Death Flight

by Melissa Yi

  "And Gideon will end up God knows where," Tucker agreed.

  "Oh, yeah, that's right." Pain knifed my heart. Literal pain. Once in a while, I get that, an invisible blade stabbing my most vulnerable organ, like a physical manifestation of heartache. "That's not fair. Oh, my God. I've heard the shelters in Quebec are awful, too. Much worse than Ontario."

  We sat in silence. Quebec can't take care of its human citizens who vote and pay taxes, as evinced by its horrendous health care and crumbling schools and roads. Care takes money. Why would they look after dogs in any kindly way?

  "I'll see if my parents will take Gideon," said Tucker.

  "Oh, wow. Really?"

  He nodded. "My sisters want another dog. It's my dad who's been holding out. If my mom and I join in, and especially if I play the wounded hero card, I'm sure they'd take him. I'd take him myself, but..."

  We both nodded. Doctors can barely survive residency, let alone take on a dog.

  He frowned and turned to me. "Unless."

  "Unless what?"

  The furrow between his eyes increased. He was staring at me in a way that made me stir in my seat. I licked my lips.

  His glance dropped to my mouth before coming back up to my eyes.

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest. "What is it?"

  "Unless we take care of him together," Tucker said.

  I swear my hair shot straight out of my scalp so that it was sticking in the air like a Van de Graaff generator. At least, that's how it felt.

  Tucker's eyes crinkled. He suddenly looked like the lighthearted guy I'd met in July, and my heart flipped in my chest like a freshly-landed trout as he said, "Yeah. We don't have time, but we could make it work between the two of us. We could make sure that we weren't on call at the same time. That's what other shift workers do when they have kids."

  "Yeah, but how could we hand him off every day? Lots of times, we're both working clinics during the day, and then one or both of us is on call. There's no one to walk him at night." I was struggling to figure out how this would work, and what was going on inside that crazy tow head.

  "Well, I bet my family and Tori and Mireille and the others would help, even though it would be mostly us. We'd have to be in constant contact. One of us would do the morning walks, and one of us the afternoons, plus weekends. We're not usually both on call at the same time. Not unless we're on a busy rotation, and we could try and schedule them on opposite times during the year."

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tucker—"

  He beamed at me. His smile was so intense, I could feel the energy radiating from him. It was the first time I'd seen him fired up about something that wasn't me or some sort of disaster in the past five hours, and I didn't want to destroy his enthusiasm, even though I'm incapable of keeping plants alive because watering them is too much of a time commitment. Sometimes I don't even brush my teeth because I need those seconds to sleep. Meanwhile, he thought we should adopt a dog together. That would be dog abuse.

  "My apartment is a little bigger, and my rental agreement allows pets, so you could move in with me."

  My heart seemed to still. My mouth flew open. It took me a second to coordinate my words. "Move in with—"

  "Right. I know that your building doesn't allow pets, so Gideon would be illegal there. And you're only subletting anyway, right? It makes more sense for you to come with me."

  My heart beat so fast, I had trouble hearing my own voice over it. Quebec people tend to live together instead of getting married, which I still find weird—something about rebelling against the church, so they rebel against marriage too, which didn't enter my consciousness until a doctor casually mentioned that he and his partner were finally getting married after ten years and three children. Nevertheless, this was not how I pictured me getting together with anyone. Ryan would have a traditional church wedding with groomsmen and bridesmaids and a giant cake that we'd feed to each other. "Tucker—"

  "I know what you're going to say. You've got Ryan."

  I closed my mouth and nodded once, miserably.

  "Fuck him. You're mine."

  I almost laughed, which was about the worst thing I could do. Tucker made it sound so simple, and it wasn't the first time he'd said that I belonged to him. The thing was, I agreed. Whenever I was with him, I didn't want anyone else. Tucker was my sun, my moon, my sky, my air, my earth.

  The problem was, I felt the exact same thing when I was with Ryan.

