In This Life (15 page)

“Dr. Dillon, please report to the emergency room.”

The hospital was abuzz with victims of a school bus accident. There were no casualties, but the five children who sat at the front of the bus were in critical condition. I ran in through the sliding doors just in time to catch a six-year-old boy bleeding from badly mangled legs being rushed in on a stretcher.

“Dr. Stevens is waiting in ER7 to assess his injuries. Please wheel him in there now!” I ordered, clasping his hand and running alongside him. “What’s your name, little guy?” I asked calmly.

“Tommy,” he cried. “I want my mommy! Where’s my mommy?”

“Tommy,” I said “I’m going to get your mommy, okay? She’s here, waiting for you. But you have to promise me that you’re going to show her how brave you are. The doctors are going to make you all better.”

“My legs hurt!” he screamed.

“I know, I know, honey. But they’ll give you something to make the pain go away, okay? And I’ll be right back with your mommy.”

He bobbed his head up and down. I released his hand and rushed to the waiting room to find his mother.

“Doctor! My son! Where’s my Tommy?”

I took the mother in my arms just as she was about to collapse. “Please, Mrs.…”

She yelped and sobbed, holding on tightly to me. “Monroe.”

“Mrs. Monroe, let me take you to your son. He’s awake and alert. We’re taking a look at his legs right now. We stopped the bleeding, and he’s going to be undergoing surgery immediately.”

A nurse blocked us from proceeding any further. “Dr. Dillon, she doesn’t have any insurance.”

The mother started to cry.

“It doesn’t matter…” I searched for her name tag. “Melinda. Please let them know that I’ll fill out the paperwork later. I’ll handle the financial end with Dr. Stevens after the surgery. Let us through.”

“This is the second time you’ve done this in one week.” She exhaled loudly as she stepped out of our way. But not before she flashed a smile and waved at someone in the waiting room. I didn’t care to see who she had decided to flirt with. I reunited Tommy with his mother. As I left the examination room, I saw that same nurse again and noticed just how pretty she was—a sultrier version of Maggie.

“Your friend is out there again,” she said, lips puckered and eyes assessing me from head to toe. She looked like she was in on some mystifying secret, something I was expected to know but didn’t. I could hardly hear what she was saying. There were voices coming from all directions and it was hard to discern which was hers.

“What? Who?”

“Your friend Jude. He’s been here at least once a month for the past year or so. Looking for you, sitting out there and waiting.”

The irony of it all. Waiting for me while I was waiting for him?

I spun around and ran towards the waiting room, shoving my way through the faces of pain and tears and hopelessness to find the one person whose beauty shined a light on them all. And there he was, sitting at the very end of the line of metal chairs, his back against the wall, his face brightening up as soon as I came into view. He jumped up quickly, hands in his pockets, shoulders hollowed, desperate to conceal the slight upturn of his lips.

“Hi. Anna,” he greeted me.

“What are you doing here?” I barked. My emotions went from one end of the spectrum to the other. Anger, surprise, worry. “Are you sick? Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Yes, yes. I’m fine. I have the day off so I thought I’d come and see you.”

All of a sudden, I felt shy, conscious of the rat’s nest on my head, the ugly pink scrubs, and the smell of death on me. I also wanted to punch his face in. He had no right to be there. Not while Dante was out of town. Not while my head was still submerged in the ocean. “I’m working a twelve hour shift today. I’ve got so much to do.”

“Oh,” he said, visibly disappointed, the rise and fall of his chest giving it away. Pink little blotches appeared on his naturally tanned face, eyes grazing over the name on my badge
.
It settled right on top of my heart like a fortress protecting it from invaders.

It’s too late. I’m married now. Go away.

“It’s a crazy day. I have to go and check on my patients.”

“Go ahead. I have nothing better to do. I’ll wait,” he assured me. I ran over to join a group of doctors who were rushing in through the glass doors. “See you in a few hours!” he called after me.

I didn’t really know how I felt about seeing him again. It was just too much for me. Too much. Too late.

I DIDN’T GET
reunited with my pile of hospital records until 9:30 that night. I spent two hours sitting with Tommy in recovery, and the surgery to reattach his partially severed leg was a success. I rushed through the files, hoping with all my heart that he hadn’t given up on his wait. Transcribing the diagnoses for the day took me well over thirty minutes to complete, and by the time I was ready to leave the hospital, it was a few minutes past ten. Things were happening too fast, the opportunity to process it all slipped through the hours, the minutes of that night. I made a conscious effort to stop momentarily to dial Dante’s phone number as I stood outside the hospital entrance.

From a distance, I saw Jude sitting quietly on the sidewalk, a cardboard tray filled with food on the ground next to him. I turned around to focus on my phone call.

“Hi.” Dante had picked up amidst the low murmur of conversations all around him.

“Hey, just heading out of the hospital. I had a crazy day. School bus collision.”

“Oh no. I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m still out with a client. We’re having dinner at Gibson.” I could tell he had moved to a quieter place as the background noise had died down significantly.

“Jude came to see me today, late this morning. I had to work until an hour ago so I didn’t get to speak to him.”

“How do you feel about that? Did he tell you want he wanted?” he asked, concerned.

“Not yet,” I answered.

“Yet? What does that mean?”

