The Last Post

by Renee Carlino

  “Oh no, I’m so sorry. He gets anxiety when I’m gone.”

  Esther was a widow with no family. I thought she’d enjoy taking care of little Pretzel but I guess I didn’t consider the poop part.

  “I’m off to yoga. Here, take your dog,” she said, practically dropping him onto my chest.

  “Thank you for watching him. Sorry about the poop.” I directed my attention to Pretzel. “Pretzel, now tell Esther you’re sorry.”

  Esther rolled her eyes and went into her apartment.

  My house was clean but of course smelled strongly of Pretzel poo. I found a big pile under my bed. I read somewhere that dogs poop under your bed when they’re pissed at you. I don’t know what made me think I could care for an animal when I could barely care for myself.

  I cleaned the floor and quickly took a shower. Tying my hair in a bun, I headed for the door. Before I hit the stairs I stumbled over a large box that Esther must have brought in while I was gone. I bent down for a closer look; it was forwarded from Cameron’s and my old address, and it had a large Red Bull logo on the side.

  Hesitating, I slowly ripped the tape off the top and opened it. Inside I found one of Cameron’s backpacks. I recognized it from the France trip. I pulled the contents out. There were notebooks with sketches of stunts he had prepped for, a pair of dirty socks—typical Cameron—and a letter sitting all alone in the front pouch.

  Hands shaking, I hurriedly unfolded the letter.

  To Laya, my girl with the magical eyes.

  My legs suddenly went weak and I had to sit on the top step.

  If you’re reading this, then I probably took a ride and haven’t landed. I don’t know how else to say it. You were always supportive of me and the crazy things I wanted to do. You were my best friend and you know I don’t use that term lightly. Every time I saw you, I wanted so badly to tell you how I really felt, but I was scared. Can you believe that? I know the Cameron you saw was confident, but that wasn’t how I felt all the time. I thought I must be expendable for you. I didn’t understand why you loved me.

  When you agreed to marry me, I still thought it was too good to be true. I didn’t realize what I had. I should have told you that you were always so precious to me. There is no one like you. I didn’t have girlfriends not because I couldn’t commit but because there was never any one person I wanted as much as you. That day when we were mountain biking, I told you to pick yourself up. I saw how scared you were. I wished in that moment I would have told you how scared I was, too. It terrified me to think you could have gone tumbling off that hill right in front of my eyes.

  I can’t imagine how you must feel watching me do stunts. Your strength makes me admire you even more. I know how strong you are, Laya. You make me want to be just as strong.

  I don’t want you to think you are the reason I’m not sitting next to you right now. You never made me do anything. I know sometimes I would act aloof or selfish or insensitive but inside I was always just trying to think of the exact right words to say to you.

  There were times when I knew I was messing it up with you and that’s what terrified me. I was still learning how to be, and I was still making mistakes left and right, but there wasn’t a moment from the time I met you that I wasn’t thinking about you. You would text me a cute picture of you in your scrubs at the hospital and I would stare at it for hours. Every time I went to sleep and you weren’t with me, I would look at your pictures and daydream about having you in my arms.

  As I write this letter to you now, I hope that I had enough time to make up for being a coward. I’m making that my goal now.

  I’m sure you wonder what I wish for you after my death, but I think you already know.

  I loved you and I know I love you still, wherever I am.

  —Cam

  The letter was dated two weeks before he died. How did he know? I wondered if he wrote a new one before each stunt. I felt angry thinking how easy it must be to tell a person everything inside your heart when you know they’re not going to read it until you’re gone. As if that’s supposed to give a grieving widow solace. I wished he would have told me to my face how he felt. It would have changed nothing. It would have only validated my actions, my support of him, my devotion and outward expressions of love toward him.

  I scanned the letter again, realizing that even in his death letter, he still couldn’t let me go. He couldn’t tell me all of those wonderful things and close the letter with “Please live your life, I want you to be happy.” Instead he closed it with an “I think you already know.”

