“I’ll get you one!” Aisha said and began to run off, but Caleb held unto her hand and pulled her back to her seat. “Get it,” he said to the nurse and then tucked Aisha’s hair behind her ears.
“Your eyes are dancing Caleb,” Head Nurse observed. “I never thought you were capable of such.”
“It’s not that much a feat when you’re looking at the love of your life,” he said, and Nurse Kang burst out in laughter. Aisha gave him a sour look and hit his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized to the nurse. “He’s not usually this nauseating.”
“I know,” the nurse said.
"Do you really need that kit she asked?” and Caleb looked at the wet patch on his scrub.”
“I don’t. It wasn’t that hot.”
“Alright then, I’ll leave you two alone,” the Head Nurse smirked.
“Thank you,” Caleb said to her, and turned to Aisha’s embarrassed gaze.
“When did you get so shy?” he asked.
“I’ve always been shy. Do you not remember our first date?”
He recalled it and burst out laughing. She held her hand to his mouth to keep him from waking up the child.
“I couldn’t look you in the face,” she said. “So the moment you left me to get the car door...”
He couldn’t stop himself, “You ran into a pole!”
Aisha sighed at the painful memory. “I laid on the ground and asked myself what was the point in ever getting up, what was the point in continuing to live after such an embarrassment. If you hadn’t lifted me into your arms, I would have remained there.”
“Death by shame,” Caleb mocked. “You were so adorable.”
“I’ve never asked you this but why did you ask me out? Up until then, we had barely spoken, and every time I saw you and had to pass on an instruction, I was a mumbling fool.”
“That was why I first noticed you,” he said. “I’d seen you around the hospital for a while, but not until you had to speak to me and sounded like a mumbling fool did I truly become curious about you.”
Aisha covered her face with her hands.
“Then one day,” he continued, “the chief of your department chided you over using the ECMO machine on a dying patient without permission, and you had spoken back to him with such conviction. “He was dying. I know that I am not authorized to perform that procedure but he was dying. I am very sorry but I did the right thing. And if I have to be punished for that then so be it.”
“I couldn’t take my eyes off you from that day onwards.”
“Really?” she gaped at him in surprise. “I didn’t know that. But that was months before you asked me to dinner.”
“I’m pretty slow, so it took one other instance for me to make up my mind. Do you remember Chief James’s wedding?”
“Of course I do, it rained so terribly that day.”
“It did,” he said. “But while everyone was scrambling out of the reception, and looking for shade, you just stood there and kept dancing, until everyone came back out to join you, including the bride.”
“That was quite stupid,” she said. “A lot of people fell ill with a cold the next day. I felt so guilty.”
“It was the most pure-hearted, and beautiful thing that I had ever witnessed. Sometimes in life, we get so caught up with everything else, that we see even something as cleansing as rain a hassle, whereas it is a blessing. You forgot about your dress, and your makeup, took off your shoes and began to dance in the rain. Only children are pure enough to do that, and even though you’re far from a child, you do have the heart of one. That’s when I knew you’d be a great doctor, perhaps even greater than I had ever dreamt of being.”
Aisha scoffed. “You obviously didn’t know what a living legend you were perceived as.”
“All that was just talk.”
“Of course,” she said sarcastically, and he planted a kiss on her cheek. She blushed.
“That was also the day that I made the decision to trust you with my heart. Two weeks later, I asked you on our first date, and you bumped into a pole.”
“Stop it!” she hit his shoulder once more and he drew her into his arms. “What did you think of me when you got home?”
“I laughed until the next morning,” he said. “I kid you not. I’d be reading and then I’d burst out laughing; I’d be making a cup of coffee, and burst out laughing, even in the shower. The next morning when I saw you...”
“I ran away.”
“You ran away… but I watched you run and my heart began to pound within my chest. I’d never felt that way before, except when I was with my mother. It was as warm as love, but it was also something else. I felt safe, protected in a way as though you were… home. You were my home, and I swore that I would never let you go.”
“Wow”, she said. “While all this was going on, I was hitting my already bruised forehead against a door for embarrassing myself into eternity. I thought you’d never call me again.”
“But I did.”
“You did,” she said. “I thought you were insane.”
Silence.
“Maybe it would have been for the best… if you hadn’t called,” she said quietly.
He turned to her and she met his eyes. “Don’t you ever say that,” he said. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I am so sorry, but I don’t think so. I’ve brought you so much pain.”
“And joy,” he said. “Never forget that. Moreover, you have a lifetime to make up for it all.”
“Do I?” she sobbed and he pulled her into his arms.
