He put the book down, running his fingers lovingly over the cover. Baroja, a famous Spanish novelist of the early twentieth century, had been a physician as well as an author. He was Ramon’s favorite. The stories in this collection were full of Baroja’s life in the barrio of Madrid before antibiotics were discovered. They were stories of pain and tragedy and loneliness, and through it all, hope. Hope was his stock-in-trade. When all else failed, there was still faith in a higher power, hope that a miracle could occur. One had occurred tonight, for that lady whose husband was in ICU. He was glad, because it was a good marriage and those people were in love, as he and Isadora had been. At the beginning, at least…
He sighed and turned toward the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator.
“Ay, ay, ay,” he murmured softly to himself as he surveyed the contents. “You’re a world-famous cardiac surgeon, Señor Cortero, and tonight for your supper you will feast on a frozen dinner of rubber chicken and undercooked broccoli. How the mighty have fallen!”
The sudden ringing of the telephone brought his head, and his eyebrows, up. He was still technically on call until midnight, and he might be needed.
He lifted the receiver. “Cortero,” he said at once.
There was a pause. “Ramon?”
His face hardened. He knew the voice so well that only two syllables gave away its identity over the telephone.
“Yes, Noreen,” he said coldly. “What do you want?”
There was a hesitation, also familiar. “My aunt wants to know if you’re coming to my uncle’s birthday party.” How stilted those words. She and her aunt and uncle weren’t close. They never had been, but the distance was especially noticeable since Isadora’s death.
“When is it?”
“You know when.”
He sighed angrily. “If I’m not on call next Sunday, I’ll come.” He toyed with a slip of paper on the spotless glass-topped telephone table. “Are you going to be there?” he added darkly.
“No,” she said without any trace of feeling in her voice. “I took his present over today. They’ll be out of town until the weekend, so they asked me to call you.”
“All right.”
There was another pause. “I’ll tell my aunt that you’re coming.” She hung up.
He put the receiver down and pressed it there. It felt cold under his fingers, cold like the inside of his heart where Isadora was. He could never separate the memory of her death from Noreen, who could have saved her if she’d been at home. It was unreasonable, this anger. He realized that, on some level. But he’d harbored his grudge, fed it on hate, fanned the flames to thwart the pain of losing Isadora in such a way. He made himself forget that Noreen had loved Isadora, that her grief had been every bit as genuine as his own. He hated her and couldn’t hide it. Hating Noreen was his solace, his comfort, his security.
To give her credit, she never accused him of being unjust or unreasonable. She simply kept out of his way. She worked in O’Keefe City Hospital across the street from St. Mary’s, where he performed most of his surgeries. She was one of two registered nurses who alternated night duty on a critical care ward. Sometimes he had patients in her unit, whom he had to visit on rounds. But he treated her even there as a nuisance. She had a university degree in nursing science. She had the talent and intelligence to become a doctor, but for some reason, she’d never pursued such a career. She’d never married, either. She was twenty-five now, mature and levelheaded, but there were no men in Noreen’s life. Just as there were no women in Ramon’s.
He went back into the kitchen and made himself a pot of coffee. He required very little sleep, and his work was his life. He wondered what he would have done without it since losing Isadora.
He smiled, remembering with sad poignancy her elegant blond beauty, those vivid blue eyes that could smile so warmly. Noreen was a poor carbon copy of her, with dishwater blond hair and gray eyes and no real looks to speak of. Isadora had been beautiful, a debutante with exquisite poise and manners. The family was very wealthy. Noreen shouldn’t have to work at all, because she was the only surviving heir to the Kensington fortune. But she had apparently little use for money, because even when she was off duty, she seemed to dress down. She had an apartment and never asked her aunt and uncle for a penny to help support her. He wondered what their response would have been if she had asked, and was amazed that he concerned himself with her at all.
Noreen had been a puzzle since he’d met Isadora, six years before. Isadora was outgoing and gregarious, always flirting and fun to be with. Noreen had been very quiet, rarely exerting herself. She’d had no social life to speak of. She was studious and reserved back then, a nurse in training, and her profession seemed to be paramount in her life.
Ramon frowned. Odd, he thought, how a woman so wrapped up in nursing could have been so negligent with her own cousin. Noreen was so conscientious on the ward that she was often reprimanded for questioning medicine orders that seemed unacceptable to her.
Perhaps she’d been jealous of Isadora. Still, why would she have gone so far as to leave a critically ill woman alone in an apartment for almost two nights?
One of his colleagues had mentioned Noreen to him shortly after the funeral, and remarked how tragic the whole business was, especially Noreen’s condition. He’d snapped that Noreen was no concern of his and walked off. Now he wondered what the man had meant. It was a long time ago, of course. The colleague had long since moved to New York City.
He dismissed the thought from his mind. God knew, he had more important things to think about than Noreen.
That Sunday afternoon, since he wasn’t on call, he did go to see Hal Kensington, Isadora’s father, bearing a birthday present—a gold watch. Mary Kensington met him at the door, soignée in a leopard-striped silk caftan with her platinum blond hair, so much like Isadora’s, in a neat bun atop her head.
“Ramon, how sweet of you to come,” she said enthusiastically, taking his arm. She made a face. “I’m sorry I had to ask Noreen to phone you about today. I knew I’d never have time to run you down, with all my charity work, you know.”
“It’s all right,” he said automatically.
She sighed. “Noreen is a cross that we must all bear, I’m afraid. Fortunately we don’t see her except at Christmas and Easter, and only then at church.”
He glanced down at her curiously. “You raised her.”
“And I should feel something for her, you think.” Mary laughed without humor. “She was Hal’s only brother’s child, so we were obligated to take her in when her parents died. But it wasn’t from choice. She was always in the way. She’s going to be an old maid, you know. She dresses like someone out of the local shelter and as for parties, my dear, I never invite her for them, she’s so depressing! She was always like that, even as a child. Isadora was so different, so sweet, so loving. She was our whole world from the minute she was born. Of course, Noreen stayed with my mother a great deal of the time, until her death.” She glowered. “Noreen was a burden. She still is.”
How strange that he should feel a twinge of pity for the sad little girl who came to live with people who didn’t want her.
“Don’t you love Noreen?” he asked bluntly.
“My dear, who could love such a pale shadow of a woman?” she asked indifferently. “I suppose I’m fond of her, but I can never forget that she cost us our Isadora. As I’m sure you can’t,” she added, patting his arm comfortingly. “We all miss her so much.”
“Yes,” he said.
Hal was sprawled in his favorite easy chair, his bald head reflecting the light from the crystal chandelier overhead. He looked up from the yachting magazine he was reading as the other two joined him.
“Ramon!