  “No, I don’t know what you want for me, Cameron!” I yelled at Pretzel, who was sitting next to me on the stoop. The poor dog jumped at my outburst, then scurried back, trying to climb into my lap. I gently pushed him away.

  Cameron had never expressed himself to me the way he did in the letter, but it was hard for me to overlook the fact that the letter was still missing the words I so desperately needed to hear. It was like he was conflicted and then just shut it down with an “I love you.” If that was the last letter, the real grand finale, then it was a poor one at best.

  I couldn’t sit there all day, pondering Cameron’s words, as much as they intrigued me. I had to get back to the hospital.

  I picked up Pretzel and darted out the door. I knew it was a bad idea to take him with me, but what choice did I have?

  * * *

  THERE AREN’T MANY places to put a dog at a hospital. Everyone was staring at me. My pager was going off and my name was being called over the speaker. Pretzel struggled in my arms, trying to get a look at me.

  “Pretzel, stop that.”

  I found a nurse. I didn’t even know her name but she was one of those people who had a magnetic pull toward every animal, you could just tell. She approached me to pet him. “What a cutie,” she said.

  “Yes, he is very cute. Want to babysit him? I have to go into surgery.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very.”

  “In my fifteen years here, I have never seen a surgeon bring their dog in.”

  “So, will you?”

  “Well, I’m off in twenty min—”

  “Here you go.” I handed Pretzel over and said, “He likes water and peanut butter and long walks on the beach.”

  She took him reluctantly, and just like Pretzel, she seemed to be questioning my sanity. For good reason. It’s not every day you get to read a nonaffirming letter from your dead husband.

  On the orthopedic floor all the surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists were huddled in a group outside the operating room. The head surgeon was giving orders to the nurses about prepping Micah.

  I turned to one of the other fellows and said, “Are you in on this surgery, too?”

  “Yeah,” she said before looking away in a dismissive gesture.

  “What, do they need someone to babysit me?”

  “No, you’re off the surgery,” she said, making zero eye contact.

  Shocked, I turned toward the lead doctor. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  Once everyone else had left to go scrub in, the doctor pulled me aside. “Laya, do you even know my name?”

  “Of course,” I said. “You’re Dr. Reynolds. I know everyone’s name.” That was a lie.

  “I don’t know if you’re ready for this. You’ve missed several meetings.”

  “But . . . can’t I just observe?” I didn’t want to operate on Micah anyway, but I wanted to be there. I stood up straight and gathered myself. “I’ve studied this surgery for years and I assisted on it multiple times in my residency.”

  “But there are extenuating circumstances. The patient just had brain surgery.”

  “Micah is fine,” I argued.

  Dr. Reynolds squinted. “I think it’s a conflict of interest.”

  Jesus, did everybody know about my relationship with Micah? “I’m well aware of the circumstances. And even though I personally know the patient, I’m going into this surgery as a doctor, not a
friend.”

  “You should know how much personal feelings can interfere with a doctor’s ability to make the right choices.”

  “Dr. Lee wants me in there.”

  “I need to make a phone call. I’m scrubbing in in five minutes.”

  As he walked away, I yelled, “So, am I scrubbing in or not?”

  “Go ahead but you’re not touching anything.”

  In the scrub room everyone shot me dirty looks. I could see Micah through the window, talking to a nurse. When I went into the operating room, we immediately locked eyes. “Hello, angel,” he said. He was already out of it.

  “Micah. I’m not assisting on this. I’m just observing.”

  “Does that mean you can give me a good kiss this time?”

  “Shh, Micah. Don’t.”

  “I wanna kiss from you, doc.”

  “Oh my god.”

  The anesthesiologist just smiled at me. She looked at Micah and said, “I’m going to start. Relax and count down from twenty for me. You can kiss him now,” she said to me with a wry smile.

  I pulled my mouth cover down and interrupted his counting with a good kiss. “Wow,” he said before continuing to count down. “Three, two—”

  “No,” I said, but the words were already spilling out of his smiling mouth.

