CHAPTER SEVEN

Oh boy...here we go. Clearly, I got kicked off a couple Christmas card lists over Chapter Five & Six. So I figured back to the lab in a hurry to beat back the angry mob. Here we go with the next major element of the story

> > >

So tight are the corners of your lips,

Part them, and feel my fingertips,

Chase the moment for forever,

Defense is paper thin, just, one touch,

And I'll be in too, deep now, to ever swim

Against the current

> > >

Six months had gone by. Six months full of angst and agony and half-complete truths and blatant lies. Six months so bizarre that Susan Lewis couldn't describe them.

Arizona had turned out like Hawaii – it was a place she would love to visit, but living there? As much as she enjoyed being Susie's aunt, she had tricked herself into thinking it would be enough. She longed to be the central figure in her life, and Chloe had proved quite capable at taking Susan's place in that regard. Even Chloe "replacing" her was a bit of a stretch, since Susie was too young to know what she had done for her, how much she loved her, though the little girl was very affectionate toward her "Auntie Suzie". Susan recalled how when Chloe first came back, she had questioned point blank, "Do you think you can be a good mother to this little girl?" Her older sister's sober reply had been delicate and truthful: "More than anything, that's what I want to be." But Susan wanted it too, and only one of them could have it.

In the meantime, Little Susie was growing up and Susan was trying to catch as much of it as possible. The girl had also taking up that time-honored childhood tradition of watching Disney movies eight times a day. Her favorite had become Mary Poppins, which she begged Auntie Suzie to watch with her every time she came over.

It was appropriate to Susan's condition, because there was always that scene at the end when Mary Poppins departs, and that smart-aleck on her umbrella scoffs, "They think more of their mother and father than they do of you!" And Julie Andrews' somber reply: "That's as it should be." Susan always had to catch herself when she heard it, because it applied very much to her. Six months in Phoenix hadn't done much, except allow her to maybe come to terms with the fact that she would have to be comfortable with being the aunt, not the mom. And Little Suzie's greatest joys and hugs and kisses would be for Chloe, and that was how it was supposed to be.

All of those thoughts came to her as she rode the bus to Good Samaritan Community Hospital for a meeting with Ray Gerhard, the head of the ER, on her day off. She was trying to guess what it was regarding but her mind drifted elsewhere, and she fought to return to the issue in front of her. Working at Good Sam proved frustratingly easy, nothing like what had gone on at County. But I didn't come here for the medicine, she argued. She hadn't committed any major errors and only lost a handful of patients, all to natural or unpredictable causes, so it couldn't have been a review session. She actually got along with the attendings, though some of the residents didn't seem to fully trust her. And then she remembered it was mid-May, her residency would be complete in less than a month, she had asked about possibly joining the staff at Good Sam. The meeting had to involve that, somehow, she concluded.

> > >

"Come on in, Susan."

She rose from her seat, extinguishing a cigarette she had lit to calm herself down. Why am I nervous? I shouldn't be nervous. She sat in the spacious office, across the desk of the portly Dr. Gerhard. He had a large belly but a thin face, wire-framed glasses hanging from his nose and a rapidly vanishing amount of hair. He was like a cross between Bob Hoskins and Mark Greene.

Shit! Don't think about Mark, not now! Focus...poise...good.

She was trying to coach the anxiety out of her and Gerhard could tell. "You want something to drink?" It was at that point Susan fully recognized where she was and her nerves calmed down. Gerhard sat at the edge of the table.

"Susan, I just want to tell you first that it's been a wonder having you in our department. I think you know you're a bit overqualified for our outfit, coming from your urban background, but you've been tremendous." Hey, he likes me! Susan thought.

"Still, I think you know you're status here in the short term is unique. Hospitals, particularly private hospitals, don't tend to accept residency transfers in the last half of the final year. I okayed it mainly because David Morganstern told me I was getting the best." Morganstern -- How could Mark have thought I was dating Morganstern? What was he---stop! Listen!

"We're a small, privately held suburban hospital. We're trying to build an identity here, so I need to staff a department full of faces that have helped us get this far. Basically, I want to give you a heads up on what'll happen when your residency ends next month." This doesn't sound like it'll end good.

"You're way ahead of my other fourth-years, I have no problem telling you that privately. But I only have two openings for attending status and now seven residents up for them." I'm getting cut loose.

"So you won't be able to offer me a job," Susan finished for him. Gerhard blinked, then cleared his throat:

"Yeah. The people in our program now, some have been here since their third year of medical school. They've helped get this hospital off the ground. Granting one of them attending status wouldn't mean anything if I gave it to you as well. I have to reward the people who've stayed loyal to the program." Loyalty. I'm not even sure I know what that means anymore.

