The Long Way

Nathanial

My father and I spent three quiet days traveling back to Los Angeles, only stopping to sleep, eat, or fish. By the time we hit California, I was whipping the fly lures off the top of the water like Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. Most of the time we were fishing or driving, I was thinking about Ava, how sweet she smelled, how sweet the sounds she made were. She hadn’t called so I made a pact with myself to give her some space, but that didn’t stop me from thinking about her.

On the road, I never brought up the hospital or Lizzy. I knew my father only expected me to tell the truth about what had happened, how I had tried to save her. We would have to wait to hear the findings of the investigation before we would know how to move forward, so there was no point in talking about it. We both knew that. On a long stretch of dark road he finally asked me what my plans were.

“Nate, what have you decided?”

“I don’t know, Dad.”

“I think you do. You can tell me. I won’t stop you, no matter what. I’ll support you.”

I swallowed. “I need to see where it’s going with Ava.”

“I see. So you’ll move there for her?”

“No. I’ll move there for me.”

“You two couldn’t be more different.”

“And Mom and you? Aren’t you two different?” My mother was a hippie artist who had quietly renounced Western medicine long ago.

“Your mother and I are more similar than you think.”

“Maybe Ava and I are more similar than you think.”

“How so?”

“People don’t know her, Dad. She’s funny and smart. Why does what we do always have to define us?”

He huffed, staring straight out the front window. “You want to drive, Nate? I’m getting tired.”

“No, I want you to answer me.”

“You’re right, it’s not about what we do, it’s about how we love, how we treat other people and ourselves. You’re just singing a very different tune than when I sent you out here, so I’m a little surprised.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Maybe I didn’t expect you’d want to stay.”

“There’s something about her. I feel like I breathe deeper around her. Everything seems a little brighter. That sounds lame, I know.”

“No, it doesn’t. And I’m sure it’s not just something.” He looked over at me and raised his eyebrows.

He was right. It was everything with Ava. Images of her riding Dancer filled my dreams, her hair floating on the wind. Her voice, her touch, her mouth, her thighs wrapped around me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I was like a lovesick puppy.

At least I was until I walked through the doors of the hospital days later.

The desk in my office was stacked high with charts. I had a hundred and twelve voicemails and over two hundred emails. I got to work immediately but could barely put a dent in it before it was time to meet with the hospital director, my father, and a group of lawyers. I wouldn’t say the board’s findings and the autopsy results were surprising—I knew I hadn’t damaged her heart. Lizzy had suffered a massive heart attack and cardiac arrest due to a heart defect she’d had since birth. The heart attack created a tear in her heart, which caused it to bleed. I wasn’t going to be charged with malpractice or negligence, but I couldn’t help but feel a more skilled doctor would’ve been able to find the bleeder and stabilize her.

Still, my father was relieved after our meeting. I went back to my office to chip away at my backlogged work. I checked my phone often, but still there was no call from Ava.

I wasn’t technically back on rotation at the hospital right away, but somehow I found myself ears-deep in work. I assisted on a textbook procedure to warm up, so to speak, and then I performed a bypass for another doctor, all within a couple of days. My chances of visiting the ranch soon were looking dismal.

Later in the week, I spotted a familiar face in the hallway outside of my office.

“Olivia Green! What in God’s name are you doing in this shit hole?” I held my arms out to her for a hug.

She smiled her same old condescending smile. “This is no Stanford, you’ve got that right. But you’re looking at UCLA’s newest cardiothoracic attending surgeon.”

“You’re kidding.”

Her hair was the same fiery red and braided over her shoulder, just as I remembered it. “I’m serious as a . . .”

“Ah ah.” I put my finger over her mouth. “Don’t say it. No heart jokes allowed. You haven’t changed a bit, except maybe you have a sense of humor now.”

“Thanks.” She socked me in the arm. “Well, Nate, you haven’t changed much either.”

“Let’s get a coffee?”

“I can’t. I’m about to go into a meeting with your dad. What about dinner? You still in the condo on Wilshire?”

“I am.”

“I knew it. Same old Nate. Eat, breathe, sleep surgery.”

“Yeah,” I said, hesitantly.

“Well, are we on for dinner?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll come by around six.”

“Sounds good. Congratulations, by the way. It’s good to see you.”

“Well, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me very soon.”

I didn’t reply as she walked away. Instead, I checked my phone. No messages. I need to call her, I thought. I wanted to give her some space, but at that point I was surprised I hadn’t heard from her. In the note I’d left, I’d asked her to call me when she woke up. But she hadn’t, and I was starting to wonder if she was trying to tell me something.

I made it back to my condo at ten to six and walked in on Frankie and Gogo cuddling on my couch, watching a new flatscreen TV I didn’t buy.

“What are you doing to my cat and why are you still here?”

Frankie looked up at me and squinted as I flipped on the lights. “When are you going back to Montana?”

“Soon as I can.” I had initially planned on going that weekend. “Olivia’s coming over.”

“Why?” He scowled.

“Dude, seriously, after all these years you still can’t stand her?”

“She’s a pretentious bitch.”

“Don’t hold back, Frankie,” Olivia said from the doorway.

