White Cloud Retreat by Dianne Harman Read Free Book Online

wanted to pick up
the phone a million times and call the boys, but I never did. I figured the
boys didn’t need a dad in their lives who’d been found liable in court for
civil damages and whose medical license had been revoked by the California
State Medical Board. No, I figured they were better off without me, but once I
was reinstated, I started thinking about them a lot. I wondered if they knew I
was practicing medicine again. I also wondered whatever happened to the three
million dollar judgment that was entered against me. The parents of the young
girl who died were the ones who sued me and obtained the judgment. When they
were killed in an airplane accident, the right to collect the judgment against
me passed to their son, the brother of the young girl who died.
    “Liz and I talked about it
a lot and she finally convinced me to call my attorney and see if he knew what
had happened. It turns out he’d tried to reach me to tell me that the girl’s
brother was giving up his attempts to find me and collect the judgment.
Evidently he married a doctor and she convinced him that I wasn’t negligent in
his sister’s death. He said the woman told the young man that there are things
in medicine that just happen and they can’t be explained. She’d been curious
about the case and had read all of the evidence. She convinced him, regardless
of the jury’s decision, that I wasn’t to blame for his sister’s death. The
attorney told me the brother had taken the necessary steps to dismiss the
case.”
    “Doc, that’s wonderful
news! I guess it means you can get in touch with your sons now that no one is
trying to find you.”
    “That’s exactly what it
means. Once Liz heard about it, she had me on the phone with them within the
hour and wouldn’t let me hang up. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant
conversation and there was still some anger on their part. I’m sure they have a
lot of questions about why I was an absentee father for so long. However, we
have had several other conversations since then that weren’t so bad. Anyway,
I’m picking them up tonight at the Portland airport and they’re going to stay
with me for a few days. I don’t have any unreal expectations that they’ll crown
me ‘Father of the Year’ or anything like that, but at least it’s a start.”
    “Well, you have plenty of
room in the ranchette for them. What are you going to do with them while
they’re here? Any ideas?”
    “No, absolutely none. I
mean, what do you do with your two sons when you haven’t seen them in over
three years? I’ve been trying to think of things they might enjoy.” He ran his
hand through his hair, clearly agitated.
    “I kind of remember you
said they were teenagers when you left California. How old are they now?”
    “Kevin’s eighteen. He’s a
freshman at Chapman College in Southern California. Josh is sixteen and he’s a
junior in high school.”
    Kelly turned around in her
seat and motioned for Madison, who had just returned from her cosmetology
classes, to come over to the booth. “Madison, we have a little question for
you. Doc’s two sons are coming to Oregon tonight for a visit. One’s your age
and the other one’s two years younger. Got any ideas on what Doc can do to
entertain them?”
    She stood there for a
moment, lost in thought. “Yeah, why don’t you plan on them shore fishing with
my dad. He still has pretty good luck catching fish out of the bay and that
might be a fun thing for them to do. The other thing that might interest them
involves Brandon. Over the past few months, we’ve become pretty good friends.
Anyway, he’s on semester break this week and he’s just the age of your oldest
son. As you know, he’s a freshman at Oregon State University. He and I were
planning on going horseback riding this week, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if
they came with us. We could also take them down to the tide pools below his
ranch house and they could look for some jade on the