> > >

She walked out of the office, and she should have been hurt but she wasn't. This was the choice she'd made. She knew as far as medicine goes she would be trading down, but work was always a secondary consideration. Having an important career didn't matter, having an important life mattered. That's why she'd come to Phoenix, to enjoy her role in Little Susie's life, regardless of its scale, and maybe to find something else along the way.

But loving Little Suzie doesn't pay the bills, she thought. And now people think I'm disloyal. I'm sure that's what Mark thinks...

GOD!! She mentally screamed. Why couldn't she get Mark off her mind? Just move past it and accept that she had that one shining moment with him, only to tarnish it forever by getting on that train? The answer to that was obvious: she couldn't do it because she didn't want to.  Every day she woke up and thought about quitting and racing back home, begging for his forgiveness, for a second chance. But you don't get second chances, she told herself, sighing as she got on the bus.

Being her day off, she went to visit Chloe and Little Suzie. As she walked from the bus stop to the little townhouse Chloe and Joe had bought, a thought which should have occurred to her a long time ago popped into her head: Chloe got a second chance. Her meaner half then immediately said, And a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a – She cut herself off before going further. Chloe had gotten another shot, so why couldn't her sister? She rang the doorbell, and the bubbly, effervescent Super-Mom that Chloe had become opened it with a smile. "Hey Suz!!" Susan forced a return smile and entered.

> > >

Little Suzie was in the middle of an afternoon nap, a very important window of rest for the mother of a two year-old, Chloe had smirked while offering up coffee.

"So what was the meeting about?" Chloe was relishing her new role as the older sister who knew all. Susan stirred her coffee absent-mindedly.

"They can't keep me on after June," she said, absent any emotion. Chloe raised her eyebrows and snickered, "Their loss." That made Susan chuckle. "Yeah, I guess so. Now what?"

Chloe thought for a moment and then decided it was time to acknowledge the two-ton elephant that had been in every room her little sister had walked into during her time in Arizona. "Have you talked to him since you left?"

Susan was stunned. She'd never once mentioned Mark to Chloe during her time in Arizona, never talked about what happened at Union Station. Not once. Her big sister instincts were good.

"What are you talking about?" She asked, praying to derail the conversation. Chloe wouldn't have it.

"Something happened before you left, with you and Mark Greene, right?" Susan could tell she either had a horrible poker face, or Chloe was just that good, and silently nodded.

"And???" Chloe pressed.

"And nothing. He doesn't want to see me, I...things got too complicated. He asked me to stay and I walked out on him." Susan fought through it, thinking maybe if she didn't say it she could close her eyes and reopen them to find it wasn't true. Chloe's mouth hung open.

"You did what?"

"I was scared!" Susan immediately shot back, emotions she had held inside bubbling over with amazing speed. "It was – he showed up literally at the last minute. I was.."

"You were scared." Chloe finished the thought, but immediately started one of her own. "Why'd you come out here Susan? You told me it was because you wanted to stay close to family, what was it you said, 'this is where I belong'?" Susan silently nodded.

"This isn't where you belong. It's where you feel comfortable." Susan sat in stunned silence, not willing to fight because she knew who would win. This was an argument she'd had with herself a thousand times, and the outcome was always the same.

"What was I supposed to do, Chloe? I was so sure it was going to be alright, and then he threw it all at me in one swoop and I didn't know what to do! I had no answer for it!" Susan was trying to convince herself more than she was Chloe, knowing full well how empty it all sounded.

Chloe stared at her younger sister, worn out by years of stressing over her, their deadbeat parents, and privately being dumbfounded on how she could do that and not tell anybody about it. Finally she decided to play hardball: "Do you love him?"

Susan's mouth opened but no words came. It was all the emotion and movement Chloe needed to settle the issue. "Yes, you do. If you didn't. we wouldn't be having this conversation because it wouldn't be bothering you six months after the fact."

Susan, who raised up her arms to symbolize frustration, slowly brought them to rest across her shoulders. It was the oddest moment of role reversal she'd ever been through: she was the one adrift at sea, all the worry of the world crashing down on her, and Chloe was the steady voice attempt to steer her ashore.

"Look," Chloe began anew, "God knows I screwed up enough in my time. But I got a wonderful gift, two in fact, from heaven: Suzie and Joe. I love them with everything I have, and wherever they are, that's where I belong. And you deserve to have that Suz. And you shouldn't give it up out of fear. Do you love him, I mean, do you really love him?"

Susan was fighting back tears now, something she'd done often on lonely hot Phoenix nights, and muttered, "Yes."

"Then go find him and tell him."  Chloe said it sternly, like a parent commanding a child to do the right thing regardless of how hard it must've seemed. The irony involved killed Susan, but suddenly things crystallized for her: Chloe was right. There was a second chance out there if Susan wanted it. It was a chance, nothing more. But didn't she deserve that much, even if it turned out to be nothing more?

