CHAPTER EIGHT
Langston
Thirty weeks later…
“Do you plan to stay another month?”
I finished chewing a huge bite of Obe Ata Dindin stew I was eating before answering Michael’s question. “I think so. We’re starting to make a real difference here.”
I’d already worked through my six-month commitment and was staying on, renewing a month at a time. Surgeons didn’t have to sign longer contracts like other varieties of physicians, so it gave me a little more freedom of choice, which I liked. I didn’t feel bound to the place with this arrangement. Plus, what was there to go home to?
She wouldn’t be there. My jaw clenched. Damn, I was still angry that I never heard from her. Why hadn’t I heard from her?
“You’re doing good work,” the medical staff leader said. “I’m happy to hear that you’re satisfied with our results.”
“I am. We need to get a handle on the cholera outbreak in the refugee camps, but that type of work is outside my wheelhouse. We’ll—”
Boom!
The entire table shook with the force of the blow, and the restaurant glass imploded, showering the customers sitting near it with an avalanche of glass.
It was my day off, and I’d gone into the city for an early dinner with a few of the other medical staff members. In Maiduguri, we didn’t travel at night. Today, we shouldn’t have traveled at all. We should have stayed in our camp.
But as the screaming started, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Grabbing my rucksack, I stayed low as I headed to those cut and bleeding on the restaurant floor. I heard the words, “Car bomb,” and knew I needed to get outside.
After making sure there were no serious injuries inside the restaurant, I headed toward the door. Sirens and screaming made everything more confusing as I assessed the burning vehicle down the street.
Boom!
A second explosion came about a hundred yards past the first one. The screaming intensified as pedestrians ran in all directions, some streaming past me and into the restaurant, hoping for a safe place to hide.
Adrenaline surged through my veins as I ran out onto the street, keeping low, the rucksack in front of me, the Kevlar lining acting as a minimally protective shield. There were no more explosions, so I edged closer and approached the first victim, then ran past him. He was clearly dead. I didn’t even stop to confirm the diagnosis. The wounds the man received were not compatible with life, and I needed to focus on those I could save.
Bodies littered the street, at least six dead that I could count. On the other side of the burning vehicle, I found a small child screaming underneath her mother. After a quick assessment, I knew the mother hadn’t made it, but I hoped she died knowing that she’d shielded and saved her child. The little one only suffered scrapes and bruises, and I hoped she was too young to ever remember this terrible day.
A woman in surgical scrubs grabbed the screaming toddler from my arms, and I went on to the next victim, then the next, then the next, stabilizing those I could, providing triage and sending those at most risk to the hospital first.
I cursed the limitations of what I could do with the limited supplies in my bag. I cursed the maniacs who had set off the bombs. Cursed whatever limited powers that be for allowing shit like this to happen to these innocent people. These weren’t soldiers who had signed up for a bloody war. These were human beings just trying to make a life out of their limited means.
It was hours later before I was transported back to camp, blood stiffening my clothes. I stripped and went straight to the shower, letting the cool water cascade over my head as bone-deep weariness stamped its booted foot on me.
The last time I remembered feeling this exhausted, I met her. Kissed her. Fucked her into a near coma. Left her lying in that bed, hope filling my chest that I would see her again.
Even as my cock stiffened at the memory of her, the taste of her, the sound of her laughter filling my head, the rage stiffened my shoulders that I’d never heard from her after that night. I had no right to be angry. We had made no promises to each other. She hadn’t even gifted me with her name.
Still… the way she had looked at me hadn’t been pretend. The way our lips hungered for each other. It had not been make believe. I wasn’t dressing up or exaggerating the powerful connection we had between us in my mind. It was there. I’d known it the moment I saw her. I thought she had felt it too. I had thought wrong.
The water was cold as it trickled from the showerhead, but I continued to stand there while my cock deflated, a direct reflection of my sagging spirit.
I’d come to do a job, and I’d been doing it well. I was in the right place at the right time today to help save a few innocent lives, but there would be more to save tomorrow and the next day, and the next.
I was just tired, the aftermath of so much adrenaline surging through me earlier. Harder than necessary, I soaped my hair and body twice before shivering through the final rinse. I stepped out, toweled off, and pulled on a pair of boxers and shorts. I didn’t bother with a shirt. Although it was night, it was still hotter than hell, dipping from a daytime high near one hundred and ten degrees to a “refreshing” nighttime temperature in the eighties.
Falling onto my cot, I’d barely laid my head down when a knock sounded at the door. “Just a minute.” I cursed, shoved back up to my feet, and pulled on a relatively clean t-shirt I found in a stack on the tiny table in the room.
I opened the door to find Jesse, one of the administrative assistants, at my door. The moment she laid eyes on me, she scowled. “You look like hell.”
I leaned against the doorframe, too tired to do anything else. “Been a suck-ass day.”
She nodded, the gray-streaked bun she always wore on top of her head doing a little dance with the movement. “I heard. Sorry to bother you, but you’ve got a phone call and—”
“Take a message. I—”
She held out a hand. “They say it’s urgent. Apparently, they called your cell a number of times, but it went straight to voice mail.” Her dark eyes turned serious. “It’s your mother.”
