Save Me (7 page)

The words reverberate in my ears. Lucy puts her hand to her chest and purses her lips. “That’s so sweet, Hank.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d put it that way, but…” He shrugs. “I got lucky.”

He gives me a lingering look and I manage to smile at him. I feel the teensiest glimmer of hope, like finally somebody understands what I’m going through. What Owen did doesn’t have to end our marriage. A U-turn is always possible. But does he want that? Do I?

I
’m standing in the kitchen early the next morning, watching the sun come up over the trees, when my dad walks in.

“You’re up early,” he says, patting my shoulder.

“I am.” I had a lot of trouble falling asleep, despite the three vodkas. I spent the night trying to decide whether to call Owen back. Was he getting in touch for a logistical reason—something to do with the house or the dog? Or was the call something more?
I’m reconsidering, Daph. I made a huge mistake.

Dad puts his arm around me. “Jesus Christ, gal,” he whispers. “What happened?” My father’s favorite phrase is
Jesus Christ
. Not in the holy sense but in the
Jesus Christ, are you kidding me?
way that he yells at the television when he watches the Patriots or the
Jesus Christ, what are we going to do with this kid?
that was frequently employed during Lucy’s teen years.

“I don’t know, Dad. But it’s obviously bad.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s real bad.”

We stare out at the backyard together. A bluebird is hopping along the back of one of the patio chairs. One summer night several years ago, Owen and I, acting like kids, stood out there and tossed pebbles up into the air to make the bats circling above us swoop down, silhouette black against the navy sky. We were probably out there for forty-five minutes, just doing that, having the time of our lives. That kind of relationship doesn’t come out of nowhere. It happens slowly, over time. I don’t know if you get more than one.

“What do you think you’re going to do, Daphne?” Dad asks.

“I don’t know. Any advice?”

He makes a
pffft
sound like a dud firework that’s really perfect, like the deepening bleakness that’s wedging its way into my chest. “I don’t know, gal. I really don’t.” He’s quiet for a beat. “I could kill him, you know.”

“I know.”

“Did you have any idea?”

“None, honestly.”

“I guess you just keep doing what you’ve always been so good at doing. You figure out the next step.” He reaches for the bloated sponge in the bottom of the sink, squeezes the water from it, and deposits it back in the soap dish. We’ve always been alike that way, my dad and me, tidying up around the tornado that is Lucy and my mom.

It’s unintentional, of course, but what he says stings. I
have
always been the kind of person who figures things out, haven’t I? I have always been able to so seamlessly move from point A to point B, as easily as if my life were a simple equation. So what now? How do I solve this one?

“I don’t know how to figure it out, though, Dad.”

“You will,” he says, patting my shoulder again.

“Will what?” my mother says, coming into the kitchen.

“Figure out what I’m going to do,” I say, going to the cupboard for a coffee mug. “It’s not even really under my control, or remotely straightforward. I can’t just, you know, write a prescription and make it better.”

“Oh, but you’ll find your way, honey!” Mom exclaims, her voice exploding into the room. I think of Lucy upstairs sleeping. “
Of course
you will! You’re going to get through this! These difficult things only build character! What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger!” She reminds me of those generic motivational posters, like the one my idiot colleague Dr. Moyer has in his office, the word “courage” in all caps over a photo of a mountain range.

“Honey, you simply need to take some time and get some perspective,” she says, now rifling around in a mound of baked goods on the counter—a couple of tins of shortbread, Lucy’s favorite bagels brought from New York, the cinnamon scones that I occasionally request before a visit.

Her cheery encouragement is starting to get to me. Can’t I just wallow a bit more? Does she really not understand that the last thing I want to hear right now is how this will “make me stronger”?

She starts to hand me a scone.

“That’s okay, Mom,” I say. “I’m not hungry.”

Her shoulders drop—just barely, but I notice it.

“On second thought.” I take the scone from her and manage a nibble, and then as I’m walking to the refrigerator for the half-and-half, my phone starts to ring. I whip around to where I’d laid it on the kitchen table and there’s Owen’s name at the top of the screen, the simple familiar four letters, and that picture of him, laughing. My parents look at me in an alarmed way, like the phone is a bomb that only I can disarm. I snatch it and hurry upstairs to my room, where no one else has to see this.

“It’s me,” he says. There’s a hollow whirring sound in the background that makes me think that he’s outside somewhere. “Something happened, Daph.”

I feel my skin start to prickle. “Is it Blue?”

“No, she’s fine.”

I sigh. “Then what is it, Owen? The house?”

“No.” He pauses. “I need your help.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” This isn’t what I was expecting. This isn’t what I was
hoping
. “I’m away at my parents’ house—
retreating, because of what you did
—and you need my
help
? This better be good.”

