by J. J. McAvoy
“Bash,” I said softly, sitting up onto the edge of my chair.
“Gwen.” He smirked.
“I was so blind when I was with you that hearing you speak right now makes me want to slap myself. I remember Cirque du Soleil. I held on to you because I have a fear of heights, and I thought I was going to have a panic attack watching it. The reason I filled your fridge all the time was because before I moved in, you never did it yourself. And if you did, not once did you buy anything I liked eating. I had to rearrange the apartment because you bought big-ass furniture after I told you I didn’t want anything in there. You only care about yourself. You are not the only man in the world for me. So, please. PLEASE. Stop. The shades are off. I’m not blinded by the great Sebastian Evans any more. Don’t use stupid lawsuits to draw me here. Don’t call me in the middle of the night. Stop, because if you don’t, I will get a restraining order against you. I’m sure that would kill the last few months I have on contract, right, Katrina?”
“You should have told me he called you in the middle of the night. I would have filed a restraining order with Judge Banks that very night,” she replied.
I stood. “Anything you need me to do, please work it out with my agent. Tara will make sure I have it scheduled. Goodbye, Mr. Evans,” I said, closing the door.
Only once we were in the elevator did Katrina speak. “We will only do this once,” she said to me, raising her fist up for me to bump it.
Grinning, I knocked my fist against hers.
“Now we will never speak of it again.”
“Of course.” I tried to sound as cool as ice, just like her, but it was too funny. Walking out of the building, my phone rang. When I checked, I saw it was none other than Stevie’s mother. “Mrs. Spencer? Is everything okay?”
“Hi, Gwen. I’m so sorry to call you out of the blue like this. I was trying to call your mother, but it kept going to voicemail.”
I knew why. My mom hated talking on phones for long periods of time, and Mrs. Spencer could go on for days sometimes. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Spencer?”
“Well, quickly, do you know the name of your father’s doctor? The one he went to after the heart attack? I want to make sure to get Ryan to go. I swear, that man doesn’t believe me when I say all this food of his is killing him. Do you know what he had last n—”
“Wait. I’m sorry, did you say my dad had a heart attack?” What? Maybe she was confused.
“Yes. It was about three weeks ago, wasn’t it? Ryan, honey, when did Masoa have his heart attack?” she yelled, forgetting to move the phone away. “Yeah, it was about three and a half weeks ago—”
“Mrs. Spencer, I’m going to have to call you right back.”
Eli
“It’s a miracle she survived,” Bunhead said behind me as I stared at the charts up on the wall.
“What is our next step, Dr. Davenport?” Dr. Stretch came up beside me, and when I turned to him, he took a step back. “Dr. Davenport—”
“Stop talking!” I snapped, and they all jumped. “Stop talking. Stop saying the fact that she is alive is a miracle, because it isn’t. Close your mouths and look at her x-ray. Does that tumor look odd to any of you?”
Dr. Four Eyes adjusted his glasses and stepped forward. “Looks like it moved to the right some.”
“Isn’t that good? You couldn’t operate because of the location, but if it moved or shrunk—”
“It didn’t move,” Dr. Stretch whispered, looking between her old x-rays and her new ones. “She has two tumors. The chemo helped the bigger one shrink, but she has a second one right next to it. Her kind of medulloblastoma makes up less than 12 percent of all brain cancers,” I said, stepping forward and putting up more of her scans. “Chemotherapy and surgery were long shots for her from the beginning. Now, the cancer is spreading. Her body is dying, and we brought her back today, but we are working on borrowed time. She won’t make it to the end of the week.”
“Are you going to tell her father?” Bunhead whispered.
“I did.” I faced them. “Get them their discharge papers and fax all their information to Dr. Birell at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopki—”
“Dr. Davenport!” A nurse came in.
I already knew why, and I ran toward the room I had only just been in two hours before. This time I was watching Ian, who had given up on the defibrillator and now was just using his hands.
“How long has she been down?” I asked him.
“A little over three minutes.” He sighed, stopping himself because he knew what I knew.
“What are you doing?” Toby yelled at me. “Save her! Save her! What are you doing?!”
“Mr. Wesley, your daughter collapsed this morning, she had a seizure two hours ago, and her heart has given out now. Anything more is torturing her. Her body can’t take it any more. I’m so sorry. I truly am. I’m so sorry for your loss, but she’s gone.” Looking to Ian, he nodded, then glanced at his watch as I unplugged everything from her body.
“Time of death, 8:43 PM,” he whispered.
Toby collapsed at the side of her bed, sobbing on top of her body.
My chest felt like it was on fire. I felt like I had stripped this man of everything he had left. Because I wasn’t good enough, I had cost him his daughter. Exiting the room, I didn’t stop for anyone, just walking, maybe running—I couldn’t tell what my body was doing any more. Everything passed in a blur until I found myself outside, breathing heavily under the pouring rain.
