I thought that when I came over to Vic’s place, we would continue with him ravaging my body, but instead, he demolished my walls. The emotions came pouring out in a tidal wave as I told him about having to sell the house, about my mom being sick, and how I tried the best I could to take care of her and be a good daughter. I told him about my found family and confessed to the sins I had committed to protect others. I don’t know what time I fall asleep, but we wake up wrapped in each other’s arms in the warmth of one another. The sound of an intrusive beep wakes us from our cocoon of bliss, much like the warning alarm that precedes a storm.
THIRTY-TWO
VIC
“Fuck,” I mutter, recognizing the alert flashing across my pager. A trauma. I press a quick kiss to Dani’s shoulder, her grip tightening on me as if she can sense the shift in my body—the way my heart rate spikes, and the adrenaline coursing through my veins. She reaches for me as if she could shield me from the devastations I am all but certain to witness when I arrive at work. I break away, dragging myself out of bed, reading the message as I move. The closet door creaks as I yank it open and reach for my clothes. Muscle memory takes over, my body moves on autopilot, and my mind fails to keep up. Dani sits up. She’s silent, but her eyes track my movements, waiting for me to speak the words aloud.
“I’m on call,” I mutter, dropping into the chair to tie my shoes as quickly as my hands will allow. I make a sweep of my usual items from the dresser. My wallet, phone, and watch as I fasten the strap onto my wrist. The movements are mechanical, drilled into me from years of repetition, except this time is different. I break that familiar cycle when I stop and walk over to her. Leaning down, I hook an arm around her and tilt her head back into a kiss, lingering long enough to feel the worry, tremblingbehind her lips. When I pull away, her eyes search mine. I try to calm her nerves with a smile that I don’t quite feel.
“Stay here as long as you want. Maybe bring some items over if you’d like,” I add sheepishly, because it sounds too soon. But I’ve already wasted too much time without her, and I don’t want to waste another second. She nods, settling her head back against the pillows, and for a moment, the chaos outside these walls doesn’t exist. At the door, I pause, stealing seconds that I don’t have. She’s framed in the low light that peeks through the sheer curtains of my bedroom window. Her hair is spread across the pillow, and I want to memorize this moment forever. “I like the way you look in my bed, baby,” I tell her softly, fingers brushing the door frame as I force myself to leave.
I make it there in record time, and the ER is chaos. Bethany comes running toward me, but she’s in work mode now, or maybe she’s taken the hint. Shioban and a cluster of nurses bypass us, disappearing into the trauma bay. I follow in pursuit of them and the crisis that brought me here. I am a surgeon, it’s what I’m trained to do. But what buckles my knees isn’t the trauma, it’s the face hidden behind the blood and bruises. I know her.
“Update and prep the OR if you haven’t already,” I snap, forcing my voice to stay level. This morning, Bethany, the charge nurse, falls in beside me while others administer fluids, push medications, and work to maintain hemostasis.
“Neuro’s already been by. We are trying to stabilize her for transport to the CT scanner.” I glance at the chart, noting the arrival time, mechanism of trauma, vitals, and any items already flagged in the pre-hospital alert I received half an hour ago. Cold, lifeless facts on a page. Nothing prepares me for the reality before me as the memories return unbidden, ripping their way up from the darkest pit.
“She’s got multiple contusions to the face, chest, and abdomen,” Bethany says in a clipped voice with precision and efficiency—years of delivering this information. I usually want only the facts—the evidence of what occurred. But the words fade as I remember my mother, who equally suffered in life. Is this what she looked like when she came here? She had no one with her. I was at home, and my father was taken in for questioning as she was left there all alone, fighting for her life. Now I look at this woman, Sonya, who has a similar fate. My past collides with my present, because through the swelling, the bruises, and the blood, she is barely recognizable. She could be anyone. And that thought makes heat erupt in my chest, scorching the cold numbness that has lived inside me for years. A fury so strong, it outweighs common sense. And what it leaves must be a basic animalistic instinct, because what I want now more than ever is revenge.
Snapping out of my memories, I scan the ER as if Rose will pop up any second. Before thinking, I ask. “Where’s her daughter?” Bethany glances at me in confusion.
“Her daughter? You know her?” she asks.
I nod. “She was a patron at the soup kitchen I volunteer at…” I trail off, looking around. “She has a daughter.”
