The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel

by T. Ainsworth

  Once she saw him vigorously kiss a woman near the entrance of the hospital.

  Abby later scowled in private at Morgan and said, “No lady wears a blouse that revealing in public. You can do better—much better.”

  “And?” Morgan asked.

  “My oh my…Polite!” Abby looked directly at him. “Ms. Caroline’s a Southern woman…I can tell. She called me ma’am. Her mother and father raised her to be proper.”

  “So you approve, Grandma?” Morgan could only hope.

  “What a sweet voice! She should be in our tabernacle choir!”

  “Guess I better call her back right now!” Morgan tapped in her number.

  “Don’t you keep that girl waiting alone in the cafeteria!”

  “Huh?” The phone was already ringing.

  “Hi!” Caroline said into his ear.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Other than stalking young doctors,” she replied, “I’m doing some site work today, building your hospital. Remember? Architects do visit their edifices from time to time.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Got a table for two by a window. Look for the candles and wine. You can have half of my turkey sandwich.”

  “Hang on, Cay,” Morgan said, turning to Abby. “Do I have time to have lunch with her?”

  “I don’t think we’ll be counting instruments for about an hour,” Abby answered.

  “My hair flat?” he asked.

  “No,” but she still used her fingers to fluff and comb his errant cowlick. “That’s better.”

  “Thanks, bye, later.” His voice rose as the distance between them grew. He hadn’t had a chance to see her since the Bears game last Sunday.

  “Hey, you!” Caroline said. Her tight ponytail bounced as she looked up.

  He kissed her.

  “That’s enough for now,” she said, breaking away. “You’ll ruin your reputation.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Morgan!” The unified greeting came from a moving cadre of white-coated residents clearing their trays.

  “More scandal for you,” Caroline said merrily.

  Morgan scanned the crowded room. Diners were looking their way.

  “I think we’ve succeeded already. Want to go to the staff dining room? Less crowded.”

  “Dressed like this? I don’t think so.”

  Her sweatshirt and jeans were streaked with dust and grimy stains. She had a smudge near her right ear but freshly applied lip gloss. Her carefree beauty seemed so natural it took his breath away.

  “Oh, I don’t think anyone would mind if I took a construction worker to—”

  “Nah,” Cay said, “this is fine. Abby…we talked for a couple of minutes. She’s really a dear woman! Knows you like a book!”

  Morgan groaned.

  “I assured her I wouldn’t keep you long.” She handed him an iced tea, a napkin, and her plate. “Here…I promised you half a sandwich.”

  “Hope you have a good lunch, Dr. Morgan.”

  The surgeon looked at the speaker—the nurse who circulated in his operating room. Wasn’t she supposed to be setting up his next case?

  Caroline smiled and said, “So what’s the rest of your day looking like?”

  “Have one more operation this afternoon.”

  He bit into the bread.

  “I’ll be done here about five.” Caroline stroked her ponytail while she spoke. With each pass, her hand lingered just above her breast. “Can you do dinner?”

  “Going to be later for me,” he replied with a dazed pout.

  “Hope you’re having a pleasant lunch, Dr. Morgan.”

  He looked in the direction of the voices. A trio of operating-room staff kept moving, only to pause and wave at him a few feet behind Caroline.

  “Popular fellow,” Cay said.

  “These people never leave the OR lunch room,” Morgan confided. “Most brown-bag it.”

  “Another wave inbound,” Caroline noted.

  Several more OR staff dressed in pale green scrubs said hello in passing.

  “Sweet of all your friends to stop by,” she said as Morgan nodded to the group.

  He shook his head. “Anyway…if we do dinner, it’ll be late…but more private.”

  “I rarely go to sleep before midnight,” she replied.

  “We could eat at my place. It’s clean, I think.” His brow crinkled before he smiled confidently. “Yeah…It is…My housekeeper’s been there.”

