“Too Long in the Wasteland”
By Namaste
AN: Written for the random song title 100-word drabble challenge on the LJ community Housefic_Pens. The inspiration for each drabble comes from the first 13 songs that showed up on my iTunes shuffle play. The title for the complete set comes from the James McMurtry album, “Too Long In the Wasteland,” which provided two of the random titles.
The first set is random drabbles to meet the random titles. I then decided to play with the concept more. The second set, titled “The Boxing Mirror” are two sets of drabbles with connected themes, one dealing with House, Wilson and their relationship with House’s meds, the second on House and Cuddy.
Finally I went with a third set to wrap up the series, with three sets of drabbles, each focusing on each of the three fellows. Those are collectively titled: “Strangers Almanac.”
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Too Long In the Wasteland
All My Loving
“If you don’t tell your parents, I will.” Julie’s voice sounded harsh over the phone line. “I’m tired of making excuses when they call.”
Wilson planned to call his parents when he moved out, but he didn’t want to spoil their anniversary plans. After the shooting he’d canceled his visit home. He’d meant to call a few other times since then, but never did.
They’d been sympathetic when his first two marriages fell apart. But he’d seen disappointment in his father’s eye last time, seen his mother sigh and shake her head. He was afraid of what he’d see now.
----
Dancing With the Women At the Bar
She’d meant it as a joke, to celebrate the decision by going to the strip club. But there they were ... two men and five women in conservative suits, surrounded by poles, flashing lights and a two drink minimum.
They’d ordered tequila, and downed the shots together. Then it was Jack Daniels. Stacy ordered a round of ouzo, and found herself swaying in time to the music along with one of the firm’s partners and a secretary. She twirled away from the bar, and bumped against a tall man.
“You’re overdressed,” he said. “But luckily I have a very good imagination.”
----
The Path of Thorns
Greg complained about the food the hospital served, then said he was too tired to eat the food Stacy brought from home.
It was too bright in the room to sleep, he said, then it was too dim to read.
“He’s in pain,” James noted with a shrug. “If they can find the right meds ...”
“Then he’ll go back to the sunny disposition he’s always had?” Stacy smiled at her own small joke. Greg had never been easy. He’d warned her about that from the night they met. He’d fought every compromise. She should have known nothing would change now.
---
The Dress Looks Nice On You
Allison’s wedding gown came from her mother-in-law. The wedding was planned quickly, to take advantage of the good weeks Brad still had. There wasn’t time to order a new dress. Those on the rack didn’t seem right.
“I always wanted daughters,” Shirley said. “I saved this for them, but I ended up with sons instead.”
Allison hugged her and said she loved it, though it wasn’t quite her style. But Brad smiled when he saw her walk down the aisle. Allison’s father put her hand in Brad’s and stepped back.
“You’re beautiful,” Brad whispered, and they turned toward the preacher.
---
The Sun Comes Through
Allison had been asleep. She had meant to be there, to be by his side. Instead her father-in-law called just before 5 a.m.
“He’s passed,” Louis said. “It was very peaceful.”
Louis would be there soon to drive her to the funeral home. They’d already selected Brad’s clothes. Allison hadn’t wanted an open casket, but his parents’ had, and it wasn’t worth fighting about.
She looked east out past the balcony. The first rays of the morning sun were fighting their way through the dark. Their shafts of pure light spread across the horizon as far as she could see.
---
Poor Lost Soul
“So what did you people do with all those souls anyway?” Foreman shoved the newspaper across the conference table toward Chase.
“We didn’t do anything.” Chase ignored the paper.
“All those poor babies,” Foreman said. “One minute they’re in limbo, the next ... ‘poof.’ No more limbo.”
“First off, I’m not the pope. Second, the Catholic church never claimed there was a limbo. Just a few people used to teach that there was one.”
“Which brings us back to those poor babies.”
“You know, you were a lot easier to deal with back when you ignored religion to spite your father.”
---
Blush
Lisa used to watch her mother put on makeup. Foundation, blush, eyeliner, mascara, shadow, lipstick.
When she was six and her sister Rachel was eight, they’d snuck into her mother’s bedroom. Lisa frowned at the face in the mirror. Her lips were red and uneven, the mascara had clumped on the brush and on her eyelashes. She knocked over the perfume bottle and watched it spill across the bureau and onto the floor.
Her mother hadn’t punished them. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll get even with you when you have your own girls, and I tell them all about this.”
----
Orphan Girl
Cuddy wants to scrub her mother’s face clean, start over. The funeral home had given her a heavy coat of makeup which makes her look cheap, common. Her pale skin is too dark, her lips too bright, the shadow too thick.
She wants to reach into the coffin, fix her mother’s hair, but doesn’t. She sees the dead every day. She’s learned how to heal the living by cutting into the dead. She reminds herself that the body in the coffin is just a shell.
Her sister steps up next to her, takes Cuddy’s hand in hers, and squeezes tight.
---
Terry
“You’ll call me Coach, or Mr. Andrews,” the man said. “And I’ll call you Mr. Foreman. Titles are a sign of respect, and I expect you to show me the same respect I show you.”
