How to Save a Surgeon

by C. M. Stone

The doorway to Darla’s room opened and she stepped out, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She didn’t have her glasses on yet and her hair was an unbrushed tumble around her head. Unlike her roommate, she’d put on some clothes before stumbling out, though. Her pajamas were light blue, covered in stethoscopes. Something like that had to be a gift. No one would buy it to wear, would they? On second thought, Darla might. Coming from her, it seemed more endearing than silly.

  “That smells so good. What are you making?”

  “Some sort of…skillet meal?” Jackson waved his spatula at the pan. “Onions, peppers, sausage and potatoes. I figured drugging ourselves with fat and carbs might help make the day a little less nerve wracking.”

  “What’s so nerve-wracking about the day?” Brandon snatched a piece of sausage from the pan and popped it into his mouth. Seconds later he spat it out into the sink. “God, that’s hot.”

  “Things that are frying usually are.” Darla shooed him out of her way so she could get closer to Jackson.

  Grateful for her nearness, he slipped an arm around her waist. “Could we talk privately?”

  Brandon huffed. “Fine, just kick me out of my own kitchen.”

  Jackson turned off the heat to the pan and waited for Brandon to leave before he spoke again. “When does your mom’s flight arrive?”

  “About noon and then I’ve got a shift starting at three.”

  He considered how long it would take her to drive from McCarren Airport to UMC. There’d be little spare time, except possibly at the hospital, and he couldn’t fathom having this conversation there. It was too public and made him feel too exposed.

  “So you’re not going to be able to make McGaffey’s retirement party?” He tightened his arm around her, hoping he could enjoy that feeling many more times to come. “It’s at one.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be able to make the tail end of it.”

  “I’ve got a meeting with the chief this afternoon, so I’ll probably miss some of the party too.” He braced himself. “With McGaffey retiring, there’s a new tenured position opening at the med school. He’d offered me his recommendation before.”

  “Yeah, I remember you mentioning the position. Do you think you lost his recommendation?”

  He had to hope the smile he gave her didn’t look as pained as it felt. “Pretty sure I did. He wanted me to prove myself as your mentor to earn it.”

  She sucked her breath in through her teeth, eyes closing for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

  Her reaction was better than he’d expected. “It’s not your fault. I mean, not entirely. We both took the risk.”

  “It seems like the risk is bigger on your part.”

  He shrugged. The firing threat had been from his issues with Mevlyn, and he couldn’t blame his reactions there on her. She hadn’t known about him working to get Singh’s recommendation either. “No, you’ve got risk. I told you before they usually transfer somebody in situations like ours.”

  She drew back from him, head cocked curiously. “If I stay here, I might be transferred?”

  He took a deep breath and nodded. When they’d discussed the policy the first time, it had just been hypothetical. The reality—and accompanying guilt—sickened him. He divided the skillet up between two plates, buying himself a few more seconds to gather his thoughts. Unfortunately, it felt more like trying to grasp handfuls of sand. What had seemed so clear and easy the night before was now difficult, daunting.

  “It wouldn’t be a terrible thing, would it?” The question was as much for his own guilt as reassuring her. A transfer to another department might finally make her reevaluate what she wanted and the kind of risks she’d been taking. Maybe he’d even be helping her in the long run. “You could do something that isn’t such a strain on your body.”

  All of the possibilities he saw in Darla’s eyes suddenly died. Her spine went straight, her jaw set. “What?”

  “You’ve just started your residency, so you could do anything you wanted.” His words came out in a rush, as if he could speak fast enough to outrace her distrust. She was brilliant. She had to see the sense in what he was saying. “Something that would give you more downtime. Something that’s better for your heart—”

  “You don’t know what’s better for my heart,” she interrupted. “You’re not even a cardiologist.”

  “I know, but less of a strain would be good for you. There are so many potential complications.”

  “Rare complications. What is and is not good for my heart is between me and my doctor,” she snapped. “Did you tell Singh about us just to get me out of trauma?”

