The Doctor's Orders, page 27
They’re going to come around. They don’t let me know it, but they pay attention to every bit of gossip that has to do with you. I heard the two of them talking the other day after Jared’s parents showed up at the hospital, and they were so worried something might have happened, that one of them could have come with a gun. It played into their deepest fears. To be honest with you, I think the hardest thing for them is exactly what Mama said, that they didn’t want anything this difficult for you.
Nick didn’t doubt she was right, but it frustrated him. While he appreciated they didn’t want him to face difficulty, he wished they’d work harder to understand he’d rather face prejudice than live a lie. Now that he’d stepped out of the closet and could see how much he needed that truth, how much denying himself for so long had hurt him, he knew he could only go forward, not backward.
The trouble was, there were plenty of struggles before him that being out made more complicated. The whispers around town were one thing, the subtle change in perception from the hospital staff another. But he was fighting this battle of what to do about the new building. Gilbert hadn’t gotten anywhere in their investigation, and he acknowledged he might have to face a scenario where they never uncovered anything. At the end of the day, they had to repair the elevator or build a new building, and they’d need money from somewhere. A bond issue was the most logical choice, but it had already been an uphill battle with Peterson’s bad press souring the water, and Nick had to do public glad-handing with people looking at him like he was an alien.
If his coming out affected the hospital’s ability to reorganize itself, he didn’t know how he was going to handle that.
To make things even worse, two weeks after Jack and Simon’s wedding, Jeremiah Ryan removed one of Nick’s last emergency props.
“I’m going to be straight with you,” Ryan said as he sat across from Nick in his office, his tone a mixture of disappointment and frustration. “I’m not pleased. I didn’t think Collin’s son would be the kind of man to betray me this way.”
Nick blinked a few times, racing to figure out what was going on. “I’m sorry you feel I betrayed you, sir. How—?”
“My daughter, man. You’ve been stringing her along all this time, and now you’re seeing someone else. One of your doctors—a male doctor.”
It hurt Nick more than he’d anticipated to have Ryan upset with him. “I didn’t mean to mislead your daughter. From my perspective, I was being polite to a colleague, one I enjoyed working with. I appreciate the counsel and advice both of you give. I’m sorry to hear learning the truth of my orientation lowers your opinion of me.”
Ryan sighed. “I thought we had an understanding here. I thought I’d made it clear I wanted you as a son-in-law. You’re not a fool. There’s no way you missed that.”
“I did suspect, yes. In my defense, it wasn’t something I could easily explain, especially since I wasn’t out. I apologize if either of you were hurt, however inadvertently.”
“Well.” Ryan threw up his hands. “I appreciate your apology, but I need to back off from this for now. I’m rescinding my offer to invest in St. Ann’s. Most of my interest came because of you anyway, and my hopes for a relationship with my daughter. This said, I do feel you are a bright individual and will do well. So once things have cooled a bit, I might just be in touch again.”
Nick’s throat was a little thick. “I appreciate that, sir.”
He wasn’t sure exactly why he was so bothered. The board didn’t want an outside takeover, so he was never going to do anything with Ryan’s suggestion. However, he did think highly of Jeremiah, and Cynthia too. He probably should have given some more overt clue so Ryan hadn’t thought there was a chance.
He didn’t even have one day to cool off from the Ryan visit before he received a phone call from Peterson. This one had nothing to do with his coming out, which was a relief, but the subject matter wasn’t any more pleasant.
“A little birdie told me you’re considering a bond issue.” Peterson laughed. “I think you’ll have trouble with that. It’s not going to matter if you had your fancy firm give you more information. You’re never going to get your tiny town to cough up enough money to give you what you want.”
God, but Nick hoped Gilbert discovered evidence pointing directly to this asshole. “We’ll see what happens.”
“That we will. Oh, and don’t count on any lingering trails of sabotage, either.”
Nick stilled. “Excuse me?”
Peterson was a cat with cream. “You heard me. I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work. You won’t find a thing. Which is such a shame. If you could prove sabotage, you could get whoever had done it to pay for everything. But you have to have proof.” He clucked his tongue.
Now the man was taunting him. Nick didn’t need this. “Thank you for your concern about our hospital. But as I’ve said several times, we have no intention of doing business with you or your firm.”
“That’s all right. I have patience. When you get forced out of your job, I’ll make sure the next CEO I deal with has more sense than you. It’s a shame the brand-new board has such work cut out for it. Really hope they can all get reelected.”
“Goodbye,” Nick said, and hung up on him.
He left work early, sending a text to Jared saying he was going to walk home. He took a circular route to get back to the house, willing the fall air to clear his head. He passed the Amin place, where Zaika was in the yard, and she waved hello to him. The children played in the yard as well, while their grandfather fiddled with the lawn mower in the driveway.