Eric held his tongue and remembered what his father had said about his second chance at the new school.
Coach made him run wind sprints when he was late, made him work with a tutor when his grades dropped.
“You can call me Terry, you know,” he said the last time Foreman saw him.
“I’ll call you Coach,” Foreman said. “It’s a sign of respect.”
One True Love
Blythe fell in love with John House the day they met. It wasn’t the way he looked, or how his dress uniform fit him. It was the way he smiled at her, as if she was the only girl in the room.
“But the Corps always comes first to him,” Greg pointed out. “You always have to go where he’s going. You never get to make any of the choices.”
“Sweetheart, love sometimes means doing things you don’t want to.” She handed her son a book to pack for their next move to a new base. “Someday, you’ll understand that.”
---
Settle For Me
House always expected Stacy to leave. She was beautiful, brilliant, could have anyone she wanted. But she surprised him, and stayed.
“I don’t believe in compromise,” he warned her.
“Neither do I,” she said.
“I’m not going to change, just to make you happy,” he said. “Don’t expect me to do something just because you want it.”
“I’m not asking for that,” she said.
He shouldn’t have been surprised when she finally did leave, but he was. Sometimes he wondered if it would have been worth it to compromise just once, and if that would have convinced her to stay.
---
Are We Almost There?
Just before the divorce, Robert’s parents took him to Prague. The Communist government had collapsed, and his father wanted to show his new family to the one he left behind at the end of the Prague Spring, when he’d fled just before the Soviet tanks arrived.
Robert studied the sights wondering if the buildings themselves could offer up some secret to help him understand his father. They were silent.
He wondered if Rowan would decide to stay, but Rowan just shook his head.
“There’s nothing here for me now,” he said. “I had to leave to become who I am.”
---
Free Money
“Left my wallet at my desk,” House said to Wilson. “You’ll cover for me, won’t you?”
“I don’t have any change,” House said at the vending machine. Chase reached into his coat and pulled out three quarters.
“I thought free coffee was part of my compensation package,” he said, and Cuddy pulled a dollar from her own pocket for the cashier.
“I don’t have a free hand,” House said, indicating the cup in one hand and the cane in the other. “Help me out?” Cameron paid his bill.
“I’ll bet you $20 that it’s not lupus.”
Foreman nodded. “You’re on.”
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The Boxing Mirror
Poor Lost Soul
Wilson hears the thud from the hallway. He glances through the door, waves off the nurse and walks in. He picks up the paperback from the floor. “I think you dropped this.”
“Leave it.”
Wilson tosses the book onto the dresser and picks up the newspaper. “Want this instead?”
“Can’t concentrate. I keep reading the same paragraph over and over,” House says. “We need to change the meds.”
“You’ve only been on the OxyContin for two days, give it time.”
“I can’t think. I can’t ...” House shakes his head. “Get them to change the meds.” He stares at Wilson. “Please.”
One True Love
Vicodin isn’t as strong as OxyContin. It isn’t as non-addictive as ibuprofen. But House claims that it works.
Wilson sees House massage his thigh as it cramps up. “Hate to disagree with you, but ...”
“It works good enough,” House says. “I can deal with this.”
Wilson wonders how bad the pain was before, if this is what House now considers tolerable. But House isn’t complaining about pain, only boredom.
Wilson opens his briefcase and pulls out the journals that had been gathering dust on House’s desk. “I grabbed everything I could find.”
House takes them with a nod. “Find more.”
Are We Almost There?
Wilson isn’t sure when House begins taking two of the Vicodin regularly, rather than just one, but one day realizes that he downed two while they sat in his office. He sees him do the same thing the next night, then again a few days later.
“Bad morning,” House says with a shrug. He shakes the bottle. “There should be enough to last until my appointment Friday when I have to convince Dr. Scrooge to pry open the pillbox.”
“You been running out?”
“Not yet,” House says. “We’re just having a disagreement about the meaning of the words ‘as needed.’”
The Path of Thorns
“Simpson doesn’t understand.” House looks out the window into the rain.
“So convince him,” Wilson says. “He’s your doctor, I’m not. Or get Cuddy to write the prescription.”
“He doesn’t get pain. Neither does Cuddy. You do. Or at least that’s what your patients say.”
“That’s different. I’m your friend, not your doctor. It’s a bad idea to get those confused.”
“You can be both,” House says. “Be a friend and help me control my pain.”
Wilson shakes his head. He taps his pen against the desk once, twice. He reaches for the prescription pad. “Just this once,” he says.
Dancing With the Women at the Bar
Wilson wishes they hadn’t come. He hadn’t even wanted a bachelor party. This will be his third marriage, Julie’s second.
“We want to keep everything low key,” he’d said.
“Right, so we’ll only hit two strip clubs,” House replied. “After all, we wouldn’t want the new in-laws to think you’re perverted.”
He’d agreed to it because House was looking forward to it, and realized House hadn’t been bar hopping since the infarction.