I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom, where nothing has changed, down to the mint green wall-to-wall carpet that Mom put in when we moved here. I pull my shirt over my knees and wait for one of us to say something.

“It’s Bridget,” he finally says. My stomach clenches. I feel an instant dead weight in my gut that makes me breathless. “I’m sorry, Daph. I’m sorry to ask…” He pauses a beat. “She was in an accident last night. It’s really bad. We’re in the ICU.”
We.
I can’t help how it announces itself, even now, in this context. “I know how awkward this is. I don’t know why I called. I’m sorry. I just needed to talk to you. I need you.” Something in his voice hitches and cracks. I think he’s crying.

I can only think of two times when Owen’s cried in front of me and one of those times, it was happy tears—our wedding day. The other was the first time he lost a patient—I think her name was Miriam. She was thirteen, from Tennessee.

“Do you want me to come home?” I say, breaking our long silence.

“Will you?”

I quickly throw my things into my duffel bag and go down to the kitchen, where Lucy’s sitting in a chair with her bare feet up on the kitchen table, telling Mom about a new anti-aging cream she’s testing at work.

“Where are you going?” she says when she turns and sees me standing there with my keys and my bag.

“She was in a car accident,” I say.

“Who?” Mom yelps, her hands going to her cheeks.

Dad rushes in from the family room, holding the crossword page in one hand. “Is everything okay?”

“Is it Annie?” Lucy says, taking her feet off of the table and sitting up.

“No, Bridget,” I say, and it strikes me how odd it feels to say her name in this way—like I know her, like we’re friends.

Mom and Lucy exchange a glance.

Dad narrows his eyes at me, perplexed.

“The girl that Owen—” I start to explain, but Lucy cuts me off.

“What are you doing, Daphne?”

“Owen asked for my help. They’re in the ICU. I have to—”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Dad says, taking a step toward me.

“He’s still my husband,” I say. I see Mom behind him, her eyes full of fear. She nods ever so slightly.

They walk me out to my car, and as I’m reversing down the driveway, Lucy walks alongside me, like she’s about to throw herself on the hood to get me to stay. “Call me!” she says, holding her thumb and pinky to her ear.

I nod, glancing one last time at my parents, who stand side by side on the front stoop, the worry in their expressions revealing everything that they can’t bring themselves to say.

I
pull into the parking lot next to Duke Hospital and turn off the ignition. It’s the very same parking lot where Owen and I used to meet between shifts during residency. Most residents took their breaks in what’s called “the bunker,” a computer room in the hospital’s basement, but Owen and I always met outside, eager to pull oxygen into our lungs after countless hours of breathing stale hospital air. We would rest against my car, neither of us saying much because we were exhausted, and lean into each other, sipping the good coffee I’d bring in a Thermos from home. We would watch the cars and city buses rumble past, watch the smokers (a surprising number of whom were doctors and nurses) get their fix on the corner, and comfort each other by cracking jokes about all of the stupid mistakes we were sure we’d made over the course of our shifts.

A statistic that people used to talk about during residency was the high divorce rate among members of the program, particularly the surgery program. But I always felt like the exception to prove the rule: During those years, I felt I was falling more deeply in love with Owen each day. It was so many things—the initial spark of our childhood history and our shared passion for medicine, of course, but so much more, too. A lot of it, perhaps, comes down to the fact that we really
talked
to each other back then. We were constantly telling each other stories—big things, like his issues with his father, my obsessive desire to succeed—and all of the little things, too.

One day early on, outside in this very parking lot, Owen told me why he’d chosen pediatric oncology for his specialty. When he was six, his mother noticed that her normally rambunctious boy, who’d been scaling trees in the backyard since he could walk, was suddenly only interested in lolling about on the living room sofa in front of
Tom and Jerry
. Two visits to Mass General confirmed that Owen had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer. His little life suddenly became about chemotherapy, spinal injections, and daily handfuls of candy-coated pills that were nothing like candy. By the time he reached his ninth birthday and was formally declared cancer-free, he knew that he was going to be a doctor exactly like the ones who’d saved him. His career is about so much more than work to him. His heart is involved. I know that he sees himself in each and every one of the kids he treats. I was proud to be married to such a man.