  Was that really what she thought of him? He knew he’d made some mistakes, but at the very least he thought she’d realize he wasn’t being malicious. “That was the last thing on my mind, Darla. I’m just trying to find the bright side here.”

  “A bright side that involves me losing everything I worked for, and you getting what you want. How convenient.” Her fork hit the plate with a very final sounding clunk. “What do I gain here?”

  He closed his eyes to block out the accusation in her face, dragging his hands through his hair. The memory of her collapsing replayed over again in his head. Everything that was her, all of her future, could just cease to exist in a moment like that. All it would take was her heart being pushed too hard. Or another fainting episode without someone to catch her before her head cracked on the floor. She’d watched patients die who’d just been living their lives. Didn’t she see he only wanted her safe?

  “You gain a safer career,” he said at last.

  “That’s not your call.” There was a faint tremor to her voice. He couldn’t tell if it was from rage or threatening tears. “Have you been planning this ever since you heard about my heart?”

  “I…” His mind raced. He’d first brought up her talent with young patients early on. That had been before she told him about her heart, hadn’t it? But he’d been worrying about her ever since. “No, there wasn’t a plan.”

  “At least there’s that.” She crossed her arms under her breasts as her eyes bored holes into him. That probably ruled out tears. “I’d hoped you at least trusted me to make my own decisions.”

  “I do trust you. I just…” He looked down at his hands as if they held some answer, but they were empty. He was empty. “Is it so terrible that I like the idea of you being safe?”

  “If that’s what you want, you’re never going to be happy with anyone.” Her laugh was short and bitter. “I need you to go now.”

  The worry and guilt that had been twisting his stomach into knots melted away in the heat of her anger. It was almost a relief as it pushed back the worst-case scenarios running through his mind. She’d rather kick him out than consider things from his point of view. “Oh come on. This is stupid, Darla. Do you even want to go into trauma? You’re putting yourself at risk to try to prove a point.”

  “And if I decide to go into pediatrics, it’s going to be because it was my decision. Not because somebody got me forced out of trauma.” She walked to grab his jacket from the hook by the front door, then threw it at him. “Get out.”

  “Would you just listen to me? Trauma’s too dangerous for you.”

  “No.” The single syllable was like a slap in the face, her voice rising sharply. “I’m sick of being told what I can’t do. I’m not something broken for you to fix. This is the only life I have, and I can’t let somebody else’s fear control it.”

  He stared at her for a moment, at a loss, then felt something cold and hard take over. Fighting with her wasn’t going to accomplish anything, especially not when she’d been happily planning on leaving for so long. Now he’d handed her a fine excuse to take back the promises she’d made the night before. He pulled on the jacket as he walked to the front door.

  “You’re risking your life just because you want to impress your mother.”

  There was no hint of that vulnerability in her from the first time they’d clashed. She stared back at him i
n unblinking defiance. “My life and my decisions aren’t any of your business.”

  “Yeah, you’ve made that clear.”

  He slammed the door behind him and let his anger carry him out of the building. Whatever her cardiologist said, he couldn’t believe she wasn’t taking unnecessary risks. She was right, though. It was her life. Clearly she had no interest in sharing that life with him if she wouldn’t listen. He didn’t need her anyway. Hadn’t he done just fine without any extra people in his life for years? Every footstep burned up another measure of his rage until he shut the door on his car.

  Like a bubble bursting, the anger dissipated, leaving him lost and alone without it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Fuck!” The uncharacteristic expletive was punctuated with kicking a cupboard door. There was little satisfaction in it and it left Darla’s foot stinging. For a second, she considered finding something else to kick or punch, security deposit be damned.

  Brandon popped around the corner, all jocularity for once missing from his face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Dr. Jackhole’s trying to keep me out of trauma.” The words came out hotly except for the last, which her throat tried to close around, tears stinging her eyes.

  “Oh my God,” he breathed. “That’s such a better nickname than Dr. Ice. I’m gonna have to remember that.”

