by Kamy Chetty
Ash took the pen out of her uniform pocket and clicked it three times. She stopped at the third click, knowing the nervous habit was becoming more pronounced as time passed. Her tutor stepped forward and read the chart.
“Mrs Culver has a fever this morning. What would you do Ash?” she asked.
These were the hard questions that she was meant to know the answers to. Right now world peace and global warming were the easy questions. Why she chose to take a career in nursing was beyond her. Why she chose to come to New Zealand was even more troubling. If it was because Miss New Zealand made it sound so clean and green, then―
“Ash?” Her tutor was giving her that look again. The one that made her wonder if she had thrown a few stones on a board with options written on it, and had chosen the first profession the pointy stone landed on.
“I’ll check and see if she’s had any medication to bring the fever down and then check for signs of infection. Then I would report it to her surgeon.” The tutor nodded.
There were no stones, or board. After she’d run like the wind from Kieran, she knew she’d wanted something more from life. She flipped through Mrs Culver’s chart and looked at the notes. “She had some paracetamol this morning. I will tell the nurse to let Dr Kan―”
This had to be a mistake. She looked down at the notes and tried to focus on the name. It was right there in bold black font. K Kanna. Yet surely not. “I…I’ll let the doctor know.”
The tutor nodded and was ready to go to the next student. Ash looked down at the notes again. Dr K Kanna. She flipped through the pages and started reading the surgeons notes. It was no mistake. She’d left the country. The continent. When had he become a surgeon? Nothing made sense.
She was still standing there in a state of disbelief when she heard him say her name.
It took forever to turn around and face him. Her heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach. If she expected him to be the same charismatic charming man she remembered, then she was wrong. He’d changed. His hair was longer, the long length curved to kiss the nape of his neck. It was still raven black, he was still the most handsome man she’d ever seen. But there was an air of danger around him that gave her goose bumps.
“I didn’t expect you here.” She wasn’t sure if the unshaven dangerous look suited him. He looked darker in his black slacks. The warmth was missing from his eyes. Was he angry?
He took the chart from her hand and looked at the notes. “She has a fever. Let the nurses know. I will prescribe some IV therapy. Think you can handle that?”
Definitely lingering anger. She tapped her fingers on the table in front of them. An apology wouldn’t suffice. It didn’t explain what he was doing here. Why did he follow her?
“Yes, boss.” She knew he watched her walk away.
Later that evening she made a list of all the reasons she should stay away from Dr Kieran Kanna. Then with a red permanent marker she made a note of the consequences if she didn’t keep to her list. Feeling very happy with herself, she pinned the list above her bed.
The small room she was renting wasn’t large enough to swing a kiwi, but she knew that for the next few years, it was home. As she lay back on her pillow and looked at the list she made she had to smile.
Who needed five-year goals, when all she needed was to keep to this very important goal.
Keep away from Kieran Kanna, at all costs.
*****
“New initiative?” Ash felt the hairs at the nape of her neck stand up. This was so typical of Kieran. He was using his money to get his way. She placed her hand on her chest, just at the spot where she felt the heartburn she’d been having since finding out Kieran was in Auckland, as she focused on Karl, a student from her study group.
He was excited by the prospect of tagging along with a doctor. The exposure would give them the experience of a life. The part of her brain that wasn’t affected by her response to Kieran knew that. But…
She lifted her hand and clutched Karl’s shoulder. “At least tell me we can choose which doctor we get to go with?” she watched him raise his eyebrow and narrow his gaze.
Karl saw this as an opportunity of a lifetime. His dream was to use nursing as a licence to explore the world. “I’m not sure how it works. All we’ve been told is, someone has given us a grant. If this works out they will continue to support this programme.”
Ash was lost amidst the excitement of this new initiative. As much as logic outlined the benefits of gaining experience working with a doctor, a programme that could teach them more than any book would, her heart told her this was a bad idea.
An hour later when she was getting her tour of the emergency department before her placement with the doctor on duty there, Ash wondered if she had been overreacting.
Karl tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the resuscitation room. “They have a zapper.”
Being a mature student in the group sometimes made her sound like a big sister who had to make sure everyone else brushed their teeth before they went to bed each night. It made her feel old. And responsible. “It’s a defibrillator.”
He shrugged and gave her that smile that had hearts all over New Zealand fluttering. She knew exactly why he got away with doing the bare minimum in school. He was too pretty to do hard work. But he was also the smartest student in her class, which made studying with him easy. With those dimples and that I’ll-never-let-you-down smile, he had woman and men eating out of the palm of his hand. “I know. Zapper is way cooler.” He pulled her further into the room.
This resuscitation room was so much bigger than the one back in Goa. She wasn’t sure why she even thought about the clinic, or that room. That time. She didn’t want to, because thinking about it meant thinking about―
It was impossible not to think about Kieran. After escaping the continent, she had turned full circle and he was here with her again. Unavoidable. They were in the same city, in the same hospital. That could be no accident. With thoughts speeding through her mind, her fists curled into tighter circles. She couldn’t worry about Kieran. Not now. But as she decided to forget about the man who was an intrusion to her every dream, he materialised right before her.
