Chapter 17: Preparation

When she woke to the alarm, he was still holding her. She worked out of his arms and across what seemed an awfully wide bed. She got her robe and slippers and escaped into her dressing room. She showered, took her Pill and inserted her contacts. By the time she was dressed and downstairs, Eric and Madeleine were there before her. Breakfast was a western omelet and toast.

“I love you,” Eric said in the car when he was out on the street and comfortable driving.

“I don’t know why.”

“Well, I really don’t either. I could recite a list of all your great attributes, but they don’t add up to how I feel. Mrs. Joralsky, Sparky’s teacher, is marvelous with her, and so is Madeleine, but I don’t feel towards them anything like I feel towards you. There are women in Hollywood as beautiful, but I don’t feel as sexually attracted to them as I do towards you.” Reality check. There were women waiting table and nurses on the floor he’d visited more beautiful than she was. She wasn’t in the same league with Hollywood starlets.

Still, it was nice of him to say so, and it had been very nice of him the previous night to bring her such pleasure after she’d imposed so many limits. She gave him the most luscious kiss the steering wheel would allow before getting out of his car and getting into resident mode.

Sunday was generally a slow day at the hospital. The admissions for infectious diseases slowed less than many other departments, but they did slow. On the other hand, other doctors were less available, and residents took more responsibility. Still, she was free to go at precisely six. She washed her hands thoroughly, up half-way to her elbows, and went to eat. She called Eric after getting back to her room.

“I love you,” he answered the phone. “I’m now carrying the key you wanted, and you can ask me for it when I pick you up or when we get back to the house.”

“Or, for that matter, in the middle of the counseling session.”

“Go ahead.” She wouldn’t take his dare. She couldn’t imagine anything which would embarrass Eric. They talked on, teased, said they loved each other, and sometimes talked as though they didn’t. Eric had already conveyed all the information he had.

Monday brought more admissions, but -- because she had the next night off -- they weren’t her patients. She went up to her room to shower again and change her clothes before she went down to greet Eric. The key was on the dashboard in front of her place, and she put a bag with her dirty clothes into the back seat.

Eric got to the hospital before six, but Diane got down later. When she got to the car, she suggested fast food. As long as she wanted it, that was fine with him. They got their meal at a Wendy’s and he handed her the pre-nups. She read them over, keeping them carefully off the table.

“That’s what I remember,” she said. “How much of that is going to be legally binding? I mean, especially, about child care?”

“Well, I think of it as mostly putting what we have agreed in writing so that either one of us can say, ‘This is what you said you would do.’ If I die, and not too soon, that’s a statement that you get custody. I should probably fill something else out. I’ll check with the lawyers. Still, Sharon, Laura’s sister, is a good sort. I don’t think she’d take it to court, and nobody else would have a chance. Madeleine doesn’t have a shade of a legal claim, which shows how idiotic the law is. She’s the person who handles Sparky more than anyone else. Right now, I have papers on file giving Sharon control. I’ll change that.”

“Look,” Rev. Patterson said when they were in his office, “by the liturgy, I won’t be marrying Mr. Barnes and Dr. Thibault. I’ll be marrying Eric and Diane. Do you mind my using those names at these meetings?” They both assured him that they were comfortable with that. Eric handed over the pre-nups. They signed them and Rev. Patterson witnessed the signatures.

“Well, Reverend Patterson,” he said, “We ought to follow your schedule for future meetings. I thought money was going to be a no-brainer. Putting it first was my mistake.”

“Actually,” Diane said, “putting it first was probably the right thing to do because it centered on the major problem facing us. Eric loves me, and I know this. But Eric sees the solution of a problem as ‘Eric will put it right.’ That doesn’t work when the problem is that Eric is in sole control. I need a little space.”

“Everybody needs a little space, Diane,” Rev. Patterson said. “What you have to decide is when your need for space is compatible with a marriage. I’ve seen married couples where one partner had much less space than a full profession.”

“Yeah. So have I, my parents’ for one. How many happily married couples have you seen where the man has less space than that?”

“I’ve seen couples living in each others’ laps. They operated a store or something similar together.”

