The Way We Love

By Stuart Friedman

This is a realistic story of human passion and weakness behind the ultramodern fatade of a big city hospitalùthe saga of Kurt Severton, an brilliant surgeon who feels duty-bound to prevent a whitewash of a bungled operation by his chief, Dr. Tolliver.

ThereÆs Donna, TolliverÆs wifeùhot, vibrant, and eager to loveùwho thrusts herself wantonly into SevertonÆs life.

And Marti, his mistress, who gives him everything a woman can give: love, loyalty, passion. But above all, there is SevertonÆs guilty conscience. Has he the right to expose a colleagueÆs professional mistake when his own personal life is not above reproach?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781440543258

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Dr. Kurt Severton heard the door open at the patio-pool end of the foyer, pocketed the Journal of Surgery he had been reading and turned around. He blinked, a look of astonishment in his serious, deep-set eyes, as he saw Donna Tolliver coming toward him as if she thought he had come there, not on hospital business but to be seduced.

Her delicate, doll-like little figure was sheathed in a gold-brocaded black silk Chinese gown, the long sleeves slit from wrist to shoulder, the skirt slit almost to the hip on both sides to reveal shadowy glimpses of pretty young legs. She wore gold-thonged, high-heeled sandals on her bare feet and moved with the short, shuffling steps of a singsong girl, the while watching him, a teasing smile on her impudently pretty face. Kurt’s mouth compressed and the features of his broad, strong face tensed with disapproval. He relaxed a moment later; it was a playful seductiveness in the mood of the party she’d just left; such things were little more than reflex with girls like this. It couldn’t be personal.

In the two years since Kurt had joined Lakeland General Hospital’s Surgical Staff he’d seen her often and she’d never shown more than polite interest in him. Before her marriage she’d been a wild kid with too much money and she still did entirely too much entertaining for his antisocial tastes, but he had to grant that she raised a lot of money for the hospital and worked conscientiously in the Women’s Auxiliary. He couldn’t hold charm and high spirits against her. Kurt smiled at her.

Donna stopped in front of him and shook her head. No, don’t smile. It’s that harshness of yours that gets me, Kurt, she said in a soft, husky voice, gazing up at him with embarrassing fascination.

Harshness? he said, annoyed.

I should have said hardness—manliness.

Mrs. Tolliver, I asked the maid to announce me to Dr. Tolliver.

He’s at the party. I’ll take you out.

I’m not dressed for a party and not in the mood. I’m here to discuss a serious operation with your husband.

Sorry, she said, almost meekly. I’ll get him.

She started for the door. She stopped, looked back at him unhappily. You couldn’t come out for just a minute? Please?

Is it so important?

Some of my friends think Lakeland Hospital merely humors me because my husband’s Chief of Surgery and my father and my uncle are on the Board of Governors. They think my work for the hospital is just playing around. But they respect you, and if you showed you didn’t consider me too trival to be seen with …

I see, he said warmly. Well, Donna, you’ve been good for Lakeland Hospital and any friend of Lakeland is a friend of mine. Lead on.

Thanks. I’m proud that you’re at Lakeland. And I’ll remember in the future that girls who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw passes.

In fact, the house was mostly glass, a glasslike transparent plastic even formed the part of the roof over the basketball-court-sized central room. The structure, set within twenty acres of parkland, was smart and ultramodern, its twenty or so ground-floor rooms spread over an acre of land in a zigzag pattern not unlike some postoperative fever charts he’d seen. As he went out with Donna into the brightly tiled and vividly furnished patio-pool area, the deep orange glow of the late sunset irradiated the house with brilliant, motionless flamelight.

Lively dance music came through overhead speakers, though only one couple was dancing; most of the crowd of thirty or forty was sitting around the several tables eating steaks; a couple in bathing suits were having their meals on the diving board; waiters with wheeled carts were shuttling between the kitchen-barbecue area and the tables. The guests were around Donna’s age—in their mid-twenties. Judging from the array of flashy low-slung foreign cars in the parking area, they were a sports-car set, all of them candidates for emergency surgery.

Beside Kurt, Donna waved and called: Ed, look who’s here. Dr. Severton!

Dr. Edwin Tolliver, Lakeland’s Chief of Surgery, was lounged back in a chair laughing and chatting with a group at a table for eight. He waved at Donna and got up. A tall, thin man of forty with graying temples and a narrow, rather handsome face when, as now, he was smiling, he came toward Kurt his right hand extended, a highball in his left.

Unexpected pleasure, Kurt.

I want him to meet everybody.

