“Okay.” He finally looks up at me, and I feel the weight of his gaze like a physical thing.
“Cold?” he asks.
“A little,” I admit. “Claire threw up on my sweatshirt, so I had to take it off.”
He nods curtly. “I’ll find you a scrub top to wear.”
TWO
LUKE
I walk Melissa to the nursing station and grab her a scrub top, and to my relief, she slips it on immediately. I could see the outline of her bra through her farce of a tank top, and it was clouding my reason.
The sight of Melissa hit me like a punch to the gut—and maybe a punch to an area a little lower down. And it caught me completely unprepared, since I had no idea she was back in Somerset, or that she was divorced.
She looks so much like she did ten years ago; the deep blue eyes, the freckles, the way her nose tips up at the end. Her hair’s the same, long and dark, and I can still picture the way it looked spread out across my pillow. She’s a little curvier now than she was when we were together, and it suits her.
But she says we’re ancient history, and I have to remember that, since it’s the only way I can justify operating on her daughter. Even still, I should probably try to find another surgeon to do the case, but I can’t bring myself to make the call.
I guess I have the typical surgeon’s ego, because I’m convinced I’m the best person for the job. I don’t trust anyone else to take care of Melissa’s daughter.
Melissa and I walk the short distance back to the cubicle to find that her toddler has dragged a chair to the sink. He’s having a wonderful time with the soap dispenser, and the sink is full of foam soap.
My medical student, Kevin Talbot, appears oblivious to what’s happening at the sink. He’s sitting by Claire’s bed, pointing at his iPad, and I realize he’s giving her a detailed description of the steps of an appendectomy. Not surprisingly, Claire looks terrified.
I never should have left Kevin in here with the two kids—he’s a hard worker, but he’s sorely lacking in common sense. Just another example of how the sight of Melissa has robbed me of rational thought.
“Liam!” Melissa exclaims. She rushes over to the sink to deal with her son, and I walk over to Claire.
“Was Kevin giving you the technical explanation?” I ask, trying to keep my tone light.
Claire nods nervously.
“The good news is, you don’t have to do the surgery,” I quip. “I’ll do the operation, and you can have a nap.”
That gets me a tentative smile. “A nap?”
“Yeah. We’ll give you some medicine to put you to sleep, and when you wake up, it’ll be done.”
She nods bravely, but I can tell she’s still anxious.
“I bet your mother had her appendix out,” I tell her.
“Yeah, she told me she did,” Claire admits. Fortunately, she doesn’t ask how I know this.
“And I bet it wasn’t as bad as she thought.” I turn toward Melissa, who’s dabbing at her son’s wet shirt with a paper towel. “You probably went home the next day, right? When you had your appendix out?”
Melissa doesn’t meet my eye, but she nods at Claire. “Yep. It really wasn’t bad.”
Kevin’s looking at me as though I’m psychic. “How did you know that?”
I pause for a beat to consider my answer, because I certainly can’t tell him the truth. I know about Melissa’s appendicitis because it’s the reason I became a surgeon. She was seventeen at the time, and since she got sick at my house, I was the one who drove her to the hospital. I remember holding her hand in the ER and wishing the nurses and doctors would move faster.
And when the ultrasound showed appendicitis, the surgeon came in like a hero. Melissa was whisked in for surgery, and when they finally let me see her a couple of hours later, she was almost back to normal. It was like a miracle. Her appendix was inflamed, the surgeon cut it out, and just like that, the problem was solved.
So that’s when I decided I wanted to be a surgeon. I’ve spent the past fourteen years chasing that dream, often at the cost of my sleep, my sanity, and my relationships.
I turn back to Kevin. “Just a lucky guess,” I say dismissively. I’m glad my resident is away at teaching, because he’d see through me in a heartbeat.