She’d dreamed of this moment. Maybe not this exact moment, but a variation of this moment. Did she think she’d stop time with the power of her mind when the moment came? She wanted to be able to. Either that or travel through time so that she could make different, smarter choices. It would be so easy to walk up to him and wrap her arms around him and tell him she was wrong. Wrong and sorry and she wanted to take him up on his proposal. She wanted him. No scratch that, she needed him in her life, because her body ached for his touch and his scent.
All she did know was when those doors slid open and Kieran walked in, things did happen and she was powerless. Time stopped and her body was motionless, stuck in that one spot. She watched the veins on the side of his neck, and saw how taut they were. His gaze swept across the room as he searched for something.
His arms were stiff at his side until his gaze found hers. He barely registered Karl standing beside her, but in a flash it was like nothing changed and they were back in the clinic again. For that moment a million thoughts were exchanged and she was sure that love and apologies were amongst the garble of messages that were part of the telepathic messages flying across the room. The connection severed when the monitor beeped and he was pulled back into the real world. He went to the patient and Ash didn’t exist in his world again.
Instinct made her step forward, but Karl pulled her back. She knew their instructions were clear. They were to observe and not to be in the way. Observe and learn. She had been led into a false sense of security when she heard she was being sent to emergency medicine. Kieran would have been in the surgical department, not emergency medicine. In fact he should have been in some software company, not here in front of a patient.
The heaviness in her chest made breathing difficult. But as much as she wanted to, her gaze never left his. For six mo
nths she’d spent every waking moment thinking about him, every night dreaming about him. There were nights she’d wake calling or screaming out for him, now he was here in front of her. A few steps and she’d be able to touch him. Feel his skin on hers. Taste his lips. Her body quivered with need.
Damn it, she was never going to survive this.
*****
“Doctor, his oxygen saturations are dropping and he is still complaining of abdominal pain.” The nurse at the patient’s side handed Kieran his chart.
He was long past getting the pins and needles sensation in his arm. He’d spent weeks working through that, but seeing Ash here in the emergency room was a jolt to his system and he wondered if the faint tingling in his arm was due to his previous symptoms.
He wasn’t prepared for the effect of her presence even though he knew she’d be here. In those countless sessions he’d had with the counsellor, it always came back to one thing. He had to get past it. There was nothing physically wrong with him. Deep inside he knew that only Ash could bring that out in him and that knowledge scared him as much as it angered him. An emotional entanglement with her was not something he was prepared for.
He wanted the stiffness in his muscles to finally ease so he could take a breath without fear something inside him was going to break. The charts in his hands felt heavy, his gaze focused until the writing became less of a blur. Ian was a fifty-year old man who smoked a packet of cigarettes a day. He came in restless and complaining of back pain and abdominal pain.
The team around him had already attached the monitor leads to him and were setting up for an intravenous line. “Mr Bruce, my name is Kieran, I’m your doctor. Have you had any medical problems? Any history of having a heart attack?”
The patient grunted and then twisted away from him. Kieran placed his stethoscope on his chest and listened to the thudding of his heart. Nothing abnormal.
He turned to the nurse. “Do you have that ECG result? Also organise some morphine for the pain.”
The nurse handed him the ECG result and went to the drug cupboard to get the morphine. Kieran stared at the lines on the ECG looking for a change. Nothing indicated a heart attack. The room was still in a flurry and his gaze found Ash’s. The young man she was with wasn’t paying attention to what was happening, but she was watching his every move.
If her presence was going to leave him with that feeling of being choked, he might as well go back to wearing ties. Even having her in this large consulting room left him claustrophobic. He’d been a practicing physician for a few months with no problems, so all this was because of her. He wasn’t sure why she was affecting him in such a way. He reached across his left arm with his right and started massaging along the length. What he should have done, was stayed away from her. Without meaning to his gaze found hers. She was watching him milk the muscles on his arm. Why did she have to walk into his life? He was perfectly fine before he met her. He dropped his hand.
“Would you take a manual blood pressure on his right and left arm please?” he was surprised his voice was cool and calm. Not even a hint of recognition or yearning.
He saw her hesitate and look first at the dark haired playboy type that was next to her. She turned back to him and placed her hand on her chest. “Me?”
He scanned the room. There was no one else who could have done the menial task and their tutor had told him they were capable of doing basic observations. He’d also had a full run down of all the students and these two were said to be the top in the class. Though he did have his doubts about the boy.
When she was finished with taking the blood pressure from both arms she scratched her head and looked down at her note pad. She turned to her colleague and whispered to him. When he started to wrap the cuff around the patient’s arm, Kieran came closer.
“What’s the matter? I needed you to do a blood pressure. What is he doing?” Kieran’s gaze narrowed.
Ash shrugged. “I asked Karl to check my results.”
Kieran felt a small bite of anxiety. He instantly disregarded it. The boy was barely out of diapers and too pretty for his own good. Wasn’t he? Surely Ash had better sense than to be charmed by someone like that? “Tell me your results.”