  “One. See . . . ” He was out. Tears sprang into my eyes.

  “No,” I said again, but it was too late.

  “He’ll be fine,” the anesthesiologist said.

  Doctors moved around the room as I stood out of their paths. Once they opened his leg, it was like I was in any other surgery. He was a patient. I was hyperfocused on what they were doing. Lessons I had learned about orthopedics were swimming in my mind. If they made one false move, I was going to jump in.

  I watched with unrelenting concentration, glancing between the scans and the surgeons doing their work. The distal femur, a bone located just above the knee, was shattered, a common injury in high-impact car crashes. After seeing Micah’s leg opened up, I realized the injury was much worse than I thought. He had intra-articular fractures, which meant the cartilage was damaged and the knee joint was in pieces.

  The sound of drilling and putting screws in titanium started; I went in for a closer look. Dr. Reynolds paused, looked up at me, and squinted. He looked unsure for a moment. The other operating room staff said nothing.

  He looked back down and continued with the intramedullary nailing, which involved attaching two plates to the outside of the femoral shaft. “Dr. Reynolds!” I pointed to the slow increase in Micah’s heart rate on the screen.

  A nurse said, “Oxygen saturation is dropping.”

  I immediately recognized signs of a pulmonary embolism. Dr. Reynolds blinked at the screen, eyebrows furrowed. I guessed his mind was mapping out the best options, but we also needed to act quickly.

  “You need to push heparin,” I said to the nurse. I didn’t care if someone reprimanded me later; we had to act fast.

  “Yes, give him five thousand units,” Dr. Reynolds finally said. He glanced at me and nodded. “Help me close him up?” Micah’s blood pressure and oxygen were stabilizing. I looked behind me as if the doctor were talking to someone else.

  “Dr. Bennett?” he said.

  “Yes, yes, okay.” I moved around to assist him in completing the intramedullary nailing and closing up.

  “Done,” Dr. Reynolds said. Micah’s leg was a mess, but I knew everything was where it should be. After we were through, I almost fell over from exhaustion.

  “I helped put you back together,” I mumbled to Micah even though I knew he couldn’t hear me.

  It wasn’t long before fear overtook my thoughts. “Count the instruments!” I demanded to the scrub nurse. It didn’t look like blood flow was returning to his leg. “Let’s get a camera on this.”

  “No,” Dr. Reynolds said. “He’s good. The leg is good.”

  “He’s not just a leg.” I was starting to lose all sense. Another nurse grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the operating room. She removed my gloves and gown. I felt like a child. “We have to double-check . . . we have to triple-check,” I told her.

  “We were double-checking the whole time. That’s our job. You did beautifully.”

  “What if he never walks again?”

  “He will.”

  I finally understood the “conflict of interest” completely. It started doing on a number on my psyche. Would I be a doctor or would I be in love? How could I be both?

  * * *

  IT WAS FOUR o’clock in the afternoon when I realized I hadn’t had a bite. My stomach gurgled as I sat in the recovery room, waiting for Micah to wake up. When I saw movement from his bed, I got up to check on him. He was groggy.

  “Micah, you’re in recovery.”

  He started laughing. “I am?”

  “Yes. What is so funny?”

  “I don’t know.” He was still delirious.

  “Micah, you’re just coming out of anesthesia. I’m going to get your family in the waiting room.”

  “Are you my girlfriend?” he said, wearing a huge grin.

  “I’ll be right back, Micah. Don’t go anywhere.”

  He started laughing hysterically. As I walked away, I heard him say, “My girlfriend is a doctor.” It made me smile. I got the surgery right; I knew it. The neurosurgeons were amazed at how well he bounced back after having his head cut open. And after assessing his knee and repairing his leg, I knew he would be just fine. Everything seemed right in the world.

  In the waiting room, Mel was playing on her phone while Leslie and Peter were napping on each other’s shoulders.

  “Hello,” I said softly.

