Читать книгу Healing Dr. Alexander - Tracy Wolff, Tracy Wolff - Страница 14

CHAPTER FIVE

THE PHONE RANG as Jack was coming in from work. He was tempted to ignore it—only a few people had his house number and he wasn’t in the mood to talk to any of them. But he felt that familiar tug of responsibility. What if something was wrong? He answered it.

“Jack?” His mother’s smooth, cultured tones slid through the line as soon as he picked it up.

“Hi, Mom.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“Really?” She sounded hopeful.

No, not really. His leg throbbed and he’d had to pass two patients on to one of the residents today because they needed stitches he couldn’t do. “Absolutely.”

“Oh, good. I’m so glad to hear that.”

Of course she was. It was so much easier to move on with life when one’s son wasn’t mucking it up by getting shot. “Do you need something, Mom? I just got in and I want to take a shower.”

“Your father and I are celebrating our fortieth wedding anniversary next month and I’ve decided to throw a party. Naturally, we want you to be there. Especially since you missed the one we threw for our thirty-fifth.” Five years had passed and Jack could still hear the note of accusation in her voice.

“I was in Rwanda, Mom. It wasn’t like I was around the block and refused to come.”

“Of course not. But now that you’re so much closer, there should be no excuses.” There was a will of steel running through the conciliatory words. “Besides, it will give your dad a chance to check you over, make sure you’re healing all right.”

“Dad’s not an orthopedist, Mom.”

“He’s a doctor. And we’re both worried about you.”

Jack sighed. Of all the things he hated about his damn injury, this definitely made the top two. His relationship with his parents, at least up until the shooting, could be described as a benign disagreement. His parents loved him, he loved them. They’d provided him with everything a kid could ever need and in return, he’d graduated top of his high school class, went on to Johns Hopkins undergrad and Harvard Med—where he graduated second in his class. And then he dared to do the unthinkable—he’d taken a job with For the Children against their wishes—a decision they never understood. Even so, they had still enjoyed trotting out tales of their philanthropist son at dinner parties.

Now that he was injured, he was still refusing to settle down into the expected¸ and ritzy, path of private practice. But their interest had taken a sharp upswing. Suddenly his mother was calling him regularly to check on him, while his sister was bombarding him with emailed articles about post-traumatic stress disorder and learning to live with disabilities. Even his father was getting in on the act, albeit more subtly. Even though Jack had taken the position at the clinic, and made it clear he had every intention of going back to Africa once his physical therapy was over, he continued to get interview requests and partnership offers from lucrative practices all over Boston. He knew very well that his father was responsible for every single one.

Jack tolerated their interference for the most part, knowing they were trying to be supportive in their own ways. But it was so unlike the comfortable distance that had existed before the shooting—and so much more intrusive than he wanted to deal with right now—that he didn’t quite know how to respond. So, with a silent apology to his sister, he very deliberately threw her under the bus.