Read Online Private Practices by Linda Wolfe - Free Book Online Page A

landscaped courtyard and, as he ran the water in the sink, he could hear sounds carried upward through the yard, music, a child crying, a door slamming, other people’s lives being lived. He lifted the pills toward his mouth but suddenly his eyes narrowed and his fist tightened around them. Holding them hidden, he thought of the story Sara still told about her childhood in Russia, about how on a moonlit snowy night she had tossed a necklace of pearly white beads out of the window, expecting, or so she told it, that when the spring sun shone and melted the snow, the beads too would disintegrate into pale gray rivulets. Instead, she had found the necklace in the spring, the chain on which the beads were strung rusted and green, but the beads themselves still a pearly vivid white against the new grass.
    Raising the courtyard window, he abruptly scattered his fistful of pills out into the snow. Then he dug in his pocket, took out the container, unscrewed it and shook out the rest of the smooth, golden capsules, watching them scatter into the wind.
    That morning at seven-thirty the pediatric resident called him from the hospital. “You know the Kinney baby?” Ben held his breath. “It’s off the oxygen. And it looks as if there’s nothing else wrong. For now, at least.”
    â€œDoes Mrs. Kinney know?” His misery of the night before was evaporating.
    â€œNot yet. We thought you’d want to know before we told her.”
    â€œGreat,” Ben said. “Good work. I’m coming over right now. Don’t tell her. I’d like to tell her myself.”
    He felt, as he walked swiftly to the hospital, that once again he was in his flying dream, his body weightless and perfect. He felt it still when he swirled open the curtains around Annette Kinney’s bed.
    She was sitting up, using the breast pump, and he was glad that he had thought of that distraction for her. But she was drawn-faced and there were tear streaks on her cheeks. “Now why are you crying?” he asked, scarcely able to contain his excitement. “Didn’t I tell you not to let yourself get all upset?”
    â€œI’m just so terribly worried,” Annette said. “So scared.” She set down the little rubber pump and covered herself with the rough sheet, wiping her eyes with a corner of it.
    â€œWell, you don’t need to be,” he beamed. “And you’d better pull yourself together right away. You’ve got this happy, healthy baby out there that needs you.”
    Annette stared at him, her eyes going wide with disbelief.
    â€œThey’ll be bringing the baby to you for the eleven o’clock feeding,” Ben went on. “You haven’t missed a beat.”
    Comprehension and relief began to spread across Annette’s face.
    â€œShall we walk over and see him together? Or do you want to call Frank first and tell him?”
    Annette had her feet over the side of the bed already. “After,” she said, stumbling into her slippers.
    He gathered up her orlon robe and helped her into it, standing formal and dignified behind her as if he were wrapping her in an evening coat.
    â€œLet’s go see the baby first,” she said, and took his arm.
    They promenaded together down the corridor. “I told you it would be just a matter of a day or so,” he said. He loved the almost palpable happiness that seemed to suffuse her, making her skin bright, and refrained from telling her how worried he still was. Only time would reveal whether the baby had received any permanent damage as a result of its oxygen deprivation.
    â€œWhat do you suppose happened?” Annette asked happily.
    â€œWho knows?” he hedged. “There are so many mysteries about birth. There’s so much we don’t know.”
    The baby was in a nurse’s arms, being diapered. Ben hardly recognized it except for its dark thatch of hair. It was red-cheeked and howling and