  Morgan was fastidious about keeping his home neat and organized, but without exception there was probably a pair of underwear that missed the basket or some dishes left in the sink. Henrietta righted those little things, cleaned the place and every week washed his sheets and remade the bed—good in any circumstance, but especially today if Caroline ended up in it.

  “Hi there!” a voice behind him said.

  Morgan turned around. “Abby, what are you doing here?”

  He put down his sandwich and managed to formally introduce the two women. When Caroline rose to take Abby’s hand, she towered over her.

  “Pleasure, Abby.” The women bonded immediately. “Wes speaks highly of you.”

  “Dr. Morgan and I have known each other a very long time,” Abby replied.

  “Some rich stories, I suspect,” Caroline nodded.

  Morgan felt perspiration accumulating rapidly under his arms. He held his breath.

  “Dr. Morgan is a real joy to work with.”

  “That’s wonderful to hear,” said Caroline. “So…I guess, Dr. Morgan, Abby has come to reclaim you.” Caroline looked at her. “I hope someday we can get together…share more.”

  “There’s plenty to tell,” Abby laughed not so subtly. “Take years, but I’d enjoy that.”

  “Hey, what happens in the OR stays, right?” Morgan reminded her as he answered his ringing cell phone and pulled on her arm. “Back to work for us, Abby.”

  “My boss here needs to take me away,” she said. “Wonderful meeting you, Ms. Pruitt.”

  “Likewise,” Caroline said.

  “Cay…” Morgan really didn’t want to go. “I’ll call you when I break scrub, swing by and get you.”

  “That’ll work. I’ll bring the food. Call me when you leave.”

  Morgan and Abby walked back toward the elevators that would take them to the operating suite.

  “How many people did you tell I’d be in the cafeteria…you know, with Caroline?”

  “Lord have mercy, she’s a beautiful girl!”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Abby smiled. “I never gossip, Dr. Morgan.”

  “I know,” Morgan said, aware hospitals were dry kindling and a bit of gossip would ignite an inferno of curiosity.

  “You’re going to marry her, I hope.”

  Abby was never this frank.

  “It’s only been a month. And she hasn’t asked me yet,” he replied.

  His growing preoccupation with Caroline totally supplanted any desire to remain unattached. He had never felt this way before! He could only hope…

  “Don’t let her go,” said Abby, pulling him from his thoughts. “She loves you.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble. A pizza would have been fine.”

  Morgan meant it, but when he’d called to say he was on his way, Caroline said the cooking was done. All she had to do was warm the veal and construct the salad while he uncorked the wine and lit a fire. The entire time she moved around his kitchen, he watched, mesmerized, as she reached, bent, and stretched, opening cabinet doors.

  After they finished eating, Caroline nestled against his shoulder as they sat on the sofa, enjoying the final drops of wine.

  “I’ll clear this,” Morgan said, “because I’ve got to get the dessert.”

  The plates were soon stacked on the kitchen counter and he returned with his hands behind his back.

  “Here,” he said, presenting her with a bottle of eighteen-
year-old Macallan.

  “My goodness!” she said.

  “It’s the reason I was bit more late picking you up,” he admitted. “I wanted to get you something special…with you cooking and all.”

  Her fingers ran over the label. “Wes, you shouldn’t have. I know this really set you back.”

  “I don’t care,” he said and went rummaging through his glassware. “You only live once, and damn it, I’m enjoying this.”

  His confidence wilted as he searched his cabinets.

  “Oh crap! Cay…I’m an idiot! I don’t have any snifters.”

  Caroline joined him and found two highball glasses. Holding them up to the light, she shook her head.

  “My! Crate and Barrel—good start! At least you’re aware that glassware counts.” She started washing them and grabbed a drying towel. “They’ll do just fine…tonight.”

  Morgan opened the bottle and poured generously.

  “You’ve learned proper dosing,” she laughed and gave him a hug. “Turn off the lights and put on another log,” she said. “This needs to be enjoyed with just firelight.”

  Morgan did as instructed then joined Caroline on the sofa.