  I had two exquisitely, painfully perfect men who wanted me exclusively, and I didn't know what to do. I covered my face because I didn't want him to see me crying, or the growing chasm in my heart.

  My shoulders shook, even though I tried to suppress any noise and hide any evidence of tears.

  Tucker knew I was crying. It didn't stop him. He leaned toward me, fierce, his breath hot against my cheek. "You love me. I love you. There's nothing else to it. Why do you have to make things so complicated? We're together. We're compatible in every way." His eyes gleamed, and I knew what he was talking about.

  The entire lower half of my body twitched.

  He glanced down. He noticed everything, Tucker did. "You're coming back to Montreal. You're going to finish the family medicine program before your ER year. We can save on rent until we get married."

  "Tucker!"

  "I know it seems too soon. I know you want to hem and haw. But listen, babe. You and I could die any second. It's like we're a couple during World War II. Every time we're together, someone dies. Now is not the time to think, 'Ooh, I've got to consider my options for the next decade.' I gave you some leeway while I was getting fixed up, but now I'm a hundred percent, as you can see, and feel, and testify." He kissed me, and I kissed him back. I was smelling him and tasting him, feeling his stubble and inhaling his warm breath while my fingers indented his shoulders.

  I loved this guy desperately. What he was saying made an insane kind of sense. Nobody else in the world (okay, very few people) seemed to make a love triangle work. Our society is built on monogamy and loving one person until the end of time—at least once you've sown enough wild oats.

  I had two oats, Ryan and Tucker. Tucker and Ryan. If I'd had them sequentially, no one would care. But because I was trying to eat two oats simultaneously, that made me the Antichrist. Or at best some sort of spoiled bitch. My friend Ginger didn't understand what I was doing, and our friend Tori refused to speak to me about it. I was a pariah in so many ways.

  The Tucker oat kept on speaking. "This isn't romantic. If we had world enough and time, my love, I would give you hearts and flowers and skywriting and wait until you felt safe enough to make up your mind. But right now, I'm giving you my heart. I'm giving you all of me, while we're both in school, with no fancy ring, with blood all over both of us, with nothing but possibly a traumatized, smelly dog to my name." His face changed, and I knew he was quoting something even before he spoke, but his eyes were tender. He meant every single word that thudded directly into my heart.

  "'I give you my hand!

  I give you my love more precious than money,

  I give you myself before medicine or law;

  Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?

  Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?'"

  There was only one possible answer. I closed my eyes and thought of Ryan. His smooth, perfect face and his matching body. His incisive engineering mind. The way he and Roxy had saved my life, mentally and physically. My first love. My first lover. I told this mental image of Ryan, I willed real-life Ryan to know that I did love him and want him forever, and in a perfect world, I would.

  Then I opened my eyelids and looked at Tucker, his pupils dilated, his hair flopping into his brown eyes, his cheeks drawn, his hands clenched, and I told him, "Yes."

  Acknowledgments

  There are two critical points in every aerial flight — its beginning and its end.

  —Alexander Graham Bell, 1906

  * * *

  Thank
ye, thank ye, thank ye.

  Dr. Katherine Ramsland, the forensic psychology expert whom I interrogated at Writers’ Police Academy 2017. She was so cool that I read her book, Forensic Science of CSI. One case sparked the story of Death Flight;

  Alanis Obomsawin, whose observations inspired this famous quote: “Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money”;

  Lara Roxxx, who made the decision to live;

  Captain Mesaglio, who intelligently and enthusiastically answered all my flight questions and obtained an expert second opinion whenever necessary;

  Dr. Paul Irwin, who always guides Hope with creativity, humour, and humility;

  my triple board-certified doctor pal, who critiqued the sound of my chest tube, analyzed the physics, and suggested an alternative method for murder #2;

  my flight doctor, who checked on details even when double booked between medicine and twins;

  Sgt. Ed Adach, forensic detective, who valiantly answers my questions and gave an all-day tour in between his real-life investigations and trials in Toronto;