Certainly. Let’s take him around. Folks, I want you to meet Dr. Kurt Severton, a surgeon so highly regarded that I was recently privileged to appoint him Assistant Chief of Surgery at Lakeland General Hospital. There was a double edge to the statement, and Tolliver gave him a wry private grin, which was not quite the sardonic grin characteristic of lockjaw. Though it was a tossup whether or not Tolliver would have preferred a tetanus infection to Kurt Severton. It was the prerogative of the Chief of Surgery to appoint an assistant, but he must choose from candidates presented by the Active Surgical Staff. Kurt’s colleagues had presented only one name.

At Lakeland the post of Assistant Chief paid nothing. Kurt’s income, as that of all the surgeons, including Tolliver, came from individual patients; but the appointment, involving added duties and responsibilities, was an honor. Technically, according to the hospital bylaws, Tolliver could have flouted the wishes of the other surgeons, but only at the risk of having some of the best men sever their connections with Lakeland. Tolliver’s appointment was for life and this was resented by the other surgeons. Kurt’s appointment represented a medical judgment of his abilities.

Not that Tolliver was an incompetent; far from it; he was, like Kurt, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and each held as further unassailable proof of high ability, a diploma in General Surgery from The American Specialty Board. But in recent years, and particularly in the past several months, Tolliver had been slipping. At his best Kurt genuinely respected Tolliver.

At this moment Tolliver was not at his best. He illustrated the fact like a scene from a temperance movie. A waiter with a wheeled drink cart was passing and Tolliver turned, seized him by the collar and shouted with mock severity: Sneaking off, eh! He took a new drink from the cart. Donna looked at him expressionlessly.

I’ll take Dr. Severton around, she said, and added in a quiet, waspish tone, while you catch up on your drinking.

Kurt was impatient as Donna steered him around; he smiled but found himself looking at these people with a diagnostic eye; some handsome, some pretty, all young and healthy. But if they habitually drank as much as they seemed to, they were committing crimes against their internal organs, and outraging the marvelous and complex beauty of their life forces like swine destroying pearls they hadn’t the wit to cherish.

Minutes ago Kurt had thought this glass house, this rich-girl toy was beautiful—and it was. But it’s excessive opulence was no setting for a serious surgeon; its sensuality and unreality were destroying and degrading a good man. He despised it and himself for the brief moment of sympathy he had felt for Donna Tolliver. He looked at his watch.

Afraid my time’s up, he said to her. He walked back to Tolliver. Where can we talk?

You’re here professionally, is that it?

Yes.

We’ll go to my study.

They went inside and started down a hall to a room remote from the patio.

I saw tomorrow’s operating schedule, Kurt said, and I was surprised to see you were doing a splenectomy in the morning.

Why surprised?

Well, Ed, the patient was only admitted this afternoon. It’s elective surgery, not emergency. The lab tests will take two or three days.

They entered a corner room with desk, couch and chairs and several hundred medical books and journals on wall shelves and on tables. They sat on opposite sides of a blond wood desk and Tolliver, a frown giving his thin, handsome face a look of petulance said:

I don’t need pathology to diagnose an enlarged spleen. I can see jaundice without the assistance of the icteric index.

It’s not necessarily hemolytic jaundice. It’s more likely biliary. I have reason to believe the spleen is a secondary source of—

Tolliver sat poker-stiff and widened his gray eyes. Dr. Severton, am I to understand that you saw my patient this afternoon?

I only looked in to make sure it was the same woman. Same name, same attending physician, but I wanted to verify her identity. Certainly I didn’t interfere. But, as you may know, this woman was in my consultation room two months ago, at which time—

"You sent her home. I know all about that. Well, her attending physician, Dr. Joel Marshall, brought her to me for consultation. I’m going to operate. She’s a nervous woman so I took the precaution of getting the permission-to-operate signed immediately. To keep from building up her fear and tension I’m stealing the operation. It’ll be over before she has time to get scared. Do you disapprove of stealing them?"

No; that’s not the issue. I don’t believe, from what I know of the patient and of the attending physician, that any operation is needed. Her complications are almost entirely due to his medication, and—

He stopped, looked toward the door. Donna came in with a steak and salad, and put it before him, smiling. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten since noon.

But I have. It’s very nice of you, but—

He didn’t come here to eat. We’re discussing a patient. I’ve told you repeatedly that the affairs of a patient are privileged communications. Get out!

Don’t you yell at me, you souse!

Tolliver got to his feet, glaring. Then he shook his head, clamped his mouth, sat down again. Donna, please leave us. Kurt, looking toward the window, heard the angry click of her rapidly moving high heels and the slish-swish of her black silk Chinese slit skirt against her bare legs. When she was gone Kurt looked at Tolliver who was pulling a whisky decanter and glass from a drawer.

