15

CHAPTER 15

J O E L

It’s the best lasagna on the West Coast,” I said. “I swear to you.”

On the other end of the line, Katie’s laughter filled my car speakers.

Music. It was pure music.

“And you’ve had all the lasagna on the West Coast?” she asked.

“What if I told you I had?” Somehow, I remembered to put on my turn signal before turning right. Katie had a way of always distracting me.

“I wouldn’t believe you.”

“What are you doing tonight?” I asked.

She didn’t answer right away, and my chest turned to an icicle. Did she have plans?

With another man?

We hadn’t talked about being exclusive. While I wasn’t seeing anyone else, I couldn’t expect the same from her.

Still…

The idea of another man’s hands on her had my fingers curling around the steering wheel. Fury filled me up.

What was wrong with me? Katie wasn’t my girlfriend. I didn’t want a girlfriend!

She was free to live her own life.

“If you can’t go tonight,” I said, “we can go another night.” “No, no, I can go. I would love to go tonight.”

A smile tugged at my lips. “Perfect. I wish I could meet you there, but I might be in surgery until six.”

“That’s all right. We can meet at the restaurant.” In Katie’s background, a kid cried. She continued on, completely unfazed. “What time is good?”

“How about eight?” “Great!”

“Perfect,” I said. “Amazing.”

I chuckled. “You just don’t want to be outdone.” “I could say the same about you.”

She laughed. “I’m a little competitive. What can I say?”

“A little? Have you seen yourself while playing mini golf?” “Which reminds me. We’re due for a rematch.”

“You’re that eager to lose?” I stopped at a red light, suddenly not wanting to go to work. What if I turned the car around and drove to Katie’s daycare instead?

I shook my head. Was I crazy?

“I’m that eager to see you lose,” she volleyed back. “Want to make a bet?”

“Sure. What for?”

I considered it. There wasn’t anything I wanted other than what she already provided me with.

So, on second thought, I just wanted more of that.

The car behind me honked. The light had turned green without my noticing.

“Give me some time,” I said as I hit the gas. “I’ll come up with something good.”

“I will, too,” she said in seductive voice that had me squirming in my seat. “I need to go and sign for a delivery. See you tonight.”

“See you then.” I hung up too soon, but my grin stretched from ear to ear. The phone started ringing again. Had Katie forgotten to tell me something? Disappointingly, it wasn’t her. It was Daniel.

Not that I didn’t want to talk to my brother. I just couldn’t get Katie off my mind.

I punched the answer button. “Hey.” “Hey. Is this a good time?”

“I’m on my way to a surgery.”

“I’m texting you some paint swatches.”

I checked the time. Fifteen minutes before I needed to meet with the patient and his family. I was only a few minutes away from the hospital.

“Paint for what?” I asked.

“For my apartment. Where else?” “Right. What colors did you send?”

As it turned out, the city wasn’t really the place for Daniel. He had moved back to Covina the week before, having gotten both an apartment and a new job. His therapist near me had referred him to someone in Covina.

So far, he seemed to be doing good, but it had been less than a month since he showed up on my doorstep after blowing his life to smithereens once more. I would believe real change when I saw it.

“Blues,” Daniel said. “Can you take a look?”

I switched lanes—not an easy task, since the jerk in the Jeep didn’t want to let me over. I thought about making a rude gesture at the driver, then decided it wasn’t worth it.

“I’m driving right now,” I said.

“Can you look when you park? I need to pick the colors out today so I can paint the place this weekend.”

I couldn’t help but be irritated. “I have a patient waiting for me.” “It’s just a quick look.”

I gritted my teeth. Things had been going fairly well between us, but we had avoided bigger topics. Now he was doing that thing where he clung to me. I couldn’t stand it.

“Why is it so important that I give you my opinion? Why can’t you just pick out what you like?”

“Because your opinion matters to me, Joel. Damn. I thought you’d be happy I asked.”

His words dripped vitriol. He had called me on my way to surgery, demanding I basically pull over and check out his little house project, and he was mad at me.

“What is this about?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s certainly not about paint. I can tell that much.”

I swear, even with all the miles between us, I could feel him bristle. Or maybe I just knew him that well.

“You said you would help me paint,” Daniel said.

“Did I?” I had reached the hospital parking deck, and I waited for the gate to lift.

“Yes. The day I left. You said you would come here and help me paint.” I tried to remember that day, but any conversations we’d had were foggy. “I’m sorry,” I said. “If I said that, I didn’t mean this weekend.”

“So when did you think you would do it?”

I pulled into a parking spot, sighed, and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Daniel.”

“When?” he pushed. “What is this really about?”

“You said you would help, but you didn’t mean it because you’re not coming to Covina.”

My teeth ground together. So that’s what this was about. He was trying to back me into a corner.

“And so,” I said, “you set me up to catch me in a lie? Real nice, Daniel.” “You won’t even come here for me. Why, Joel?”

“I’m busy,” I snarled.

“It’s not that, and we both know it.”

I couldn’t check my attitude—nor did I want to. “Sorry, Daniel, but we don’t all have the free time you have. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a busy surgeon. People need me.”

“Of course,” he sneered. “How could I forget how important you are?” “You’re jealous. That’s why you’re losing it right now.”

He made a noise of bewilderment. “I’m not jealous.”

“Yes, you are. I’ve had the same career my whole adulthood, while you’ve been floundering around.”

His voice became a vicious whisper. “Don’t think for one second that I want to be anything like you. A tool with my head up my butt, someone who

doesn’t even see the good that’s in front of him, someone who values success over happiness.”

I froze. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t even like your job, Joel. Meanwhile, you have one of the most amazing women in the world hanging all over you, and you treat her like she’s nothing.”

