Destroy (A Standalone Romance Novel) (30 page)

“Alright, alright,” I
relented. “What about Jeff? Have you seen him today?”

“I saw him at the café
but he didn’t come to our table. I was having lunch with Corey and Lisa–those two
are sweet on each other I’m sure–but he didn’t dare come over. I would believe
he is ashamed of what he did in front of us. Besides, Dr. Kerry told us tonight
that none of us would be working with him directly for the time being. I bet
she got wind of what happened on Monday night and told Jeff what was what.”

“I believe you’re right.
If a doctor misbehaves toward an intern, I guess it’s not good for the
hospital’s reputation either. They wouldn’t want to see any of us blowing our
trumpets to the newspapers, now would they?”

“Absolutely,” Tiffany
agreed. “It’s one thing to play a prank or two on a colleague in gist, but
quite another to expose the hospital to ill-repute comments.”

“Can you imagine what
would happen if this incident was leaked out to the press? Talk about being
blown out of proportion!” I could see my name in the headlines. Truly, I didn’t
like even thinking about it.

“I mean granted, sex and
sexual advances happen every day,” Tiffany went on, “but having a domestic
incident in the middle of the neighborhood pub? What does that say about the
doctor’s conduct within the confines of the hospital?”

Suddenly we realized that
by that time we were fueling our own gossip fire. We soon returned to watching
TV in silence.

Chapter
32

It was with some mixed
feelings that I walked through the front doors of the hospital the following
Monday morning. I had no idea what would happen next. What was Jeff going to
do? During the weekend, he came knocking at the apartment door a couple of
times only for Tiffany to tell him to go home; that I didn’t want anyone’s
company and that I would see him at work.

His insistence was
disarming on the one hand, and irritating on the other. He was probably trying
to show how much he cared (or didn’t have anywhere else to go) or he wanted to
demonstrate that my request for him to leave me alone had not been heard.

Either way, there I was.
I went directly up to the fifth floor. I only wanted to report to Dr. Kerry
that I was ready to come back to work and see my friends. I had not set eyes on
any of them for a week. Corey had sent a bunch of flowers with a get-well card
with everyone signature on it. So, it seemed no one was blaming me in any way
for last week’s incident.

“Ah there she is,” Corey
exclaimed as he saw me come through the door of the café. “How are you?” he
asked as I sat down.

Dr. Kerry examined my
face as if I were a recovering patient of hers.

“I’m fine, guys. Thanks
for the flowers. They’re really adding a bid of color to the place.”

“By the way,” Gerald
piped up, “why do you think Dr. Aldridge is still here?”

Every gaze was suddenly
riveted on our bragger. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. He kissed
you, didn’t he? And he’s not been reporting sick, has he?” He looked around the
table. “Well?”

“Simple, Gerald,” Dr.
Kerry said, “He’s probably had a flu shot this year.”

“You mean these shots
work?” Annabelle Lister, another intern, sounded incredulous as she probably
was.

“Of course they do,”
Corey told her.

“Well, that’s not quite
true,” Dr. Kerry interposed. “If you are vaccinated for one strain of the flu
and you happen to come in contact with someone who suffers from a variant and
more potent strain, you are liable to get the flu.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be
vaccinated anyway?”

“Oh yes, Corey, we are,”
Tiffany said, “but the infectious diseases department hasn’t gotten to most of
us yet.”

“How do you know this?”
Gerald asked.

“The ER is the first
department to be vaccinated,” Dr. Kerry replied for Tiffany. “Anyway,” she went
on, “this week we will resume our assignments. Same as last week, Heather,
you’ll rejoin Dr. Elizabeth Aldridge in her department. It will be a busy week
for everyone I think. And as I said, unless you’re specifically directed by
your own supervising physician, you’re not working with Dr. Jeff Aldridge for
the time being.”

Everyone nodded and
closed their notebooks. Some of us got up then to get a coffee or tea (as in my
case) and something to eat. Toast was still on the menu for me.

We talked about
vaccinations for a bit and then it was time for each of us to get back to our
respective department.

As I opened the door of
the transplant center, I heard someone ask me to make way. The nursing
attendants were pushing a gurney and wanted me to hold the door for them.

As I glanced at the
patient, I was horrified. The man had been injured in some sort of accident
that involved his face. Part of it was bashed in.

Elizabeth came to meet
the man and we both accompanied him to his room. The next thing I knew, another
man, his identical twin, rushed in.

“He’s going to be okay
isn’t he?” The poor fellow was out of breath.

The man needed
reassurance. We could only give him a perfunctory, “Yes, of course. He’s going
to be fine,” at this point. “We’ll have to see if we can save your brother’s
eye. So, if you’d like to wait for a few minutes in the visitors’ lounge, Dr.
Williams here”—she nodded in my direction—“will come and fetch you.”

As soon as Mr. Wilson was
out of the room and the nurses had done their work, such as taking the man’s
clothes off and washing his face and hands, Elizabeth went to work. She
examined the damaged eye for a few moments and then said, “Get me Dr. Olson,
our ophthalmologist, in here.”

I nodded and asked the nurse
to call him for me. He came in within a few minutes. Our patient was regaining
consciousness in the meantime.

Since he hadn’t realized
yet what happened to him, he was full of questions until he realized that he
was blind in the one eye.

“Good God, what
happened?” he demanded. “One minute I was stirring some cement to patch some
holes on the entrance’s walkway, and the next I’m in here.”

“I think your brother
will be able to explain what went on at the site, Mr. Wilson.”

“You mean Ed is here?”

Elizabeth smiled. “Yes,
and we’ll call him as soon as Dr. Olson has examined your eye, okay?”

