Falling for Her Impossible Boss

‘I had an empty slot in my outpatient clinic so I thought I’d pop up.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Have you got any idea what’s going on in your dayroom?’

Sally grinned. ‘The line-dancing class?’

Oliver didn’t return the smile. ‘Yes.’

‘It’s great, isn’t it? She’s only been here for a few days but I’ve never seen anyone establish a rapport with patients quite the way she has.’

‘I can imagine.’

Sally didn’t seem to notice the dryness of his comment.

‘She’s getting people moving more than any of the physios or occupational therapists have simply because she’s making it so much fun. Daniel told me today that he’s thinking of incorporating line dancing into his future physiotherapy routines. He’s never thought of it before because he works with people individually. Diversional therapy for whole groups is something we associate with rest homes, not hospitals.’ Sally shook her head. ‘Who’d have thought? A junior nurse could be starting a revolution.’

Oliver pressed his lips together. There wasn’t much point in making his disapproval known if the physiotherapists and other professionals were happy about this. Would he have to wait until of the patients tripped over and broke a wrist or worse before he could step in and make sure the plug got pulled on this unconventional and very dubious activity?

Frustration bubbled. It wasn’t even his call really, was it? He could, of course, have a word with his senior colleagues in Geriatrics. Yes … that was the way to go. He didn’t usually tap into the influence he had always been able to exert but maybe this was a case of having to override the professional with a more personal status. The thought should have been satisfying but, instead, it led to a very disturbing thought. The muscles around his lips strengthened their hold.

‘Lady Dorothy?’ The query was succinct. Surely his mother wouldn’t have been tempted to not only make a fool of herself but endanger her fragile health by cooperating with the blonde bimbo nurse and her outrageous activities?

Sally’s face softened. ‘She’s in her room,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry, Oliver, but she’s still refusing to try anything in the way of rehab or social activities.’

With a nod, Oliver was on his way to the private room at the end of the corridor. Refusing to participate in social activities in an environment like this was perfectly understandable but some form of rehab was essential if his mother wasn’t going to lose an enormous amount of quality of life. He paused for a moment in front of the closed door of the private room and the curtains on the corridor side windows were pulled shut. How many people would be walking past without even realising that one of most revered society matrons in Auckland was an inpatient of St Patrick’s?

Lady Dorothy Dawson was in bed. She was resting against a mound of pillows with a silk shawl around her shoulders and the silver waves of her hair brushed and shining but she looked pale and unhappy. Her face brightened as Oliver moved to her bedside.

‘Oliver! What a lovely surprise!’

Kissing the soft skin of his mother’s cheek, Oliver realised that part of her pallor was due to the fact that Lady Dorothy was not wearing any make-up. She’d probably allowed a nurse to brush her hair but to let a stranger do something more personal like applying foundation or lipstick would be galling, wouldn’t it? Especially to a woman who’d always been as proud and independent as his mother.

‘How are you, Mother?’

‘I’m fine, darling. I’d like to go home.’

‘Soon.’ His smile hid an increasing anxiety as Oliver took a seemingly casual glance around the room. He was becoming very good at assimilating the information he needed at lightning speed.

The joints in his mother’s hands were still swollen and angry from the vicious recurrence of her arthritis. She looked as if she was still losing weight, probably because she was refusing to allow anyone, even him, to help her eat and for days now her only intake had been smoothies or cool soups that she could sip through a straw. The weight loss wasn’t the main worry, however. The combination of reduced food intake and her illness was playing havoc with her blood-sugar levels, making control of her insulin-dependent diabetes very difficult.

‘How’s the pain?’

Lady Dorothy simply gave him a look and Oliver had to smile. It was exactly the kind of look he remembered from when he’d been a small child and he’d hurt himself in some fashion. The ‘suck it up and get on with it’ look because pain was an inconvenience that couldn’t be allowed to interfere with life being lived. Or duty being done. It was the way Lady Dorothy had been raised and the way she’d raised her only son.

His mother might look like an ultimately pampered member of the most elite social circle to be found in the young country of New Zealand but he knew she had the strength of a tiger and a heart of purest gold. Her fundraising efforts were legendary and St Patrick’s had benefited along with countless other institutions and charitable organisations. Lady Dorothy was seventy-three years old and had never needed to work for financial reasons but she put more time and effort into her passion than some forty-year-old CEOs of large corporations ever did.