“Yeah,” Diane agreed. “Operated it together. If I loved a pediatrician of a similar age, we might go into business together. But Eric and I aren’t going to operate DSI together. He has a life separate from mine, and I don’t begrudge it. I just want a life that’s my life. We’re going to have a life together, and we are going to be equals there. I want a place that’s mine just as he has a place that’s his. That’s all I ask.” Patterson was silent, and Eric thought the pastor had lost the argument, which would have been his argument if he’d thought he could win with it.

“One thing which is miniscule in comparison to that, but is about money in a way is wedding gifts,” he said. “I give useful items which are a little worn to rummage sales at two churches. I don’t want to give punch bowls to either church. Can we say that we have what we need and name a charity? If you want to give a wedding gift, give it to X in our name? I wouldn’t try to deprive Diane of anything, but wedding gifts are traditionally home furnishings, and those are my responsibility to purchase by the pre-nup.”

“I don’t suppose it would be proper for the charity to be the building fund,” Rev. Patterson said.

“I was thinking of something congruent with Diane’s life. Not Children’s Hospital. Turning the other cheek is all very well, but those guys have been really raining on our parade. My first two thoughts were UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders. Now, Diane is a doctor who deals with children, but, on the other hand, those came to mind because they are charities I support. Diane might have some closer to her heart.”

“Those sound very good,” Diane said. “Why not give people a choice? I don’t want to push hard against wedding gifts, though. I know what my sister in law, Karen, is going to give. She’s an author, and she has a pile of books that she’s written since I started the residency program. The pile will come wrapped fancy.”

“Worth reading?” he asked. “Worth reading to Sparky?”

“Maybe worth reading. Too X rated for Sparky until she starts on bodice rippers by her own choice. But, yes, if people are going to spend money, they might as well send it to somebody who will use it wisely. I’m not certain though that being a charity that you support is much of a distinction, Eric. How many don’t you support?”

“Most of them,” he said. “How many churches are there in the bay area?”

“They probably number in the hundreds,” said Rev. Patterson.

“I support two of them.”

“But you support the Conference,” said Rev. Patterson. “That supports all the UM churches on Mission Aid.”

Diane had heard enough of this. “When you next visit Dr. Kleinfeld,” she said, “I’m going to come along and start a discussion of how tightly the lambdoidal suture has closed.” Eric didn’t get it, but Patterson apparently did.

“Are we speaking too much United Methodist jargon, Diane?” he asked.

“Yes, much too much,” she said. So, he interpreted more than she could remember. That still didn’t leave her understanding what they’d said before. They left that night with separate copies of a questionnaire on sex. She didn’t look at it until the next night, having spent that night on what Eric called the lab section of the exam.

When she did open it, it was remarkably detailed. She filled out her questions, and Eric made Xeroxes of everything either of them had done. They read them lying beside one another in bed. What Eric said he liked most about her was that she was so open in her responses. He mentioned experimentation twice.

“Are we really that staid?” she asked him. “You keep talking about experimentation.”

“Staid? No. What I think is that when we’re restricted by your hours, we need a pay-off. We know what we do well, and that brings a pay-off for both of us. Now, we can neither spend hours in foreplay nor afford to try something that might not please you. I figure that after July, we can.”

“You give me cunnilingus. Will you expect fellatio?”

“No. What I think you do owe me, love, is trust. I shall suggest some things, fewer than you seem to expect. I think you should consider each of them. If something really sounds terribly painful, then refuse it. If you merely think you wouldn’t enjoy it, then try it. Try it, as I tell Sparky about new foods, two times before you refuse it.”

“Well,” she said, “I’ll see about green eggs and ham. I will not, however, let you tie me up.”

He laughed. “As long as we’re talking physically, that is not one of my desires. I do want to tie you to me, but not with ropes.”

“Eric, I think you have. That’s why I stuck around when you tried to own me. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine life without you.”

“Nor I life without you.” They kissed then, and came together even more. Life was good when she fell asleep in his arms. The alarm rang, and life was not at all good.