Dr. Olson was a big
fellow. Standing at six-feet-five inches, the guy dominated the room. He was
not only tall, but “large”. This man would “occupy” any space with an all-imposing
presence.

“Okay, Mr. Wilson—” he
began.

“Call me Sam,” our
patient interrupted.

“Okay, Sam,” Olson went
on patiently, “nothing I am going to do is going to hurt. So you just relax and
let me examine your eye.”

He did for a few seconds
and then got up from Sam’s side of the bed. He turned to Elizabeth and me, and
indicated for us to leave the room.

We stood outside of Sam’s
room and listened to our Titan. “I want to see if his eye recovers from the
trauma first. It will take a couple of days for the inflammation and bruising
around the eye socket to subside. Once it does, we’ll see. As far as I can see,
there’s no damage to the optic nerve. I’d like to get an MRI done tomorrow,
okay?”

Elizabeth and I nodded.

“I’ll get the whole thing
organized,” I said and then looked up at our gigantic ophthalmologist. “What do
we tell his brother?”

“Ah yes. You’ll need to
assure him that we’ll do everything possible to save his brother’s eye first.
Once the swelling goes down we’ll know more about any surgeries he might need.”

“Shall we keep him in
this ward,” Elizabeth asked, “or would you prefer we send him downstairs?”

“Do
me
a favor, Elizabeth, keep him here for now, please? I haven’t got a bed to spare
down there. So, he better stay here, if you don’t mind.”

“No, I don’t mind at all.
We’ll look after him and call on you if and when we observe any change in his
condition.”

Once I finished talking
to both Ed and Sam, I went to see Elizabeth in the Doctor’s lounge.

“You realize, of course,
Dr. Williams, that Sam will most probably lose his eye, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I answered. “But
wouldn’t Dr. Olsen be better qualified to do any surgeries with you–if there is
surgery to take place, of course.”

Elizabeth fell silent for
a moment while she played with her pencil. She seemed to be pensive or perhaps
deciding on what she wanted to say.

She then looked up.

“May I call you Heather?”

I was taken aback. Was
she going to fire me? Was addressing me by my first name a way to smooth my way
out? “Yes, yes of course, you may.”

“Well, Heather, I’ll
first answer your question. If there is surgery to be done on Sam Wilson, you
will be the one performing it with Dr. Olson.” She smiled at my mouth falling
open, agape. “Don’t be surprised, Heather; you’re more than ready to assist Dr.
Olson or any other doctor in this hospital. You have enormous talent and a good
sense of the right and wrong.”

“Thank you, Dr. Aldridge,
but why should I be performing any surgery without you? Aren’t you going to be
here?” I didn’t know what she was getting at, or more accurately, I didn’t want
to contemplate the idea of her not being here.

“Precisely, Heather. I am
not going to be here. I handed my resignation to the Board last week and I
should be out of your hair in another week. I could have stayed for the full
month, but I think it’ll be better if I go.”

I was horrified. “Have I
done something wrong? If I have, Dr. Aldridge, I am sorry. Truly I am.”

She shook her head. “No,
Heather, it’s not you. It’s the whole situation that has become intolerable.
You see, when we lost our son, Jeff became restless. At the time, I thought it
was his way of grieving and it would pass eventually. But it didn’t. And when
you came on board, I soon realized that my husband was gone from our marriage
for good.”

“I’m sorry, I should have—”

She lifted a hand in
front of her face, indicating that I should stop talking.

“Let me finish, please.”
She paused and I lowered my gaze. “At first I didn’t want to see what was going
on. I wanted to ignore it. I even thought you were a passing fling and he would
get over you, like he did with the other girl he dated for a while. That little
diversion stopped the minute he learned that the young woman was going to sue
him for sexual harassment.

“Anyway, as you know now,
it took me a few weeks to come to terms with what is going on between the two
of you—”

“But…” She smiled and I
stopped talking instantly.

“I know you’ve tried to
keep him away from you. Since you’ve been working with me, I’ve learned a
little about the way you think, so I am not surprised that you tried to push
Jeff away or even get him to return home.

“However, in time, you’ll
learn that Jeff is a stubborn individual. He will not give up. He will not
listen to reason. He only listens to himself. Rationalization of any problem
does not help either. Believe me, I’ve tried it. Yet, and for all that, Jeff is
a good man. He has the right amount of respect for our profession; he is a
talented surgeon and certainly a dedicated physician.” She paused.

“But, where will you go?
I mean are you going to another hospital?”

“I don’t know yet,
Heather. I am thinking of taking a holiday in Europe first and then decide what
my next stop will be. I am inclined to think that I’ll be opening a private practice
in a small town, somewhere quiet. I need peace, Heather. I was a good wife and
a good mother. Now that I’ve lost both my husband and son, I need to
recuperate, lick my wounds, as they say, and move on.”

We both fell silent for a
long moment.

Then I asked, “What will
happen to the department; I mean who will run it?”

“The Board hasn’t
appointed anyone yet, but they have a couple of candidates in mind. I don’t
know either of them personally, but I hope they get a good person
what ever
their choice may be. Giving a new chance at life
to anyone is a privilege, Heather. I know you understand that. But not every
surgeon does. He or she may be talented and have the best technique, but if
they don’t grasp the extent of what they do or the impact they have on their
patients, they’ll never reach the top of their profession in my book.” She got
up from the chair and went to the kitchen counter. “Do you want a coffee?”

“Yes, please, I think I
can risk it. My stomach has been on a green tea diet for long enough; a fresh
cup sounds like just the thing right now.”

“Okay, here you go then,”
she said, handing me a cup with a swizzle stick. “If you want milk or sugar,
you can help yourself.”

I nodded, got up and got
the milk carton out of the small fridge.

When I went back to sit
down, she asked, “So, what are your plans, if I may ask.”