My blood boiled. “Katie is amazing. Don’t you dare bring her into this.”

“I know she’s amazing, so why don’t you show her that she is and stop stringing her along?”

“You don’t know anything about our relationship. You don’t know anything about my life, and now you’re calling me up just to give me a hard time. Obviously you have some real issues still going on, and you need to work on yourself.”

“Like you are?” he threw back. I worked my jaw around. “I…”

Daniel sighed. “Forget about it. I don’t know why I even try.”

He hung up, robbing me of the chance to have the last word. The frustration left my throat in a yell, and I slammed my fist against the steering wheel.

Damn, Daniel. He’d called just to rile me up, I was sure of it.

I hung my head and pulled at my hair, my heart pounding. I wanted to call him back and yell at him, but that would mean admitting how much he’d affected me.

Plus I needed to go inside the hospital. I needed to meet with the patient. Scrub in.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself. My hands were still shaking, and I couldn’t seem to stop them.

I could do this. Just one step at a time.

And so I did. I turned off the car and walked into the hospital. I reviewed the patient’s file for the tenth time. Had the pre-op meetings. Did all the things I’d done a hundred times before.

And still I couldn’t get Daniel’s words out of my head. He was projecting, trying to paint me as the failure in order to avoid his disappointment in himself.

I wasn’t going to play that game. The next time we talked—if we talked anytime soon—he would be in for a surprise.

The operation was for a patient with chronic, end-stage lung disease. The case had me thinking about Katie’s mother, an operation that had been performed in order to prolong Lily’s life by one to five years. I hadn’t met Katie that day, but I’d learned since that she had been in the hospital, anxiously pacing the waiting-room floor.

If this patient had someone who cared half as much as Katie, he was one of the luckiest people on earth.

“You all right?”

I blinked and looked around. We were already in the OR. When had that happened?

The nurse looked at me over her mask, her eyebrows knit in concern. “Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“You didn’t hear me the first time I spoke.” “I’m fine,” I rasped.

The anesthesiologist had already put the patient under, and the monitors beeped. Everyone was in position, waiting for me.

I gave the word, and we began. A typical lung transplant took from four to twelve hours, and this one was no walk in the park, but once I started surgery I was in the zone.

It had always been that way. I could focus in the OR unlike anywhere else.

Don’t think for one second that I want to be anything like you. A tool with my head up my butt, someone who doesn’t even see the good that’s in front of him, someone who values success over happiness.

Daniel’s words came out of nowhere. I shook them off. He was wrong, and I needed to focus.

But what if he was right?

The question had me freeze for a split second. “Dr. Galvin? Do you need—”

“No, I’m fine.” I put my head down and got back to work. This wasn’t like me, and I needed to stay in the game.

Finally, the transplant was over and the patient was stitched up. As I stepped out of the operating room, I glanced at the clock. Ten hours.

It had only felt like two, at the most. Crazy how time stood still when you were laser-focused.

After cleaning up, I grabbed a glass of water and sat in the hall. Kathy Swenson, a sweet gray-haired nurse, approached me.

“You doing all right, Dr. Galvin?”

I put on a fake smile. “Yeah. Of course. Why?” She studied me. “You seem off today.”

Kathy hadn’t been in the operating room with us. I’d only passed her in the hallway on my way in there. If she’d noticed my mood in such a short amount of time, I could only imagine how I came across to others.

“I’m fine.” I smiled even bigger. Kathy was nice, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

“Well, if you—”

A shout down the hallway interrupted her, followed by the sound of running feet. I tore out of my seat and in the direction of the noise.

“Vitals are dropping!” a nurse shouted as she rushed into my patient’s room.

The next twenty minutes passed in a blur. The patient wasn’t taking well to his new lung, and his body had gone into shock. We worked as fast and hard as we could, and when the flat line rolled across the screen all I could do was stare at it.

For a long, terrible second, the room was quiet. I let out a low curse, then a louder one.

“Time of death,” someone said, “six seventeen.”

I turned away from the screen, my vision blurring.

It wasn’t the first time I’d had a patient die during or right after surgery, but something about this made me want to punch myself in the face. The patient had been high risk; he and his family had known there was the possibility of him not making it.

So then why did I feel this way?

As I walked out of the hall, it hit me: I’d been distracted during surgery. I could have done a better job.

At the end of the hall, I curled my hands into fists and looked for something to take my anger out on.

“Joel.” It was Ricardo, one of the nurses. “It wasn’t your fault.” He’d read my mind, and yet he didn’t understand.

I shot him a dark look. “I was his doctor, of course it was my fault.”

He shook his head once, jaw tight. “He knew the risks. We all did. No one could have prevented this.”

I lowered my head, unable to look him in the eye any longer. If it had been a regular day, I might have believed that, but I’d been distracted. Unfocused. Undone.

You dropped the ball.

They were my father’s words, a statement that I must have heard a thousand times. Even though I didn’t want to believe it was true, I couldn’t deny reality. It was as if my father was there, whispering in my ear.

“I dropped the ball.” I strode past Ricardo and down the hall.

I didn’t decide where to drive to. I just knew that I needed to keep moving. Out of the hospital parking lot and down the street. One turn and then another, then another. I must have taken every turn the city provided, and yet I couldn’t escape the thoughts in my head.

I’d let Daniel get to me, and because of that, my father was right. I might have been a lauded surgeon, but I still wasn’t good enough. I still made mistakes when it mattered most.

I turned for home, not knowing where else to go. I needed to sink into darkness, to stop existing for a while, but I had no idea how to do that.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the answer. Without even signaling, I took a sharp right and pulled into the liquor store’s parking lot.