Two hours into the evening, he can see House leaning heavily on the cane, sees him down two Vicodin with a Coke, and wishes he hadn’t given in.
The Dress Looks Nice on You
There are just two attendants for the wedding. Originally they planned on three, but when Stacy left House, they decided to make it easy and cut the size of the wedding party.
When Julie’s first bridesmaid appears, Wilson senses House stiffen beside him. He remembers seeing the cut and style of her dress when Stacy had modeled it -- a simple cocktail dress, in keeping with the simple plans for the wedding.
“You can sit, if you want,” Wilson whispers.
House shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
Wilson can see House’s knuckles turn white as he tightens his grip on the cane.
All My Loving
Wilson apologizes on his way out for the call that had woken Julie before 5 a.m., then apologizes that he’ll be late tonight because of a meeting.
“Poor James,” she says with a smile. “Everybody wishes there were more of you to go around.”
House is at his office when he gets there. Wilson hands over one pill, then a second when House keeps his hand out.
“You should have told me you were running low,” Wilson says. “I would have gotten you the scrip earlier, if you’d asked.”
“Thought I could make it through the night. I was wrong.”
Free Money
Wilson looks over the brochures from the drug rep, focusing on the latest non-opioid pain killers.
Each comes with its own list of side effects. There’s no way to predict how anyone will react to the meds. It’s all trial and error, trying to find the right pill -- or the right combination of pills -- that will help.
“I’ve got some samples of that,” the rep says.
Wilson wonders if House would be willing to try something new, or if he’ll refuse -- again -- preferring to stick with what he knows.
“I’ll take them,” Wilson says. Maybe this time it will work.
Blush
The first massage had been a gift from Julie.
“Ingrid’s amazing,” she’d said. “She’ll make you feel like a new man.”
“I thought you liked the man I was now,” he’d teased.
Julie hadn’t mentioned Ingrid’s stunning looks, and Wilson hesitates a moment before getting undressed, embarrassed by his own reaction. But as he lies on his stomach, he feels her fingers loosen the tight muscles along his shoulders, and at the base of his neck, relieving years of stress in minutes. He wonders how much training she’s had, and how she would work with damaged nerves and thigh muscle.
Terry
Wilson checks with the new pharmacist on his first day and tries to calm the waters even before House has shown up. House has used other pharmacies when he has to, but PPTH is the easiest place to pick up his supply. It’s also easiest on everyone else when there aren’t any glitches in the system.
“Call my office, any time you need authorization,” Wilson says. “We’ll clear the prescription.”
“You know I’ll need something in writing.”
“You will,” Wilson assures him. “I appreciate your understanding.” Terry seems comfortable with the situation. Wilson isn’t sure if that’s a good thing.
Orphan Girl
The first few days after House handles Crandall’s daughter’s case he seems calmer, more relaxed -- the pain back under control.
“I took something,” House says.
Wilson doesn’t ask anything, but House knows what he’s thinking.
“One of your sleeping potions,” House says. “I must have slept for twelve hours and didn’t do anything for another ten after that. It must have worked itself out overnight.”
Wilson wants to believe him. He’s seen House’s pain level ebb and flow before, so he ignores the voice in the back of his head trying to tell him that’s not what happened this time.
The Sun Comes Through
House passes through the worst of the Vicodin detox while he’s sleeping through the Ketamine coma.
When he’s ready to check out Cameron brings House’s jacket from his office. He pulls it on, and they hear a rattle in the pocket. House holds the half-filled bottle in his hand, staring at the plastic, at his name on the label. He tosses it to Wilson. “Throw those out, will you?” he says. “I won’t be needing them.”
Wilson finds himself hesitating, just as House had. He sees his own name on the bottle, just above House’s. He lets the bottle fall.
Settle For Me
When House shows up with the cane, Wilson feels his stomach clench. He pushes down the emotion, forces himself to keep a neutral look on his face.
House taps the end of the cane against the wood. “I’ll take those off your hands now.”
Wilson reaches into his desk drawer. His hands touch the bottle of Vicodin stashed there a day earlier. He hands it over, but can’t bring himself to look House in the eye.
“I’ll even make it easy on you and avoid the uncomfortable phrase ‘I told you so,’ just to ease your guilty conscience,” House says.
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The Dress Looks Nice On You
Jeans would be more practical, but Cuddy is tired of looking just like everyone else on campus. She leaves the denim in the closet, and instead puts on a skirt and blouse that cling perfectly to her body, then adds her grandmother’s silver necklace.
“If you’re trying to make an impression, it’s working,” comes a familiar voice from a table at the coffee shop window when she stops for a break. “Of course, the impression is that you’re relying on your breasts, rather than your brains, to get ahead -- which I would guess isn’t the one you were going for.”
Free Money
Cuddy hates the job at the Student Union, forced to smile and give out campus information and directions, but she needs it for her scholarship.
The misery almost seems worth it when she sees House there, with two people who must be his parents. She’s picked the most embarrassing anecdote possible by the time they near her desk.
“And next year,” his mother is saying, “he’ll be a full doctor, isn’t that wonderful John?”
