by Julie Wright
“Mmm . . . shrimp on a stick. Dip it in habanero sauce and get me a barf bag.”
Max laughed that little boy giggle that filled the room. Best Sound. Ever.
I mussed up his already-mussed up hair which made him scowl and swat me away.
“So I saw that interview of you on TV,” he said as I was leaving.
“What interview?”
“The one about the toy store. It was on YouTube. You gave me the dinosaur . . . didn’t you?”
I made a pshaw noise and shook my head. “Me? Give you something? That would mean I would have to like you.”
“You do like me,” he insisted with a smugness that would either get him slapped or adored by teen girls everywhere when he got into high school. “Everybody likes me because I’m awesome.”
“You are awesome, Max.”
“Thanks Andy. For the dinosaur.” He’d started calling me Andy when he heard my brother’s nickname for me when Nathan came in once to visit.
“You’re welcome, buddy. Get to sleep before Nurse Randall comes in and slaps some obedience into you.”
He snickered at the mention of Nurse Randall because he felt guys shouldn’t be nurses. I told him he'd change his mind when he finally achieved a liberal arts education—which is where he always tuned me out because he had no idea what I was talking about.
I went home feeling pretty good—even if Becca had defended Everett, and even if Camille actually had the nerve to ask if she could date Everett.
When I returned to the hospital for my next shift, I was met at my door by the very same guy who had been the bane of my existence since I’d met him.
I was about to ask him what he thought he was doing in my space when my question cut off with just one word.
“What?” I asked as soon as I laid eyes on his wrinkled clothing, disheveled hair, and sunken eyes.
His eyes were green and gold and shiny with what I believed to be tears. “Max was taken in to surgery last night.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Max.
My Max.
The kid who made barf jokes and who could pass gas on command. The kid who thought I was hilarious and who let my control tower stay on his Lego board. The little boy who was supposed to be turning eight in just five days!
I froze at Everett’s words, liquid ice in my veins shooting through my entire body. “What happened?”
“I don’t know what triggered it. But Max became unresponsive with agonal respirations and a wide complex tachycardia consistent with ventricular tachycardia. We were able to resuscitate him and Dr. Mendenhall took him in immediately. I assisted in the surgery. He’s stable. They’re watching him. I just thought you would want to know, so I stayed to tell you.” He edged past me, obviously intending to leave.
“Everett . . .”
He turned, but only slightly. The slump of his body dragged on him. How was he even still standing?
“He’s going to be okay?”
Everett nodded as though his head were filled with sand. “He’s stable, Andra. He needs a donor. But for now . . . he’s okay.”
“Everett . . .” I didn’t know what to say to him, only that him leaving felt so wrong and saying his name out loud gave me a comfort I couldn’t explain.
When he turned to look at me again, I went to him, wrapped my arms around him, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Thank you. For helping him. For telling me. For staying. Thank you.” I released him, and he nodded and finally left.
During my rounds, I checked in Max’s room. The dinosaur stood watch from atop the pillows of the freshly made bed. The dinosaur seemed to be waiting for Max to return from post-op. It looked forlorn and wrong there without the boy.
I frowned and returned to my own work.
He’s going to turn eight, I thought to myself. And then nine and ten and twenty-five.
Wasn’t that why we did what we did? So they would keep growing?
By the time I returned home that evening, it occurred to me that I hadn’t once thought of outdoing Everett. Everett had helped save Max’s life. How could anyone outdo that? Being a surgeon wasn’t a game. It wasn’t some contest. It was about hiring the right person to do the job. From the rumors running among the staff throughout the day, Everett had been efficient, proficient, quick, and steady. Dr. Mendenhall had applauded him.
Everett was the doctor of the hour.
He’d been the right person for the job.
And I didn’t even envy the rank.
I was only grateful.
Which was why, several days later, when Max was back in his room looking only slightly worse for the wear, I decided to throw the best birthday party any eight year old with a failing ticker deserved.
And why I invited Everett to go shopping with me to get all the cool party fixings available.
To my surprise, Everett offered to drive. To my greater surprise, he showed up exactly when he told me he would. I had actually anticipated him cancelling on me via text at the last minute.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t smart enough to keep that thought to myself.
“Why would I cancel?” he asked, clearly already frustrated, and I hadn’t even opened the door to the front seat yet.
I grunted. “That comment isn’t a reflection of your character.” I did open the door then, and actually sat down on the passenger side of the car, swung my legs in and buckled myself into the seat so he couldn’t change his mind about going with me without forcibly removing me from his car. “It’s a reflection of mine. I’ve been a little cold lately, and you haven’t totally deserved it.”
“A little cold? The frost giants from Nordic legend are like a cozy campfire compared to the way you’ve treated me.”
“You started it,” I reminded him.
“And I said I was sorry.”
“Yes, but by then, I had decided we were at war and I needed to crush my opponent.”
“So what? You concede the war, now?”
