Conflict

Christmas was done and packed up for another year. Village lights and decorations across the narrow streets had been taken down and put away, home ornaments carefully packed away and all the Christmas trees were gone. Most of the dried-out trees in the village were taken out to sea and dumped to create new fish biomes for fish nurseries.

Martin was dealing with another typical surgery morning. Sprains, fevers, a deeply imbedded splinter, a diabetes patient follow up, and a persistent cougher. He listened more closely to the old man's chest. There was something in there for he could hear a rattle combined with a wheeze.

"How long have you had this cough?" he asked Mr. Dinkins, who was eighty, if he was a day.

"Oh, years and years," the man said between wheezy breaths. "Really got bad after the missus passed."

"When was this?"

"Well, year back." The man stopped to take several deep breaths. "And that inhaler thing you got fer me broke."

"It's broken?"

"Well," the man shook his head, "I dropped it and kinda stepped on it."

"I'll write a prescription for a new one."

"Don't think it does much good, Doc." The man squinted up at Martin with rheumy eyes.

The man had a slight fever, so Martin suspected an infectious agent. "You've also lost weight." He palpated the man's neck. "Plus you have swollen glands just there under your ears."

"Just don't have an appetite, Doc," the man replied.

Martin returned to his desk to look at the man's medical records. Previous visits were unremarkable until three months ago when asthma seemed to develop. He went back to the man and now noticed he had scratches on his forearms and hands. "What are these?" he asked. Each red line was surrounded by an area of inflammation.

At that moment he heard the front door of the cottage open, and slam shut, followed by the sound of footsteps running upstairs. He lifted the man's arm to examine the injury. "What's caused this?"

Right then the surgery door flew open, and Pauline stood there looking concerned.

Martin exploded. "Pauline! Get out! I am with a patient!"

The girl blanched at the criticism but said, "Sorry, Doc. That was Louisa just come into the house and I couldn't help from seeing she was cryin'." She sighed. "That was her running upstairs."

Louisa was sitting slumped on the bed, sniffling into a tissue when Martin cautiously opened the bedroom door and entered. She gave him a glare, then turned away from him.

"Louisa?" he asked softly.

"Go away Martin."

"Are you? Is the baby alright?"

Louisa took a deep breath. "If you are asking about the OB visit then yes; the baby is fine." She turned further away from him, now nearly facing the wall with her arms crossed.

Martin was no fool. Louisa was the problem or had a problem. He walked towards her, closing the door behind him for privacy, for nosey parkers and gossip gallery down in reception would be all ears. He sighed. "Something must be wrong, though."

"Go away, Martin," she mumbled.

He was not to be denied in his inquiry, so he stepped closer, bending down while trying to look at her face. "Louisa?"

She shook her head no.

"Louisa, oh come on. If there something is wrong then let me help."

"You can't fix it, Martin," she whispered in a sad tone.

He sat down on the bed next to her. "How in God's name can I even try to fix it if you will not tell me what has happened?"

She wiped her face with the sodden and crumpled up tissue then sighed deeply and slowly turned to face him. "Martin…"

He saw her eyes leaking tears, so gave her a fresh tissue then took one hand in his. "Tell me."

Louisa did not like conflict, so this was hard; so very hard. "I… you see…" she gulped and stopped speaking.

"Go on."

She took a deep breath. "Just so you know the OB visit went fine; good. Everything is going well. The blood tests are right on the money, weight gain is…" she shrugged. She'd gained six pounds already! Damn!. "Six and a half pounds, average at fourteen weeks. The first trimester is done; one-third finished." She paused. "No sugar in my urine." She reported that before he asked. "But…" Now her chin was quivering, and she was shaking.

"But what? Louisa just say it."

She screwed up her eyes as a giant sob broke forth. This was too hard; too intrusive, but also something that needed to come out. She eventually gasped out, "Edith, Edith Montgomery, you know; the doctor."

"What about Edith? And yes I know who she is. What has she done?"

