Common Ground




Pulling into the driveway at a quarter to six, Carter was still thinking about his last conversation with Chen. They had talked for a few minutes before he left for home. He had pretty much blown her off, though -- and he felt a bit guilty about it. I acted like a teenager, he thought to himself. Why can’t I let down my guard for one conversation?

Earlier:
First, she thanked him for staying.

“Yeah, no big deal.”

“John, I just want you to know none of us is too busy. I mean, we care about you.” Deb gave him that worried look again, and it sort of freaked him out. Maybe he should have told her that.

“I’m fine. That day was just…” He stopped himself mid-sentence.

“Okay, so you are. But whether you’re fine or not -”

“Deb…” John interrupted.

“Hear me out, please.” She continued. “When you need something, you don’t need to keep to yourself. That’s the last thing you need. Okay?”

Although he nodded, his unspoken words told her that he wanted her to stop giving him advice and that he wanted to go home.

---------

Carter realized he had walked into the house and had gone upstairs without saying a word to Gamma and Nathan, who were sitting in the living room. Of course with Gamma in the house, the silence would only be temporary. He wondered how Nathan was getting along. Also, he had to remember to call him Josh.

He went downstairs immediately after changing clothes.

“Well, you sure have mastered the art of sneaking in. I thought I heard footsteps a few minutes ago,” Gamma commented.

“How was the pool, Josh?” Carter asked.

“I had fun.”

“So what are you thinking, about tonight I mean?” Carter said.

“The carnival sounds good to me, if you aren’t too tired.”

“Not at all. It will be a good time!”

A few minutes later, they were all seated at the dinner table. As the dishes were passed around (dinner included baked chicken, potatoes and steamed broccoli), Gamma mentioned that Grandfather would be home before dinner the next day. She asked Carter if he had to work late.

“Actually, I have something to tell you about work,” he said, although he realized that Nathan knew almost nothing about his situation. “I’ll be going on light duty for a while. That means no shifts past 7 p.m.”

“So you finally told someone about your not sleeping?” Gamma sounded like she was relieved.

“More or less.” There was a hint of melancholy in his voice. “I’ll still be able to see patients, just not those who require the kind of care that’s considered ‘rigorous duty.’”

Gamma smiled at his explanation, although she knew he expected to be fully recovered by now. “I think I catch your drift.”

Nathan didn’t make any comments about Carter’s announcement until the two of them were in the car on the way out to Oak Forest. “Your back bothering you today still?”

“Actually, I feel better today than I have in a long time. I just want to keep it that way,” Carter replied. Although he was quite curious, Nathan decided not to ask any prodding questions for the moment. Carter didn’t offer any more information.

Stepping out of the car at the park, both of them were overwhelmed with the smells of cotton candy, hotdogs, Popcorn and - unrelated to food - freshly cut grass. “So how long has it been since you’ve been out to one of these?” Carter asked Nathan.

“Actually, I went with some friends last year. I won a Matchbox 20 framed poster while playing ‘toss the dimes into the jars.’”

Carter, who was paying for the evening out, bought some tickets that were good for rides or games. As he and Nathan were walking away from the ticket booth, Nathan saw Eric Murphy there with his girlfriend, Stacy. Eric waved and rushed up to Nathan. “Man, what’s up?” Eric exclaimed. “I’ve heard you haven’t gone home yet. Where ya been?”

“This is John,” Nathan said. “John, this is Eric and Stacy, some friends of mine from school. I stayed with Eric for a couple nights last week.”

“So is Nathan staying with you?” Eric asked Carter. Carter nodded. “That’s cool, I mean, it’s great that he found someone to stay with,” Eric continued. Stacy listened, but didn’t say anything.

“I’ve actually had some time to think,” Nathan said, almost laughing. “I washed some of my laundry, too.”

“You really didn’t take that much with you, did ya?” Eric remarked. “Well, have fun – we’re headed over to the other side of the park to play some more games.”

“Talk to you later,” Nathan said to his friends. His thoughts turned briefly to Angie. Would she be coming, too? It would be nice to see her.

“Where to?” Carter asked. “Maybe we can try our luck at some basketball hoops?”

Nathan agreed.

……….

Dr. Chen was still trying to figure out why Carter changed his mind about talking to her after work. He had shown up awful quiet.

She was filing some charts away near the admit desk when Mark showed up. “Do you have a minute?” he asked. She nodded and the two of them stepped into a nearby conference room.

“I heard from Carol,” Mark said. “She found Doug. But we’re really going to miss her here.” He sighed.

“Dr. Greene, the two of you were pretty close, huh?” Chen replied.

“Actually, it was the three of us – before Doug left. But yeah. We were practically best friends. I’m sad to see her go, even though I am happy for the two of them being back together.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Well, there’s been a development with Carter. I don’t know if he told you,” Mark hesitated.

She could only think of Carter’s expressionless face during their last conversation. “He didn’t seem too happy, but no. Do you think he wants you to tell me?”

Mark told her that he received permission from Carter to tell whoever needed to be told. “Kerry and I have asked him to attend a pain management program, but he has not given us an answer. He did agree that he had considerable physical and emotional healing left to do. We asked him if he would be willing to take things a little slower, to avoid strenuous cases. We told him we would do our best to keep him off the night schedule past 7.”

Chen felt a little guilty. Maybe Carter would have been willing to share this with her had she not set her agenda ahead of time. Things made sense now that she had this information. She thanked Mark for telling her, but she refrained from commenting. Carter wants a friend, not a pity party, she thought to herself. Then she had another thought that made her laugh. Now Dave would not be able to complain about Carter taking all the cases! Ah, but he’d find something to complain about. Always did.

“What’cha thinkin’?” Mark waved his hand in front of her face.

“Oh nothing. Thanks again for getting me up to speed!”

“Sure thing.” As they exited the conference room, Mark did not seem to be as nervous as he was in the beginning. “If it wasn’t for your help, I don’t know if the outcome would have been the same.”

…………..

“Do we have enough tickets for some rides?” Nathan asked after he and Carter had been sampling the games for almost an hour. They had played the hoops, the racing game with a bunch of tiny plastic horses, darts, the Softball toss and one of the coin toss games. Nathan had just finished at the batting cage. The only one of them that had won a small prize was Carter. It was a little vanilla-scented candle in a jar.

Carter said Nathan should just pick some rides that he was interested in. If tickets ran out, Carter could buy a few more. Nathan couldn’t name a reason, but he found himself growing a little suspicious of Carter’s generosity. Would Carter change his mind about keeping Nathan’s identity a secret from his family? Maybe it wouldn’t matter, though. The grandmother seemed very caring.

Carter noticed Nathan’s puzzled expression. “What?”

“You don’t have to go all out. One or two rides is okay with me,” Nathan answered.

“Well, let’s just see how many tickets the rides are and then we’ll decide,” Carter reasoned. “It’s okay, I haven’t gone out much lately.”

“Me neither,” Nathan remarked. “But you know my story.”

Carter knew Nathan was dropping hints about wanting to know more about his story. As they walked toward the rides area of the carnival, Carter pondered how to talk to a fifteen-year-old about, well … he just wasn’t sure what he was ready to share. Basically what was going through his mind was “the kid has enough of his own problems.” But Nathan had picked up on a lot of things that were going on with Carter. It was becoming apparent that Carter would probably have to fill in the missing pieces, so to speak. This should be interesting, Carter thought to himself.



Part 7
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