“No!” I shot him a look. Was he really suggesting I give up again? “I’m still very much going for the position. I just want to be friendly about it.”
He stood there, with his hand on his open car door, and his eyes fixed on me. I wondered for a moment if he planned on forcibly removing me after all, but instead he nodded. “Good.” He shut the car door and moved around to the driver’s side.
He got in, his jaw muscles flexing as if he were biting back all the things he wanted to say and chewing them very carefully. He set his GPS to find the closest party supply store near us and began driving.
“I accept, by the way . . . your apology, I mean.”
“Thank you.” He turned onto Storrow Drive.
“And I apologize as well.”
“Apology accepted.” He didn’t even ask what I was sorry for. I might have asked if it had been me. And then he looked at me with a smile so completely satisfied that I almost wanted to slap him.
“You actually apologized!” he blurted out as if I’d done something unheard of.
“Wipe that smug off your mug, or it will never happen again.”
He tried to look contrite, but failed miserably as he pulled into the parking lot of the party supply store his GPS led us to.
Being mad at Everett for feeling surprise at my apology would be like being mad at someone feeling surprise that the sun failed to give off light during an eclipse. Surprise was a healthy response to the rarity of the event.
With the apologies given and accepted, everything felt mostly normal. We bought ridiculous party hats, the kind that blinked in the most obnoxious way possible. We also bought matching blinking birthday badges and a feather boa that Everett promised to wear. When we finished with our purchases, we drove back to my house in relative silence until Everett cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry that this position got in the way of us getting along. And I’m sorry I want it so much that I allowed that to happen.”
“We both want it so much. We’ve worked our whole live
s for this one objective. It was bound to get crazy.”
“Definitely crazy. We were a little out of control there for a while. I think I had an anxiety attack any time Dr. Herald mentioned how astute you were or how nice you were. I swear if I heard one more thing about your impeccable bedside manner, I might have tossed a bed on its side and screamed ‘how’s that for bedside manner?’”
I laughed. “I know what you mean. Dr. Mendenhall loves having you assist because ‘Nobody stitches a cleaner line than Dr. Covington.’” I gave my best imitation of Dr. Mendenhall’s gruff voice.
He laughed with me. “That’s what Doctor Niles said about me too. He even put it in the recommendation for residency. The day I was accepted to Johns Hopkins for residency was the first and only time my mother ever told me she was proud of me. I think that’s part of why I want the surgeon position so much. I want to prove to her that I succeeded. And what’s crazy is she probably still won’t approve.”
His need for that approval felt achingly familiar.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been frost giant frozen over this,” I said. “I’ve never been the sort of girl to back down from a contest and it’s been hard to see this any other way. It’s my worst trait. Grams used to call me a mountain of pride that was ready to avalanche on the first person who dared to challenge me.”
He grinned, “She really did know you, didn’t she?”
“She really did.” I stared at my window, thinking about her, about the position, about who I’d become when she hadn’t been around to see. “I called her, you know . . . the day they approved my surgical residency at Boston Children’s. The line rang twice before the phone chimed in my ear and that overly-friendly digital woman’s voice informed me that the number you have called has been disconnected. I was so excited, I forgot she wasn’t there anymore. Hearing that voice was like losing her all over again. I just forgot.” My vision blurred with the memory.
“I’m sorry, Andra.”
“I know. Sometimes hard things change people for the better. After losing Grams, my dad relaxed a lot. He became pretty supportive of me and my medical career and of Nathan and his cooking career. So out of ashes, comes a rebuilding, a strengthening. Or so they say anyway.”
We both fell silent. We were almost to my house. What was there left to say? We had dreams and ambitions and hurts and . . . it was all so overwhelming.
“I thought you were mad at me,” he said once he turned down my road.
“What?”
“You left during that whole mess with Liz and I tried to call you, but you never answered and never returned my calls. I thought you were mad. So I figured I would let you have some space and try to work it out later. I didn’t know about your grandma. Not until much later and by then, I felt pretty stupid and horrible and didn’t know how to approach you again. You were so broken during that time. I don’t think you even saw me when we were in the same room together. I don’t think you saw anything.”
I stretched my mind back to those days, those moments. Had he called? My only memories were of blind panic on the train after getting my brother’s text. He might have called. I might have ignored such a thing.
“I don’t think I saw anything either,” I said. The car stopped at the curb in front of my house. I turned to Everett. “It’s okay, Everett.”
Miss Pearl spoke of a red string that bound certain people together. If any such string existed, it would have snapped under all the pressure of tugging and pulling between Everett and me.
I exited the car with a new sort of respect and understanding. We both had our reasons for doing what we did. Right or wrong. The reasons existed. And we each felt validated in our own point of view.
Not that I had any intention of telling Becca I’d figured out how to see things from Everett’s point of view. The gloating would never stop if she found out.
