Destroy (A Standalone Romance Novel)
Page 13
“Exactly, Dr. Williams. The parents will have to choose which of the two children is to receive the liver and which will have to be sacrificed–or wait for another liver to become available before she dies.”
The coolness in Elizabeth’s voice would have made Dr. Kerry proud. She was as detached as could be. I was almost sure the woman never had any children. A parent would never sound as unfeeling as she did. Or, maybe she and Jeff had lost a child…?
When we reached the private room where the parents were watching the two little dolls, I was practically in tears. How would those people decide on the fate of their daughters? How could they? Besides, the girls looked happy enough. They were dressed the same and playing ball in between their beds.
“Mr. and Mrs. Parkton; let me introduce you to Dr. Williams.” Elizabeth turned to me. “She is the doctor who’s going to look after you, Mr. Parkton, after the operation and throughout your recovery.”
I extended a hand and shook each of theirs with a tentative smile. “Pleased to meet you both,” I replied. The father was a big, burly fellow with a good disposition, whereas his wife was a petite woman with timidity written all over her beautiful tanned face. She looked as if she came from South East Asia. I didn’t have to wonder where the girls got their lovely faces.
Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed near the parents while I went to see the little girls. They had been given a nametag each, so there wouldn’t be any confusion between them. Natasha and Lydia were gorgeous children. Both were petite as their mother with black, wavy hair surrounding happy faces. Yet, the yellow tinge in the white of their eyes betrayed their illness.
As I played a little with the girls, I heard Elizabeth ask if they had made up their mind yet regarding which girl would have to be prepped for the operation, which needed to be performed as soon as possible.
My heart cracked when I looked into Natasha’s eyes. At the age of five, she probably knew what was going to happen. Was she the one chosen to go under the knife? She threw a glance in her mother’s direction. When I looked into her eyes, I saw the apprehension that must have been encumbering her mind. Lydia, for her part, seemed ignorant of the dilemma her parents faced at that moment. It was only when she noticed her sister’s obvious anxiety that she looked at her mother and father in turn. She ran to her mother’s lap, climbed in it and cuddled her. Natasha and I looked on. I didn’t have the right words to say. So, I stayed mute and heaved her into my lap.
“I don’t know, Dr. Aldridge,” Mrs. Parkton replied.
“Perhaps you could tell us which of our two girls is more in need of the transplant,” the father added.
“They’re both in urgent need of a new liver, Mr. Parkton. So, the choice would have to remain yours. However, there is no need to despair, the minute I hear of another liver being available; you’ll be the second person to know.”
“Why couldn’t I give part of my liver too?” Mrs. Parkton asked. “I don’t understand. I’m their mother…”
“Perhaps I’ll ask Doctor Williams to explain the reasons why we can’t ask you to do that.”
I took Natasha in my arms and sat her across my hip.
“I haven’t been apprised of Natasha and Lydia’s cases yet, but I can answer your question by saying that it would be too dangerous to have both parents involved in organ donation at approximately the same time. We don’t want to make the girls orphans while they recover from their illness.”
“What if nothing went wrong with either of us?”
“If that was the case, Mrs. Parkton, all would end well, of course, but there isn’t any guarantee. Besides, either of you could die of a cardiac failure during the operation; maybe one of the girls would have problems with the anti-rejection drugs. In fact, and I am sorry to say, there are a lot of unknowns when dealing with organ transplants to be sure it would work.”
Elizabeth looked up at me. “Added to that, there is the fact that your liver, Mrs. Parkton, is not as well suited for the transplant as your husband’s is.”
“Yes, you said, it is too small, isn’t it?”
“Exactly. So, in the meantime that we get another liver let me hear of your decision in the morning, if possible.”
Both parents nodded, as Natasha climbed down from my waist and went to her dad.
“Okay,” Mr. Parkton said. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
As I closed the door of the room, I felt a heavy bulk drop at the pit of my stomach.
“When is the procedure due to be performed,” I asked Elizabeth.
“On Friday. In the meantime, you and I have to discuss the case and prepare the father for surgery.” She looked at me. “I gather this will be the first hands on for you, won’t it?”
I had to swallow the knot in my throat. “Yes. I attended a few operations with your husband and a couple with Dr. Slosberg, but this will be my first “assist”.”
“Well, that’s good to hear. I mean that you had some experience in Slosberg’s theater is very good. He’s the top surgeon in this hospital. And one of the best across the country. If you had a headache, I suggest you take two aspirin and phone Dr. Slosberg in the morning.”
I had to laugh quietly at the joke. I didn’t know why she was cold or so detached toward the patients in her care, but as far as I was concerned, the woman’s character began to grow on me. I had to admire her staunch approach and her stalwart demeanor. Why on earth would Jeff walk away from her?
Chapter 18
The rest of the day was spent partly in visiting the few patients who had recently undergone surgery. One of them was a young man who had just received a new kidney from his uncle. It had been very difficult to find a match for him apparently, until his uncle heard about his nephew’s plight. He lived in Alaska and when he received the call from his sister, telling him that Jonathan was dying; he packed his bags, resigned his job and returned to Washington. Normally, he should have been tested before leaving his work and home, but as he said, “What’s there to keep me? I’ve got nothing but penguins and caribous to keep me company, so I’m much better seeing my sister through this, right here.”