He watched her swallow then pause. “There was a difference between the right and left arm. I knew that couldn’t be right so I asked Karl to check it for me.” Ash stepped back.
Kieran nodded. His fingers went to massage his temples. The stiffness in his muscles got worse. “You weren’t wrong.” The pins and needles sensation came back and he felt his arm go limp. He had to get through this. He was past those breathing techniques they taught him. He had to focus. It was all in his head. This had to do with Johnny and his loss.
He squeezed his hands shut. What was he doing? He shouldn’t be here doing this. He should not be responsible for this man’s life. It was too soon to test himself, and deep inside the only reason he was here was for Ash.
She watched him and he ached for her to walk into his arms. If he could be comforted for one moment then all of this would be okay. If she told him he could do this, maybe he would believe her.
Ash let out a deep breath. “You know what to do. You’re going to fix him.”
Kieran felt the wall he’d built around his heart crack and he dropped his shoulders. “It’s not always that easy to fix things Ash. I thought you’d have learnt that by now.”
He could see her try and understand and he knew she struggled with the concept. “But you know what is wrong with him Kieran. You can fix him.”
He was sure he couldn’t feel his arm anymore. She was so sure she understood everything about him. She knew nothing. She still lived in her idiolised world. “I can’t do this Ash. You don’t know what I am capable of.”
He’d never seen a sight as beautiful as her watching him with those eyes slanted in fascination. “You’re wrong, Kieran. I know exactly what you’re capable of.”
He’d always asked himself if she was a dream, and now he knew. He’d dreamed her for this very moment. For this moment when he needed her the most.
He knew that he wanted to go to her and run his finger along her cheek. He wanted to see her reaction. Would her eyes widen in anticipation? Would she gaze up at him and would she lift her chin and part her lips?
He sighed. He wanted to feel that soft skin again. Breathe in the scent of orchids and oranges. He knew so many things that he wanted. So many things he didn’t. She needed to hear the truth. He couldn’t fix this. “Mr Bruce has a triple A. An Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. It’s like a ticking time bomb inside him.”
Thirty minutes later Kieran had explained the condition to Ian and waited for him to digest the information, before he handed him the consent forms.
“Is this where I sign my life away,” the older man laughed and then coughed. “You know Doc, you don’t have to do this. I had a good life. I made peace with my maker so to speak, so if anything happens, I am ready.” Ian looked down at the consent forms he was signing.
“You are too young to be talking like that. There is still time to get married, have children.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth they grated. Marriage was never something he’d contemplated he’d be good at until Ash.
Ian smiled. “I had my chance and blew it. In my book, you only get one chance. I didn’t make the grade and she was too good for me. There are some people in this world who are not cut out for things like that. I am one of them.”
Was that true? Maybe he was one of those people too. “You don’t think everyone deserves a chance at happiness?”
Ian coughed and took several deep breaths. “When I was fourteen years old, I stole the keys to my dad’s truck. Me and my friends, we got some booze that a mate’s brother got for us, and we got drunk. Long story short, I drove drunk and my best friend never made it.”
Kieran watched Ian place his head in his hands. “It was an accident. You were a boy.”
Ian lifted his chin and his eyes were wet. “I to
ok his life. Do you think it was possible for me to live a happy life knowing he couldn’t live his?”
Kieran placed his hand on Ian’s shoulder and squeezed. It was impossible to say anything that would make him feel any less guilty for how he felt. “Let’s do our best.”
Before Kieran could leave the room Ian stopped him. “Doc, don’t try too hard.”
“I don’t understand. I will try my best to make sure you get through this,” Kieran saw the older man shrug.
“I know you will. All I am asking is if anything happens today, and things aren’t looking good,” he paused and bent his head. “No life saving measures doc. Let me go.”
Three hours later Kieran stood in a cold theatre as Ian bled out from his abdomen. As quickly as he filled the cavity with swabs, it turned crimson and limp and he was forced to remove the blood soaked swabs.
He was so busy packing and removing swabs from the abdomen he didn’t notice the more he packed, even more blood gushed out. Thoughts of pins and needles in his arms didn’t even enter his mind. His goal was to save this man’s life. But as much as he tried, nothing stopped the cavity from filling with fluid. The machines beeped at regular intervals amidst the chaos of movement as people moved in every direction, like ants scurrying in a flood. Beads of sweat rolled down Kieran’s face. Why couldn’t he think of one thing to save this man’s life without going against his last wish? The anaesthetist hung his head as if he could read his thoughts and shook his head. They couldn’t prolong this any longer and Ian had made things very clear. No life extending measures.
There was a moment when the red gauze reminded Kieran of the blood pouring from Johnny when he held him. Johnny had told him to keep trying, do whatever he could to save him. When he couldn’t try anymore and his friend knew it was time, he made him promise to marry Latha. Then Johnny took his last breath.
He’d tried so hard to keep his promise, but when you grow up with someone who is like a sister to you, it’s close to impossible to close your eyes and tell yourself you can marry her.