Louisa hands started to chop the air. "I know that you knew her from medical college."

"Yes."

"And that you and she were in a… a relationship. You told me."

Martin took a deep breath. "Yes, Louisa, that much is true. Past tense and very long ago." Martin had not thought of Edith for a very long time until the past Autumn when he bumped into her at hospital.

Louisa turned her head to stare at him, and she knew the expression on her face was gloomy. "Well… she… she…"

Martin started to see red. "What has that woman done to you? Louisa?"

Louisa gulped. "It wasn't physical," she said, although it made both heart and head hurt to say it. "I… was… done… finished the exam… and then…" She stopped for air.

"And?" Martin gripped his knees with both hands, clamping them there, trying to retain control of both mind and emotions.

Louisa sighed. "I'd walked to the car, out in the carpark, when I heard footsteps quickly coming behind me, and someone was calling my name." She took another breath. "And when I turned… there she was with her short red hair flying out like a battle flag." Battle flag was just how Louisa felt it was; and the pirate was about to try boarding her ship. "She didn't even get my first name right, calling me Louise."

Martin took small sips of air, while his mind raced. He glanced at her face and did not see any sign of a slap, for Edith was known by him to be physical – acting out with her emotions. "And then what did she do?"

"She said that she loved you, did I know that? Always had. That she had wanted to marry you in college, but you had turned her down, and that she wanted me to know how cruel you were. Saying she went to Canada for training – because you had driven her out of the country!" She cried a little at the end of her recital.

Martin's heartrate rocketed right up, and he felt blood pounding in his ears.

Louisa watched her husband's face go blank. It was his stone-cold doctor face, she called it. She had seen it often enough, while he struggled with whatever he was thinking.

At last his mouth opened, "That's preposterous! That bitch – what a damn liar she is!"

Louisa recoiled for Martin rarely swore.

He stood up, then looked down at his wife. "Louisa, there is NOT one thing that she says that is true! Yes we lived together, but she's TWISTED it around! Yes I wanted to marry her, back then, but she said no! Refuse me! She went over to Canada with a laugh and smirk on her face! And she told me off as I stood there with a ring in my hand." He stopped, taking a deep breath, then started up again, now lowering his voice. "I… look, Edith was not a good student, so she latched onto me for tutoring. Then…" he waved his hands, "things… erhm, went from there. And I… I thought that I loved her and that she loved me, but…"

He got down on his knees, and took Louisa's hands in his, looking up at her stricken face. "Louisa, you must believe me that I had no idea what love was then and I neither got that with Edith nor from her." He had to stop for air, as the agony of the past resurfaced. "She… she rejected me, and I thank God that she did for otherwise…" his voice failed him, and he had to look away as he tried to regain control; the control which enabled him to function in a world that he often did not understand.

Louisa gripped his hands tightly while she tried to hold it together. "Martin," she said as he stared off to the side, trying to hide his face from her.

He could not look at her, wanting to fall through the floor.

Bravely she said, "Martin, look at me."

He slowly raised his eyes, afraid of what might happen next, for he knew rejection too well; parents, schoolmates, teachers, and of course, from Edith. Would Louisa be the next rejection?

"Martin," she said with a will, "I believe you."

He shook his head, for even after all this time Edith could reach out of the past and wound him. He pried a hand away from Louisa for he had to wipe one wet eye.

"Martin?"

With a mouth dry he whispered, "Yes?"

Louisa lifted the hand she held and kissed it. "Oh, Martin, dearest. 'I wanna know what love is…' " she recited from the Foreigner song.

Martin, of course, did not understand the musical reference, so he ignored it.

Louisa set aside her fears. "Oh, poor Martin," she said as she pulled him into her arms. "Oh sweetheart."

"So you believe me? That she lied? That if she said a cat was black it was actually the opposite?" he mumbled into her hair, and right then he knew exactly what was wrong with the old codger down in surgery.

Author's note:

By the band Foreigner

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me