I failed. God. Why I did I fail? “Ahh!” I screamed up into the rain.
“Eli!” Guinevere ran closer to me, her hand overhead, as if that would stop the downpour. “Eli, what is it? What’s wrong?”
For some reason, I tried to smile for her, but I couldn’t. “Me. I’m what’s wrong. You should go home alone today—”
“Eli, talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk! I’m tired of talking. All I do is talk all damn day!” I yelled. Sighing, I ran my hands through my hair. “Please don’t wait or look for me.”
Walking back into the hospital, I tried to ignore how bad my head and chest hurt.
Chapter Nineteen
The Oath We Make
Guinevere
“How long will he be like this?” I asked Dr. Seo, watching as Eli stitched up an old woman’s arm in the ER. For the last 96 hours, I wasn’t even sure if had really eaten anything. He was basically living at the hospital and, from the looks of the hair growing on his chin, he hadn’t thought to bring a razor.
Dr. Seo bit into his apple, leaning against the wall. His pink hair was now back to black and in a half ponytail. “It depends. If you haven’t noticed, Eli doesn’t handle death well. He thinks just because he’s a doctor, he can save everyone if he’s just a little better. When he and I were interns, we lost an older man. He came in with his son after they had been in a car accident. His son appeared more hurt, so Eli focused on him, not realizing the boy's father was bleeding internally. It wasn’t his fault; his son really was hurt. After the man died, Eli barely ate or even left the hospital for a month. He only slept because his mother threatened and swore she would bar him from the hospital. So he made a makeshift bed in the on-call room. No one else dared sleep in it, either.”
“What can I do for him?” He looked like a ghost…worse than he had after Hannah.
“Wait for him to move on again? For as long as I’ve known him, nothing else works. Some big save snaps him out of it, but who knows how long he’s going to be like this. It’s weird when he doesn’t insult me back.” He pouted.
I snickered. “You are a sucker for pain, aren’t you, Ian?”
He winked, then got a page. “I have to go. I’ll see you later. Don’t stress too much about it, all right?”
Easier said than done.
Nodding, I waved, glancing back to Eli, who was on to the next patient, changing his gloves as he rolled over.
He nodded and smiled at the patient, but even then,
he still looked dead.
I wanted to grab the sides of his face and scream at him, wake him up. But, did I really have the right to? I thought of Molly and Toby…I wondered if him getting over it would be right.
Turning back, I left him and headed to the mural wall. I was finally done with it and was supposed to reveal it that day, but I felt like there was a dark aura around the hospital. I wanted to wait until everyone was in a better mood.
“Gwen!”
“Stevie?” I said when she came close, dressed in a white and black polka dot dress, pink coat, and sunhat. “Nice outfit.”
“Oh, don’t start with me.” She took my arm, locking it under hers and heading toward the curtain. “I came to see your masterpiece. Are you giving a speech?”
“I hate public speaking.”
“You keep saying that, but you’ve always been good at it,” she replied, taking a seat in front of it. “And what’s wrong with the outfit? Is it the hat?”
I laughed when she took it off and strands of her red hair stood up. Brushing it down for her, I shook my head. “No, you look fine. Eli told me, as a rich person, I can no longer be prejudiced against the rich.”
“I’ve been saying that for years. I guess it just had to come from your sex—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.”
“I was going to say sexy boyfriend.” She ignored me, looking around. “Where is the good doctor, anyway? I haven’t been able to give him my best friend stamp of approval yet.”
“Working. Did you get this dressed up for me?”
“Sadly, no. We are going to the Hamptons tonight. One of these days you really have to go, Gwen. It’s so beautiful living right off the beach.”
“You lived off the lake in Cypress.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, that was nice, but I’m telling you, the Hamptons have a sense of romance to them. Have your doctor boyfriend take you.”
“He’s working.”
“So you aren’t taking him to go meet your parents?” She frowned. “I heard about your dad’s heart attack. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“For me to tell you, someone was going to have to tell me.” I was still annoyed about that. “My mom and dad decided not to ‘worry me’ and apparently he is ‘fine now, sweetie.’ They have been driving up the coast. They should be home by Wednesday, and I hoped to fly in on Saturday, but…”
“But?”
I sighed. “What do you do when Nathaniel is dealing with something hard? I mean, he dealt with things on his own before you were in his life, but now that you are with him, you should do something, right? Not just let him work it out?”
She thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “It depends. When it’s family issues, I just tell him I’m there if he wants to vent, and then try to be around as much as possible, just kind of waiting. When he’s really not in the mood, I make him dinner and get him drunk. Sex usually follows, and after that, I can’t get him to shut up.”