“He’d be a doctor already, if he hadn’t screwed up,” his father says. House just shakes his head.
Cuddy lets them pass, without saying a word.
Dancing With The Women At The Bar
Some of the students talk Cuddy into coming with them to the Blind Pig. She’s put them off for weeks, focusing on the MCAT, but she’s too tired to argue.
It’s Tuesday, no cover charge and half-priced drinks before 10 p.m. Cuddy doesn’t recognize the name of the band that’s playing. Some local group, someone says, and she walks in time to the beat.
She comes to a stop when she recognizes House on stage. He doesn’t see her beyond the spotlights. He’s bent over the keyboard and Cuddy realizes that it’s the first time she’s seen him look happy.
Terry
Cuddy hates that she can’t stop crying. He’s a jerk. She knew that, but allowed herself to think he’d change.
The party continues on even as she makes her escape. She finds her coat, her purse, steps outside. Alone in the cold night air, the tears form again. Suddenly someone is there, handing over a package of tissues.
“I suppose this is the wrong time to say I told you so,” House says, “about him being an idiot, I mean, not that you’re gullible, though I suppose that’s true too.”
Cuddy wipes her eyes.
“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
Are We Almost There?
Cuddy catches a glimpse of House in the hallway his last week before heading east for his residency. He sold or gave away most of his stuff, only keeping what would fit in his car.
She doesn’t know what she should say to him, or if she should say anything at all. She wonders if he’ll remember her, or if she’ll just become a slightly vague face from his past.
She tells herself she isn’t sensing hero worship, no pedestal. He’s an ass, she thinks. She always knew this. But then she wonders why she’ll miss him when he’s gone.
Blush
It doesn’t take Cuddy long to learn she needs a thick skin for hospital administration. The first time she chairs a committee and can veto decisions, people want to throw her off her game, make her so uncomfortable she’ll give in.
“See the new study on the gender difference in science aptitude?” one guy asks.
“How badly did the boys do this time?”
“I’ve been hearing some complaints about the way you dress.”
“Are those from the same people complaining about your bedside manner?”
Cuddy really should thank House some day. Compared to him, everyone else is easy to handle.
Poor Lost Soul
Cuddy takes a chance on Princeton-Plainsboro. She’s only been there once. She doesn’t have any friends there, no mentors.
But every other hospital she’s worked at hasn’t quite fit. In Boston she felt never felt comfortable in the country club atmosphere that was the doctor’s lounge. At Cleveland she was just another name.
When it’s time to move on, she interviews at PPTH and Drew King in LA. House is on staff at Princeton. They never spoke when she was there. No one even brought up his name. But something tells her that this is the place she finally belongs.
Settle For Me
Someone on the board suggests a lump sum payment to House, before House has even been discharged. His girlfriend is an attorney, they say. The two of them will take PPTH for everything they can.
Cuddy convinces them to wait. They haven’t heard anyone threatening legal action, not even the whisper of a lawsuit. They may not take things to court at all.
Privately she doesn’t expect House to come looking for an easy payoff. She thinks he wouldn’t want to put a price on his leg. Besides, the hospital may have something to offer him more valuable than cash.
The Path of Thorns
“Why is it so hard for you to grasp this concept?” Cuddy stands in House’s new office, the duty roster for the clinic in her hand. “It’s part of your contract, you’re required to work in the clinic, and it’s only two hours out of your life once a week.”
“Exactly, two hours of my life wasted, Cuddy, and I’ve lost so much already.” House taps his cane against the floor.
“Ten o’clock tomorrow, House. I’ll be waiting.” Cuddy heads out the door.
“Bring a book,” House says. “It’ll help you pass the hours when you’re waiting all by yourself.”
The Sun Comes Through
House drops the charts onto Cuddy’s desk. “Updated through January,” he says. “Happy now?”
“Mildly pleased.” She doesn’t bother looking up from her papers. “I’ll be happy when you’re actually up to date on every month, not just three out of the past twelve.”
“I thought slavery had been abolished.”
“It’s not slavery if you get paid.”
“You stole my staff and put them to work in other departments. That’s got to be illegal. Indentured servitude. Something like that.”
“They’re getting paid too,” Cuddy says. “And they haven’t complained at all in the past week. I wonder why. Any ideas?”
Orphan Girl
The black eyed susans in Cuddy’s back yard came from her mother’s house. Alfredo had helped her transplant them after the funeral.
She remembers how tenderly he treated the flowers, cradling them in his hands before transferring them into the ground.
Now Cuddy watches from across the hallway as the occupational therapist talks to Alfredo. She tries to tell herself that he would have died if he hadn’t gotten prompt treatment, but her thoughts aren’t very convincing.
She turns to head back to her office, and catches sight of House, standing at the far end of the hall, watching her.
All My Loving
House hasn’t asked why she’s pursuing the IVF. Cuddy guesses that it’s because he’d rather figure it out on his own, but she’s grateful she hasn’t had to put it in words.
It would be easy to make excuses about biological clocks. But it’s more than that.