I take a deep breath and get out of the car. During the four-hour drive back to Durham, I made a conscious decision to not analyze what I’m doing, but walking through the parking lot, I can’t help but start. I am so angry and yet…I love him. I want to help him. I feel out of place and like this is the only place where I can be. The voice on the phone—the only man I’ve ever really loved, my
husband
—needs me. I need to be needed. It makes my stomach flip, even just admitting it to myself.
Maybe it’s selfish?
Am I here because it’s good for him or good for me?
I think that I’m allowed to not care about her.
Bridget is a stranger
, I tell myself. I am a doctor and it’s acceptable and understandable, even a good thing—even a
helpful
thing—for me to disassociate myself from any emotion regarding her condition.
Think of her like a patient
, I say to myself as I walk under the awning and into the building.
Think of this like any other case.
Because my practice is affiliated with the hospital, I’m able to use my ID to get into the intensive care unit, and as soon as I’m there, it hits me that it’s been a very long time since I’ve been in an ICU. There is a veiled, hushed sort of decorum like that of a library or a museum. And almost because of the quiet, you can’t help but notice the faint droning and beeping of the machines in the background, all running for the sole purpose of keeping hearts beating, lungs expanding and constricting, blood pumping. I scan the room of pinched, austere faces and am about to approach the thin-lipped woman standing behind the nurses’ station when I spot him.

He is speaking to a doctor, the person I assume is in charge of Bridget’s care, and I am instantly struck by the look on Owen’s face. He’s in the hospital where he spends more time each week than he does anywhere else, including his home, but he does not have the steady expression of someone who’s comfortable here. Rather he has the anxious, worn face of a visitor. Beyond him is a curtained enclosure and I wonder if Bridget is lying behind it with a breathing tube and bandages, looking nothing like the photos I’ve fumed over.

I catch his eye and he waves, one palm up. I don’t go to him. I stand there and watch the way that he nods at the doctor, his arms crossed, listening expectantly, wanting answers. A couple of minutes later he comes to me, and as he approaches, it’s obvious that he’s trying to gauge whether he should hug me or…what? I shove my hands into the pockets of the down vest that he picked out for me at the L.L. Bean outlet a couple of years ago when we took a trip up the Maine coast with his parents.

“So what happened?” I say, my heart pounding.
Just a patient
, I remind myself. It’s immediate and obvious: Being here feels like a mistake.

“She just got out of emergency surgery,” he says. “She was driving home from work. Some asshole tore out of that shopping center on University, where Thai Café is?”

I nod. He’s unshaven, and looks like he’s been here all night. He’s wearing the old jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt that he always wore when we worked on house projects, which makes me think that he must have gotten the call about her accident when he was picking up the dog. I wonder who broke the news to him.
Why was he the one who was called? Where is her family?
I’m suddenly aware of the bright buzzing overhead lights and the stale, choking airlessness of the room.

“What’s the prognosis?” I ask, trying to ignore the anxious way his eyes are flitting around.

“It’s bad,” he says, running his hand over his chin. “Blunt abdominal trauma. Splenic rupture. Orthopedic injuries.” He starts to sound like the doctor that he is, and it’s a comfort. We can pretend that there’s nothing between us, that we’re just two doctors discussing a case.

“She had emergency surgery for the abdominal, I assume?”

He nods. “Also a chest tube. There’s blood in her lung cavity.”

For some reason, I didn’t imagine it could be this bad.
“And the orthopedic?”

“Hip fracture, her head.” He looks away and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry for bringing you into this. I didn’t know who else to call.”

I don’t know what to say. If the accident had happened to anyone else—his best buddy from residency whom he occasionally cycles with, a parent, his boss—I would have run to him as soon as I saw him here. But though I
want
to comfort him, to put my hand on the back of his neck and whisper into his ear that everything is going to be okay, I can’t.

I should have stayed in Virginia like they begged me to
, I think, my head pounding. I could lie to myself and say that it’s empathy and that I came here purely out of concern. I could tell myself that I am a bigger person and that I am the kind of woman who simply acts when called on for help, no matter whom the asker is or what he’s done. But deep down I know that the only reason why I’m not back in Virginia, eating egg salad at my mother’s kitchen table, is because hearing Owen’s voice—
I need you
—sent a tidal wave of hope crashing over me. Now, my
other
status is suddenly so blatant and I’m wondering what on earth I was thinking by even coming here. I’m such a fool.

“You’ve been here all night?” I ask.

He nods.

“Is this why you called last night?”

Our eyes meet and it all comes together. He’s been here since the accident. He’s an emotional wreck. She’s not just some one-night stand.

“It’s not over between you two, is it?” I ask.

He doesn’t need to say anything for me to know the answer. We stare at each other for an awkward, gut-wrenching moment.

“Daphne,” he starts.

I put my hands out, stopping him. I believed that I knew everything there was to know about my husband. I probably thought that I could pick his fingerprint out of a lineup if I needed to, but I know now, looking at the pained expression on his face that I’ve never seen before, not once, that he’s done something I never could have predicted.

I feel my skin start to prickle, heat on the back of my neck. I shake my head at him, unable to find words strong enough to express what’s bubbling up inside of me.

“I can’t be here,” I manage.

He closes his eyes and nods. “I’m sorry.”

I turn and leave, hurrying down the hall, away from him. I push through the double doors with two hands, into the bright, blazing day.