do you think you’re seeing it in yourself? See, the thing is, you won’t get fixed, or even helped, if you don’t want to. That’s the deal with PTSD. You have to be willing to accept treatment in order to get past it, or at least know how to deal with it.”
“Well, my injuries are all on the outside,” he snapped, slapping his leg. “Something counseling isn’t going to fix, if that’s what you were going to ask. I healed fine, and I live fine. Better than a lot of the men and women coming back. So save your healing touch for them, Major …” he gave her a mock salute “… because I don’t need it and I don’t need you.”
“But some of your patients will, and I’m wondering if you’ll be objective enough to know which ones. Because they usually don’t ask, Doctor. In fact, part of your responsibility will be to make referrals to me and that, quite frankly, worries me.”
“Why? Don’t you think I can do my job?”
“Honestly, no, I don’t. When Jason brought your name to the board as someone to investigate, I voted against you because everything I’d heard, not to mention everything I’d read, indicated you were still fighting your own demons. But he out-talked me, swayed the voting members over to his side to give you an interview, and I lost. So here you are on a trial basis being exactly the way I predicted you’d be.”
“It’s nice to know who your enemies are.” He arched skeptical eyebrows. “Especially when they make no effort to hide themselves.”
“You’re not my enemy, Marc, and I’m not yours. But I’m not sure you’re capable of being a responsible colleague, either. At least, nothing you’ve shown me so far gives me the impression that you are.”
“Maybe that’s because you haven’t seen me work as a doctor.”
“And maybe that’s because you’ve never worked in physical rehab. According to your résumé this is your first job in that specialty. You’re here straight from your residency.”
“So tell me, how long had you worked in your specialty when your sister’s husband hired you to work here?”
“That’s different. He knew me.”
“But no experience means no experience. Isn’t it all the same?”
“You’re trying to twist my words,” she said, struggling to stay calm.
“What I said was that you got hired based on who you’d been and not who you were. In my opinion, if that’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me. Unless nepotism carries more weight than skills do.”
“I’m not debating your skill as a doctor. You come with a lot of commendations, including a Medal of Honor.”
“Then what are you debating?”
“Your past, your attitude. A couple of people in rehab with you said you were the worst case in the bunch. Your therapist agreed, and said you fought everything and everybody. She said when someone crossed you, you simply shut them out, and that went for the whole team assigned to you. Yet the people who worked with you on the battlefield gave you glowing praises. Which tells me that the before version of you is the real you and you’re keeping it hidden. Or, in other words, you’re afraid to let it back out.”
“So you have done your homework.” Laughing derisively, he simply shook his head.
“To be honest, Marc, I’ve done a ton of homework on you, starting with your trip back to med school to do a physical rehab residency. Couldn’t have been easy.”
He winced. “It was … fine. I mean, what were my choices? Take a desk job somewhere, teach? I wanted to practice, and this gave me an opportunity. Who better to teach someone like me than me?”
“Maybe someone with more compassion?” Anne snapped.
“You haven’t seen my level of compassion, so it’s not fair of you to judge me. And, no, this isn’t PTSD talking. It’s one angry-as-hell former army medic talking—one who lost the use of his legs and had to change his whole life plan. So I’m not like you, Anne, who had emotional difficulties because I couldn’t cope. If a hysterical outbreak was all it took to get me out of the chair, I’d be happy to become hysterical in a heartbeat.”
She drew in a bracing breath. She was used to being challenged by patients. Happened every day. Their tragedies were greater than hers, their suffering more—something she couldn’t possibly understand, so many of them told her. But she’d been to the very depths of hell, too, and she knew what that felt like. Maybe not in the same way others experienced it, because no two people went through it the same way. But like Marc, she’d had to fight hard to come back. And who knew? Maybe one day he’d finally understand that suffering was suffering, no matter the form in which it came.
“Look, we have a meet-and-greet tomorrow to give you a chance to meet all your new colleagues. I was wondering, since you’re new in town, if you’d like to grab a quick dinner afterward.”
“You’re asking me on a date?”
“Not a date, but I thought that since these meet-and-greets are usually pretty boring, you might appreciate the opportunity to get out of there a little early without looking like some pathetic loser who leaves there alone.”
“Aren’t you the picture of compassion?” he said, his voice perfectly even.
“Just trying to be friendly. That is, if you’re capable of being friendly.”
“I can be as friendly as the next guy when I have to be.”
“I have a degree in psychology as well as medicine, Doctor. Want me to tell you in how many ways that sounded antisocial?”
“You are stubborn, aren’t you?” He actually laughed out loud. “And you think I don’t know?”
“Go ahead, call it what it is … stubborn. I am stubborn, I like it and I own it.”
A hint of a smile crinkled his eyes. “Well, you’ve met your match. My stubbornness is going to put yours to shame.”
“And you’re proud of it?”
“About as much as you are.”
She studied him for a moment and noticed that he’d visibly relaxed in his chair. Was he all bark, no bite? She doubted that. But she also doubted that his bite was worse than his bark. Marc Rousseau was hiding behind his disability, and doing so by lashing out. It was a typical scenario for an atypical man. Somehow, she looked forward to the challenge. No, he wasn’t her patient, but when had that ever stopped her? “OK, then. Tomorrow after the meet-and-greet. Would you prefer Greek or Chinese?”
“I would prefer a bowl of cold cereal, alone.”
“I didn’t hear that as an option, Doctor. So Chinese it is.”
“Chinese,” he muttered as he rolled away from her. “I hate Chinese.”
“Then Greek it is.”
“Hate Greek.”
“Then there’s an all-night diner down the street and I’m sure they serve cold cereal.” She smiled. “See you then, if not sooner.”
What had she just done? Actually, she didn’t have time to think about it on her way to her group session. Every morning was reserved for private patients who were not yet ready to face others, and every afternoon was much the same, except she blocked out two hours after lunch for her group session where anybody was welcome to sit in and talk.
Talking was cathartic. Too bad she hadn’t talked more. If she had, she might not have found herself in the depths of despair after she’d learned about Bill. But that’s where she’d ended up. Too much trauma, too much death, too many patch jobs that just hadn’t been good enough. She’d held up in the field just fine because she’d had a real purpose there, but when she’d come home to face all the things a family practitioner had