  “Not the point, Brandon!”

  He came closer to rest a hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I’m sorry. What did he do?”

  She shrugged off his hand. “He told the chief about us and then went on about how great it would be if I couldn’t work in trauma anymore.”

  “Well, kind of insensitive, but you didn’t think you could keep something like that a secret forever, right?” Brandon stared into the full heat of her glare for a moment. “You didn’t, did you?”

  “It’s more complicated than that. He didn’t give me a choice before he told the chief and then he acted like having my career derailed was a good thing. And last night he was trying to talk me into staying, before he ever brought up that I might get transferred. Like that wouldn’t be a major factor in my decision.”

  “Why doesn’t he want you in trauma?”

  “He doesn’t think it’s healthy for me.”

  “Oh.” Brandon was quiet for a moment. “What does your cardiologist think?”

  She sighed. “Everything’s fine for now. He doesn’t think I need to limit myself so long as I’m comfortable, but of course Jackson never asked that. He just decided I’m too delicate.”

  “This came after you passed out and were rushed to cardiology, right?”

  She didn’t bother to answer Brandon. Maybe it had looked scarier from the outside. She’d been more annoyed by the experience than anything else, but she’d had years to deal with it.

  He grabbed a fork from the drawer and sampled a piece of potato. “So if you wanted to stay, you know you could. I’m sure you could work something out with the chief if you explained everything. It wouldn’t have to have anything to do with DeMatteo.”

  “I know. I’d been having second thoughts about moving, but now…I don’t want him to win.”

  Brandon gave her a pitying look. “Oh, yeah. Move across the country when you don’t really want to, out of pure spite. That’ll show him.”

  “You’re really bad at this comforting thing.”

  “You don’t need comforting.” He turned the stove back on and opened the fridge. “I’m gonna cook some eggs to go with this potato and sausage stuff. Want some?”

  She crossed her arms so tightly they ached. “He cooked that.”

  “He did, and a pig died for that sausage. Do you want that pig to have died in vain, Darla? Do you really want that on your conscience?”

  Despite her best efforts, she could feel herself smiling, tears now drying. “No.”

  “Good answer. As I was saying, you don’t need comfort. You need perspective.”

  “And you’re the one to give it to me?”

  “God no. You’ve got to give it to yourself. What do you want?”

  “I don’t know.” She sank onto one of the stools around the kitchen island, rubbing her temples. “To make my mom proud, I guess.”

  “Okay, so. Imagine your mom is dead.”

  She froze, staring at him in horror. “Jesus, Brandon. I’m really glad you’re going into surgery and not psychiatry.”

  “Work with me here, okay? Your mom is dead, or a vegetable, or just the living embodiment of pride itself. Nothing you can do will change how she feels. It’s irrelevant. Now what do you want?”

  “To be happy.”

  “And what would make you happy?”

  A flutter of panic rushed through her, like a black hole of dread through her chest, inevitably sucking everything into it. “I don’t know.”

  “What makes you happy right now?”

  She breathed deep, rubbing her palm against the center of her chest. “Can you get me a glass of water? I haven’t taken my pill yet.” Once she had washed down the beta-blocker and given herself a moment to think, the answers came more easily. “You. My other friends. My career. Learning new things. Saving lives. Going out and having fun. Normal stuff.”

  “Normal stuff that’s all here in Vegas.”

  “Well, yeah.” All things Jackson had gotten her thinking about the night before, except she couldn’t trust anything he said now.

  What was there in Chicago, other than her mother? She had few friends growing up. Those relationships she did have had been reduced to long-distance phone calls and Facebook comments. Instead, she’d formed a new family in Nevada.

  Darla gave Brandon a hopeful look. “You’re planning on remaining here, aren’t you?”

  “That’s my plan.”