When we entered Mr. Archibald’s room, he was watching baseball on TV. He turned the sound down and started chuckling.
“Good gracious,” he bellowed, “what have I done to the Lord to deserve two of you? If Dr. Lizzy wasn’t enough of a sight for these sore eyes, but now I’ve got another beauty to admire. What is your name, dear?” He peered into my eyes as I approached his bed.
“Dr. Heather Williams,” I replied, grinning at his bonhomie. “At your service, sir.”
“Truly, you’ve done it now, Dr. Lizzy. Where did you get such a beautiful woman, and a doctor to boot, to look after my sorry ass?”
“I’ve got my secrets, Mr. Archibald, you know that.”
“Do I ever.” Mr. Archibald returned his gaze to me. “You know what this woman did?”
“No, sir, she hasn’t told me yet. What did she do?”
“She gave me my life back, that’s what she did. Yes, ma’am. Not only did she save Jonathan from certain death, but she got me back to my family, where I belong, and to a real ball game.”
“Don’t they play ball in Alaska?” I asked.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he replied, stifling a laugh. “They’ve got that darn Iditarod every year, but before and after that, you name it they don’t have it.”
As for Jonathan, he was asleep when we entered his room. I had to admit: he was a delightful young man. Looking at him sleep like that, so peacefully, made my heart melt with gratefulness. He was the perfect example of the reason why I had been working so hard at university. He had another chance at life now.
His mother stood up from the chair and closed her book. She walked with us out of the room when Elizabeth indicated that she didn’t need to disturb him.
“Mrs. Paulson, I’d like you to meet Dr. Williams,” she said. “She is going to look after Jonathan until he’s discharged.”
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bsp; “And where will you be?” Mrs. Paulson asked, lifting a worried gaze to Elizabeth.
“I’ll be here, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. But Dr. Williams is going to help me carry on with the routine visits. That is if you don’t mind.”
Mrs. Paulson turned to me. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to sound dismissive or anything like that, but Dr. Aldridge has looked after Jonathan and my brother since this whole thing began two years ago. You understand.”
“I do, Mrs. Paulson, and I am only going to remain available when Dr. Aldridge needs my help, that’s all.”
A couple of patients later, we retired to the lounge where we began analyzing Natasha and Lydia’s cases. There were files upon files to read and tablet notes to review. I put my studying cap on and started poring over the documents. Elizabeth did the same for a while until I had a few queries. We discussed the cases over a cup of tea and went on reading. It was soon six o’clock and time for us to go home. All in all, once I screwed my head on right, I had to admit it; it had been a relatively interesting day.
As I reached the locker room to change, I saw Tiffany come down the corridor. I waited for her at the door.
“So, how was that first day of yours,” I asked before she could ask the same of me.
“Whoa! I don’t know if I will ever get used to these ups and downs.”
We sat on the bench facing our lockers.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, see, we spend an hour or so doing nothing, except perhaps for going to ICU to check up on one of our patients or those who have come up from the dungeon, and then all of a sudden the entire ER is a combat zone. In the first instance, I was asked to stay back and observe. I was glad for it. This guy had rammed his car into a pole at one of the downtown intersections. He had second degree burns on his legs and a couple of fractures–nothing really major like a cranial injury–but for some reason he went into cardiac arrest right there and then.”
“Did he survive?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, thanks to Dr. Rogers’s prolonged CPR.” She stopped talking for a bit and looked at me. “You know, I would have let that man die.”
“How can you say that?”
“I can say that because I know me. I wouldn’t have the patience to last as long as he did. Or perhaps, it’s because I would have believed it was his time to die.”
“Like what Slosberg told us; is that what you mean?”
“Absolutely. I am still not convinced that I can make a difference and save those lives that come to me for help.”
“You mean you lack self-assurance?”
“Yeah, something like that I suppose. It’s not that I don’t know how to do it, it’s just that I’m too impatient to see the results from my assistance.”
“I’m sure it will come in time. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah, to practice what we learned in the books.”
“Precisely.” I got up and was about to open the door of my locker when Corey walked in.
“Hey, you two, how was that first day?”
“Just fine,” Tiffany and I replied in unison.
“Did you get through today’s horror show alright?” Corey asked Tiffany as he opened his locker, ignoring me, which was perfectly fine with me.
“Yep,” Tiffany replied, taking her lab coat off and taking her jacket off the peg. “We had a near death, but apart from that, it was very quiet actually.”
“Same here,” Corey rejoined, “except for the near death bit, of course.”
As soon as we were ready, Tiffany and I left Corey on his own and went down to the garage.
In the elevator, Tiffany looked at me curiously. “You’re very quiet this evening; what’s going on?”
“Let’s get home and I’ll tell you.”
