The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel

by T. Ainsworth

  “So when are you going to ask her out?”

  “I don’t know!”

  He really needed to brush his teeth.

  “Ooo! You should call her—this morning! This is so exciting! She really wanted to meet you. Oh, it was perfect! Anne was right. You should marry her. I’ll plan the wedding! Do you want to use my country club in Glencoe? I’ll get you a great price—and a hot band that rocks!”

  “Janie! Shut the hell up!” The hammer pounding in his head was boring through another gross of invisible nails. “I love you…but please…shut up!”

  “Sorry…it’s just that…”

  Oh shit… He forgot last night, and now he’d have to ask her. Damn it to hell…

  “Janie…”

  “What, dearie?”

  “I need her number.”

  “You didn’t get it? That’s not like you! Don’t you have a little book with—”

  “I beg of you…please…just give it to me so I can go back to sleep.”

  “If she says yes, will you let me know?”

  His head throbbed.

  “Do you want me to tell her what to wear? I’ll call her when we hang up!”

  “Whatever! Please…have mercy and give it to me.” It was clear any relationship with Caroline would require both of them getting unlisted numbers.

  Fumbling around in the drawer of his bedside stand, his fingers found a pad of paper and a pen.

  “Are you writing? You’ll forget if you don’t.”

  He scribbled the digits.

  “Call her, Wes. I know she likes you!”

  “Right now, however…bye,” he grunted. He took some aspirin and went back to sleep.

  By noon he felt better and summoned the courage to call Caroline. When she didn’t answer, he left a message, trying not to sound disappointed. Reluctantly he went to shower, knowing her perfume would be washed away. While drying, his phone rang. He was sorry for only a moment it was Ross Merrimac.

  “What’s up?” Morgan asked.

  “You alone?” Ross knew him too well.

  “Uh-huh….”

  “Good. She’d have to get home by herself anyway.” Morgan heard the excitement grow in his voice. “Ready to go to work?”

  “What we got?”

  “Your transplant program’s about to launch.”

  “Be there in a few.”

  “Clock’s ticking, brother.” A donated heart would survive only a few hours unless placed in a patient. “Word is we may have another after that, so I figure we’re going to be at it for a while.”

  Lights flashing and horn honking, Morgan’s black BMW sped south on Lake Shore Drive. He passed Lake Point Tower and started worrying. If Caroline happened to call while he was working he didn’t want to miss her, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  God, that woman’s distracting me.

  It was a great feeling—just bad timing.

  The surgeries and caring for the kids afterwards in the ICU would go on for many hours, consuming every second Morgan had—and for how long? He wouldn’t know until he got home. But he couldn’t wait. He knew he’d love every minute of it.

  Please call me back, Caroline, he prayed, please…

  Dr. Morgan parked his car in the physicians’ lot and ran.

  Forty-eight hours passed, but Morgan paid no attention. He was focused. Year after year, through forgotten birthdays and foregone vacations, he had stood over an operating table, learning, thinking, and honing his skills waiting for these opportunities. He fed on the intensity, driven by the desire for the triumph—to return to the parents a child who was healthier than the one God had given them. (His final reward always came when he got home, threw on some running clothes and pounded his way up and down the trails of Lincoln Park.)

  Today the discipline had paid off again. By Tuesday afternoon both of his tiny patients had new hearts that were beating without any problem.

  Sitting on the bench beside his locker, Morgan checked his phone messages. Caroline had called three times. He touched the redial button.

  “Hi. This is Caroline Pruitt. I am unavailable. Please leave a message.”

  “Give me a little more time, Cay,” he almost pleaded into the mouthpiece, and then remembered she was on her way to Virginia. He’d have to try later.

  Morgan looked up when he heard Merrimac shut his locker door. “That was great!” he said to his boss.

  “Textbook,” Ross agreed. “You’ve done good, friend…as promised. The trustees will be pleased. Maybe I’ll renew your contract for another year.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Morgan gave him the finger. “Does that include a paycheck?”

