Chapter 24: Obligations

August 17, 1986, Brooklyn, Michigan

"Hi, Steve! Hi, Kara!" Bill Elliott called out when we walked into his garage.

"Hi, Bill," we both said. "You got something for them today?"

He grinned, "I think so. Benny and Tim beat us in qualifying, but the car is fast on long runs. If we don't have any mechanical problems, we'll race 'em at the end for the checkers! Your other girl isn't with you?"

"No, she's not a NASCAR fan," I said. "She'll be in Atlanta for Stephie's wedding, though."

"Did your other friends come?" he asked.

"Dave and Julia went to the King's garage as they always do. Kara and I were going to go see Red, but we'll be back in a bit."

"Don't worry none. I got lots to do! Are you stayin' in the pits or are you goin' up to the stands?"

"Can you guarantee a win?" I asked with a grin. "'Cause if you can, we'll stay so we can go to Victory Lane!"

Bill laughed, "I wish I could. We should be at the front at the end, but you know how it goes."

"I do. But you got 'em in June!"

"I did. We got the same car, so maybe we'll get 'em both times. I'll let the boys know that you might join us in the pits."

"Thanks!" I said.

I took Kara's hand, and we walked a short distance to Alan Kulwicki's garage. I saw Red and waved to him, then just stood to the side and waited until he had a moment to come over and say hello.

"I'll introduce you to Alan in Atlanta. He doesn't like to be disturbed when he's preparing his car."

"Got it. We just came to say 'hello'. How's Stephie?" I asked.

"Good. She's getting ready for school to start again. She's feeling fine."

"Where are you guys going on your honeymoon?"

"Nassau, in the Bahamas," he said. "But not until school is out. Sorry, but I need to get back to work."

"I understand," I said.

We shook hands, and Kara gave him a quick hug. We decided to walk up and down the garage area and check out the other teams before heading back to Bill's garage. We ran into Dave and Julia in David Pearson's garage. There were quite a few reporters hanging around, as this was going to be David Pearson's last NASCAR race. I'd never managed to meet the 'Silver Fox', and given the number of people in his garage, that didn't seem likely. We hung around for a few minutes and then headed back to Bill's garage.

"Should we go to our seats or stay in the pits?" I asked Kara.

"It's a tough call. If we stay here, we get to go to Victory Lane if Bill wins, but otherwise, we don't get to see the race, except for right in front of us."

"Let's go sit," I said. "I'll probably regret it four hours from now, but I want to see the race. And I don't want to keep Dave and Julia from seeing the race."

Just under four hours later, I did regret it, when Elliott crossed the finish line nearly two seconds ahead of Tim Richmond. Bill had dominated the race, leading more than half the laps and lapping everyone except Richmond, Darrell Waltrip, and Geoff Bodine. Kulwicki had finished 14th, two laps down, but had managed to lead a couple of laps during pit stops.

"I told you!" I chuckled as Bill took the checkers from Harold Kinder.

"Told her what?" Julia asked.

"We talked about staying in Bill's pit. He invited us there, and we could have gone to Victory Lane. I said I wanted to come up here with you guys so we could actually see the race, but that I'd probably regret it in four hours. So here we are, up in the stands and Bill is in Victory Lane!"

"Are you upset?" Kara asked.

"No," I chuckled. "It's cool. Honestly, we came to watch the race, and it's not like I could talk to Bill with all those reporters and NASCAR officials hanging out there. We'll see him in Atlanta."

August 18, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

"You barely stirred when we got into bed last night," Kara said to Jessica on Monday morning.

"Last week was a bear," Jessica replied. "Working overnight, coming home to a nice breakfast with you two and Stephanie, and then heading to bed. Eight hours of sleep, our walk with Jesse, and back to work. I was in bed by 6:00pm last night because I have to be at the hospital at 6:00am."

"We'll walk with you," I said.

"Thanks for putting up with me being fairly bitchy when I arrived home each morning. It's going to get worse, you know."

I nodded, "We know. But you said once you get through your first year or two of Residency it lightens up a bit."

"A bit. They have new residents to haze, so they back off a bit on the PGY2s and PGY3s — second- and third-year Residents. Most PGY3s are just about to leave the program. Surgical residents are not even halfway through at that point. But once we get past the third year, only surgeons can harass us much."

"This seems like an odd way to train doctors," I said.

"As I said, you aren't the first one to say that. But I have to deal with it. Which means I guess you two do, too."

"You gave me fair warning, Jess. I know that you love us, and you know that we love you. We'll get through this."

Jessica sighed, "What bothers me is my lack of desire for sex. I'm just so tired that I don't feel up to it."

"You warned me about that, too," I said. "In fact, isn't that one of the reasons you were OK with me having dalliances?"