She was following Dr. Kleinfeld around on his visits to patients the next afternoon. When he came out of the door of his next-to-last patient, a boy of twelve with a nasty respiratory infection, Kleinfeld stopped at the hand-sanitizer dispenser so she couldn’t reach it.

“This is your last year of residency, isn’t it?” Kleinfeld asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to do next? I’m asking because my associate, Dr. Singh, is leaving. He’s going to Los Angeles. Would you be interested in taking his place? Some of his patients will seek new peds, and some, as always, have grown a little old, but I have wanted to slow down. There are only so many patients you can serve effectively.”

“Why, Dr. Kleinfeld, I would be honored,” she said. She had to handle this carefully. She wanted to work with him, but he would feel blindsided if she were asked to work with Valerie and she declined. “There is, however, one complication. I’m currently engaged...” She waved the ring in front of him. Perhaps because the sight of her hand reminded him, he moved a few steps from the sanitizer dispenser. “ ... to the father of Valerie Barnes, one of your patients. You’ll remember. She had an appendectomy the end of last year. I couldn’t treat her if I married him. I don’t know the ethical rules in the case of an engagement, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable treating her even now.”

“Well, that’s not a great problem. I was planning to pass along a few patients who are currently well, and Valerie might have been in that number, but there are enough of them. You know, heart surgeons are paid more, but when they fix a heart, that heart doesn’t send its mitral valves to them a generation later.” Kleinfeld was being modest. A couple almost always consisted of past patients of two different pediatricians. If they stayed in the same town, their kids went to the ped who had most impressed the grandparents. Kleinfeld got the kids of his former patients because he was a damned good doctor. “I had expected Singh to strike out on his own in a few years, taking his patient load with him. Anyway, congratulations. When’s the wedding? June is traditional, but I’d bet you’d find July more practical.”

“It’s not that settled, though you’re right. All the best wedding receptions have the bride present and awake. Another question is what would your position be on your associate’s being pregnant?”

“Are you?” he asked.

“No. First the marriage, and then the pregnancy. And, of course, it’s much easier to ensure that you don’t conceive than that you do. But it’s another thing that you agree on when you’re getting married. One thing that’s messing up our planning for the marriage is the question of what my career is going to be after the first of July.”

“Well, why don’t you say that this is tacked down? You’ll be my associate. Here’s my card. Call my office and give them your e-mail. I know your hours, and I won’t try to communicate by phone.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Every time my cell rings, I think it’s an emergency on the floor.” Then they were at another patient’s room, and they had to deal with someone else’s problems.

She called the office that night, but she saved the news until she was eating with Eric before the counseling appointment. Eric was pleased.

“What will your schedule be?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet. I suspect he keeps Saturday and some evening hours.”

“Yeah,” he said. He grabbed his cell phone. “Mornings three days a week. Evenings twice a week. Full Saturdays. Somebody named Singh has different mornings and evenings.”

“That will cut down our time together,” she said.

“And you might want that. My hours are more flexible than you might think, though. Still, if you’re afraid of living in my pocket, then you might find days you can go out by yourself quite pleasant. If possible, though, you should try to get Wednesday evenings free -- Mommy time.”

Time with Sparky when neither Madeleine nor Eric was around. Why was that idea so scary? She’d taken responsibility for patients with life-threatening problems -- temporary responsibility, of course, but they could have died before anyone else could get there. Some of them had. Sparky was healthy and generally a good kid, and the two senior caregivers would be home in a few hours.

It turned out that Patterson did not expect to see the answers to his questions. He merely wanted to check that they had seen the answers to the other’s and had managed to come to some agreement. He went on to family chores, which wasn’t much of a problem.

“Is it hypocritical of me to push back on the money and then enjoy that Eric’s money means I’ll never have to do another load of wash?” she asked.

“Well,” Patterson answered, “what I heard you saying was that you wanted to feel that your work was significant. You’ve washed your own laundry, and that doesn’t seem to be something you attach significance to. You want to be in a marriage with Eric, and he wants to be in a marriage with you. All you two have to do is find the marriage which both of you can be in. If that is a marriage where somebody else does the laundry, that’s fine as long as that person is willing.