“I’ll make sure of it,” he said. “I swear to you.”
Aisha smiled and for a while, there was silence between them.
“What happened after you left the hospital?” Caleb finally asked.
She wiped the tears from her eyes and sighed heavily. “I was told that the director wanted to see me in his home, in out of state. Up till then, I had been trying to get my case heard, but no one would listen to me. They accused me of killing a patient, when I had never even met the patient, and no one would back me up. My name appeared in all the records, and I was so confused.
I was going to be thrown out of the hospital, my license taken away from me, and I had no idea what I had done wrong. So when I got the message, I instantly drove out to present my case to him. However, as I was going, I came to that bend by Highway 96 and realized that my car had run out of gas. It surprised me because I had filled it the previous day. My car stopped, and I was about to get out, but suddenly there was this collision behind me and I screamed in fright as my car was flung away from the road. The car tumbled and tumbled down the hill, and eventually crashed into a boulder.”
“I was close to the unconscious and couldn’t even believe I was still breathing. But then I somehow managed to drag myself out of the car and under a bush. It was there that I heard them. I heard footsteps through the woods as a couple of men seemed to be searching for me. I wanted to scream out for help, but then I could barely open my mouth.
‘Is she dead?’ I heard one of them ask.
‘She has to be, there is no way she would have survived that crash. Let’s find her body to confirm.’
They searched for a while but when they couldn’t find me, they decided to leave.
‘Let’s burn the car,’ they said. ‘We’ll find another body from the hospital to replace hers with, and explain it all to the director. We can come back tomorrow to search again. Hopefully, the cops won’t be swarming around here like flies by then.’
I fell asleep to that…” Aisha recalled, “and then someone found me. It was an older couple that lived just a few miles away. They brought me home and treated my wounds, but then it was too late to come back.”
“Why didn’t you ever talk to me when all this was happening? We were in the same goddamn hospital! I had to piece it all together after the news came that you had died. For Pete’s sake, we got engaged
that afternoon.”
“I know,” she said, “and I am so sorry. I was just so terrified, that if I spoke up… that if I tried to solve the issue that I would end up dragging you down also. I didn’t want you to end up dead, and there was no way that the director would ever allow me to live or work as a doctor anywhere again.”
“So you decided to run.”
“It was best for everybody.”
“Everybody except the both of us.”
Her gaze was filled with remorse, and his with the scars of a broken heart. “You’re such a fool,” he told her.
She leaned forward and kissed him deeply. He then pulled her into his arms for a crushing hug.
When he released her, she ran her fingers through his hair, smoothing it away from his face. “Why did you move here?” she asked.
He sighed. “I couldn’t remain there any longer. After the initial shock had passed, I began to ask around about what had happened. Although I couldn’t find much, I heard enough to piece two and two together, and suddenly I hated that place.”
“You could have gone to a different hospital, why come here?”
“A different hospital wouldn’t have you in it,” he said. “Losing you forced me to reevaluate everything in my life, and I truly asked myself what I was living for…
I couldn’t come up with an answer that consoled me, so I left and bought the Lakehouse. About joining the hospital, I was in town one day when someone collapsed from a stroke. I treated him there, and then joined the ambulance to rush him over here, but when I arrived there was no doctor to operate on him. So the director convinced me to jump into the OR, and since then he’s refused to let me leave.”
“You didn’t want to leave. Don’t blame it on our kind director.”
“Perhaps,” he smiled. “In here… things are different. There is no unnecessary bureaucracy or politics, and the people here do exactly what we were trained all those years to do. To save lives. As simple and as complicated as it is.
I’ve had to learn to be… more, here. My specialty is General Surgery, but here, I have to be much more than that. I have to be a general surgeon, a cardiovascular specialist, and even a thoracic expert. It wasn’t easy at first, but I was so overwhelmed with grief that there was nothing else I could do.”
He looked around. “I truly love this place. Here I’ve been able to find such fulfillment in simply just seeing the family of a patient I saved, weep for joy at their second chance with a loved one. Each time I was able to savor that, it truly cracked a light in my pompous and burdened soul. I plan to improve the hospital. Get as many new and honest doctors as I can to meet the demand... but it’s not been easy so far. It seems that only people whom life has taught a severe lesson know the beauty of a hospital such as this.”
“It does have a beautiful spirit,” Aisha agreed. “I also love it here, however, I’m worried. I’ve heard about the medical board’s harassment, and the director is probably already aware that I’m alive. I feel as though the battle hasn’t even started.”