I laughed, shaking my head at her. “Man have you changed, Stevie. Remember when you said you would never kiss a boy?”
“Remember when you said you were going to marry Mario Lopez, then Orlando Bloom?” She elbowed me. “And then who was it you wanted to marry after that… Prince Harry, you really liked Prince Harry.”
“I would have made an amazing princess, thank you. It even sounds nice: Princess Guinevere of Cambridge,” I said, slowly stretching it out for her sake.
“Safe to say, neither of us was in the right frame of mind.”
“I can agree with that.” I laughed, looking toward the curtain. “If I asked him to come with me, do you think he would?”
“Only way to find out is to ask. Now, what are you going to wear?”
She was helpful.
Eli
“He’s suing me,” I said softly, standing behind the chairs of her office.
My mother nodded. “He’s grieving, Eli. He doesn’t know who else to blame. I looked at the chart. I spoke to almost every neurosurgeon in this hospital. You did everything right.”
“Then why?” I snapped. “If you do everything right, everything by the book, why does this still have to be the ending? That man has no one else left.”
“It’s not your fault!” She stood up, placing her hand on my face. “Sweetheart, I’ve told you this before: you can’t save everyone. You aren’t God. They come in broken, and we do the best we can as humans, with everything we have to fix them, and sometimes it still isn’t enough. You didn’t kill her. You aren’t the reason his family is gone. That is not your doing.”
Sighing, I nodded. I knew she was right, but it still didn’t help.
Taking a step away from me, she grabbed her coat. “You are going to take a week off.”
“Mom—”
“You are being sued, Eli. No matter how unjustified, the lawyers will handle it. But you can’t be here like this. Look at yourself. I’m saying this as the chairwoman: you need to go and get your head on straight, Eli. Don’t stay here. Don’t see patients, because if you slip up in this state in any way, everything will be ten times worse.”
“What am I going to do for a week, Mom?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Shave, eat, sleep, talk to your girlfriend.”
“You know—”
“Of course I know. Just because I’m your mother doesn’t mean I’m blind. I could tell the moment it changed and you two weren’t pretending to fight anymore. Have you spoken to her since?”
I said nothing.
“So for all you know, she might not even be your girlfriend any more.”
I sighed, not really wanting to have this conversation.
“Did you know she was done with her mural? I’m heading to see it now. Or did you forget that the world keeps spinning, even when you stop?” She opened the door. “You coming or not?”
“I’m coming,” I muttered, holding the door for her to walk out. In all honesty, I hadn’t realized Guinevere was done. She had kept trying to meet up with me, talk with me, but I’d pushed her away. I wasn’t ready to feel better yet.
“Well, isn’t this a production,” my mother said, glancing around at the doctors, nurses, a few well-enough patients, and even some press.
Guinevere stood in front of them, gripping her hands together tightly, her nervous habit. She had changed into a simple pink skirt and black v-neck shirt, her hair pulled into a braid on one side.
She looked cute. She had put in a lot of effort, even wearing makeup. When she saw my mom she nodded to herself, and then her eyes shifted to me and she smiled before facing the rest of the crowd.
“Thank you all for coming. For many of you, I know the chairwoman didn’t really give you a choice,” she said, getting a few laughs.
My mother only crossed her arms, eying those who laughed.
“When she first asked me to paint this mural, I honestly had no idea where to begin. So, I wandered the halls of the hospital, sometimes noticed, but for the most part not so much, because everyone had eyes only for the patients. And being doctors, isn’t that what you want? In the weeks I’ve been here, many have gone, sometimes happily and sometimes on sad terms. The people who remained no matter what were the doctors. I hope this serves as a reminder of the promise you all have made, and how thankful we are for it.” She spun around, nodding to the people above the curtain.
It came down in one swift motion and left us all speechless. She had drawn patients at different points on the wall with the background of a park, the older ones in wheel chairs and another with a cane resting on a park bench, teenagers listening to music, parents holding their children, all of them coming from the far distance. At the corner of it all, from top to bottom, was the Hippocratic Oath, which explained why she had needed my textbook. My mother, myself, and the rest of us could not help but read again:
“I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are require
d, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”
“Thank you all for allowing me into your hospital, and thank you to the students and the NYU art department for your help; I couldn’t have done it without you,” she said to them as we all clapped.
My mother walked over, wrapping her arms around her. People called to her for photos and press work. The more her attention was divided, the more jealous I became, because they all had the chance to congratulate her and shake her hand before me. She was amazing and talented and beautiful, and I just wanted to hold her and tell her that.
“You aren’t thinking about walking through the crowd and kissing her, right?” Ian came over to me, pulling off his K-POP scrub cap.