If being able to be hands on for her work had come to an end, Lady Dorothy would be devastated but right now she wouldn’t be able to make a phone call, let alone hold a pen. And if her blood-sugar levels couldn’t be stabilised she wouldn’t be able to drive her car or be left alone at any time due to the risk of her falling into a diabetic coma. While she’d always had help running their enormous property with the help of a housekeeper and gardener, more intrusive staff had always been spurned. An invasion of privacy that simply wasn’t acceptable.

Changes were coming, that was for sure. For both of them. Oliver could also be sure that his mother would fight them every step of the way. Achieving them would be no kind of victory either. Not when each one would be so painful for her to accept, removing more and more of her independence and dignity.

He summoned a smile for his mother. ‘It’s a glorious day. If you got dressed, I might be able to take you for a ride in a wheelchair when I’ve finished work. It would do you good to get a breath of fresh air.’

His mother shook her head. He clearly needed to find more of an incentive than fresh air. And quickly. A glance at his watch told him he was running out of time and his registrar would be looking for him in Outpatients.

‘We could even find something nice for your dinner.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I happen to know where a fast-food joint is.’ His smile broadened as he took out the big guns and tapped into his mother’s most secret vice. ‘Cheeseburgers,’ he suggested. ‘And French fries.’

The idea was brilliant. Even with her fingers so stiff and useless, Lady Dorothy might be able to manage that kind of food and it would pack enough calories for even a small amount to be helpful. To his horror, however, his mother’s eyes shone with sudden tears. They were gone by the time she had shaken her head in a negative response but Oliver could feel her anguish. He touched her hand gently.

‘What’s wrong, Mum?’

‘Sophie,’ his mother said, her voice wobbling.

‘Who’s Sophie?’

Was that the name of the clumsy, line-dancing blonde who was masquerading as a nurse? If she’d done something to upset his mother this much then she wouldn’t know what hit her. It occurred to him that defending his mother so vigorously in public might brand him as some kind of mummy’s boy, but there was no way he wouldn’t protect his mother with everything he had. She was the only family he had. The only person that really mattered in his world, come to that. And did he care what a junior nurse with oversized blue eyes thought of him?

Of course he didn’t. The idea was laughable.

‘She’s the occupational therapist,’ Lady Dorothy told him. ‘She came in this morning with the kind of clothes she said were ideal because I’d be able to learn to get dressed by myself.’

‘Oh?’ Oliver was assimilating more than the information. Was he relieved that this Sophie wasn’t the nurse and he wouldn’t have to verbally rip her to shreds and watch those ready-to-laugh lips wobble when she began to cry?

That he wouldn’t be in danger of revealing something as personal and vaguely shameful as the fact that he was a thirty-six-year-old man who still lived with his mother? Well, it could hardly be considered living with his mother when they both had entirely separate wings of the house but he was still living at home, wasn’t he?

And why was he even thinking about how that might appear to some nurse whose name he didn’t even know? It was bizarre.

‘They were … track pants, Oliver. With … an elasticised waist.’

‘Oh …’

Track pants. A kind of symbol that his mother equated with fluffy slippers, going out with a chiffon scarf covering hair curlers and a cigarette dangling from a mouth corner. It wasn’t that his mother was a snob—she had genuine friends from all walks of life—but self-discipline was everything and meeting personal standards was a matter of pride. Wearing track pants would be as degrading as putting Lady Dorothy into a nappy.

Something had to be done. But what? This was new territory for both Oliver and his mother. He needed to think. In the meantime, he needed to find a way of helping his mother cope somehow.

‘How ‘bout I bring the burgers and fries in here? Disguised in a plain brown paper bag?’ An old joke for a treat that was deemed illicit.

The flicker of amusement was only for his benefit. ‘Thanks, darling, but don’t go to any trouble. I don’t expect I’ll be very hungry.’ She had turned her head away very slightly. ‘It really is time we stopped that ridiculously unhealthy habit, don’t you think?’

Oliver was taken aback by the strong realisation that he didn’t agree with his mother’s suggestion.

The disturbing awareness that something was happening that might prove to be beyond his control was less than pleasant.

The occasional foray into the dark side of healthy eating was hardly a habit for either of them. It was a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of thing, in fact, but it had been a part of their lives for a long, long time. So long that it had become one of his earliest memories. A rare, good memory. One that had bestowed a little pleasure in a life that had often been less than joyful for both himself and his mother.

OK, maybe it was an ancient ritual associated with childhood and no longer of any significance but losing it would be …

As sad as seeing his mother like this?

He heard Lady Dorothy’s intake of breath. A determined, suck-it-up kind of breath.

‘Don’t let me take up too much of your time, Oliver. I’m sure you must have far more important things to be doing.’