“Thank you, my dear. You’re incredible.”
Helping me get dressed, we decide just to get food delivered from Lev’s bar. While I clean up the counter, island, and bar stool, he calls in our order. When it arrives, he unpacks the food, and I grab our wine. Setting his down in front of him, I smirk.
Raising an eyebrow, he studies me as he reaches for his wine. “Pushing my buttons because I stole your wine?”
Looking away, I think about it. “No, pushing your buttons to make you lose some of your control. I need to know I’m not just a plaything for you to wind up or direct. I enjoy submitting to you and discovering this side of me, but I won’t if it’s just physical.” Sweating, I’m nervous now that I’ve blurted it out. Fuck. I should have just let things progress some more. My hand twitches as I pick up the fork to take a bite. Silence reigns until I finally find some courage to look up at him.
He gazes at me intently, his eyes burning with emotion. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
My heart plummets. I don’t know why I thought this was more. Shit. Needing to get away, I stand up. He reaches over and grabs my wrist. I still.
“Let me finish. I absolutely want more. I haven’t been able to read you to understand whether this was a casual, physical relationship or if you wanted more. With us both, Lev and myself. You never share much of yourself with either of us, but especially me. Every bit of information we glean is by accident. We’ve been content to let you set the pace, but if you want more, we’re going to need more as well.”
My body sinks back on the chair as I stare at him in surprise. Taking a long drink of wine, I sigh. “I know I need to share all of this with you, with everyone, but I don’t know how to share it, because I’ve never talked about it with others.” Swallowing another drink of wine, I stop for a minute to gather my thoughts.
“A few years ago, something terrible happened, and it had so many ripples of effect that it felt like I was repeatedly drowning. Once it stopped, I was so relived to be ‘on dry land,’ so to speak, I could only concentrate on living one day at a time. Basically, I swept it all into a cage so I could function.”
Taking a bite, he waits intently for my words.
Thinking about what he already knows, I figure this might be the easiest part of my story. Pushing back my plate, I clench my hands together. “Over four years ago, I was a practicing oncologist at Carton Hospital, in San Francisco. Most of my patients were older, but I treated a few kids, too. One of those kids was a twelve-year-old boy named David, who had leukemia. During one of his visits, I found out he met the eligibility requirements for a new clinical trial. We prepped him for a month to get his weight up and his blood steady. When it was time for the trial, his blood panel came back with something that had knocked him out of eligibility. The cause was a medication I had subscribed to manage his nausea. I didn’t know it would impact his potassium levels. Stopping the medication improved his blood results immediately, but because of the strict rules, they wouldn’t let him back into the trial. A few weeks later, David got pneumonia and died.”
Feeling my eyes burn, I reach out and take a couple drinks of wine. After a deep breath, I continue.
“Two weeks later, his father came to the hospital. When he reached the oncology ward, he corned a group of doctors and nurses and held them at gunpoint. I was down the hall when I heard him screaming my name, demanding to see me. When I showed up, he shot me. It wasn’t enough, though. In his rage and grief, he shot seventeen other people, including my husband, Collin, before committing suicide. Besides David’s father, thirteen of my friends and colleagues died. The remaining five of us recovered, but none of us came out of it the same.” My voice is hoarse as the tears start to flow. Guilt burns through me. All those lives shattered by my decision, and his bullets.
Reaching over, Lowell picks me up and carries me over to the couch. Rocking me, he holds me as I cry. Shuddering, I reach for a tissue.
“Some days, I can’t cope with the guilt. So, I bottle it up and hide it where I can’t feel it or see it. On the days I can’t hide, all I see are their faces and the faces of their kids, spouses, parents. I see Ellie’s new baby without a mother, Jordan’s wife raising four kids by herself, Carl’s husband, and so many more. Every day, I fought cancer with these people. We were very close.” Looking down at my hands, I shudder and give him more. “You once asked me why I moved from oncology to general practice? Nobody would hire me after the incident. I was too much of a liability for any hospital. While they never directly discriminated to my face, I couldn’t get another oncology job anywhere.”
Devastation creeps into my voice before I can stop it. My heart breaks at the loss of this stupid thing. I can still be a doctor, just a different doctor than I had dreamed of for so long. And mourning a career when I get to continue living feels wrong. Clearing my throat of the emotion, I continue.
“A few other things happened in the two years following the event that caused me to leave San Francisco. Unfortunately, the medical community is small, and the memories long. I stopped using my first name of Elizabeth and started using an abbreviated version of my middle name, Kathryn. As Kate, I became a traveling doctor. And here I am.”
His hands smooth down my back as he gathers me tightly to him. He’s quiet for a minute as he chooses his words. “My dear, I’m so sorry you have gone through this horrible ordeal. It will get easier, but it will never go away. While it doesn’t help, I do understand, and I think you’ll find Lev and Shaw will, too. In the Army, you make many decisions based on reported intelligence, gut instinct, and training. I know I did. And when I was wrong, people died. Am I still responsible? Yes. Is it all my fault? No. You have to decide how much blame to hold on to. You didn’t give David cancer, or give his dad a gun and make him pull the trigger. You made a decision based on your training and given your inexperience; unfortunately, it was the wrong one. The only thing you can do is learn from it. I know that doesn’t help, but we are here for you.”
Thinking it over, I realize I’d been accepting the blame for the entire thing. Even for everything that happened afterwards. It’s not surprising, as everyone else did the same. Not my mom, but everyone else. David’s father had taken the easy way out, and without him alive to be judged, all judgment fell on me. Hard to see yourself when nobody else sees you either.
Exhausted, I cannot think about it tonight. Looking up at Lowell, I stroke my hand down his face. “Thank you. You have given me some light in this black tunnel. It means more to me than I can say.”
Giving me a brief kiss, he suggests I speak to Shaw about it sometime. “As our unit leader, he had to make more decisions than most, and not all of them worked out for the best. You could help each other.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He plays with my hair for a second before asking, “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your husband?”
Telling pieces is always risky for this reason. Each piece is an emotional minefield of its own.
“Physically, he recovered. Emotionally and mentally, it changed him forever. He committed suicide two years later.”
Tears flow again. I know I need to explain, but I can’t tonight. Hitting a wall, I cry myself to sleep in Lowell’s arms.