"Yes, but you aren't! And you and Kara aren't making love because I'm here. And you haven't been with Elyse in about a week."

I chuckled, "Her period started Tuesday. It's done, and she wants to start trying to get pregnant."

"What kind of agreement did you make with her, Kara?" Jessica asked.

"Because you're here, he'll sleep with us. She'll have him in the evenings after karate. If Jennifer is any guide, Elyse will get pregnant by the third week in September."

"You're saying that our husband is fertile?" Jessica smirked.

"Well, Becky did get pregnant right away, just like Jennifer did," Kara said mirthfully. "If Elyse gets pregnant right away, we'll need to be super careful in our family planning!"

"What classes do you have today?" Jessica asked.

"Two chemistry classes, a computer science class, and Mark Agnini's world religions class. Tomorrow I have a 100-level Biology class that I have to take before I take biochemistry. And on Thursday is my lab for one of the chemistry classes."

"You aced O-Chem?"

"I did! A's in both semesters. It's more or less downhill from here. Really, the only challenge is biochemistry. I'm finished with math, and had an A in differential equations last semester."

We finished our breakfast and after Kara and I walked Jessica to work, Kara cleaned up the kitchen and I went up to the attic to work. Penny only had one more week to work before school started, and I hoped that Tasha was up to speed by then. Dave hadn't decided exactly how he was going to divide the work between Charlie and Tasha, but I suspected in the end, he'd have Charlie stay on the Purina project because she was very proficient with Prime Information.

When everyone arrived, we had our usual Monday morning staff meeting and Cindi had news that was very good. She'd closed a deal in San Francisco, and Mario had closed one in Cincinnati. Dave had another stack of bug reports and change requests from our two beta customers for the medical software. None of the bugs were major, but a couple of the change requests were important to both medical offices.

"I'm only going up to Waukesha on Friday for the weekly meeting," he said. "We have a lot to do before the end of the month if we want to ship this software. I'll work with Steve and Penny on coding the new functionality. We're short-staffed because Natalya, Elyse, and Stephanie started classes today. That means Julia doesn't have any help, and Zeke will need to handle the phones until Kaitlin starts next week. When Natalya comes in at 2:30pm, I'll put her to work on testing and working with Penny on the legal software."

"Just a reminder, we're moving on Labor Day," Julia said. "All the furniture should be ready by the end of this week, and we've arranged for the phone lines to move to the new offices on September 2nd. Steve, I did arrange for the business phones to still ring in your study downstairs as you asked. Jamie finished with the changes to the lease and we're ready to sign it. I have Elyse's financial report and again it looks good. Unless there's anything else, let's get to work!"

At noon, I walked over to Medici for my monthly lunch with Doctor Barton. After seeing how Jessica's first two weeks in the ER had gone, I had quite a few questions. Doctor Barton answered patiently, and was sympathetic to my concerns about how the students were treated, but he made some valid points about just how stressful working trauma was going to be, and that you could never count on a regular schedule.

"Do you think accidents only happen between 8:00am and 5:00pm?" he asked with a grin.

"Well, no, of course not," I said. "But couldn't you schedule staff better?"

"How? Hospitals have limited resources, just like any other business. And we can't predict our demand the way you can. You have pipeline reports and it takes time to close deals, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"So you can plan and expand when your business expands. What do we do when there's a 30-car pile-up on the Dan Ryan? Or a plane crash at O'Hare? Or a high-rise fire? Or even on a normal day when there's a spike just because of the way statistics work?"

"I don't have an answer for that," I said.

"Me either," he said with a grin. "So we work when there's work and try to relax when there isn't. Which means crazy stretches at times. That's what the Sub-Internship Jessica is doing is about. If she can't handle an eight-week stint in the ER on a Sub-I, then she should look for a different specialty."

"I'm the one complaining, Doc, not her!" I chuckled. "She warned me fair and square about how it would be for several years."

"Any question as to why so many doctors end up divorced?" he asked.

I shook my head, "No. Between what I've seen, what you've told me over the last six months, and what Jess has told me, I really am beginning to understand why she accepted what I had to offer."

"Stability. Loyalty. Flexibility. Strength of character."

"But how did she know that from the short interactions we had in the hospital?"

"Think about the context of when she met you."

A light bulb came on.

"You would never have invited me into that situation if you didn't think I had the wherewithal to deal with it. And you would only have known that if you had interacted with me and had some amount of respect for me."

"Go on," he said.

"And I paid attention to what you had to say and managed to get most of the questions right on your quiz. And because she trusts your judgment implicitly, she simply accepted that I was someone you would approve, and for her, that was tantamount to Moses coming down from the mountain with the tablets."

