The Unsung Hero Read Online Free
barrage of tests.
“When you’re so old and your doctor is so young that you look at him and know you haven’t had sex since before he was born, chances are, he’s not going to have a whole hell of a lot of good news,” he’d told Joe grumpily as they’d driven home.
Joe hadn’t said much—but then again, Joe wasn’t a huge talker. Young Joe Paoletti—he was only seventy-six to Charles’s exalted eighty—merely gave Charles a long look as they’d stopped at a red light.
And Charles had wisely shut up. It hadn’t been the most considerate thing to say, considering Joe hadn’t had sexual relations since 1944. The crazy bastard. He’d been a heartbreaker, with a face like a matinee idol. He could have had a different woman for every night of the week. Yet he’d lived like a monk since they both had returned to Baldwin’s Bridge after the War.
The War. The one against the Nazis. Double-yew, double-yew, eye, eye.
He and Joe had met in France, of all places. Just after Normandy, that hell on earth. Joe hadn’t really been much of a talker back then, either.
Theirs had become the kind of friendship that only a war could make. It was like something out of a storybook. Two men from completely different walks of life. One the poor son of a hardworking Italian immigrant from New York City, the other the wealthy son of a wealthy son from an old Boston family used to summers spent relaxing in the cool ocean breezes of the North Shore town of Baldwin’s Bridge, Massachusetts. They’d fought together against Nazi Germany, and their relationship solidified into something beyond permanent, bonded together with Winston Churchill’s own recipe for an indestructible tabby: blood, toil, tears, and sweat.
Tears.
Joe had wept when the doctor told Charles the C-word. He’d tried to hide it, but Charles had known.
You didn’t spend nearly sixty years as someone’s best friend—even though you tried to deny it, even though you sometimes pretended he was only the gardener or the hired help or even just that stupid bum who’d followed you home from the War—and not know when he was hurting.
“You should’ve taken him first,” Charles scolded God now. “I could’ve handled it.”
With the last ounce of his strength, he heaved his pajama pants up around his waist. He lay there on the cool tile floor, his ass safely covered, coughing from the exertion, wondering if God could tell when he was lying.
Dr. Kelly Ashton was running out of time.
She parked her subcompact in her father’s driveway, next to Joe’s four-hundred-year-old but still pristine Buick station wagon, and turned off the engine, sitting for a moment, her head on her arms, against the steering wheel.
What she was doing was stupid. She was stupid. Trying to maintain her pediatrics practice in Boston while living here, an hour north of the city at her father’s house in Baldwin’s Bridge, proved it. She should give the Harvard diploma back. Obviously it was a mistake. She was too stupid to have earned it.
And she was doubly stupid since her father made it painstakingly clear that he really didn’t want her here.
He didn’t need her help. He’d rather die alone.
Kelly pushed open the car door, gathering the bag from the drugstore and the sack of groceries she’d picked up from the Stop & Shop on her way home. This was supposed to be one of her days here in Baldwin’s Bridge, but she’d gotten up at 4:30 to drive into Boston before the rush, to get some paperwork done. With her new schedule, she barely had time to think let alone do paperwork, and this morning she’d only managed to put a dent in the piles on her desk.
She’d also gone in early hoping that Betsy McKenna’s test results would be in first thing.
Kelly suspected the frail six-year-old had leukemia. And if that was the case, she wanted to be the one to tell Betsy’s parents, to talk about treatment, and to introduce them to the oncologist.
But at nine she’d called
“When you’re so old and your doctor is so young that you look at him and know you haven’t had sex since before he was born, chances are, he’s not going to have a whole hell of a lot of good news,” he’d told Joe grumpily as they’d driven home.
Joe hadn’t said much—but then again, Joe wasn’t a huge talker. Young Joe Paoletti—he was only seventy-six to Charles’s exalted eighty—merely gave Charles a long look as they’d stopped at a red light.
And Charles had wisely shut up. It hadn’t been the most considerate thing to say, considering Joe hadn’t had sexual relations since 1944. The crazy bastard. He’d been a heartbreaker, with a face like a matinee idol. He could have had a different woman for every night of the week. Yet he’d lived like a monk since they both had returned to Baldwin’s Bridge after the War.
The War. The one against the Nazis. Double-yew, double-yew, eye, eye.
He and Joe had met in France, of all places. Just after Normandy, that hell on earth. Joe hadn’t really been much of a talker back then, either.
Theirs had become the kind of friendship that only a war could make. It was like something out of a storybook. Two men from completely different walks of life. One the poor son of a hardworking Italian immigrant from New York City, the other the wealthy son of a wealthy son from an old Boston family used to summers spent relaxing in the cool ocean breezes of the North Shore town of Baldwin’s Bridge, Massachusetts. They’d fought together against Nazi Germany, and their relationship solidified into something beyond permanent, bonded together with Winston Churchill’s own recipe for an indestructible tabby: blood, toil, tears, and sweat.
Tears.
Joe had wept when the doctor told Charles the C-word. He’d tried to hide it, but Charles had known.
You didn’t spend nearly sixty years as someone’s best friend—even though you tried to deny it, even though you sometimes pretended he was only the gardener or the hired help or even just that stupid bum who’d followed you home from the War—and not know when he was hurting.
“You should’ve taken him first,” Charles scolded God now. “I could’ve handled it.”
With the last ounce of his strength, he heaved his pajama pants up around his waist. He lay there on the cool tile floor, his ass safely covered, coughing from the exertion, wondering if God could tell when he was lying.
Dr. Kelly Ashton was running out of time.
She parked her subcompact in her father’s driveway, next to Joe’s four-hundred-year-old but still pristine Buick station wagon, and turned off the engine, sitting for a moment, her head on her arms, against the steering wheel.
What she was doing was stupid. She was stupid. Trying to maintain her pediatrics practice in Boston while living here, an hour north of the city at her father’s house in Baldwin’s Bridge, proved it. She should give the Harvard diploma back. Obviously it was a mistake. She was too stupid to have earned it.
And she was doubly stupid since her father made it painstakingly clear that he really didn’t want her here.
He didn’t need her help. He’d rather die alone.
Kelly pushed open the car door, gathering the bag from the drugstore and the sack of groceries she’d picked up from the Stop & Shop on her way home. This was supposed to be one of her days here in Baldwin’s Bridge, but she’d gotten up at 4:30 to drive into Boston before the rush, to get some paperwork done. With her new schedule, she barely had time to think let alone do paperwork, and this morning she’d only managed to put a dent in the piles on her desk.
She’d also gone in early hoping that Betsy McKenna’s test results would be in first thing.
Kelly suspected the frail six-year-old had leukemia. And if that was the case, she wanted to be the one to tell Betsy’s parents, to talk about treatment, and to introduce them to the oncologist.
But at nine she’d called
Readers choose
Shady Grace
Amber Lynn Natusch
Edward M Lerner
Catrin Collier
Julia Kent
Karin Tabke
Jennifer Snyder
Don Peri
Judith B. Glad