  “Only if you do what I do and go home,” said Ross. “Don’t you even think about going out tonight.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Smart man. You and I both need sleep, so let’s get this over with,” Merrimac said. “Costume up with your white coat. We need to go do our duty and kumbaya with the press, so smile and remember not to use words they can’t spell.”

  Haggard and unshaven, the surgeons gathered their teams and went to report to the media waiting in the hospital lobby.

  Squinting from the intense light, Morgan thought he probably looked only semiconscious—a condition that was more true than not.

  “It’s been a long two days,” he said, vaguely hearing cameras clicking in front of him. “Dr. Merrimac and I have some comments, we’ll take a few questions, and…call it a day…or night, depending on one’s perspective.”

  The reporters laughed.

  “I think it’s important to remember,” Morgan began, “that our successes today and in the future come not just because of the dedicated teams of professionals standing behind me but also because of the broad financial support by many people in Chicago that made this program possible.”

  Merrimac smiled, adding a vigorous nod for the cameras.

  The thirty-five minutes of questions and answers was pure tedium. Finally, the two men shook hands in the privacy of the locker room, both looking noticeably tired. They started to remove their scrubs.

  “Crud!” Ross’s stubbly black face grinned. “I forgot to ask…Did you have a nice evening with Caroline Pruitt?”

  Morgan tossed his scrub pants into the dirty linen bag.

  “You and Bonwitt arranged that, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, guy. She called me. One of the perks of being in charge.” Morgan’s friend never stopped grinning. “Thinking up a reason to get you to that thing alone wasn’t easy, so I just pulled rank. Simple, and it worked.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?” Morgan’s scrub shirt missed the bag and landed on the floor. He stumbled to pick it up. “Whatever happened to the band of brothers?”

  “Catching you unaware was more fun.” Merrimac exploded in laughter. “I didn’t actually meet Caroline until a few weeks before you did, and I was impressed with her smarts.”

  “She’s intelligent, all right,” Morgan nodded.

  Ross knew him better than that. “Good looking too.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Morgan lied.

  “Bullshit, Morgan. You mentioned it once and a dozen times.”

  Morgan donned his jeans and pulled down a sweatshirt, covering his well-toned abdomen. He was in such a hurry when he left home two days earlier that he forgot his call bag. Fresh underwear would have to wait.

  “So Janie called you…” Morgan was certain Merrimac was tired enough that little provocation was necessary to elicit the information.

  “Soon after that tour you took of the hospital,” Ross answered, “I guess Caroline said something complimentary about you to Bonwitt!” He made a skeptical face. “That’s amazing in itself! Man! So Bonwitt called me at home. What a trip!” His whole body shuddered. “In the same endless sentence, she also worked in the notion about me persuading Queen that we should let her redo our place.”

  “That’s Janie,” said Morgan.

  “Would never work.”
Merrimac said. “The Queen would throw Bonwitt out the window in two minutes.” He finished buttoning his shirt. “Anyway that’s the story, Dr. Morgan. So do me a favor and try not screw this one up. My conscience still bothers me that I was part of this scheme. Caroline’s too good for you.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  Ross shook Morgan’s hand again. “Heck of a job, Wes. Really. I can’t thank you enough. Oh, and one more time: want to come for Thanksgiving?”

  “Going to see Mom, but thanks,” Morgan said, zipping his weathered bomber jacket part of the way up.

  “Let’s get out of here, brother.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Morgan, admiring the uncultivated stubble blooming even on his wide cheeks. “I hate beards. Need a shave.” He stuck his nose inside his jacket. “Mostly a shower.”

  His BMW got him home. Red from the hot shower, he wrapped himself in his bathrobe and lay on the bed. In the final moments before the exhaustion won, he felt himself falling into a cloud with Caroline. Whenever he touched her, she touched back. Her auburn hair was everywhere. Her breasts pressed tightly against his chest. Her legs…

  An alarm?