  After a deep sniff, she took a taste and looked again at the glass.

  “Santa will be here soon.” She gave him a kiss. “When I write him my letter, I tell him you’ve been nice…so maybe he’ll bring you some real snifters. You’ll have to promise him, though, that you’ll use them only with me.”

  She rested her head again on his shoulder, pulling a throw blanket over them both. In warm silence, bathed in the serenity of the soothing fire, they sipped until their glasses were empty.

  Morgan heard the dishwasher running and realized he had dozed off. Without waking him, Caroline had loaded and started the machine and come back under the blanket. He felt her bare breasts massaging his chest each time she breathed. The heat of their bodies heightened the scent of her perfume, generating a sublime sensuousness.

  “Time for bed,” she whispered.

  The high-pitched whine of a small jet engine started and stopped and started again. Opening his eyes slightly, he realized he was in bed and wearing his pajamas. How he got undressed and in them was a mystery, but, more strange, his hairdryer was somehow intermittently turning itself on and off.

  “Cay?” he called.

  “In here.”

  He got up to see.

  The shower door was beaded with water, and standing in front of the foggy mirror was Caroline, wearing his bathrobe. The dangling belt told Morgan the robe was undone in front. The entire scene was so extraordinary he remained unconvinced it was real.

  “Wes, there’s over a foot of snow outside, you need to get moving.”

  Her pragmatism blended with unruffled immodesty left him confused even more.

  “What time is it?”

  “Five thirty. You need to get me home. We both have to work.”

  She crumpled a scrap of plastic wrapper and tossed it in his wastebasket.

  “You found the spare toothbrush,” he said.

  “Such a thoughtful touch. Makes a girl feel welcome.”

  It was now officially hers.

  She spun around with the robe totally open. She hugged him tight.

  “Kisses after you brush yours,” she said.

  He obeyed and returned for his reward.

  “Now, go shower while I make coffee,” she said. “You have coffee, yes?”

  Morgan nodded, still dumbfounded.

  By six he was warming up the BMW. Caroline closed the back door of his townhouse and climbed in. Snow was everywhere, its beauty marred only by the fact that he had to go to work, and that meant they’d be apart. Following in the tracks of a snowplow, their sparse conversation changed only when he stopped at her lobby entrance. His face desperate, Morgan took her hand.

  “Caroline…”

  “Cay…” she corrected him.

  Morgan nodded and began again. “About last night…” He hesitated. “Maybe we had too much Scotch…I know I did.”

  He was worried he’d taken advantage of the situation.

  “You don’t snore, Wes,” she confided.

  Her words were affectionate but not reassuring.

  “I got plenty of sleep and…you’re a good cuddler.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  She cut him off with a kiss.

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Morgan. Again…you were a perfect gentleman.” She gave him another kiss then opened the car door. “You’ll get another opportunity.”

  SIX

  December 2001

  As the raw drizzle wept from the sky, tire spray splattered his windshield, creating a smeared glare of taillights with each pass of the wipers. Every automobile in front of him seemed intent on creeping toward the intersections then holding back long after the stoplights became green. The entire way home, his frustration grew, pounding his denial deeper into the pit of fatigue, until again grief and exhaustion became one.

  Morgan parked the BMW in his garage and climbed the back steps to his townhouse, fumbling through the tears for the key. Once inside, rainwater dripping off his coat, he kicked the door shut with his heel while dropping his overnight bag where he stood. At least when he was at the hospital he was protected from his home’s empty stillness.

  He hung the coat on a hook and traced the final gray light of the day to a table and a neat stack of mail. Arranged by Henrietta, he knew the small pile contained the usual bills but no condolence cards. They had stopped coming weeks ago. There was little more anyone could say.

  Morgan walked to the kitchen sink, turned on the water, and wet his throat. Only then did he see that Henrietta had placed the damp newspaper near the drain so it wouldn’t water-spot any wood. He didn’t care what happened to the wood—or the paper. It would never be read. The news was the same every day, more testimony to the cruel reality no one could believe.