She looks at the photo of her nieces. Inside her purse, there’s a drawing one of them made during their last visit. There’s her house in the background, her trees, her fence. The stick figure that’s supposed to be her stands alone, two hands reaching out, with nothing and no one to grasp.
One True Love
Cuddy clips her badge onto her lab coat. Every week she assigns herself to the same clinic duty that everyone else sees. She looks forward to it. Sure there are whiners, malingerers and hypochondriacs. but it’s the only time she stops being an administrator.
Once she thought about stepping away from her desk, giving up the dean’s title to practice medicine full time again. Then Andie was admitted, and somehow House gave her another year of life. Another year with her mother.
If House wasn’t there, Andie wouldn’t be there either. And if Cuddy wasn’t there, where would House be?
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Strangers Almanac
Orphan Girl
“Give your Grandma a kiss, Eric.”
Eric is four, old enough to know the woman in the bed isn’t his grandma. Grandma’s back in Chicago. But Mama insists, so he steps forward.
“I can’t believe you put her in a home,” Mama whispers to Aunt Bev.
“You aren’t here. You don’t know how bad she was getting. I couldn’t take care of her anymore.”
Eric is glad when they leave the building with its bad smells and the strange woman who doesn’t know his name. A month later, when Aunt Bev calls, he doesn’t know why Mama can’t stop crying.
All My Loving
“You’ve got to talk to him.” Eric can hear his parents arguing in the kitchen from his spot at the top of the stairs. “He has to know that he can’t wrap you around his little finger and get anything he wants.”
“He’s my baby,” Mom says. “I don’t want to see him hurt.”
“He’s going to be hurt even more if you don’t set limits and stick to them,” Dad says. “He needs to learn right from wrong.”
Paul walks up to him and sits next to Eric. “What are they arguing about now?”
Eric looks over. “You. Again.”
Poor Lost Soul
Eric begins singing in the children’s choir when he’s eight. When he’s nine, Dad says he’s old enough to be baptized.
Mom was baptized on a hot summer day in a river back in Tennessee. Dad is a city boy but still had his baptism outside, in Lake Michigan’s waves. Eric feels disappointed that his will be indoors, in the big plastic tank at the front of the church.
He’s dressed in a white robe and holds his breath as the preacher tilts him back, lowers him under the water. When he emerges he’s wet, but doesn’t feel any different.
The Path of Thorns
“You’re the oldest brother. You’re supposed to set an example.” Eric can hear Dad yelling at Paul from the other side of the house.
“I didn’t ask to be born first.” Paul falls back on his usual response. “And I told him to go home. Can I help it if he tags after me everywhere?”
“You can help it if he ends up hanging out with those criminal friends of yours.”
“They’re not ...”
“Yes. They are. I thank God you don’t do everything they want you to do, but he’s not old enough to know how to tell them ‘no.’”
Free Money
“Grab the TV.”
Eric does what Ty says. Ty planned the break-in, has been there before. He knows what is in each room. Knows what is easy to sell.
There’s the television, where he’d said it would be. On the way out, a wad of cash catches Eric’s eye. He opens a drawer, takes the bills and shoves them in his pocket. When he turns back to the door, he sees a photo on a shelf: parents and children happy, smiling at a graduation.
He stops for a moment, looks at it, then picks up the set and heads out.
One True Love
Eric stares at the floor while his mother pleads with the judge for a second chance.
“He’s a good boy,” she says.
“With all due respect, ma’am, this wasn’t his first crime -- just the first time he was caught. You may be seeing what you want to see, because you love him.”
“I do love him,” Mom says, and takes Dad’s hand. “We both do. That’s why we’ll make sure it never happens again.”
The judge orders Eric to look at him, then sentences him to probation. “Don’t make me regret this,” he says. “Don’t make them regret it either.”
Settle For Me
Someone at church helps Dad finds the camp which promises tough love, hard work and Bible teaching, and is supposed to help wayward youths find their moral compass.
Eric can’t sleep the night before he’s supposed to leave. He sits on the back steps, listening to the sounds of the city. Mom steps outside, sits next to him.
“I know you’re anxious, but you should go to bed, try to get some sleep,” she says. “You’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
Eric can only nod.
Mom wraps an arm around his shoulder, pulls him close. “I’ll miss you,” she says.
Are We Almost There?
It takes almost an hour to get to the new school, taking a combination of buses and trains. Eric doesn’t know anyone there, but they all know about him. One of the counselors leads him into an office.
The man doesn’t say anything about the camp, about where Eric spent the past three months. He just hints at it, which seems even worse.
“We have high standards here,” the man says. “We expect our students to live up to those standards.”
Eric holds his head up, thanks the man for his time and follows a map to his first class.
The Sun Comes Through
The scholarship means that Eric can go to college anywhere, and he picks somewhere far away, where no one knows him.
His bags are heavy when he loads them in the car, but he feels lighter, feels the weight of his past dropping off his shoulders with each step he takes away from home, away from his history.