She steadied herself in her chair and looked at Chloe, looked for a long moment searching for any shred of doubt or misunderstanding. She found none, and then found the courage to speak: "I have to go now."

"Do you see me stopping you?" Chloe said, curling a smile.

And with that, Susan reached for the phone. "Yeah, I need your first flight to Chicago."

> > >

She chose to be nervous about other things and that paranoia she'd had about flying never appeared. The plane landed at Midway just after 8:30 PM Chicago time. Where to go first? The hospital? No, that might raise other eyebrows, and she wasn't intent on explaining anything to anybody except Mark. Her apartment? Well, it was his apartment now. And then she reached into her purse, into one of the old side pockets...and out came her spare key. Phyllis never asked for it back, and Susan hadn't even realized she'd had it until after she was in Phoenix. Was it possible that he hadn't changed the locks? She flagged a taxi.

> > >

Heading up the old elevator created a spooky feeling of deja vu. She reached the third floor and headed down around the corner to the end of the hall. There it was, her old place. She wasn't sure what was waiting on the other side. Would he be angry? Happy? Confused? All of the above? She knocked.

No answer.

She knocked again.

Nothing.

The key was still on her, practically searing a hole in her pocket. She slowly reached in and pulled it out. There's no way the locks are the same, she told herself. Ever so gently, she slid the brass key in. It fit, turned, and clicked, and the door swung slightly open.

She questioned if this was OK, because of how they'd last seen each other. This would be an especially volatile reunion anyway, without her technically committing B&E. She pushed the door open and surveyed the scene.

Mark was as bad at keeping the place clean as she had been – takeout cartons were still on the table, clothes were strewn on the floor, books were scattered all over. And then – what was that? Barking. Barking?

And from the bedroom came a small dog, white & brown, clearly some form of mixed-breed mutt. Mark has a dog? She had to be either in the wrong apartment, or Mark had backed out of the lease after what had happened. She leaned down to appease the anxious canine, who was alert to a stranger on the premises.

"Hey, hey, it's OK," she reached around for the mutt's ID tag: "Nick" And on the next line, reserved for the owner: "Mark Greene". She couldn't help but laugh at this. Mark did not seem like a dog person. Yet here was the certified proof. But the barking was still present.

"You must be hungry, it seems like dinnertime", Susan tried to think outloud as a problem solver. She moved to the kitchen, "Let's see if Mark's got any food in here" She rummaged in the cupboards, all the places she had used to store the cat food, and came across a stack of canned Purina. Looking straight down, she saw a can opener that didn't look washed but at least looked useable. She squeezed the can open.

"Sorry," she said to the dog, who had sensed that she would bring his dinner and was now obediently following her heel, "I'm more of a cat person...uh!" A final twick had gotten the lid open. She placed it at the feet of Nick, who promptly dug in. Susan's eyes drifted towards the bedroom. No, that's offlimits. You can't rummage in his private space. But she was already in his apartment, so what was a few more feet? She inched slowly toward the dimly lit room.

Scanning around she noticed how sparse it was. She looked over the nightstand to see the familiar staples: hospital paperwork, a radio, a few pictures of him and Rachel. But something else caught her eye: a photo of the two of them, that night at the Pier in the photo booth. She smiled longingly at seeing it, how happy the two of them looked – it was as if that moment could be frozen in time, and showed no sign of the tragedy that would follow.

Her eyes drifted down again to an empty medicine bottle. Mark's not on meds, she thought as she instinctively grabbed it. It was Percodan, and a little Post-It was attached to it, in Mark's handwriting: "See Doug". A million thoughts were beginning to invade her head: What was Mark doing with Percodan? And why was Doug prescribing it?

Finally she noticed stuck to the mirror another note, but it looked frayed and tattered, like it had been written weeks ago. This one was also personal in nature: "Call Nina". Nina? That didn't seem good. Maybe she's his new woman. Maybe she lives here now – what if the dog is hers? She dropped the Percodan bottle and stepped backwards out of the room. All of a sudden it seemed like a horrible idea for her to be there.

Nick had plowed through his food but Susan knew that animals always enjoy downing food with water. She looked around in the kitchen for a bowl, finally settling on one which still had some Frosted Flakes on the side.

She sat down Indian style, in her old kitchen, a place which had always felt like home but suddenly felt cold and empty, watching the dog drink. Shyly, for no reason at all, she began talking to him, as if he were Mark. "So...how have you been?" The dog kept licking up water. "How's Rachel?" Susan practiced. She started laughing and gently petted Nick, who seemed to at least be taking a liking to her, even it required no effort. This was why she liked cats – dogs were like men, all you had to do was fill their stomach and they were content.

Her laughing was interrupted by a sound from outside the hall.

"What the hell?!?" She knew that voice. The door, which hadn't been closed all the way, was practically kicked open.

And Susan Lewis & Mark Greene came face to face with each other.

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Dum Dum Dum!!! To be continued...