Caleb smiled as his hands brushed softly across her dark brows, soft nose, and full lips.
“Leave that to me,” he said. “Handling the director will be a quick battle.”
Aisha looked at him as though he were crazy. “And the medical board?”
“We’ll see,” he said and pulled her once more into his arms.
His eyes strangely assured her, but his words did nothing to settle her troubled heart.
Chapter 24
Caleb stood in the OR, fully prepped as he watched the monitor for the Director’s vitals.
Just then the door opened, and Kate walked in, fully suited up. He listened as she rehashed all they had discussed before the surgery.
“Make sure that this is a success,” the Director said coldly before inhaling the anesthetics and Caleb couldn’t blame his changed tone towards him. He had now turned from a ward into a threat. Kate, on the other hand, had demanded to join in to monitor the surgery, just like he’d expected. Amused at her hawk-like gaze, he turned his attention towards her father and began.
“Scalpel,” he called, and the blade was put in his hand.
He cut open the abdomen, and then went ahead to examine the plaque buildup inside Director’s arteries.
“I remember the first day I saw you,” Caleb said to Kate, “your nose started to bleed and you freaked out.”
At first, she was reluctant to speak. “You remember that?” she asked.
“Of course I do. Our parents had come together to cook dinner for the first time and left me to watch you while they ran out for supplies. You were still about eight I think, while I was thirteen.
“You helped me stop the bleeding,” she said. “But then when I still kept crying you grabbed the toy surgical kit my dad had gotten me, and started to teach me how to suture a dummy. The tears instantly seized.”
“I was just as amazed as you were,” he said. “Bovie.”
A nurse handed it over to him.
“I fixated it in my mind from then on that perhaps you loved medicine, and I felt a bit of pride that I had helped you figure it out at such an early age.”
She scoffed and Caleb glanced at her. “I was wrong, wasn’t I? What I had failed to notice at first, were the crayons and paper that were scattered all over your room. You were an artist, and I had just thrust a scalpel into your hand. I figured it out when you struggled through medical school and yet still remained miserable even when you became a doctor. You never seemed able to keep up and at first, I wondered what the problem was. You were extremely smart so that couldn’t be it. One day you mentioned it in passing to me, as a joke. You said, ‘I hate hospitals and medicine. I only followed this path because that was what everyone expected’ and I didn’t protest because at least I’d get to be with you.”
“The truth is most usually said as a joke,” Kate said. “And a lie in anger. Too bad you never...” she paused. “All I’ve seen this far is your anger.”
“I’m the exception to that rule,” he said. “I always say the truth, whether amused or enraged. Life is already too complicated for anything else. Suction,” he called.
“So I want to ask you, Kate, for the truth. Do not lie to yourself, and do not lie to me. Why was Aisha blamed for the failure of a surgery that she was not even present in, and the death of a patient that she had never even met?”
Kate stared at him with disbelief. “Of all the places...” she said in disgust. “You’re asking me here?”
Caleb was silent for a while before he answered. “This is where the lies will end,” he said.
“Or else?”
Caleb looked at the attendants around him. “Everyone except Head Nurse and attendant Kevin please take your leave.”
Kate watched them file out of the OR, and her mouth fell open. When attendant Kevin barred the door and turned to her, she blew up.
“What the hell do you think you are doing? Have you gone mad, Caleb?”
“I really hate it when you make a fuss,” he said calmly. “This will be very simple. Tell me the truth, and all will end well. Lie to me, or God forbid refuse to speak, and your father will meet his death, right on this table.”
The entire room was thrust into a deadly quiet.
“Caleb...” Kate muttered.
“I never lie,” he said, “and I never say what I don’t mean! You should know this the most about me. You and your father hid everything so pardon me for having to result to this. But it is a trade I’m willing to make. The truth or his life.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Caleb you are too ruthless. He trusted you… And so did I.”
“But this is not about either of us or him. It’s about a life that he ruined, that you both ruined, without a bit of remorse.”
“So now you want to ruin ours in return?”
“That’s not my choice to make. I think it’s high time we all stop making choices for other people. For example, you are an artist in your heart and thro
ugh watching you over the years I have come to realize it. What the hell are you doing in a hospital, feeling miserable and making mistakes? You should leave and go on to do what you truly want with your life.”
Tears fell from her eyes.
Suddenly, blood shot out from within the abdomen and splattered onto Caleb’s face. The monitor went crazy as the Director’s heart rate began to soar. Caleb stared at the bloody bowel.
“Dr. Pace…” the Head Nurse called, her eyes on the dropping vitals.
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