“He’s waiting outside for me. I think we’re going to go for coffee or something,” I professed in all casualness.

“Oh.” His tone changed. There was a heaviness in the atmosphere around me. The black clouds of Thailand had followed me home.

“It’s nothing. I just want to clear the air with him. I kind of acted like a lunatic that night. We can talk about this sensibly without all the drama that I caused a few weeks ago.” The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him. Although I had to admit, I wanted some answers from Jude.

“Should I be worried? I know I agreed to give you some time, but does that involve seeing him?”

“You have nothing to be worried about. I love you,” I said lightly, trying my best to cast his concerns away. The lilt in my voice gave away my farce. “If you want I can call you later when I get home and we can… FaceTime?” I whispered suggestively.

He sounded excited. “I can’t wait. Call me later, okay?”

“You got it.”

WE SPRAWLED ON
a park bench outside the hospital, sipping cappuccinos out of Starbucks cups and munching on sausage croissants. From the corner of my eye, I watched him watch me. This went on until we ran out of things to eat and drink.

“You still look as beautiful as ever, but there’s something different about you,” he said. “You seem quieter, less enthusiastic than the girl I remember from years ago.”

He smiled at me before straightening himself up and tucking his hands under his legs. I walked into this meeting with an escape plan, intent on saying goodbye. There were so many questions to ask him before then.

“It’s been five years. We’re all older now, more accountable,” I answered with a colorless expression on my face. This wasn’t a casual coffee date between two friends who were just catching up on life. I needed to get my thoughts out knowing that I was the girl who always ran out of time. “Gray, how long have you been coming to the hospital?” I asked softly.

He sighed deeply and looked away. “How did you know?” he asked, still staring straight into the abyss.

“Pretty nurse Melinda told me. Apparently you two have become fast friends.”

He didn’t appreciate my humor. He turned towards me, and there was nothing I could do to stop myself from staring at him as he spoke
.
How many women had he destroyed with that look?

“At first, I couldn’t believe the coincidence. Can you imagine? How weird was that? To be assigned to the same hospital you worked at! For a long time, I was content to just see you. To be in the same place as you. To watch you give yourself selflessly to others. What was the point in coming back into your life? You looked happy. Dante would show up to take you home a few times and you looked like everything in your life was settled and in place.”

“It was.”
Time to revise.
“I mean, it is,” I muttered.

“And you married him.” He smiled at me as he said this. “Are you happy, Anna?”

“Dante is so good to me. He loves me so much.”
Lame answer.
“I love him, yes, and I am happy.”
Nice follow up.

The walkway directly in front of us was filled with people, moving briskly in the chill of the night. The passing of the fall season was evident in the brittle branches of the trees and the lack of life all around us.
You see that branch over there? That’s me. I’m about to crack and fall to the ground.

“That’s great,” he answered, while bobbing his head up and down.

My emotions began to take over. Memories of the past five years came flooding back, and once again, I felt like I was reliving every minute I spent carrying a torch for him, waiting for him to call me.

He started out once again. “I’m so sorry about what happened at church. I deserved that. What you said to me then, I deserved every word, and the fact that people heard all about it—I wasn’t ashamed of what that confrontation insinuated. In fact, I didn’t expect anything less from you. I fell in love with that fiery, impassioned, beautiful spirit of yours. And the months that I spent watching you here confirmed nothing but the fact that you’re such an amazing woman. What a gifted doctor you are! I once heard a mother and father speaking about how they couldn’t have survived their daughter’s last days without you.”

Who said anything about love? Love speaks through actions, love grows through interaction. We had none of that in the last five years.

“Mr. and Mrs. Donovan and their baby, Louise,” I mumbled softly. She’d had an enlarged heart and there was nothing we could do but wait painfully until it could no longer survive in her tiny body. I didn’t want to talk about my patients, though. I wanted to tell him what I thought so that I could focus my efforts on Dante. Just weeks ago, we were going to seriously plan on having a family together. But tonight, I was no longer sure whether that was what I wanted. I remembered his reaction when he saw us at the apartment and it angered me once again.

“The nerve of you to expect me to wait,” I said sadly.

“I never said that.” He glanced around uneasily, pressing his lips in a thin line.

“Then why were you so surprised that Dante and I were married?”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t expect it to be the two of you, I guess. He never told me. All the times we spoke, he never mentioned that you were together for that matter. Let alone married.” He paused once again before nervously running his fingers through his hair. His trademark move. When he didn’t know what to do with his hands, he took it out on his hair. I could have almost predicted it. Years ago, I spent hours on Google searching for “Signs that He’s Into You.” Mirroring your movements, combing back his hair is supposed to mean that he’s interested. Baloney.

“I’m not a priest,” he continued.

“Yet,” I countered, reprimanding myself for the upsurge of cautious hope. The push and pull was back. I didn’t know what in the world I was looking for in this conversation. So what if he was on the way to becoming a priest? Why did it bother me so much?

“Not until next May,” he agreed.

“That’s not relevant,” I snapped angrily. “You’re a deacon. Period. I don’t really get why we’re here.”

“We’re here because,” he paused to clear his throat, “because I can’t keep watching you from a distance anymore. I need to face this, face you. For the last five years I’ve tried to run away from my confusion. But I never stopped thinking about you, Blue.”