Want a drink? Tolliver asked.

No thanks, Kurt said uncomforatably.

Tolliver poured and drank a stiff one. He wiped his mouth, lit a cigarette and looked over at Kurt steadily.

"Think I drink too much? I think you suffer from rhino-cyanosis, even though your nose doesn’t show any blue. Mind your own business and leave my drinking to me. Even if it ever gets to be a problem interfering with my work, it’s more likely that I’ll call in the Chief of Psychiatric Service for consultation than the Assistant Chief of Surgery."

A sound decision, Kurt said dryly. I came here to discuss a serious matter. I know what a fine surgeon you are at your best. I can’t stand seeing you going down hill, losing your judgment. Lately, you’ve been cutting too often, Ed, and you know it—and this splenectomy is a case in point.

I know all about the personal animosity you feel in this case. Dr. Marshall filled me in on your relationship with him. Well, I don’t happen to consider him such a bad fellow.

"He’s not a bad fellow; he’s a bad doctor. On the personal level we’ve been friends since we were kids. If I were letting emotion interfere with my medical opinion it would more likely be for Joel, not against him."

You’re not even slightly angry because he ignored you and turned to me? Tolliver said, softly. That doesn’t touch your vanity?

Kurt shrugged. Of course it ruffles my feathers— He caught himself before adding: "Just as it ruffles yours because surgeons come from all over the country to observe my operations, and you rarely have any observers. However, I say my medical opinion is unbiased, and I’m telling you right now, Ed—and I’m going to put it in an official report—that I consider this splenectomy not only inadvisable, but dangerous. Dr. Marshall’s medication has seriously reduced this patient’s capacity for resisting infection. She is a very poor operational risk."

I didn’t ask for your opinion. I didn’t ask you into my house. He got to his feet, paling. Get out, Severton.

Kurt frowned and came upright from his chair very slowly, his gaze fixed penetratingly and steadily on Tolliver’s face. Kurt stood and stared challengingly at Tolliver, unaware of the tensing of his shoulder and neck muscles and the slight forward motion of his head. He kept his voice calm, though it deepened, husky with emotion. You know what you’re saying?

Get out, Tolliver repeated, this time quietly.

All right. And go to hell!

He left the room, went down a hall and out to the parking area, his long stride quick, his eyes flashing. He paused beside his station wagon, lit a cigarette, put out the match and snapped his head around at the sound of his name being whispered.

Donna came hurrying on silent, naked feet, her glimmering gold-thonged, bareback sandals hung from a crook of her little finger, the light from the house moving to the rhythm of her supple little body like mercury streaks over the sleek black silk of her gown.

The stealth of her bare feet, the whispering of his name—there in the quiet under a warm spring sky which was dark now and cloudy—gave this whole thing an unwelcome flavor of a secret rendezvous.

What is it, Mrs. Tolliver? he said brusquely as she reached him.

I wanted to see you. I’m so nervous.

He gave a short voiceless laugh. "You’re nervous!"

He dragged at his cigarette. When he removed it from his lips Donna glided one hand up around his and drew it down, turning it, and fastened her lips to the cigarette, drawing deeply. The soft feel of her slender, gracefully curving fingers on the thick breadth of his hand, and the light, satiny touch of her pretty young cheek against his palm made him draw his breath. She turned her face to exhale the smoke, then gazed up at him and inched closer. Kurt stepped back a little, shook his head and pulled his hand free of hers. He took out a pack of cigarettes, offered it to her.

This what you want? he asked innocently.

Don’t be silly, she said huskily.

Ditto, he said.

She dropped her sandals, put her arms around him and straining upward on tiptoe pressed her body to his.

Kiss me!

She closed her eyes, her face palely lovely, her mouth vivid and temptingly soft.

Kurt flipped his cigarette away, caught her arms roughly and broke her grip. Don’t be a bitch! he said contemptuously.

She gave a thin, pained cry. I’m not. I’m a woman. With a right to a MAN.

"You’ve got a man. And probably several spares among the buckle-back-cap set."

Don’t say that. I’ve never cheated on Ed. Never.

Please, Mrs. Tolliver. When I laugh too hard I get to coughing.

So help me, so help me GOD, she said fervently.

Cut the drama!

"Not till you believe me."

If you’ve never played around, all the more reason I’m not going to start you.

She suddenly clenched his lapels in her fists. "For months now it’s the same, night after night; he falls dead drunk into bed.