  Micah’s parents woke up immediately and rushed toward me. “How is he?” Leslie said.

  “Everything went well. He’s awake and in recovery now. I can take you back to see him.”

  Mel brushed by me, which I ignored. She was worried about her brother. Once inside Micah’s room, Leslie and Peter rushed to his bedside.

  “You’ve taken about twelve years off our lives in the last few days,” Peter said.

  “You guys are overreacting. It was no big deal.”

  Leslie shook her head at him. “You had brain surgery, for god’s sake.”

  “Mother, I’m well aware.”

  Melissa pushed her way through the group. “Thanks for calling Kenny. I’m having my stuff shipped down here. Oh, and congratulations on your stupid brain. They said you’d be fine. Well, as fine as you could possibly be.”

  “Did you say you’re having your stuff shipped down?” Micah asked.

  She smiled genuinely. “I’m a New Yorker through and through. Hey, I wanted to ask you . . . is Jeff still single?”

  Micah just rolled his eyes at her. “Speaking of,” his mother said, “Devin and Jeff are on their way.”

  Melissa raised a fist in the air. “Yes!”

  “Melissa,” Peter scolded.

  Melissa gathered herself and said, “Wow, Micah, you have the same brace as me.”

  “We’re twinsies,” Micah said, smirking.

  Everyone in the room started laughing.

  Five minutes later Devin knocked on the open door and entered with Jeff following close behind. “Hello, Evans family!” he said boisterously. “Laya.”

  “Devin,” I returned, and then smiled at Jeff.

  “How’s our baby boy Micah?” Devin had perfectly coifed hair like a Ken doll. You could tell he spent an unreasonable amount of time on it, and Jeff was just an average guy, wearing dress pants and a dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves. The men did a bro hug and Devin immaturely knocked on Micah’s head. “Everything okay up there? You still gonna be the ladies’ man you always were?” His sarcasm was evident and so was his competitive nature with Micah.

  Micah laughed once and then said to Jeff, “Hey, have you met Laya?” Jeff looked at me and shook his head. “Jeff, meet Laya. Laya, meet Jeff.”

  We shook hands. “I thought
you were his doctor for a minute,” Jeff said.

  “I am,” I said. The room was quiet.

  Micah was staring at us while Jeff tried to process what I had just said. “You mean you operated on him?”

  “I did. Wasn’t planning to, but it just happened. But more importantly, he’s doing really well.”

  “Yeah, considering he drove my dad’s piece of shit into a tree,” Melissa chimed in.

  “Melissa!” Peter scolded again.

  “What? He did.”

  I shook my head. It was amazing how different twins could be.

  “Hi, Melissa,” Jeff said. She smiled at him shyly.

  “Please, no,” Micah sighed.

  One of the nurses came in and shuffled around for a bit before asking the family to leave so Micah could get some rest. Devin didn’t follow the rest of the family out the door. The nurse glared at him. “Oh, me too?” he said.

  “Get the fuck outta here, Devin,” Micah said humorously.

  “Okay, okay. I was just going to stick around for a bit. Maybe escort Laya here to the cafeteria.”

  “Actually, thank you for the offer, but I think I need to get home. And Micah needs rest. And . . . and my dog is floating around here somewhere.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, smirking at me. He turned to Micah and said, “I’ll catch up with you later, man.” He gave Micah a brief awkward sideways hug before leaving the room.

  I felt like the outsider. So many people cared for Micah, loved him. Melissa had joked with her brother before, but I understood the pain she was trying to hide. She’d almost lost her twin. Because of me. Because our paths crossed at the worst possible time in my life.

  I stared at Micah, and he returned my gaze. I made up my mind. It started in the stairway when I broke down, but the fear grew stronger and stronger as I hovered over him in the operating room. I couldn’t drag him along with me while I struggled anymore. It wasn’t fair to either one of us.

  “So you’re really leaving?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m gonna go. I think you should focus on getting better for a while, okay? I have some things to figure out, Micah.”