  Loonie Doc, who usually reads speculative fiction, but made an exception for Hope;

  author Richard Quarry, who always offers his insight;

  editors Erik Buchanan, Su J. Sokol, RN Margaret MacDonald, Karen, and Dawn, who do their best to streamline my work and catch the wild typos;

  the fabulous human beings who support Hope by plunking down their hard-earned money and posting their reviews and approval online. Special shout out to #TeamTucker for sticking it out this long, although #TeamRyan knows it ain't over until it's over;

  the CBC, the Globe and Mail, The Review, The Standard Freeholder, The Seaway News, the Seeker, The Glengarry News, The Medical Post, Rogers, Carol Anne Meehan, Cogeco's trio of Brenda St. Louis, Bill Makinson, and Gabriel Riviere-Reid, librarians, book sellers, bloggers, teachers, and everyone else who keeps the written word alive;

  and of course, my long-suffering family. "Even when you're home, you're writing!" pointed out my son. That's right, babe. Mommy is a beast. I promise to take some time off with all of you this summer. You ground and ignite me.

  Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  About the Author

  Melissa Yi is an emergency doctor who has answered the call for help on four different flights to date. On the last one, her children chanted, “Go, Mom! Go, Mom!”

  * * *

  Come join the KamikaSze newsletter team at http://melissayuaninnes.com/. We don’t bite, because then we might have to give you Clavulin.

  If you leave a positive review for Death Flight online, you’ll help this novel grow wings.

  Code Blues

  I pictured the city of Montreal as a woman with bleached blonde hair and a generous, lopsided bosom, who would draw me into her perfumed embrace and whisper, "Bienvenue." Instead, I found a skinny brunette with a cigarette jammed in the corner of her mouth who turned around and bitch-slapped me.

  At least, that's what it felt like. Even before I got mixed up with murder....

  At 7:25 a.m., I stepped through the ER's automatic doors on the east side of the hospital, near the bike racks. I promptly spotted ten people on lime-green plastic chairs, dozing or watching the TV in the waiting room on my right.

  Ten people already. Happy Canada Day to me.

  On my left stood one black-uniformed security guard in a cubicle. Beside him sat two women behind desks with computers, supposedly registering patients, but really chatting with each other. Triage was a little Plexiglas alcove straight ahead, empty except for an examining table and a stray blood pressure cuff machine, but even so, I didn't feel right cutting through the triage room.

  I turned left, down a little hallway, hoping it would lead to an alternate entrance.

  "Excuse me, miss," called one of the receptionists. "You're not supposed to go in there. That's for stretcher patients."

  People never thought I worked here. I turned and smiled. "Hi, I'm one of the new residents."

  "Oh. Sorry," trilled the middle-aged receptionist. Her mascara had smudged under her eyes, giving her a Goth look.

  "It's July first," the older one muttered. "All the new residents."

  "Oh." They giggled together. Way to make me feel welcome.

  At the end of the hallway, I saw the ambulance bay, and took a right, pushing open the teal emerg doors. Made it.

  Two people bent over charts at an extra-long desk on my right. On my left was an examining room with an eye chart and then two empty resuscitation rooms, their monitors off, oxygen masks and tanks hanging unused on the wall, and the stretchers covered in clean white sheets.

  Nurses in pink uniforms chatted at the large, octagonal nursing station in the middle of the room. Along three walls surrounding the nursing station, blue-gowned patients sat in beds or rooms clearly labeled from one to 14, and more patients lay stretched out on beds beside the station and along the wall.

  I took a cautious sniff. People often complain about the smell of hospitals, but unless it's bloody stool, pus, or a newly-disinfected room, I don't notice much anymore. St. Joe's smelled fine to me.

  I walked up to a nurse with snapping brown eyes and a big smile. She looked to be about my age, and although she was wearing pink scrub pants, she had a blue and brown striped top. I said, "Hi, I'm Hope. This is my first day here."

