Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [114]
“I am.”
“I’ll let you talk. But before you say a word,” he said, “I want you to think about it. I want you to think if there’s really anything to say.”
“All right.”
“Because if you’re here to argue that she stays, I don’t see how that’s defensible. Not just because this is a hospital but because you’re a husband and a father.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s been some talk among certain staff members. There’s some concern.”
“Are you implying I’ve been negligent in my job?”
His father waited.
“Are you?”
“I’m implying more than that.”
“Do you really think I’m that easily distracted?”
His father leaned back in his chair. “Are you having a love affair with this woman, Sam?”
“I wouldn’t call it love.”
“What would you call it?”
Sheppard considered this. “I’d say we have an understanding.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “That we’re very good friends.”
“Really?”
“Of a sort, yes.”
“Does Marilyn know you’re friends?”
“She does.”
His father shook his head. “Most people wouldn’t believe that. Probably the rest wouldn’t understand.”
“I don’t care what other people think.”
“No?”
“No.”
His father took the stack of papers before him, knocked them square, put them back down, and folded his hands over them. His glasses glinted in the light. “Then you’re on your own.”
Sheppard waited for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m terminating our partnership,” his father said. “You heard me. I can’t work with someone who doesn’t care about other people’s opinions.” Then, when Sheppard began to speak, he swept a hand in front of his own face. “Divorce Marilyn if you wish. Leave Chip. Move back to California. You’ve talked about it before, and it doesn’t matter. You’re no longer a member of my hospital. You will not bring shame on this family or this institution. And I will not condone such behavior while you work under this roof. Do you understand? Go elsewhere if that’s how you want live. But if you intend to divorce Marilyn, you’ll divorce yourself of this place first.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t what?”
Sheppard waited.
“Don’t what? Want that? Yes you do. And you don’t. You want that, and you want to be here. You want to be part of this family, of your family, and you want to carouse. What you don’t want is to own up to everything you want. It puzzles me about you, Sam. It always has. It’s compulsive.”
“Don’t diagnose me.”
“You’re a brilliant doctor and a terrible person.”
“Enough!”
“If your marriage is sick, find a way to treat it.”
“Don’t you talk about my marriage!”
He slammed both hands on his father’s desk and leaned there facing him until—much as his father always had, dispatching all passion with his implacable rectitude, his resignation, his discipline—he finally calmed down.
“All right, Sam,” his father said.
Sheppard rubbed his eyes, then sat down and crossed his legs and arms. “I’m sorry,” he said.
They sat across from each other and looked out at the water. The lake appeared as wide as an ocean, yet it didn’t instill the same awe as the sea.
“You know,” his father finally said, “as I’ve grown older, my ideas about sin have changed. I used to believe that sins were things you did, but I don’t think that now.”
His father was going to tell him whether he cared or not.
“I think sins are what you ignore,” he said.
Sheppard, still shocked at himself, couldn’t speak.
“Because we know what we do.” His father removed his glasses, cleaning them on the hem of his doctor’s coat. “Everything we do is a response to that—to knowing.” He held the lenses to the light, then replaced them. “Now make a decision.”
“About what?”
“Are you staying or not?”
“I would never leave,” Sheppard said, amazed by this unalterable truth.
“Good,” his father said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to get this done before I go home.”
In March, Susan quietly left Bay View for her new job; by May, she and Dr. Stevenson had moved to Minnesota