The melody in our hearts, p.13
The melody in our hearts, page 13
“Valerie,” Doctor Gray’s deep voice said. “Are you okay?”
She nodded without turning back, hoping she would convince him.
He got closer and put a hand on her shoulder.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said gently. “It was something none of us could have foreseen. You did your best, and we did the best we could. I know it’s hard when you lose your first patient, but you did nothing wrong. I couldn’t do anything either, and I’ve been a surgeon for over fifteen years now. Even the best doctors can fail; we’re only human after all.”
She was forcing herself to look strong and in control, but a sob escaped her lips involuntarily and, as Doctor Gray patted her shoulder to try to comfort her, she lost it completely and turned back to hug him and let herself cry in his arms.
She was given the rest of the day off after the operation, and she spent it in Ryan’s apartment in downtown Boston, crying in his arms. She just couldn’t seem to be able to stop or to pull herself together. She hadn’t even been able to go home; the only place she had wanted to be as soon as she had left the hospital had been Ryan’s, and she was glad he was in Boston when all this happened.
She had taken a taxi and had barely been able to get to Ryan’s apartment before bursting into tears. As soon as he had opened the door, wondering why she was there at that time of day when he had thought she was supposed to be working, she had hugged him so tightly that he felt out of breath. Then she had frantically told him everything that had happened in the operating room.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, patting her hand gently. “You’ve got to stop feeling guilty now. You’re not even supposed to feel responsible for that because you did all you could, all a person could do, and not even the chief surgeon could save him. You can’t perform miracles.”
She shook her head, tears still streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m a doctor, for Heaven’s sakes. I’m supposed to save lives!” She sobbed. “I tried everything, anything to save that man…but I just wasn’t good enough. I killed him. I killed a man….”
She burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. He hugged her and patted her back, cradling her in his arms, trying to comfort her.
“You didn’t kill anyone, Val. You’re not God – you’re just a doctor. A good doctor who’s saved many lives so far and will save even more in future. Nobody thinks it’s your fault, Val. Stop blaming yourself for this.”
“No, no, no, it was my fault! You don’t understand…I was supposed to make his heart start beating again, to fix whatever the problem was and bring that man back from the dead, but I failed….”
She started sobbing again, and he hugged her tighter, shushing her soothingly.
“I failed,” she repeated. “I failed, and I killed him.”
“No, you didn’t! Stop saying that! You tried to save him. You and the other doctor did everything you could, but I guess it was his time to die, that’s all.”
She pulled away and looked up, her eyes flashing with anger.
“It wasn’t his time!” she snapped. “Stop pretending I didn’t do anything! I killed a man, he died on my operating table – I was the one who promised him and his family that he’d be okay!”
She sighed and hid her face in her hands, and Ryan just held her in his arms, knowing that no matter how many times he told her, she would always feel responsible for the death of that man. He guessed it would take her some time to understand what both her supervisor and he had been telling her, and then she would be okay again.
“Now lie down and try to get some sleep. You look awful….” he said after a while, smiling encouragingly, but she shook her head.
“I don’t need to sleep. I don’t want to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see that man, his dead body on my table….” She hid her face in her hands and started to sob again. “I’ll never be able to sleep again, never.”
“Please, Val, please don’t do this. Don’t hurt yourself this way; it’s breaking my heart. It’s happened before to so many other doctors, and you’ll get over it eventually and move on. But you have to do it. You didn’t kill anyone – you tried to save him, you did all you could. For the hundredth time, it wasn’t your fault.” He hugged her again and kissed her brow. “You’ll be fine. You’ll be back to normal in no time. You’re strong; I know you. You won’t give up.”
She sighed and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand.
“I think you overestimate me. I’m not so strong. Not after this.”
“You’ve always been stronger than you thought. And you are now, too. You’ll be fine, Val, you’ll be just fine.”
With that, he kissed her head and held her closer, cradling her in his arms, hoping she would eventually relax and fall asleep. After a while, worn out by the whole situation, she did, so Ryan scooped her up in his arms and carried her to his bedroom.
When she woke up, Ryan was still there, sitting in the armchair at the foot of his bed, reading a magazine.
“Ryan,” she said, her voice still thick with sleep, as she tried to realize where she was and why she was there.
“Well, good morning,” he said, grinning. “It’s about time you woke up! I was starting to run out of things to do here.” He stood up and stretched, dropping the magazine on the armchair. “These tabloids are so boring. I don’t understand why people still buy them!”
He chuckled and got close to her, scrutinizing her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to sleep that much. I didn’t realize I was so tired. What time is it?”
He shrugged and sat on the bed.
“Almost dinner time. You hungry?”
She nodded, her stomach gurgling just at the sound of the word.
“Good, then let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving!”
He stood up and reached out his hand, waiting for her to take it, and when she did, he pulled her up. She felt a bit unstable and awfully weak as soon as she got on her feet, and she understood she was going to be in trouble if she didn’t pull herself together quick. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten something in the last twenty-four hours, and this had been the first time she had been able to sleep after what happened.