Bethany leaves my side, rushing over to Shioban, and together they look back at me. I force myself into the practiced calm of a surgeon, hiding every flicker of emotion. Leaving to consult with the ER doctor quickly, I track down the neurosurgeon, and together we formulate a plan as we await the results. I step back, letting the trauma care team probe her with tubes and needles, securing access for life-saving medications. All the while, I stand on the edge, ready to act and doing everything I can to keep her alive if surgical intervention is needed.
Shioban and Bethany are speaking with the on-site case worker, who returns with an update. For once, I am grateful to see her approach me. “The victim’s sister was here visiting?—”
“Sonya,” I state.
She nods, continuing. “Sonya’s sister had the child at the time. She wasn’t home when this happened, but they suspect it was her husband who committed the crime. There had been multiple calls for domestic violence at the house in the past years.” Bethany hesitates before she continues, “His brother is a police officer, and apparently, her husband likes to throw around his name when they are called to the house. He would never get arrested, and I guess she stopped calling.”
Bethany looks at me, then at Sonya, as they wheel her off. A person at the head of the bed squeezes a bag to provide ventilation because she can’t breathe on her own. Anger starts to build, and the urge to find him and punish him overwhelms me, but I can’t think about that right now. I have to help her live. So that she can be there for her daughter and, most importantly, live the life she deserves.
Blunt trauma wasthe cause of her head injury. In the CT scanner, she had her first seizure. They were able to control it with medication, but that wasn't the extent of her injuries. She had some broken ribs, which collapsed her lung, making her unable to breathe on her own. She didn't have internal bleeding, but several bones are broken that are splinted and set in traction to fix at a later time, if she makes it through brain surgery.
I stayed at the hospital, waiting for her to come out of the operating room, and I watched from the inner core window as they worked on her. It is surreal to stand outside the OR while someone else operates, looking in and hoping they make a difference in the outcome. Sometimes, in cases such as this, it’s a wait-and-see game. I hate feeling helpless in this situation. I wonder how Rose is doing. When the neurosurgeon takes his gloves off and discards them in the trash, removing his headlight and specialized loops, he sees me standing there. A frown forms on his face as he walks out to meet me.
“How did it go?” I ask nervously, and he sighs. One that comes with the long hours of operating, even though you have no concept of time at the moment —just the bone-dead tiredness I am familiar with once it ends, and then the fatigue starts to set in.
“I guess we wait and see, but…” He trails off, biting his lip. “I don’t think she will recover from this. The damage was too extensive and the swelling too great.” He rubs his eyes. “We will know more in the next couple of days. He places his hand on my shoulder and squeezes reassuringly. “I hear you know the woman and her daughter,” he says as his kind but tired eyes meet mine.
I nod. “Acquaintances,” I hear myself say, even though it's true. I felt a connection to her daughter, a familiar bond that recognized her pain, and felt the phantom one in mine as if reaching out in mirrored recognition.
“They went to the soup kitchen I volunteer at,” I continue. "I met them there, and the daughter told me she was afraid that her mother was going to go back home. She was scared for her.” I swallow, because she knew. Rose felt unsafe, and no one would listen. I had hoped to talk to the mom that weekend, but when I heard she wasn’t there, even though I'd missed the shift due to work, I knew she had already made up her mind. With nowhereto go and the unkind streets, sometimes it's better the devil you know than the one you don’t.
When I stepinside my home, an ache erupts in my chest. The keys clatter on the entryway table, louder than I’ve ever heard them as they echo through the emptiness of the apartment. I’ve done it a thousand times before, but tonight everything feels different.
“Dani!” I call out, but there is no answer. My pulse spikes as I run to the bedroom, flinging the door open. The bed is neatly made. Her clothes are gone, but her scent lingers, wrapping around me with familiarity. I sink onto the edge of the bed, burying my head in my hands. The room feels too quiet and too still. The silence is louder than ever before. When I finally lift my gaze, the clock draws my eye. And that's when I see the folded note. Breathing out a large exhale, I bend to retrieve it shakily.
I hope you are okay. I had to go to work. You can find me in the hospice department today. I love you, Vic.
-Dani
Relief floods me. I let the note slip from my fingers, discarding it with the rest of my clothes as I strip down. In the bathroom, the steam curls around me as I step into the shower, letting the hot water hit me, and willing it to wash the day away and the memories with it.
THIRTY-THREE