I turned to see her standing there, dressed in black from head to toe. “Olivia, I’d get up but I don’t want to,” Frankie said.

“Same old Frankie. Where are you working now, Francis?”

“A clinic in Hollywood. What do you care?”

“I don’t,” she said. “Nate, are you ready?”

“Give me one minute.” I headed to my room and emerged a few minutes later in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. Olivia eyed me disapprovingly. “I know a pub nearby.”

“A pub? Really?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“It’s a gastro pub. It’s nice. Lots of beers on tap.” I smirked, knowing Olivia wouldn’t approve.

“How about a nice restaurant, Nate? We’re not in college anymore.”

Frankie shook his head.

“Let me change.” I threw on a dress shirt and dress shoes and headed for the door, ignoring Frankie’s glare.

We walked two blocks to an upscale American bistro in Westwood. Olivia ordered a glass of wine and I ordered a whiskey on the rocks.

“So, you drink now?” she observed across the candlelit table.

“Sometimes.”

She looked down at her napkin. “God, I hate it when they don’t offer a black napkin.”

I laughed. “Really, Olivia, who gives a fuck?”

“Naaaate,” she whined, drawing out the word an excruciatingly long time. “It’s just tacky; I’m going to walk out of here covered in lint.”

“God forbid, Olivia. God forbid.”

She laughed. “What is it with you?”

“Nothing, I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”

“I heard you got yourself out of that pickle with the patient you lost.”

“That girl still died, Olivia. I was holding her heart in my hands when she took her last breath.”

“Not technically if she was on bypass.”

“She was on a ventilator, not bypass, because she bled out it one fucking minute,” I said sharply.

“I’m sorry if I seem insensitive. It’s just that I saw the report. You had everything in place to get her on bypass.”

“You don’t know anything, Olivia. I barely had a second to think. There’s no way anyone could’ve found the bleeder in time. Her entire chest cavity was filled with blood. There were two other attending surgeons and a resident, not to mention the anesthesiologist and nurses. No one had a clue what to do.”

“I’m really sorry, Nate, but I have to believe there was a way, otherwise what good are we?”

“Sometimes there’s not. Sometimes there’s no reasonable explanation why shit happens. We can take all the precautions, go through our lives being terrified of everything, and still there’s a chance that we’ll walk out our front door and get hit by a stray bullet meant for someone else. Life is random, and surgery . . .” I let out a hard breath. “Surgery is not exact. It’s not a science. It’s a fucking set of procedures that will hopefully work. Sometimes they don’t.” I looked around the room, noticing the pairs of unblinking, staring eyes trained on me. “I think we should call it a night.”

As though my words hadn’t even fazed her, she whined, “But we haven’t eaten.”

Olivia very well might’ve been the most emotionless person I had ever met. “Okay, Olivia, we can order, but let’s keep the conversation light. Why don’t you tell me what’s new in your personal life.”

“You know me. I’m like you. I work. That’s what I do.” She looked up and smiled. “From the looks of your condo you’ve been doing the same.”

“I’m looking to transfer. I don’t want to work under my father anymore.”

“Too much pressure?”

“No. I just want to have a normal relationship with him and that’s hard when he’s my boss.”

“Where are you looking to transfer?”

“Missoula.”

“Montana?” Her voice went high.

“The very same.”

“Why in the world?”

“I like it there.”

She shrugged, still wearing a condescending smile. We ate in silence, but as we walked out after dinner, I realized I had been unnecessarily rude to Olivia. I was distraught that Ava hadn’t called me yet. And I wondered when I would get back there.

“Is Frankie staying at your place?”

“Yes, while I look at hospitals.”

“Walk me to my hotel?” Her expression had softened.

“Okay.”

“How long has it been since we saw each other?”

“Five years at least, right?”

“Yeah, and now here we are, in the same town. I’m over there.” She pointed to the glass double doors of a boutique hotel. “It feels like no time has passed.”

I didn’t agree but didn’t say anything.

“You gonna come up, Nate?”

I stopped walking. “No. I’m not coming up.”

She turned to me. “We can be grown-ups and share a bottle of wine first.” I knew exactly where she was going. She made no move to touch me, though. Thankfully that wasn’t Olivia’s style. She continued staring up at me, waiting for me to make a decision. But the decision was made in my mind; I was just trying to figure out how to let her down gently.

“I’m seeing someone.”

She shrugged.

“Exclusively,” I added.

“Oh.” She laughed. Apparently I didn’t have to worry about her pride. Olivia was as close to frozen as one could get. “Why didn’t you say so? Who is she, a nurse?”

“No.”

“Another doctor?”

“No.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s uh, um . . . she’s a wrangler.”

Olivia burst into laughter. “What the fuck is a wrangler?”

“She works on a ranch . . . in Montana.”

“I don’t believe you, Nate. Not for one second.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“And how are you dating her if you’re here?”

“I’m going back as soon as I can break away from the hospital again. That’s why I want to transfer to Missoula.”

She huffed. “That’ll never happen. You don’t leave a major hospital like UCLA and transfer to the middle of nowhere for some cowgirl. What, did she give you a good ride and now you’re hung up on her?”