He feels a tug on his coat before he steps into the car, and turns to see his mother smiling even as she fights back tears, pulling him back for one last hug. He squeezes her tight. “I’ll miss you,” he says.
Terry
Foreman is used to finishing first in his classes: math, science even English. The A minus in history feels like a blow.
“It’s all about context,” the professor says. “I didn’t feel like you fully understood the implications of Homer’s writings on Greek civilization as a whole.”
She points him to another student and suggests that Foreman work with him on the next project. The other student is tall, blond, blue-eyed. White. Foreman can’t say for certain that the color of his skin had anything to do with his grade, but the thought settles into the back of his mind.
Dancing With The Women At The Bar
California is everything Foreman hoped it would be: sunny, warm, beautiful.
Marty praises him at every opportunity, pointing out to others how well Foreman works with patients, how quickly he grasps the nuances of every new case.
“You’re going places, Eric,” he says one night after the lecture as they sit sipping Marty’s favorite martinis at Marty’s favorite bar.
Marty is rich, famous, respected. Foreman should be happy, but keeps thinking there’s more than he doesn’t know -- more that he needs to know. Even before his fellowship ends, he writes a letter, sends his CV east and asks about openings.
Blush
House is pushing. House is always pushing.
“Steal a car,” he says. “Get me one of those,” he says. “Dr. Mandingo,” he says.
Foreman knows what he wants, knows House is looking for a reaction, any reaction. He refuses to give it to him. He responds only with a joke or says nothing at all. He puts up with the mind games, with the bets, with the addiction, with the attitude. He’s not sure why.
House looks him in the eye and every sound in the operating room goes silent. “Good enough for me,” House says, and Foreman knows why.
The Dress Looks Nice On You
Dad tried to clean out the closet once, but Mom didn’t recognize her own clothes, kept looking for something she’d last worn a decade ago. The dress she’s wearing today hasn’t seen the light of day since he was in junior high, and she doesn’t know him when she comes into the kitchen.
“Maybe,” Dad says the next day, “maybe next time you should stay somewhere else. It’s getting harder for her to adjust, especially in the morning.”
Foreman nods, promises they’ll talk about that before his next visit. He gives his mother a hug. “I miss you,” he says.
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Poor Lost Soul
Mum used to read to him about the lives of the saints. Now Robert reads them on his own when it rains.
There was St. Gerard, the one she prayed to before he was born, and Adelbert, the patron saint of Prague, whose picture hangs in Dad’s office. Robert likes Patrick because he’s the patron saint of Melbourne. And because of the snakes.
Mum says her new favorite is Francis of Assisi. He guesses that it’s because she loves animals, but the book says he’s also the patron saint against dying alone. Robert laughs at that, and turns the page.
Orphan Girl
The family tree Robert has to do for school tilts to one side. Dad helps him fill in the boxes with names going back four generations. Mum can’t recall her grandmother’s maiden name, isn’t certain if “Ace” was her grandfather’s real name or a nickname.
She rarely mentions her sister in Perth, and won’t say what happened between them.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “We’ve got each other now, and that’s all we need.”
When Robert finds a photo of his mother as a little girl, holding her mother’s hand, he holds it tight, and tries to imagine what happened.
Free Money
Allowance comes with a lecture, Dad handing out unwanted advice along with every dollar, shaking his head as he counts them out.
“You don’t know how good you have it, but someday you will,” he says. “When I was a boy I had to work for everything.”
Robert nods and thanks him for the cash. The ten dollars will be enough to get three of them into the movies -- four if they don’t buy popcorn. He walks down the street to where his friends are waiting on the corner. They cheeer when he smiles and waves the bills at them.
Terry
He doesn’t wear a collar, and at first Robert doesn’t realize that the new teacher in religion class is a priest. His name hasn’t been borrowed from a saint.
“Times change,” Terry says. “The church is changing too.”
He talks about missions in Afria and in Asia. He talks about all the good that he’s done -- that others have done -- in God’s name.
“The church isn’t just a building, it’s everywhere,” he says, and Robert listens. “God has work for you. He has a plan. You -- all of you -- can do something good in this world. It’s up to you.”
All My Loving
Robert stays, because she asks him to.
Robert takes over the cooking, because she’ll eat a few bites, if only to make him happy.
Robert cleans up, because he doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.
Robert quits rugby, because she’s lonely if he’s not there.
Robert walks with her to mass on Sundays, because she doesn’t want to miss communion.
Robert takes the bus to another church, because he doesn’t want to give confession to someone who knows him, knows his mother.
Robert won’t leave, because he knows she still loves him.
Robert believes that she’ll remember that.
The Dress Looks Nice On You
Chase has the closet doors open. He sits on the bed and stares at the mixture of colors, fabrics and textures.
There’s the dark blue suit Mum wore to his graduation next to the red dress he last saw during his parents’ final anniversary dinner. There’s a black and white checked blazer, from back when she still bothered to go to the club.
“Pick one, Robert,” Dad says. Chase faintly remembers calling him that morning, telling him that Mum had finally done it, asking him what to do. “They’re waiting at the funeral home.”