Seeing them made Nick sad. He was tired and lonely, and he wanted his family back. He needed to sit at the kitchen table with his grandmother, vent his frustrations about the bond issue, and hear her wisdom on the matter. He longed to watch his mother be indignant on his behalf and listen to her insist he could do anything he put his mind to. He wanted to dream about getting married to Jared and having kids with him, and he wanted to have his family be excited for them when he shared those goals. He didn’t like how such an idyllic moment at the Amin house made him wonder whether he would ever have this for himself.
Nick was exhausted by the time he got to the house, his thoughts crushing down on him like weights. He craved a day off from this, one where he didn’t have to worry if he was making a huge mistake and how many people his actions harmed. He didn’t want to worry that everything he’d worked for with Erin might be about to go down the tubes, whether he may have inadvertently been the cause of it. He needed to be able to be himself in every way, without worrying about what it might mean for his job, for his family, and for his friends.
He hadn’t so much as taken off his suit coat when someone knocked on the front door. Nick’s heart grew heavy as he looked through the peephole and saw Pastor Robert standing on the stoop.
“Nick.” Though he smiled, Pastor looked as weary as Nick. “Mind if I come in?”
“Of course.” Nick held the door open wide. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Glass of water would be great, thanks.”
Nick’s hands felt leaden as he carried two glasses to the living room. He was nervous, yes, but he felt relieved too. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation, but putting it off wasn’t going to make it any better.
Pastor accepted the water, took a drink, then cradled the glass in his hands and stared at it for several seconds. Then he sighed. “I suspect you know why I’m here.”
“I assume it’s because you heard rumors I’m not only living with Jared, I’m dating him.”
Pastor lifted his gaze. “And are those rumors true?”
“They are.”
Another sigh. Pastor stared at the water again, then shook his head. “Aw, son.”
The disappointment in the voice of such an important man in Nick’s life hurt. No denying that. What else was coming? Condemnation? Rebuke? Outright rejection?
Lord, he was tired.
Nick cleared his throat. “My orientation isn’t something about me that I can change. I’ve always known that, but for a long time I thought I could compromise by denying myself. It took falling in love with Jared—to tell the truth, rediscovering a very old love—to realize there is no compromise when it comes to accepting yourself. You are who you are, and if you cut off that part of yourself, you’re not a whole person.”
Pastor stayed quiet for almost a full minute. When he finally spoke, it was as if he were selecting each word carefully from a shelf and squaring it up before letting it come out of his mouth. “I respect the difficulty of your path and your need to express this full self, as you put it. As your friend, your elder who helped raise you, and simply someone who cares a great deal about you, I have faith this relationship with Dr. Kumpel won’t change who you are at your core, that this will make you happy in the way you need to be. However. As your pastor, I can’t condone this. I can’t in good conscience tell you anything except that I fear for your immortal soul.”
Nick’s hand tightened on his knee, and he drew a breath to slow his temper. “How God sees me or doesn’t see me because of the way I am, the way He made me—I can’t let someone else get in the middle of that. If He honestly wants me to be half of myself in order to be in His Kingdom, that’s something the two of us will have to wrestle with when I go to meet Him. But I’ll tell you, I don’t believe that’s how He works. I can’t accept He’d make me this way and then tell me I could only be saved if I carved out a part of myself straight people don’t have to. And to be honest, denying who I am isn’t something you told me was part of a healthy relationship with my Maker. You can’t tell me to come as I am and not hide my light under a bushel but then say you don’t like the color of my light.”
“And if your light involved murder or adultery? What would I say to that?”
“Murder and adultery harm other people. Me holding Jared’s hand and building a family with him hurts no one. That’s a rude, insulting comparison, and you know it.”
Pastor’s lips thinned. “You’re bordering on out of line yourself right now.”
“Why? Because I don’t want to be equated with people who kill or emotionally wound their partners? Gosh, I can’t imagine why that would upset me.”
Pastor held up his hands. “Look. I understand, I do. Personally, it’s not the hill I want to die on. But while theoretically I could change the rules of our church, you and I both know if I did, even for you, it would divide the community in an incredibly harmful way. As I’m sure you know, there are other men and women in the church who are homosexual, but they live their lives quietly, out of sight. If you were to do that, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. That’s pretty much the arrangement.”
“It’s not an arrangement I’m interested in.”
“Given that, I’m sorry to say that you’ll have to resign as deacon. That’s the very least that’ll happen. As for whether or not you can remain… I don’t know. It’s going to cause a huge fuss.”
Nick thought about Kathryn, about her decision to walk away. He thought about his mother and grandmother and their frosty silences. He thought about how easy it would be if he simply gave this up, chalked it up as a casualty.
Then he considered how hard he’d worked to get this far in his life, how much he’d already sacrificed or had outright taken from him, and his will hardened like a piece of iron.
“I suppose you’ll have to deal with a huge fuss, then.”
Pastor ran a hand over his hair and rose. “All right. I’ll see what I can do. I’m not promising anything, and no matter what, you’re going to have to work to get people to see things your way. But I’m not going to fight you.”
The corner of Nick’s mouth lifted in a smile. “I’m used to fighting.”
They embraced, and after Nick saw Pastor to the door, he flopped onto the couch and closed his eyes, willing the tension of the meeting to melt away.