Doctor Barton grinned, "An interesting way to put it, but yes. You weren't intimidated by me or by her. Think about what that means to Jessica."

I smiled, "Someone she can't walk all over, who has the strength of character to put up with her. But I'll let you in on a secret — she has it way harder than I do!"

Doctor Barton laughed hard — a strong, loud belly laugh.

"I wouldn't want to try to live with me!" he said when he stopped laughing. "Belinda is a saint for putting up with my bullshit!"

"That title could go to several girls in my case — my sister, Kara, Bethany, Jennifer, and Elyse. Jessica came along after I worked most of the stupidity out of my system, or better said, the girls beat it out of me. Jessica would not have liked me even two years ago."

"So it's a good thing you two didn't meet then! I'm not going to tell you that it's not going to be hard being married to her. It will be. But I think you three have hit on something. Society sure won't like it. Jessica's already had a bit of grief about Kara from some other female med students. But you know her well enough to know that she's basically told them to stuff it. She'll get grief from hospital administrators and others as her career advances. Fortunately, she's good enough to get away with it."

"The same as you are?" I grinned.

He chuckled, "Yeah. Like that. But it's harder for women. She'll have to be twice as good as a guy to advance. It sucks, and I'm doing what I can to change it, but there is still a lot of sexism in the medical community. There are quite a few doctors who think women should be nurses and men should be doctors."

"A friend of mine from High School is studying to be a male nurse," I said.

"Steve," he said gently, "you just did it. He's studying to be a nurse. You wouldn't say that Jessica is studying to be a female trauma surgeon, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"Then your friend is studying to be a nurse. Don't perpetuate the stupid stereotype."

I nodded, chagrined, "Thanks."

"Look, we're all conditioned by society to think in certain ways. You've managed to escape most of those as best I can tell, but you're certainly going to be on the receiving end of those negative attitudes. Don't perpetuate them in any way about anything. I'm not saying that you're sexist — far from it! You've hired quite a few women to work for you. Just apply that across the board."

"I will," I said. "Is Jess doing OK?"

"It's only her third week, but I'd say that she is. I'm not directly supervising her, but her Attending says she catches on quickly, and she's putting in IVs, suturing, and assisting on traumas. Obviously she's not a doctor yet, so there are limits to what we can have her do, but she'll be trained to do other things before the end of the eight weeks. When she starts her Residency, she'll be able to hit the ground running, so to speak."

We finished our lunch and shook hands. Doctor Barton headed back to the hospital, and I headed back to work. Dave and I worked on the medical software while Penny worked on some changes to the legal software. Tasha arrived at 2:30pm and Dave put her together with Zeke to continue testing the code that he and I were turning out. There wasn't much idle chatter, given we were all focused on getting as much done as possible.

I shortened my walk with Jesse to simply being a trip to the hospital with Kara so that we could walk Jessica home. She was tired, but not as cranky as she'd been the first week. She and Kara walked hand-in-hand while I pushed Jesse's stroller.

"Dada!" Jesse said to get my attention.

"Yes, Jesse? What do you need?"

"Fa Fa!" he said insistently.

"Today was your lunch with Doctor Barton?" Jessica asked.

"Yes, and Jesse is letting me know that I interfered with his love life. Well, he can see Francesca tomorrow."

"Fa Fa!" Jesse said again, even more insistently.

"Jesse, it's too late," I said, hoping against hope that he would understand. "We see her at lunch. We needed to get Aunt Jess from work today, and I had lunch with Doctor Barton."

"Kar!" he said, clearly indicating that he was unhappy with me, and hoping Kara would help him.

"I had to go to school today, sweetie. I'm sorry."

"Mama!" he said, clearly cross with us.

"I guess I know what you're doing for lunch tomorrow!" Jessica teased.

"That was already the plan," I said. "Hopefully, Carol is there with the kids or I'm going to be in big trouble!"

"Are you spending time with Elyse this evening?" Jessica asked.

"I am. But in keeping with what Kara said, I'll come sleep with you guys."

"Save some for us, if you can!" Jessica giggled.

"I think I can manage!"

Later that evening, after karate, Elyse and I went up to her room. We undressed and got into her bed and snuggled close together.

"So?" I asked.

"Kara and I agreed that I can borrow you once a day for the next two weeks. If it goes past that, then we'll have to try again next cycle."

"And after you're pregnant?" I asked.

"Back to once a week or so, the same as before. It'll be kind of strange with a big belly! Before you get me pregnant, did anything important happen at the staff meeting today?"

I chuckled, "Business before pleasure? Cindi and Mario closed some deals, but I think they told you that late on Friday. Otherwise, just mundane stuff. Trying to balance staff availability and important tasks."