“Glad to see you’ve softened with age, Olivia.”

“Why don’t you just come up and we’ll talk about this nonsense for a while.” Looking out at the blur of lights from the freeway traffic, she said, “You should know by now that those kinds of relationships don’t do people like us any good.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Come on, just come up.”

I felt a pain in my arm. My chest was thumping; I could feel it all the way to my elbow. I pulled my phone out and checked for missed calls. None were from Ava.

When Olivia started to walk away, I followed wordlessly. We went through the lobby and into the elevator. She still hadn’t made a move to touch me. At the door to her hotel room, she slid the key card into the slot and looked back at me, smiling seductively. At that moment my phone buzzed. I pulled it out and saw that it was a Montana area code. I held my finger up to Olivia. “I have to take this.”

She put her hand on her hip and shrugged, as if to say go ahead.

I hit talk. “Hello?”

“Nate?” It was her voice, sweet and timid.

“Ava.” Her name came out like a breath.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Titillating,” Olivia said. I tensed up.

Ava stuttered. “Um . . . sorry, did I call at a bad time?”

“No, wait, please. I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

“Are you with someone, Nate?”

“I’m with a colleague.”

“It’s late,” she murmured.

I looked at my watch. It was nine thirty. I glanced at Olivia, who was looking smug.

“I’ll let you go, Nate.” I knew her words had a double meaning.

“No!” I protested but she hung up.

I turned to Olivia, fuming. “Goddammit. I have to go.” Neither one of us said another word. I left the hotel abruptly and ran back to my condo to get my bike. I rode my bike to the hospital every day, but this time I passed on the helmet and proper attire and darted out into traffic, pedaling hard. I got half a mile down the road before it started raining. It doesn’t rain a ton in California but that night it had to rain. What the fuck? My feet kept slipping off the pedals. Normally I wore click-in bicycle shoes that locked into the small steel pedals. My dress shoes were barely getting enough traction. After thirty minutes of biking in the rain, I busted through the hospital doors, sopping wet, and made my way to my office.

I tried to call Ava back, hitting call over and over. She didn’t answer and I wasn’t surprised. What was I fucking thinking? Olivia had me believing some bullshit about who I was for a second, but that was never me. Even if I weren’t going after love, in the back of my mind I had always wanted it. Everything just seemed to be getting in my way.

Sometimes life begrudges you; it can take everything away from you, like it had for Ava, but for me there had been nothing to take away. I’d had nothing until I met her. Even my career didn’t matter that much to me, in the end. I had poured myself into it because I was good at it. My heart didn’t drop into my stomach when I thought I might lose my job, but it did when I thought about blowing it with Ava. The idea sank heavily through my body like a stone until I felt numb. I knew the only thing I could do was try to get back to her.

I spent the entire night in my office completing all of my backlogged paperwork with the helpless feeling that whatever I was about to do would never be enough. Still, I remained undeterred. I needed to get back to her. My emails were answered and my work was up to date. The only thing I had left was to write a resignation letter. The first letter I wrote to my father directly and the second to the hospital. I apologized for not being able to give sufficient notice. I even emailed other doctors asking to transfer my patients to them so the hospital wouldn’t have to do it.

At eight a.m. my father walked past my office, backtracked, and stopped a moment at my door. “You look like shit. Late night?”

I stood up, feeling wobbly and worn out. I held the letter out as I walked toward him.

There was recognition in his eyes like he knew what was coming, and then he flashed me a small, tight smile. “I won’t try to change your mind; I don’t even know if I want to. All I know is that I want you here, but . . .” He started getting choked up. He swallowed and went on. “But I understand why you’re leaving. I’m so proud of you, Nate. I’m proud to call you my son, and I’m proud of the doctor you’ve become.”

“I have to get back out there.”

“I talked to the chief at the International Heart Institute in Missoula.”

I leaned against my desk and crossed my arms. “And?”

“I told him that you were a horrible surgeon and that they would be making a big mistake hiring you.” He held a white paper bag out to me. “Doughnut?”

“Dad.” I laughed. “You’ve got to stop with the doughnuts.”

“I’m kidding. It’s a veggie wrap your mom made for me. She put hummus and tofu in it. I don’t even know what tofu is.”

“I’m glad to see you’re changing your diet. You should stick with it. Mom knows what she’s talking about.”

He set the bag down and put his hands on his hips, his lab coat open around his wrists. “I’ve lost six pounds since the food Nazi took over.”

“She was really worried about you.”

He smiled and took a seat in one of the chairs facing my desk. I went around and sat down as well.

“Nate, I told the Chief at the Heart Institute that you were the best damn surgeon I’d come across and they better pay you well.”

“Thank you. You have no idea how much those words mean to me.”

He blinked. “I might have waited too long to say it.”

“Better late than never.”

“I love you, kid.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

“I want you to take the Ford out there.” Restored cars were my dad’s hobby. He didn’t actually restore them, he bought them restored and spent a great deal of money on them. His favorite was a two-toned red and white ’67 Ford pickup truck.

“I couldn’t, Dad.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “It belongs in Montana.”

CHAPTER 13

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 825