His movements were sluggish and his hands were slow, but for the way each blow slayed me, he might as well have been a championship boxer. God knew I’d welcome a TKO if it would soothe him.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, dragging him into my chest.
“I hate you,” he cried, refusing to give up.
He didn’t. Travis loved me. I knew that was as true as the sky was blue. But, if he needed an outlet for his anger, I’d be it every single time.
I gave him a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”
He didn’t hug me back, but I didn’t need him to. I just needed him to keep breathing.
When Hannah reappeared with my phone, I guided Travis to sit on the toilet.
As expected, he was crying. I couldn’t fault him. I wanted to fucking cry too.
It wasn’t fair. None of it.
Lifting my phone to my ear, I hit send. As it rang, I bent, and scooped the plastic tubing up, and passed it back to my son. “Finish that and we’ll head to the hospital.”
He glared up at me, giving it the pre-teen attitude that seemed to be bred into kids, but he was too weak to properly snatch it from my hand.
A sleepy, “Hello?” came through the phone.
“Mom. Hey, can you meet me at the hospital to get Hannah?”
Her bed squeaked as she presumably climbed out of it. “How bad?”
I glanced at Travis, watching him sway with every breath. He refused me his gaze, but he was listening.
“Hannah, stay with your brother,” I ordered, walking out of the bathroom.
I didn’t answer her question until I was in my room. I went straight to my closet and changed into a shirt and jeans before slipping a pair of sneakers on.
“Pretty bad.”
“Oh God,” she whispered. “Yeah. Okay. I’m on my way. Hurry, but drive safe.”
I then moved to my dresser to collect my wallet and my keys. Closing my eyes, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Yeah. Same to you.”
With a deep breath that I hoped would ease the hollow ache that never seemed to leave me anymore, I opened my eyes.
Catherine was staring back at me.
I wasn’t positive why I left that picture on my dresser. I’d told myself that it was for the kids. So they could feel like she was still a part of our lives, despite the fact that it was now only the three of us.
I picked the picture up. She was smiling at the camera, her brown eyes glistening with unshed emotion, Travis wrapped in a swaddling blanket, mere hours old, tucked into the crook of her arm. I traced my fingers over the top of his dark, unruly hair as if I could comb it down, but my gaze drifted to his mother. It had only been three years since she’d died, but so much had changed.
She’d have known what to do with Travis. How to heal him. Maybe not physically, but emotionally. I remembered the first time he’d had an episode. I’d raced around the house, calling 911 frantic while she’d calmly sat next to him, rubbing his back and whispering reassuring words into the top of his hair. She was in agony, but she kept it together for him, a skill that had taken me over three years to master. She’d always been so good at reading his mood and rationalizing with him to take his medications. If he’d needed something, she had known instinctively. I’d often thought that watching the two of them together was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.
She hadn’t bumbled. Or faltered. She’d been a rock.
I wasn’t like Catherine.
I was weak.
And exhausted.
And so damn scared.
But, even if it destroyed me, I would be there for him. That was one thing that would never change.
So, no. I wasn’t like Catherine at all.
When I heard the nebulizer turn off, I set the picture back on the dresser and stared my wife straight in the eyes as I whispered, “I hate you so fucking much.”
* * *
“I’ll send her in right away, Mr. Clark,” I said, backing out of the door, a wide smile stretching my lips.
It was fake—both the promise and the smile. I was exhausted. I’d been at the hospital for almost twenty-four hours, and sleeping stretched out between two rolling chairs had been exactly as restful as it sounded.
“Hey, Denise,” I called, strolling over to the nurses’ station, my tired feet screaming with every step. “Mr. Clark needs help to the bathroom.”
She looked up from the computer screen with a scowl. “You have lost your damn mind.”
I forced a grin, setting my clipboard on the desk and then flopping down into the chair beside her. Yawning, I pulled my disheveled hair into a ponytail.
I needed a haircut. Strike that. I needed a shower, a massage, a meal that was not prepared in the microwave, a week-long date with the backs of my eyelids, and then a haircut.
With my schedule, a unicorn sighting would have been more likely.
“Sorry,” I mumbled around another yawn.
She rolled her eyes so hard that her retinas fully disappeared. “If I go back in that man’s room, you’re going to have to perform the surgical reattachment of his hand.” She rocked back in her chair while crossing her arms over her chest. “I get it when the old-timers come in with dementia. They can’t help themselves. But that man is forty and his only ailment is a nasty case of smokes-two-packs-a-day-induced asthma. Last I checked, your lungs do not affect your cognitive abilities.” She paused and looked back at her computer, muttering, “Though the concussion I’m going to give that fool if he grabs my ass again will.”
It sounded like a joke, so I offered her a chuckle, hoping that it came off as genuine.
Meanwhile, I stared at my watch.
One hour.
The minute hand had finally caught up with me.
When I’d gotten the call about Mr. Clark being admitted, a large part of me hoped I’d get tangled up and lose track of time.
But, regardless of how desperately I tried, I’d never be able to forget that day.
With nothing left to celebrate, that day only served as a reminder that I’d survived another year in the darkness he’d left behind.
“Look… I, um,” I stalled. “I have to go. Can you please make sure someone gets in there to help him?”
On a dramatic gasp, she clutched her chest. “Dear God, is the world ending?” She glanced around the nurses’ station and asked everyone and no one, “Did Dr. Mills seriously just say she needed to go? It must be the rapture.” Lifting her hands up to the heavens, she rejoiced, “Praise Jesus, I’m right with the Lord!”
“Ha. Ha,” I deadpanned.
Okay. It could be said that I worked a lot. So much so that the running joke around the hospital was that I was a vampire who didn’t require sleep to survive. For my last birthday, the residents had all chipped in and bought me a life-size Ian Somerhalder cardboard cutout. Apparently, he played a vampire in a TV show or something. But considering I didn’t own a television, the humor was lost on me.
While my days were spent seeing patients at my office across town, my nights were all-too-often spent at the hospital. I was one of the few pulmonologists who came in any time a patient of mine was admitted. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the on-call doctors—not exactly. They were talented. (Well, except Blighton. I wouldn’t let that idiot treat my goldfish. And I didn’t even have a goldfish.) My patients depended on me, and my peace of mind came with the knowledge that they were getting the best possible care I could offer them. If that meant I had to be available to them twenty-four-seven, so be it. Besides, it’s not like I had much else going on in my life.
The most exciting thing that had happened to me outside of medicine in the last year was the blind date my best friend had guilted me into with the son of her hairdresser. His name was Hal, and he was an accountant. And not the sexy-nerdy type. I’m talking the balding, boring, pocket-protector-wearing kind. I’d sneaked out of the bathroom window halfway through dinner, and the following Monday, Rita had been forced to find someone new to touch up her roots. Luckily, she’d appeared to have learned her lesson and hadn’t mentioned setting me up again.
I looked back at my watch.
Fifty-nine minutes.
After contemplating swinging through the infectious-disease lab to see if I could catch a dreaded—but curable—illness, I finally gave up and pushed to my feet. There was no way to avoid it. And the sooner I made an appearance, the sooner I could leave and put the entire day behind me for another year.