  What’s the problem with that child?

  The noise continued.

  Somebody check that alarm!

  Ringing…

  Where’s the nurse?

  He knocked his phone to the floor and started groping for it.

  “Hello?” he gurgled.

  “Wes, it’s Cay.”

  “Who’s okay?” He was barely conscious.

  “It’s Caroline.”

  “Cay?”

  Her voice was dreamy. Was she lying next to him?

  “Yes, it’s me! You’re sleeping, aren’t you?”

  “Um…no…yes.” His mental marbles were still rolling around searching for the correct slots. “What day…is it?”

  “Tuesday. Almost six.”

  He’d been asleep just three hours.

  “I heard it on the radio!” she said. “Are they doing all right?”

  “I think…so.” At least no one had called him to tell him otherwise. “Where…are you?” he asked.

  “In Roanoke, at the airport…waiting for my father. Wes, I’m so excited for you!”

  “Thanks.” Recall of the last two days was coming back. “It was a real marathon.”

  “They’re okay?”

  “Troopers. So were the parents. Everybody was great.” The phone clicked. “Cay?”

  She came back. “Daddy’s here. I need to go.”

  “Umm…”

  “Wes?”

  “Yeah?” He yawned, still not thinking clearly.

  “Please get some sleep,” she said sweetly. “Call me tomorrow.”

  “When?”

  “Whenever you want to.” Caroline added, “Please don’t forget.”

  FOUR

  Thanksgiving

  Morgan ran along the lakefront to the north end of Chicago and back. No surprise other joggers and cyclists were out too. The morning was clear, the air crisp.

  “Twelve miles! That’s good!” Barely winded, he applauded himself while walking the last yards home.

  Morgan had run the same distance many times before and made every effort to work out as regularly as possible, even training for marathons in the past—but he’d never actually run one.

  If he were to compete, he’d want to win, and to win he’d have to do nothing but train. His growing workload now demanded so much of his time he often felt that he had to manage every minute. Still, despite those demands, he was able to schedule fairly regular exercise, and his life felt balanced—that was, until last Saturday night.

  Feeling his muscles tighten, he paused to stretch and thought about Caroline again. “God, that woman’s beautiful!” he said, alternating each leg in deep lunges. They had talked by phone the evening before, until Morgan heard her dozing off.

  “So your little transplant patients are okay?” Caroline asked more than once.

  “They’re just rolling along.” Her interest pleased him to no end. “Probably out of the ICU tomorrow.”

  “Doing anything for Thanksgiving?” The question was followed with a yawn and apology.

  “Seeing my mother,” but he wanted to say, “Wish you were here.”

  Cay yawned again.

  “Tired?” he asked.

  “Yeah…Goethe missed me, so Daddy and I…rode a long time…today…” The cadence of her words slowed more. “We’re going again…in the…morning…before dinner…even though my back’s…pretty sore…”

  “Did you take anything for it?”

  “Daddy gave me…” Her voice faded. “A snifter of thirty-one-year-old Macallan.”

  “That must have been tasty.”

  “You know, it’s as old as I…”

  “Ah! Scotch reveals a secret.”

  She was three years younger than Morgan.

  “Please…don’t tell anyone,” she giggled.

  “I don’t know ‘bout that…unless there’s a bribe in it.” Time to say goodnight. “I better let you go.” He didn’t want to. “I’ll call tomorrow after my run.”

  Morgan closed his front door. Kicking off his running shoes, he got some water and looked at the time. She was probably already riding, but he’d try anyway. He wanted to check on her sore back.

  “Lamest reason I ever came up with,” he laughed while punching in her number.

  “Hi. This is Caroline Pruitt. I am unavailable. Please leave a message.”

  “Um…hi…it’s Wes. Back from my run…going to get cleaned up and go make rounds…then drive out and have dinner…with my mother. Try you again later.”