Maybe Ryan was right, maybe it hadn’t been her fault. She had done everything she could to save that man, she had used all of her skills and medical knowledge, she had been the perfect doctor, the perfect surgeon, and she hadn’t left anything untried. Doctor Gray had been there with her and had told her it hadn’t been her fault. But still….
She blinked, hoping the image of the dead man would disappear, but she was sure it would never go away, not in a long, long time to come.
She sighed and followed Ryan to the kitchen, where he promised he would make his very special fettuccine recipe.
Twenty-nine
It had been a tough decision. She had studied so hard and worked so much harder to become who she was now, but the image of the man was still so bright in her mind that, when she had tried to walk into the operating room two weeks after that day, her body had frozen in place, and she hadn’t been able to even touch the door handle to get inside.
They had all been very nice to her, and she had been given a few days off when they saw the state she was in. Nobody ever even hinted that it had been her fault because they knew it hadn’t.
Doctor Gray had been in the operating room with her, he had helped her, and he had been the one to tell her to give up when she was still trying to resuscitate the man. He had told her so many times that she wasn’t responsible for what had happened, but she had never listened to him. She knew she would never be able to walk into an operating room again, no matter what people said.
Her decision to be moved to the ER and leave surgery was eventually accepted after a long discussion and many unsuccessful attempts to make her think better of it. She was just glad that she wouldn’t be forced to leave the hospital because of her decision. She got on well with the nurses and the doctors, and they were a great team and a sort of big family by now. She would have been sorry to leave them.
Nobody treated her differently after that, and nobody changed his or her opinion of her. She was still a good doctor, and she didn’t mind working in the emergency room after all.
Life wouldn’t be much different than before; she was sure that she would eventually stop seeing those images in her mind and would be just fine.
It would take some time, but she would heal.
Ryan had just arrived in San Francisco when she told him, and he wasn’t half as accommodating as her colleagues in the hospital had been.
“Why did you do that?” he asked, his tone definitely displeased. “I thought I knew you, Val. I thought you were stronger than that. It’s very selfish of you to do that.”
“Selfish?” she asked, a bit taken aback by his reaction.
“Yeah, selfish. Selfish because you’re a doctor, and when you choose a job like that, you choose to help people, to use all your knowledge and skills to save lives. And now listen to yourself, saying you’re giving up surgery because you’re scared. Scared. That’s ridiculous, Val. A doctor shouldn’t be scared of anything. I think maybe you chose wrong; maybe you should’ve chosen to be something else, a vet maybe, or a teacher. Something less scary.”
She was surprised, but also hurt by his words. He was her best friend, and he was supposed to support her, the way he had always done all through the years they’d known each other. But there he was, spitting out mean words, saying she shouldn’t have been a doctor.
Maybe she shouldn’t have decided to become a surgeon. Looking at it from a different point of view now, she could see that being a normal doctor wouldn’t have had consequences on her life. She wouldn’t have had trouble curing a patient with the flu or a broken leg.
Maybe surgery hadn’t been the smartest choice, but still, she had been a good surgeon before that day….
“Anyway, I have to go now. I have to do the sound check for the show,” he said abruptly, interrupting her thoughts. “Have fun with your new job.”
“Ryan….” she said, her voice cracking, but he hung up on her, and she slumped down on her bed, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.
She was upset like she had never been before. Ryan had never treated her like that. He had never been rude or mean to her, and it hurt to have him act this way now. It hurt more because the reaction was coming from him, rather than the reaction itself. She wouldn’t have minded if anyone else, even the hospital manager, had said those words, had treated her like that. But not Ryan, not her best friend. He was supposed to understand how she was feeling, and he, more than anyone else, should know how much she suffered because of what had happened. He was supposed to understand the reason why she had been forced to give up surgery.
She threw her phone on her bed and, since she didn’t seem to be able to swallow that lump in her throat, she let herself cry, with no one there to comfort her.
Thirty
She didn’t call Ryan after that phone call, not for a few days, although she missed him terribly. The shifts at the hospital were long enough to keep her mind busy, but as soon as she was home, she longed to call him, to hear his voice, to listen to him telling her where he’d been, whom he’d met, and all the exciting information he used to share with her.
Missing him physically was tough. She had never got used to that even after all these years, but not being able to talk to him was more than she could bear.
Still, she wasn’t going to give in. She wasn’t going to call him, not after the way he had treated her on the phone. If and when he wanted to speak to her, he would call her, no doubt; but the pain kept her tossing and turning in her sleep, gave her nightmares, and left that lump in her throat all the time.
Besides, she had completely lost the purpose of her career and basically of the past ten years of her life. She had studied hard to become a surgeon and losing a patient, her first patient, had made everything crumble in the blink of an eye.
She had been working in the ER for a couple of weeks now, and she didn’t mind; besides being a surgeon, she was a doctor after all, and taking care of people was what she had studied for, so any ward would do as long as it didn’t involve an operating room.