  …

  Getting through McCarren International Airport had never been anything short of a nightmare. The roads leading into, out of, and through the airport were like twisted knots of spaghetti. As soon as she’d finished breakfast and showered, Darla had left for the airport, reasoning that the extra money she might pay in the short term parking lot would be worth avoiding the stress of driving through the passenger pickup bay. When the board showed her mother’s flight was delayed by over an hour, she was grateful she hadn’t tried to make things quick.

  The baggage claim felt like a cavernous pit with advertisements for different shows leering down from the second level above. Darla found a spot beside a baggage carousel to sit down and read while she waited. All around her were people reuniting, relieved to have made it through their flights. Occasionally a snippet of conversation would catch her attention, but mostly it all melted together into the sounds of a herd of humanity.

  “Darla?”

  She looked up from the tablet and gave her mother a relieved smile. “Hey! How was your flight?”

  They hugged and Darla was reminded of how childlike her mother always made her feel, through no fault of her own. Her mother was about half an inch shorter than her, but outweighed her by twenty pounds and possessed a physical presence that commanded respect.

  “Terrible. One of the other passengers was having chest pains, and we had to stop the plane in Tulsa. He should be all right, at least. There wasn’t anyone else on the flight who had medical training, either.”

  “At least he had a good nurse like you.”

  Her mother waved that off with an annoyed expression. “There was hardly anything for me to do except keep him calm.”

  Darla smiled sadly as a memory resurfaced. “Sometimes that’s the best medicine we can offer.”

  “Really? That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

  “I’ve been learning a lot.” She slid her tablet into her purse, then fiddled with the strap a moment. “Do you have any checked luggage?”

  “One bag. Are you in a rush?”

  “No, it’s fine. There’s a retirement party at the hospital for someone, but I didn’t think I’d make it anyway.”

  “If it’
s a retirement party, it’s hardly important for you to go. It’s not like someone quitting can help your career.”

  Was this how her mother had always been? She knew it was, and yet it felt like she was seeing her mother with fresh eyes. Always pushing to get ahead, always focused on the future instead of reflecting on the past. It must have been so hard for her raising Darla all alone. Why would she want to focus on anything but the future?

  “I didn’t want to go to help my career.” She chose the words with care, speaking softly so it didn’t come across argumentative. “I just happened to really like that surgeon.”

  “Is this the surgeon who’s been mentoring you? DeMatteo?”

  “No, this is McGaffey. DeMatteo is much younger. He’s only a few years older than me. He’s just…really good.” In more ways than she could ever tell her mother.

  An alarm sounded as the carousel began rotating slowly. The first few bags came out in a jumble together, then more methodically one at a time after. Her mother grabbed the sixth bag and slung her carry-on over the handle before she began wheeling it away.

  “I’ll be so happy when you finally come home. I hate going so long without seeing you.”

  Hearing that made Darla freeze, startled. “Really?”

  “Of course. Don’t you think I miss you?”

  “I…yeah, I guess.” Chicago hardly felt like home any more. The guilt of that suddenly weighed down on her.

  Brandon’s sarcastic comment about making choices based on spite popped into her head again and she blinked, shocked as she realized how right he was. Not just about moving to spite Jackson, but so many other decisions in her life.

  “I don’t want to be a trauma surgeon.” She blurted the words out almost before thinking them, then cringed.

  Her mother looked at her as if she’d just sprouted a second head. “You don’t?”

  “No, I don’t. I really love research, and trauma’s okay, but it’s not the kind of thing that gets me excited. There’s a lot of amazing research done in pediatric medicine at the UMC Children’s Hospital, and I know that they’re going to have space for me if I wanted to do my residency there and I think I’d want to, but it doesn’t feel as sexy and cool as trauma medicine. Plus I always feel like people are talking down to me every time they bring it up, like they think I have to go into pediatrics just because I’m a woman and then I’m all, you know, fuck you, I do what I want. Except then I’m not actually doing what I want, I’m just doing what they don’t want me to do.” Darla stopped to gulp breath, certain her face had to be bright red after saying all of that. She’d even sworn at her mother! Well, not at her, but in front of her, at least.