He reaches in, makes a choice.
One True Love
Chase has started going to mass every morning. He’d hated the daily routine when he was in school, but now he finds comfort in the words and the ritual.
He stands with the rest of the congregation. He listens to the scriptures, bows his head in prayer, steps into line to take communion. He knows what to do when he’s here, inside these walls. There are no questions. Everything seems certain. Everything has a reason.
Outside the church nothing makes sense. There are no rules. He has only questions and no answers, and Chase wants answers. He wants something certain.
Settle For Me
Chase finds a quiet corner and begins praying before dawn. He continues as the bell rings for breakfast. He waits for the quiet, still voice of God that will give him direction. The only thing he hears is his stomach rumbling.
“Sometimes you have to wait for an answer,” the monsignor tells him later that day. “Sometimes, the only answer is that there is no answer.”
“That doesn’t help,” Chase says.
“I know. I’m sorry. But not everyone is suited for the church. This is a choice you have to make for yourself. No one said it would be easy.”
The Path of Thorns
Everyone expects him to be just like his father. They think he went into medicine because it was the easiest choice. The simple choice.
“I expect you’ll go into practice with him,” one of the doctors says during the first days of his internship. Chase shrugs and doesn’t answer. He’s found it’s easier just to let people think whatever they want to think. He doesn’t want to argue anymore with anyone. It’s not worth the energy.
But he still isn’t certain he belongs here. He feels like he’s wearing someone else’s clothes -- his father’s clothes -- and they don’t quite fit.
The Sun Comes Through
Twenty-four hours later, and Chase is still awake. He closes his eyes and still sees the man as he was brought into the ER, bleeding and unconscious. He can still smell the faint copper of the man’s blood.
Only twenty-four hours since the surgeon placed Chase’s hand over the hole in the man’s thigh pumping out arterial blood, told him to hold tight and hang on as they rushed into the operating room.
Less than twenty-four hours since the man opened his eyes in intensive care and squeezed his wife’s hand.
Barely twenty-four hours since Chase realized where he belonged.
Blush
Chase fights to stay calm when he talks to his father. He needs Rowan on his side to make this work.
“It’s a fellowship. In America.”
Rowan knows of House, knows of his reputation.
“If you think I’m tough, wait until you meet him. You won’t last ...”
“I will,” Chase says. “I can do this. I was just hoping you’d make a call, lay the groundwork.”
“It’s a long way from home, but I had to go a long way from home when I was your age.” Rowan taps his fingers on his desk. “You’re sure?”
Chase nods.
“All right.”
Are We Almost There?
Chase pays extra for a short-term lease on his first apartment in Princeton. He keeps expecting House to tell him he’s not wanted anymore.
Richardson walked away from his fellowship without even saying goodby, just a note wishing Chase luck.
“You don’t need luck.” Chase jumps at the sound of House’s voice behind his shoulder and crumples up the note. “Richardson was a moron. He needed luck, didn’t have any. I have some hope you’re not a moron,”
House walks into his office. “Of course allowing a cripple to sneak up on you isn’t exactly a sign of intelligence either.”
Dancing With The Women At The Bar
Chase folds the paper in half and tucks it into his pocket. He gives the woman a smile.
“Talk to you later, Susan,” he says. He picks up the glasses and heads back to the table.
Foreman reaches for his beer and shakes his head. “I do not believe you, man,” he says. “Please tell me House is wrong. No way were you ever going to become a priest. Not with that smile and that ...” he gestures toward Chase’s hair.
“All true,” Chase says.
“No way.”
“Different time,” Chase says. “Different place.”
“Different person, maybe,” Foreman says.
Chase shrugs. “Maybe.”
------------------------------
Orphan Girl
Mommy tells Allison that her friend Christy won’t be visiting any more because her Mommy and Daddy died in a car accident, and Christy will be going to live with her uncle in New York.
“I don’t want her to leave,” Allison says. “Why can’t she live here, with us? Then she won’t have to go.”
Mommy says that it wouldn’t be possible.
“Why not? I’ll share my room and my toys and everything.”
“I’m sorry, honey but things just don’t work that way,” Mommy says. “Sometimes people have to go away.”
“But I don’t want her to go away.”
Dancing With The Women At The Bar
“One and two and three and ... stop looking at your feet Allison ...”
Allison jerks her head up, turning her attention away from her toes and instead looks at Melissa’s back, seeing how Melissa’s shoulders are straight, not slumped.
She tries to mimic Melissa’s posture, tries to keep her right hand light on the barre as her left
follows the familiar patterns for each position.
This isn’t the type of dancing she wants to do, but Mom had said it was important, that ballet is the base of everything else, and it was the right way to learn, so Allison learns.
One True Love
Allison feels the satin cloth under her fingers. It’s pink, her favorite color, and she has pink ribbons in her hair.
Aunt Kathy is at the center of the room, wearing a long white dress that falls in waves onto the floor. She’s wearing gloves reaching past her elbows. Allison’s gloves are short, going only past her wrists.
