This Side Of Heaven

by Anna Schmidt

• ISBN13: 9780373654253
• ISBN10: 0373654251
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-01
• Publisher: Harlequin

Summary

In their almost forty years together, Zoe Wingfield and Spencer Andersen have experienced all the seasons of love.Yet when the rabble-rousing East Coast hippie and the levelheaded Wisconsin farm boy first met, they couldn't have been more wrong for each other. Nevertheless, the young lovers seized all the possibilities life had to offer and carved out a little slice of heaven on earth--successful careers, service to the public, a beautiful family, a dream home.Even when the strength of their union was tested, they endured. Two people so different in so many ways, proving that true love can overcome anything.

Excerpts

Spencer"Spence?"I had been turning the pages of a six-month-old copy of The New Yorker. My colleague and friend, Dr. Elizabeth Simmons, stands before me, her hands fisted in the pockets of her white lab coat. She is smiling, but I'm not fooled."What is it?"I ask,standing and nervously rolling the magazine into a tube,which I proceed to tap against the side of one thigh."Come on back. Zoe's getting dressed." Liz nods to the sole other patient in the waiting room."I'll be with you in a few minutes," she promises, then holds the door for me that leads to the inner sanctum of her practice. We walk down a long hall, past examining rooms, some open and empty, others with their doors shut, signaling occupancy. Zoe is in one of them and I am tempted to try each door until I find my wife. Instead I follow Liz into her office."Have a seat," she says."I'll get Zoe."Before I can say anything,she's gone,closing the office door behind her with a soft click. I hear the murmur of her voice in conversation with a nurse or assistant as she retraces her steps down the hall. I fight the urge to go after her,grab Zoe and get the hell out of here before Liz can say whatever she clearly does not want to say.Like Liz, I am a physician and member of the medical faculty at the University of Wisconsin. Like most doctors I am not good at being on the other side--as either a patient or family member. Liz is a gynecologist. I am a psychiatrist. We have often joked that between us we treat the whole person--body and mind. Zoe always reminds us that there's a key third component to any human--the spirit.My wife is what many would call a Renaissance woman--a lawyer by trade,although she hasn't practiced law in years and that credential only scrapes the surface of all the roles she has assumed in her life.She is endlessly fascinated by the human drama that is inevitable in any gathering of one or more people.She is especially curious in medical settings.Perhaps it's all the years of living with me and listening to my"shoptalk"about patients.I have watched her take lost souls under her wing and guide them through the chaos that is any hospital emergency room.And more than once I have arranged to meet her in the hospital coffee shop, only to arrive and hear her deeply engrossed in conversation with a stranger whose family member has been admitted for treatment. Once I walked in and found her leading everyone in the place in an impromptu toast to the first-time father who had burst through the door to announce the birth of his son. Everyone is drawn to Zoe.People love her. Trust me,I did not miss the averted but sympathetic looks of Liz's staff as we made that endless walk to her office."Old age.It's nothing I haven't experienced before," Zoe told me after I noticed her breathlessness as she climbed the stairs from our boathouse--a trip she usually made far more easily than I did."I see Liz for my annual checkup day after tomorrow. If it'll make you happy, I'll ask her to schedule a stress test.""It's not about me," I said peevishly.Zoe smiled and ruffled my hair. "Oh, Spence, it's always about you," she teased, then added quickly,"because I love you, and if you're worried--""Concerned," I corrected."Then that's reason enough.""Thank you." I leaned in to kiss her lips."But it's nothing,"she repeated before accepting the kiss. Over nearly four decades of married life, Zoe has almost always gotten the last word.We agreed to meet at Liz's office at the appointed time.I had arrived twenty minutes early and assured the receptionist that Zoe was on her way. Just as I was beginning to feel a prickle of irritation at Zoe's habitual tardiness, she burst through the door.As usual she arrived in a whirlwind of activity,balancing magazines for Liz's waiting room with her usual shoulder satchel--which was always overflowing with folders and letters--as