freelance?” Looking at him, she suddenly had to laugh at herself. This was very new to her, and she realized she could have learned a lot from her patients. How did they manage it? What did they say? She knew that many of them told people they had AIDS before they began relationships, but she didn't want to do that either. She just wanted to keep to herself, and enjoy her life with Jade. It would have been different if there had been someone in her life when it happened, but since there wasn't, as far as she was concerned, the doors were closed now.

“I don't have time for a relationship,” she said simply, and he looked startled. The way she said it sounded so final, and seemed so unlike her. She was such a warm person, and it was such a waste to think of a woman like Zoe without a man in her life. It really bothered Sam.

“Are you telling me you've made a conscious decision to that effect, at your age?” He looked horrified by the prospect.

“More or less.” She was referring to the decision she'd made, but she didn't want to get into it with him, and they were getting onto dangerous ground, which she didn't want to happen. But he was ready to pursue the subject with her with dogged determination. “I can't give anything to anyone, Sam, I'm too involved in my practice, and with my daughter.” It was an excuse, but Sam felt certain that she meant it.

“Zoe, that's bullshit,” he said firmly, “you're wrong if you think you can't give anything to anyone. There's more to life than just devoting yourself to your work and your baby.” He wondered why she was so determined to stay alone, if she was still mourning her old flame, though he doubted it, since he knew she'd gone out with Dick Franklin. But why wouldn't she get involved with anyone? Why was she hiding? She couldn't be that obsessed with her child and her work, or was she? “You're too young to close the doors on a relationship in your life. Zoe,” he said firmly, “you have to rethink this.” He felt a sense of personal loss as he looked at her and realized that she meant it.

She smiled at him, but she was unmoved by what he had said so far. “You sound like my father. He used to tell me that overeducated women threaten men, and I was making a big mistake when I went to Stanford. College was okay, but medical school was pushing. He said that if I'd wanted to be in medicine, I should have gone to nursing school and saved him a lot of money.” She was laughing as she said it, and Sam shook his head. He knew about people like her. His whole family were doctors, including his mother.

“Well, you should have gone to nursing school, if becoming a doctor was going to make you come to a dumb decision like that one. Zoe, that's just plain stupid.” He wondered if she'd had a bad experience, been raped perhaps, or if Franklin had actually done something to upset her and it was still fresh, or maybe she was involved with someone secretly, maybe someone married. Or maybe she was just telling him, nicely, that she wasn't interested in him, but he hoped that wasn't the case either. Otherwise he just couldn't understand it, but she seemed very firm about it.