Her mother hands Allison her flower basket and reminds her to walk slowly down the aisle.
“She’s beautiful,” Allison says, and points to her aunt.
“All brides are beautiful,” Mom says. “Someday you’ll be a bride, and you’ll be even more beautiful.”
The Sun Comes Through
Mom and Dad tell the girls they can be anything they want to be, but that doesn’t help. Allison doesn’t know what she wants to do.
All she knows is that she wants to help others, to do something that’ll make a difference.
“You could be the first female president,” Dad teases, but she tells him the one thing she’s certain of is that she hates politics.
When she’s left waiting in the doctor’s office before her regular check-up, Allison studies the diplomas, noting the names of the colleges, the degrees, the honors, and finally her imagination begins to soar.
Settle For Me
Allison volunteers at the hospital, hoping exposure to its hallways, its patients and its doctors will help her prepare for the MCAT. She studies during breaks at the cafeteria, her books spread out on the table.
“Do you mind?” The voice is soft but masculine, and she looks up to see a young man standing there. “All the other tables seem to be occupied.”
She apologizes and stuffs her books back into her bag.
He says his name is Brian, and she asks if he’s visiting a patient. He shakes his head, looks down, gives a slight smile. “Afraid not.”
Are We Almost There?
Brian talks about how he’d planned to become a lawyer. He talks about how he planned to travel. He talks about how he wanted a wife, children.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I haven’t even said this to my parents.”
“It’s all right,” Allison says, and puts her hand on his arm.
“I’m not angry,” Brian says. “Not really. Not anymore. But sometimes it feels like I’ve been ... cheated. Like there are all these things that we’re supposed to do before we die, and I’ll never get a chance to do them.”
All My Loving
“I love you,” Brian says, and Allison smiles and repeats his words back to him.
She knows that it’s true, that she isn’t lying when she tells him she loves him.
But at the same time, she’s confused. Love, pity, remorse, fear, sympathy, compassion -- deep inside all her emotions tangle around each other in a jumble and some days it’s hard to separate out which one she’s feeling.
She puts her hand against his head and feels new hair growing out from pale skin. She fights back tears, but doesn’t know if it’s because she’s happy or because she’s sad.
Blush
When he was healthy, when he was happy, when he was excited, when he had good days, Brian always had a faint rosy hue to his cheeks. Allison saw it a few times when he was feeling good, and saw it even more often in the photos at his parents’ house.
But the funeral home has been conservative with the makeup, and he looks only slightly tanned as he lies there, the glow that came to him naturally no longer in view.
Allison turns away, unable to do anything more than nod whenever someone comments that he looks so “natural.”
Free Money
After paying all the bills for the hospital, for the doctors, for the funeral, there are still a few thousand dollars left over from Brian’s insurance. Brian’s parents make out a check and give it to Allison.
“No,” she says. “You should keep it.”
“It’s yours,” Shirley says. “He’d want you to have it. We want you to have it.”
Allison shakes her head. “This isn’t why I married him. This isn’t why ... ”
“We know,” Louis says. “But Brian used to wish he’d be able to help you with medical school. This way, in his own way, he still can.”
Poor Lost Soul
Cameron loses her faith in God sometime after Brian dies. She feels the anger that Brian never did and it channels through her until it spills over and she wants to strike out, hit something, make God as angry as she is.
But anger takes too much energy. She’s got med school to deal with now. More pressures. More work. More studying. Less sleep.
Cameron decides it would be eaiser just to forget God exists. She reasons that she can’t be angry at something that isn’t there, so she dismisses him from her life, shuts him out and moves on.
The Dress Looks Nice on You
Cameron knows she’s pretty, but not the prettiest girl in any room. Knows she’s graceful, but never the best dancer. Knows she’s smart, but there’s always someone smarter.
That’s been good enough. She never wanted the spotlight.
But when her team wins honors, Roberts rushes to the podium to accept them, before she makes a move. Roberts who has his photo taken with the dean, although he missed half the sessions. Roberts who shakes everyone’s hand at the head table, though his work was always late.
Cameron doesn’t say anything, but knows that this time, being good enough, isn’t enough.
Terry
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Dr. Newman asks.
Cameron nods. She knows there are dozens of hospitals that would be happy to have her on staff after her time at the Mayo clinic, but she doesn’t want to be just another M.D. in the crowd.
“All right,” Newman says, and agrees to give her a reference. “But you realize that there’s no guarantee House will hire you. And even if he does, there’s certainly no guarantee you’re going to be happy.”
But Cameron doesn’t care about being happy. This time she just wants to be the best.
The Path Of Thorns
“You’re pathetic,” House says. Cameron doesn’t look up to see who he’s talking to. It could be all three of them.
Cameron studies the test results while Chase and Foreman look at the films hanging on the light board.
“If we do a lumbar puncture, we could ...” she begins.
“If we do a lumbar puncture, we’ll just add another unnecessary hole in this guy, and you still won’t see the answer that’s right in front of your nose.”
House raps his knuckles on the paper in front of Cameron. She re-reads the results and reminds herself that she wants this.