  From their last bottle of Macallan, Morgan poured a few ounces into one of the snifters Caroline had given him. Sitting down on the sofa, he watched the curtains of scotch stream to the bottom of the glass before tentatively taking a sip.

  “See, darling,” Cay had said. “Daddy taught me that fine crystal makes Scotch taste even more delicious.” When Morgan filled his mouth with more, she removed a drop from his lips, tasting it with her finger. Tempting him to transgress, she whispered, “You stay right here.”

  Morgan’s gaze held firm on the cold hearth. Its flames had cast their passionate shadows everywhere the first time they made love. He relived again Caroline standing in front of the prurient blaze, her hair decanting over the back of a white gossamer caftan that poured to the floor. With her face in smoldering repose, she placed her Scotch on the mantle, glanced his way while drawing the silk robe behind her buttocks to reveal fine lace underwear—all which remained between them. One of her long legs nudged forward.

  “I’m really not this way,” she said, submitting her open hand to him in anxious anticipation. “I hope you’re not disappointed.”

  Morgan reflexively took a large swallow of the Scotch. A wave of nausea slammed him and he retched hard. Racing toward the sink, he vomited on the floor.

  “You motherfucker!” Morgan burbled through the detritus. “Goddamn you!”

  He spit out more globs while he turned on the faucet and stuck his head in the water.

  He sneezed.

  Using a finger to clean out his nose, he reached for a paper towel to dry his face.

  “Goddamn you…” he said, pulling off his shirt, using it to wipe up the vomit on the floor. The balled-up cloth went into the garbage.

  Morgan found the snifter miraculously upright and unbroken. Holding the glass at arm’s length he walked to the sink to dump the liquid, and backed away to his bathroom.

  He stripped off the rest of his clothes.

  “You look like shit!” he grunted to the person in the mirror.

  His wilted skin showed every rib. Even tho
ugh he hadn’t exercised since September, he’d still lost fifteen pounds. He needed a real haircut. With a chimpanzee grin he picked uselessly at his teeth before looking at his retracted, lifeless penis.

  “Fuck me,” he said with contempt. “You’re pathetic. Throwing a rock at your TV? Is that all you can do?”

  The video released by the Pentagon several days before showed a smiling Osama bin Laden stating how pleased he was that the Towers collapsed completely. Morgan erupted when he heard that and threw the marble paperweight on his desk at the television. The large LCD screen popped, sparked, and went dark. Since then the broken glass and polished green stone, given to him by Ross Merrimac with the engraved date of his first transplant, remained untouched on the hardwood floor.

  He turned on the shower, hoping hot water and steam would help him concentrate on anything that might cloak his misery. He thought about an operation he performed the week before, one that changed the destiny of a child clinging to life. His OR team applauded him—said he’d done a stellar job—but he just shrugged off their accolades and walked away. His craft meant nothing to him anymore. It was only a distraction, something that consumed time and kept him away from his townhouse, but the long hours couldn’t cover what Morgan knew. His interest in surgery was gone.

  Merrimac had tried to help until yesterday when they had argued in the operating room. In front of everyone, Ross told him that his ability to make precise decisions—the glue that made him a surgeon—was dissolving. As Morgan stood there and listened, he realized didn’t care what Merrimac thought. He didn’t care what any of them thought.

  A towel absorbed the cooling water, and Morgan collapsed into his bed between the threadbare sateen sheets he had shared with Caroline. They hadn’t been washed since. His housekeeper had tried, but Morgan said he’d fire her if she did, so they stayed where they were. He’d never wash them. Caroline’s essence was still on the pillows.

  He pressed the button on his bedside CD player, and the room came alive with her dulcet tones. Retrieved by the phone company, her twelve words were all he had. He pressed the button again and again, filling the room with her words until his tears ran dry. As he waited in the darkness, he prayed for salvation.