  She shook my hand. She had quick, bird-like movements. "I'm Roxanne. Let me show you the residents' room." From the windowsill, she plucked a two-foot long yellow stick with a key dangling from the end of it. It looked like a potential weapon. I stared. She laughed. "That's so we don't lose it."

  Behind the nursing station, she showed me a small hallway with a kitchen, a bathroom, a conference room, and two little call rooms, one for the residents and one for the staff doctors. "The staff one has a shower. Yours is the one on the left. Have fun."

  I shed my bag in the residents' room, which was a basic white box with a bed, a desk, and a few hooks for jackets. I wound my stethoscope around my neck and jammed a pen, a pharmacopoeia, and my trusty navy notebook into my pockets. It was just past 7:30.

  Dr. Callendar turned out to be one of the guys I'd passed at the desk when I came in. I now knew that this was the ambulatory side of the emerg. Dr. Callendar looked fifty-something, with a black crew cut, beat-up Nikes, and a white coat over his greens. When I plopped into a chair beside him, he kept on writing a note on a brown clipboard.

  After a full minute, without looking up or putting down his Bic pen, he grunted, "Who are you."

  "Hi, my name is Hope Sze, I'm a first-year resident, and this is my first emergency shift –"

  He glanced up, wearing extra wrinkles across his forehead. His nose was too blunt-tipped and his lips too thin for him to be handsome "You got oriented?"

  Not really. "Well, we walked through the ER yesterday –"

  He handed me a clipboard. "Start seeing patients."

  Automatically, I took the clipboard, but my brain had stalled out. As a medical student, they took pains to orient me and make sure I was comfortable before I worked. As a first year resident, a.k.a. an R1, it was obviously sink or swim. Not to mention the fact that another resident, Alex, told me my shift didn't really start until 8 a.m., so I was here voluntarily early.

  Dr. Callendar had already turned back to his chart. I took meager comfort in his stereotypically atrocious handwriting. While I watched, he grabbed a giant rubber stamp, pressed it in a blue inkpad, and stamped his chart with headings for a complete history and physical, from "ID" to "Extremities" on his chart. At least that was legible.

  I glanced at my own chart. A twenty-year-old woman, six years younger than me, who'd complained of burning, frequent urination. It sounded pretty straightforward. The triage nurse had even written, "Feels like UTI," or urinary tract infection. Still, it wa
s cool to knock on the door of room 2 and introduce myself as Dr. Hope Sze for the first time.

  By the time I returned, Dr. Callendar had disappeared. All that remained of him was his rubber stamp. I found him in the nursing station, rifling through green slips of paper. He scowled at me, and shoved them in the pocket of his lab coat, but not before I saw the patient names and numbers printed on the slips. He was doing his billing for the night shift.

  I pretended not to notice. "Dr. Callendar, did you want to review the UTI before I send her home?"

  "Of course!" he snapped. "All your patients have to be reviewed. You're a resident!"

  Thanks for sharing. And then he went on to share some more. Did I ask about risk factors? Was she sexually active? Had she had UTI's in the past? How recently? Did she wipe from back to front or front to back?

  I had asked some of these questions, but not others, so I felt stupid but also annoyed; I doubted he was this thorough when he was the one on the line. If pressed, he'd probably just say it was a UTI for reasons NYD, not yet diagnosed.

  At last he waved me away. "Go back and do it right. You can follow up with Dr. Dupuis afterward. He's the one coming on at eight."

  Good news: Dr. Hardass was leaving. Bad news: maybe Dr. Dupuis was Dr. Hardass II.

  Granted, I was here to learn as well as serve, but some doctors really like to put you in your place at the beginning. I didn't look forward to playing Who's the Boss for the next two years. Good doctors, secure doctors, don't need to belittle you.

  Sometimes I feel sorry for the patients at a tertiary teaching hospital. You may have to battle your way through multiple layers: med student, junior resident, senior resident, staff. But it's all learning, and as a community hospital, St. Joe's had a thinner hierarchy than most. I headed back to the twenty-year-old to play another twenty questions.