He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the next thing he knew, Jared was leaning over him, looking concerned.
“Are you okay, honey?” Jared asked, lightly touching his face.
Nick caught Jared’s hand and kissed it. “I’m just fine,” he said, and the truth was that as long as Jared was there, it wasn’t a lie.
Chapter Sixteen
IT PAINED Jared to see how much Nick hurt.
“I wish there was something I could do.” He said this to Owen one day as they sat alone in the doctors’ lounge at the beginning of November. The two board members up for reelection, Ram and Amanda, had just cleared their hurdle, but only by the skin of their teeth. It was generally considered that the college vote had carried them through, as they were both professors. “He has so much pressure on him. He feels like he needs to do everything perfectly, better than perfectly, and worst of all, I know he’s not wrong. He has to work harder to prove himself. I want to support him, and I don’t feel I’m doing enough.”
“Frankly I’m surprised at how little you’re bossing him around.” Owen sipped at his coffee. “I know you’re trying to be good, but it’s not like you, honestly.”
“Well, I’d love to tell him what to do, but this is hardly the time for it.”
“True. But that subtle here’s what you should do attitude is kind of who you are. It has to be part of what he loves about you. I think you should lean on your strengths. I’m not saying nag him, but there’s got to be a way for you to stop holding your breath. You want to help? Figure out how to be that part of yourself with him.”
At first, Jared wasn’t sure what to do with this advice. Every night Nick came home from work looking weary, and when Jared asked what was troubling him, he said it was the hospital funding. He and Erin were getting ready to announce the bond issue and special election for next May, but he was nervous about it passing. He worried often that his coming out had put things at risk.
This made no sense to Jared. Yes, there were some bigots, but overall when they went out together as an official couple, people smiled and waved to them more than they didn’t. If anything, he thought their relationship might be a selling point. The people who found them distasteful had always found them distasteful.
The problem, he realized one night when they were out to dinner together, was one of perception.
They’d gone to Café Cuore, and the hostess greeted them with what Jared had thought was extra warmth. The server was equally pleasant. They got a few curious looks, yes, but on the whole their relationship was old news now, and most people simply went on with their lives. When Jared mentioned this to Nick, however, Nick seemed unimpressed, or at least too distracted by worries of what voters would think.
Jared put down his fork and frowned. “But these are voters. They’re not throwing you a parade, but they’re treating you like everyone else.”
“I can’t know for sure my coming out won’t affect the hospital until the vote actually happens. And this isn’t to say Peterson doesn’t have something up his sleeve, some plan to make sure it doesn’t work. I’m half afraid to start anything lest I give him more ammunition.”
“What do you mean, start anything? What would you start?”
Nick shushed him. “Keep your voice down.”
“You honestly think he’s here?”
“I think he managed to infiltrate the hospital, nearly kill us, gloated about it to me, and gleefully reminded me we can’t get anywhere without proof. I think he’s capable of about anything.”
Does he have to do anything, though, when you’re doing so much to yourself? Jared wished he knew how to say that out loud.
The next day he went to Rebecca, because he wanted an expert’s opinion. “How much of this is legitimate, what he’s fearing?”
Rebecca sipped her tea. “More than you’d like to admit.”
This wasn’t what Jared wanted to hear. “We need to help him. We need to canvass or something. We need to find the evidence to pin Peterson down, if Gilbert won’t.”
“I think Erin mentioned something about an ad campaign at the last meeting. But you’re saying actively go door-to-door?” She considered the idea a moment, then shrugged. “It’s not bad. What’s the message? Outside of the obvious pitching of the hospital.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re fighting subtext, right? So what are you striking back with? Are you showing them the board is united behind Nick? Do you want to underscore our diversity? Do you want to play to the voters’ egos? Do you want to let them know someone sabotaged the hospital? Do you want to sell this as Copper Point strength? What’s the angle?”
Jared’s head swam. “All of it. I want to do all of that. We’d need to discuss the sabotage part with the full board since we’d agreed not to disclose that, but everything else… yes. Can’t we do everything at once? I mean, the people who want to be against us will be against us no matter what we say. But the people who want to move forward will be drawn in by everything, and we sell it that way. We say, ‘You voting like this takes Copper Point forward.’ Ego appeal and all.”
“You’ve got quite a slogan right there. St. Ann’s Medical Center: Moving Copper Point Forward.”
Jared clapped his hands. “That’s it. Goddamn. Thanks, Rebecca. I’m taking this to Erin right now.”
Erin was as excited as he was by the slogan, by all of it. “I say we get not only the board but the staff of the whole hospital out campaigning. We can go door-to-door, but we can have events too. We could host a fair at the community center, a kind of wellness clinic and family fun night in one. We could have the blueprints for the proposed hospital there and take community input for what they’d like to see in a new building.”
Owen was into it too. “Maybe Jack could invite some outside specialists to come show what a more advanced hospital could offer. And that Ryan guy, the one with all the facts and figures, maybe he could show people what improvements would do for the community.”