She knew there was no need to question me before then, I wouldn’t have told her anything. Besides, I didn’t know who was listening or watching. There were cameras everywhere in the hospital, especially in the garage. Since one of the nurses had been raped two years before, they had installed roving cameras everywhere–in the stairwells, garage, and even terraces and cafeterias.
As soon as we got home, Tiffany was on my case. She opened a bottle of red wine and poured some in two glasses, which she brought to the living room. She then got a bowl of nachos ready with some jalapeño dip. I told you, the woman would make a fantastic wife.
“So, are you going to tell me why you were taking a cool walk in the park at lunch?” She plopped down in the sofa beside me.
“Yeah. I had to get out of the terrace café before I created a scene between Jeff, me and his wife!”
Tiffany practically choked on a half-eaten nacho. I drank some wine.
“Are you kidding me? Are you really saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Worse.”
“What could be worse than a wife appearing while you’re having lunch with her husband?”
“Well, first, I was not having lunch with him. I was trying not to have lunch with anyone. I wanted to be alone.”
“Why? There’s nothing wrong about having lunch with a resident surgeon, is there?”
“No, except for the fact that I spent the whole morning working with his wife.”
Tiffany turned to stare at me. “Hold on. Let me understand this. Aldridge’s wife is a doctor in this hospital too? Is that what you’re really saying?”
“Worse. She is my department supervisor.”
“I don’t believe it! And he never told you anything about this?”
I shook my head and drank some more of my wine. “Talk about a shock. When she introduced herself, I thought I was going to lose my breakfast. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, Jeff has the gall to come and sit beside me at the café while I was having lunch.”
“And then what happened?” Tiffany asked, after she crunched another nacho into her mouth.
“Then, as I was telling him off–and to back off–Dr. Elizabeth Aldridge walked in. I didn’t say another word to the two-timer and left. I had to cool off somehow. And that’s when you saw me in the park.”
“Good grief, Hattie, what are you going to do?”
I finally grabbed a nacho and munched for a few seconds before I said, “Nothing. I came to the conclusion that I will not do anything. I can’t, Tiff. My career is my priority. Yes, I had a fling with the guy. Yes, I had a good time, but now we’re done. And I hope he knows it.”
“How did you manage the afternoon with the “misses” then?”
“Very well actually. I figured that if they’re separated, then I’ve got nothing to worry about. Yet, I won’t have anything to do with Dr. Hottie anymore. If they’re not, tough. I cannot sacrifice my career for a man who doesn’t care about anything or anybody but himself. And, I repeat, we just had a fling, a passing sex adventure.”
“And how is the wife? Is she nice?”
“She is, actually. She is very detached though. We’ve got two little girls–twins–in the ward that need a liver transplant badly. The father is good for one transplant but then there isn’t a second liver to give to the sister. And Dr. Aldridge is asking the parents to choose which girl will receive part of her dad’s liver.”
“Oh wow! That must be the most difficult choice one could ever have to make. And what have they decided, do you know?”
“No, not yet. But, I tell you, Tiff,”—I turned my body in the sofa to face her—“Dr. Aldridge was a stalwart through it all. She wouldn’t flinch. It was hard to watch, but she couldn’t have done anything else. It has to be the parents’ choice.”
“And when is that going to happen–the surgeries I mean?”
“On Friday. And this afternoon is when I had to clamp down on my feelings. Dr. Aldridge and I sat down in the center’s lounge and spent a couple of hours reviewing the case files. It was like studying with one of our professors. It felt good, actually.”
“You mean there’s no grievance between you two?”
“And he had the perfect opportunity to do so when you guys went for ice-cream, didn’t he?”
“Exactly my point. There were plenty of opportunities for him to come clean. He should have told me what I should have expected, such as meeting his wife at the café, or seeing her around the place.”
“Do you think she had something to do with you being assigned to her?”
“I don’t know, Tiff. But either way, it’s up to me to prove to her that I am no floozy, and that I care about pursuing my career in organ transplants.”
Chapter 19
Once we finished the nachos while watching the evening news, we went to warm up our meal. Tonight, Tiffany defrosted some chicken and roasted potatoes while I tossed a salad with my special dressing–my grandmother’s recipe. There was an interesting program on TV when we dropped our trays on the coffee table. The anchorman was introducing a pilot who had just returned from the Middle East and was asked to comment on some of his experiences. Of course, when you live in Washington, D.C., you can’t really escape the political programs, the endless interviews with one lobbyist or another, and the debates about any topic that made the headlines that day. However, this Navy pilot was an interesting guy. Apart from being very good looking, he spoke clearly while describing some of his encounters with rebel fighters, especially in Jordan. I couldn’t imagine being sent overseas to fight a cause or to liberate some oppressed community. I am a “home bird” as far as that is concerned. I’ll go on holidays for any length of time, but I’ll soon come home. I’m like the Canadian geese; they fly south for the winter, but they go home for the summer.
When we finished eating, I went to the kitchen to discover a tray of cheese, grapes and crackers in the fridge.
“What the…?” I erupted, turning to Tiffany. She was still absorbed by the pilot’s comments.