Still, she somehow felt as if she had failed, unlike Ryan, who had reached all of his goals, who had achieved what he had studied so hard for and had gone even further, signing a contract with a record company and becoming the contemporary shining star of jazz music, the official musical heir of Frank Sinatra.
She was a coward; that was the only word she could use to define her behavior in the past few weeks. Instead of pulling herself together, she had turned her back to it all and had run away, throwing all of her hard work and efforts out the window.
Karen hadn’t quite understood her decision either: She was a surgeon too, and she knew too well how hard they had all been studying to get to where they were now. She had told Valerie she should get hold of her life again and move on because those things happened, and there was no point in crying over spilled milk.
But in spite of all the good words, Karen hadn’t succeeded, and Valerie hadn’t changed her mind, nor had she moved on. It had happened more than a month before, but she could still see his face, and she could still hear the alarm ring loudly in her ears, telling them that his heart had stopped beating. She could still feel Doctor Gray’s arms around her, trying to soothe the pain, and hear his gentle words. She could remember how cool, reassuring, and detached he had been when he had spoken to the family. He had forgotten everything a few hours later, and there she was, still thinking about that day, throwing in the sponge after the very first failure.
Ryan was still on the other side of the country. He had just left California to move to Nevada. The tickets for the Las Vegas show had been sold out within hours, so they had put up two more shows, and by then he was so worn out every night that he could barely make it to his bedroom before crashing.
He had been thinking about calling Valerie: He had wanted to tell her all about the Californian shows and now the Las Vegas one. She loved hearing about all the places he went to and all the things he saw. He always took lots of pictures with his cell phone and would then send them to her so that she could be part of it too.
But after what she had done, and without even asking for his advice like she used to do before making any important decisions, he didn’t feel like talking to her because he knew he would be mean, just like he had been when she had first told him. She could be so stubborn when she wanted –she could be such a child sometimes. No, he wasn’t going to call her, not until he had thought about what he would say.
Still, he knew the grudge wouldn’t last long. He just couldn’t hold grudges toward her because she was much too important to him. He knew he couldn’t lose her or break their friendship for something they would surely be able to talk through once he was home.
And then, after the second show in Las Vegas, he knew he wouldn’t be able to take it any longer. As soon as he walked into his hotel room at two-thirty a.m. and was finally free from his manager, fans, and reporters, he slumped down on his bed and pressed her number on the speed dial, hoping she’d be awake and wouldn’t still be mad at him.
Thirty-one
“Now tell me why I should find out from tabloids that my best friend is dating someone!” she said, in full pout mode.
They had just made up after spending too many days without talking, but she was just about to start a new fight. She had thought that, no matter how famous he was now, he still considered her his best friend, but maybe she was a just a fool, dreaming things would never change.
“I meant to tell you once I came back, believe me. It sounded weird to talk about it over the phone. But I keep forgetting that I can never go anywhere without some reporters finding me; God knows how they do it!” He sighed and rolled onto his side in his queen-size bed in a fancy hotel in Las Vegas. “Please don’t take it to heart, Val. I’ve only known her for, like, a week or so.”
She was getting ready to go to work for the early morning shift, and she didn’t really feel like having an argument with him right now, especially since he had just apologized for being mean to her the last time they had spoken on the phone, so she decided to let it go.
“Okay,” she said, still a bit hurt by his behavior, but trying to fake her tone. “I guess we have a lot of catching up to do when you come home….When are you coming home, by the way?”
“I don’t know. Next week, I think.” He stretched and yawned, looking out the window at the bright lights of the city. “Tomorrow’s the last show in Vegas, and then we’ll head back to L.A. for a couple of interviews. I should be free after that, and I’d be home on Tuesday, if nothing changes.”
“As in, if you don’t decide to get married to the model while you’re in Vegas?” she teased, and she heard him guffaw on the other end of the line.
“Please, Val, don’t be silly!” He turned serious and went on, with a grown-up tone. “Besides, I couldn’t marry anyone who hadn’t been previously approved by you, and I’d expect you to do the same, of course!” She blushed and was glad he couldn’t see her, then she chuckled nervously. “What about that guy, what’s his name, Jake?” He asked and she blushed even harder.
“What about him?” she asked, pretending she hadn’t caught the meaning of his question.
“Oh c’mon, Valerie, I know you have a crush on him….” he trailed off, and she was tempted to hang up on him.
Of course she didn’t have a crush on Jake. He was only a colleague, a paramedic who had asked her out a couple of times for a drink, but she had never accepted. Well, she hadn’t really had the chance to accept, because she had always been either working overtime or studying when she was free. But she didn’t think she would go out with him anyway.
Okay, he was handsome and funny, and all the nurses in the ER found him very attractive, but that was about it. She didn’t have time for a guy right now. She had to study and work hard to get another specialization since she was giving up on the surgical career and had to work twice as hard as everyone else, so as not to throw everything out the window again.