We threw the best and biggest party for Max that the hospital had ever seen. Max laughed a lot. His mom and dad held each other a lot and hovered close to their son, a hand on his shoulder or on his leg, in some way staying connected to him as if they were afraid to let go. I thought again of Miss Pearl’s string and could finally see what she might have meant. Some people were totally connected—tied together, sharing each other’s fates.
Everett and I sang several songs in key helium for the group of children gathered in Max’s room. The kids laughed. Max wore his obnoxious party hat with pride.
I watched Everett with the children, watched the way he talked to them without talking down to them, the way he listened when they spoke as if every word about the latest video game was actually important, the way he wasn’t afraid to get silly and smear cake on his nose and pretend he didn’t know what everyone was talking about when they told him he had something on his face. Everything he did was just for the smile it would bring to those watching.
Everett made the party a complete hit.
A donor came through for Max the very next week. He would live to be nine and ten and twenty-five.
Max would live.
Everett was asked to assist in the surgery.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Miss Pearl returned a few weeks later. With her return was the rumor that the board had decided on a new surgeon.
Watching Max strengthen had strengthened me as well. The clear choice was Everett. Even I would have chosen Everett over myself. And that was the cincher for me.
I chose him.
Something had happened during the situation with Max. I opened my eyes and really saw Everett and all the ways he was and all the ways he could be. Something Miss Pearl said came back to me: You can fall in love and live a lifetime in one single moment.
Watching Everett with Max was a single moment. The epiphany came without any fanfare or excitement. It crept in quietly, nestled down inside my heart, and declared itself at home.
So when the day came that we were to finally discover who would receive the position, I dressed nicely and went to work fully prepared to shake the victor’s hand.
Miss Pearl met with me first.
She apologized for the amount of time it took for the hospital to make a decision. And then she apologized that I had not been selected but that it was in no way a reflection on my grand ability or work ethic. The decision had been made with many considerations and blah blah blah. I stopped listening since not getting the position didn’t affect my confidence the way I thought it might.
I was a good physician. I would continue to be a good physician.
Plus, I had a toy in development that I helped create.
Not expecting to be awarded the position made the sting of the reality very quick and painless, like when we told children shots would only be a little pinch and then everything would be fine.
It really was a little pinch. Everything really was fine.
I exited Miss Pearl’s office and saw Everett standing there, waiting his turn. I couldn’t help myself. I grinned wide and gave him a thumb’s up. He smiled back and returned the gesture.
I waited for him because there were things to say, and I had no idea if I would have the strength to say those things later.
Everett exited Miss Pearl’s office with a look that could only be described as relieved. At that moment, I knew he got it: the job we’d both worked so hard to get, the job we’d nearly ruined ourselves over.
And I couldn’t be unhappy.
I smiled at him, feeling my own relief in that moment. No more strings tied us to some unspoken feud. The only string around us now was the one Miss Pearl had told me about, the red string of fate. Our string was a string of friendship, tested, tried, and found to be true. Everett was my friend, and at that moment staring across the room at him, all I wanted was his happiness.
He smiled back at me and we crossed the room. After all, it was right to shake the winner’s hand. When we met in the middle, we skipped the handshake and went straight for the hug.
“Congratulations!”
We pulled back
and shared a startled look of incomprehension.
We had both said congratulations.
“You got the job, didn’t you?” Everett said over my, “The job is yours, right?”
We shared another startled look.
“Wait,” I said.
“Hang on a second,” he said.
“Didn’t you?” I said.
“I was sure that you . . .” he said.
“But I didn’t,” I confirmed.
“I didn’t either,” he offered as if to explain.
But explain what? What had just happened?
We burst into laughter, shared another hug and another round of congratulations.
When we broke apart, I wiped at tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. “Well this was certainly not what I expected from today.”
“Nothing at all what I’d expected either. I’d come into the office prepared to give the position up to you. You deserve it. You’ve worked so hard. The kids love you. You make this entire place better.”
Gratitude for his faith in me filled me and spilled over. “And what about you. How many times have you made the right call in the critical moment and a life was saved? Everett, you’re a hero within these walls. I’m actually thinking about buying you a cape.”
“Well, how about that. Andra Stone thinks well of me.” The playful words hid the bite of hurt that existed between us after all these years of ebb and flow, of chances blown away like dandelion seed. He actually moved away a step, turning to leave. “That’s something, isn’t it? It might even be enough to get me through after I’m gone.”
“Gone?” My throat constricted with alarm.
“I’ve been offered another job, Andra. I couldn’t, you know I can’t continue like this . . . It’s best we both—”
I had to do it. I had to say the words I had never been brave enough to say before. The chance my feet stood in was the last one. I felt it to the core of my being, the knowledge shaking my bones inside my skin, the surety pounding through me with every beat of my heart.
“It’s more than that, Everett,” I interrupted him before he said something we wouldn’t be able to recover from. “It’s more than me thinking well of you. I came in today to congratulate you as well. I had every intention of walking away from this position, knowing you deserved it, knowing you deserve every happiness, and knowing I’ve screwed up so much of your life, but also knowing I have to tell you the truth.”