  By noon Morgan had left the hospital and was heading to La Grange where his mother lived in a skilled nursing facility. Her Alzheimer’s had grown worse over the last few years and in the spring she tripped and broke her right hip. After surgery, rehab healed her body but the last of her fleeting memory had vanished.

  Whenever Morgan visited he’d roll her wheelchair near a window where they would sit together looking at the broad expanse of gardens. While his mother sat silently, he would talk about his work or whatever else was new in his life. Today he would tell her about the heart transplants he’d done—and Caroline.

  “Lizzie…you won’t even know I came,” he said sadly as he drove to one more never-ending goodbye.

  She didn’t remember anything now. Morgan wondered if she even knew she had a son.

  When traffic slowed, he called Caroline again. She answered late into the rings.

  “How’s the back?” he asked cheerfully.

  “It’s okay.” Caroline’s melancholy sliced through him. “We’ll talk later,” she said.

  “Cay…what’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I just don’t…want to talk to you now.”

  Unlike last night’s drowsy patter, she sounded disconnected and far away. The call ended.

  “Aw, come on!” Morgan shouted at the windshield. “What the hell did I do?”

  Cutting another piece of turkey, Morgan put the small forkful in his mother’s mouth. He looked around the spacious dining room with its stylishly painted walls and crown molding. Most of the residents had families with them, and that was good. Some came to share Thanksgiving dinner, others just to visit. Over the holidays an occasional bored child would race away from a table with the mother following quickly. That never bothered Morgan. If they were running or getting into mischief, they were healthy—a very different reality from the hospital, where he often thought the entire world had only sick children.

  “Chew, Mom,” he said gently. “It’s good.”

  She swallowed it. Morgan wiped a bit of cranberry relish from her chin.

  “Remember when you made this at home?” Cornbread followed. “You cooked every Thanksgiving dinner…and you let me help.”

  His mother coughed slightly and for a moment seemed to recognize him.

  “Dad…” she said.

  Morgan
gave her another bite.

  “Dad’s gone, Mom.”

  Lizzie Morgan was a good mother, forcing him in grade school to read more and write better than his classmates. She also spanked him when he misbehaved. That ended the day when Mary, his six year old baby sister, died. As a child Morgan never understood how it could happen, and then years later his father succumbed to a massive heart attack in his bank office, leaving just Morgan and Lizzie. With the payout from life insurance, Morgan went to college and medical school at Northwestern completing both in six years.

  “I want to be a surgeon,” he said to his mother while he was in medical school, “a pediatric heart surgeon. They take care of babies and children like Mary.”

  By the time he succeeded, Lizzie was already failing and rarely remembered him. With the remaining insurance money, Morgan found her a place where she’d be cared for and safe. Once he went into practice, any additional costs were no issue.

  He kissed his mother’s forehead. “I love you,” he whispered. “Mom, I met a girl. She’s an architect, and…she’s really nice…and pretty. You’ll like her. She’s different from the others.”

  He had hoped to tell her that Caroline was maybe a serious prospect for marriage, but her recent abruptness on the phone pushed him into unfamiliar territory. Women had never made him feel insecure before. Perhaps the theater of the last few days was only to advance her position in the firm, or—“Sorry…it was fun, but…oops…I forgot to mention…”

  Returning home Morgan accomplished little more than shuffling papers and pretending to read journal abstracts while the holiday football game created background noise. It was hopeless. All he could think about was Caroline. Her power over him was overwhelming. He was in a place he had never been before.

  What had he done wrong?

  He’d make it right—if he could.

  Caroline called that evening.

  “Hi,” he said and took a long pull from a bottle of beer, waiting for the inevitable.

  “How was dinner with your mom?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “It’s good of you to go see her,” Caroline said. She sounded sincere.

  “Mom’s got Alzheimer’s bad. At one time I thought, after my residency, she could live with me. I was going to hire help…but by then…that wasn’t going to work. She needed assisted living…memory support. I got her in a place that’s perfect.”