I didn’t think I had any adrenaline left in my body, but a shot of it hit me, making my heart begin to pound hard. “I was gone longer than I’d planned today. The battery died on my phone.” I stuffed my feet into my shoes and followed Jesse to the admin building.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
She was talking, but she was also crying too hard for me to understand the words. I heard someone speaking in the background then another voice came onto the line.
“Lang…” It was Josh, and fear took another bite out of me.
“What’s going on?”
He cleared his throat. “You’ve got to come home. It’s your dad.”
The universe tilted sideways, and I fought to stay upright, then began to pace, going as far as the corded phone would allow. “Is he…?” I couldn’t finish it. I’d seen too much death today. And my father was invincible. He was supposed to live another few decades, at least.
“No, but it’s bad.” His voice was low now, and I could hear his footsteps as he walked away from my sobbing mother. “Lang, he’s suffered a stroke. A serious one. He’s had surgery to remove the clot, and he’s in ICU. He’s on a ventilator. They don’t know…”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I knew the words he didn’t say. They didn’t know how much time my father had left.
I turned to find Jesse looking at me, her motherly face filled with concern. “I’ll be on the next flight out.” Jesse understood and scurried behind her desk to begin clicking on her keyboard. I swallowed hard. “Tell him to hang on for me,” I told Josh, my throat closing. I had to clear it a few times before I could continue. “Take care of Mom.”
“I will. I won’t leave her. I promise.”
“Thanks, man.”
I set the phone down in its cradle and sank into the chair by Jesse’s desk, dropping my face in my hands. She was still clicking. “I can get you on a flight in three hours,” she said, peering at the screen.
“I’ll take it.”
She looked up at me, sympathy written all over her face. “It’s rough. Five stops. You won’t get there until tomorrow night.”
I shrugged and tried to rub the tension out of the back of my neck. “Book it and bill me. Any paperwork I need to complete before I leave?”
She shook her head. “You’ve stayed longer than anyone expected you to. You haven’t signed the next contract yet, so nothing holding you to us.”
I didn’t tell her that I’d been planning on a year. Didn’t tell her I’d hoped that a certain wild-haired redhead would be wanting me back in half that time. None of that mattered anymore.
My father was dying from the sound of it, and even if he was able to live, the stroke would take him out of the operating room, out of the profession he loved so much.
That left me. I was going back to New York. Permanently.
I would be taking over my father’s practice.
And I’d be doing it alone. Without her.
***
“Mom.”
Her head raised and red-rimmed eyes stared at me for the longest moment. As she rose to her feet, I moved to her quickly, afraid she would fall. Mom collapsed into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably. I held her close, knowing I looked and smelled like hell while also knowing she wouldn’t care.
Josh was there, and I had a hard time looking his way. He was going to tell me that I hadn’t made it in time, I just knew it. But when I finally looked, my friend clamped a hand on my shoulder, giving the tight muscle a hard squeeze. “He’s still hanging in there, Lang.” He took Mom by the shoulders and lowered her in the chair. “Go ahead. I’ll wait with her here.”
Nodding my thanks, I dropped my bags on the floor and headed to the intensive care unit. The familiar nurses shot me looks of sympathy as I walked through the doors.
One came closer and waved her hand toward room eight, giving me a kind smile. Then I was there, staring at a man who wasn’t familiar. He was the ghost of the man I knew less than nine months ago.
On shaky legs, I pulled his chart off the wall, then went inside and collapsed into a chair, refusing to look at all the monitors and machines. This was one of those times that I hated being a doctor. I knew what everything meant. Every number. Every bag hanging from the IV pole.
“Hi, Dad. It’s me, Langston. I’m here.”
Nothing. Just the hiss of the respirator breathing in and out for him.
“I’m sorry I left, Dad.” Guilt crushed my vocal cords, making it hard to speak. “If I’d stayed, you could have retired or cut back, something that could have reduced your stress. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
This was the conversation I’d had over and over in my mind on the plane. I was a selfish bastard of a son going off the way I had. I knew that he seemed tired at my going away party. I should have paid more attention. I should have stayed, dammit. Taken off some of the burden. I could have given Doctors Beyond Borders a big-ass check, torn up my contract, and planted my ass where it belonged. Right here.
If I hadn’t been so selfish, Dad would have had many more years to live.
And maybe my little redheaded witch would still be by my side.
That word again. Maybe. A word that didn’t change the reality of my present situation no matter how much I wanted it to do so.
I dropped my face in my hands, scratched at the itchy growth of hair on my face. Sitting back up, I opened Dad’s chart and began to read.
It was bad.
My father was dying. No, unofficially, he was already gone. Medicine and machines were the only things giving him the pretense of life.
“Langston.”
I looked up to find Dr. Ramaprasad at the door. I stood and held out a hand. “Arturo, hello. Wish I could say it was good to see you.”
Dad’s old friend attempted a smile, but it failed to remain on his weary-looking face. “Wish I could say the same, son.”
No bigger than five-four, I towered over the older man, but he was the powerful one in the room. Every physician in New York liked and respected the man before me, almost as much as I did. I’d known him my entire life.
“I’m sorry, Langston,” he said, his hand curling around the metal railing of Dad’s bed. “I wish there was something more we could do.”
I nodded. “You did. You kept him alive long enough for me to get here. Gave me a chance to say goodbye.”
Tears shone in his eyes, just as I knew they were doing in mine.
“Take all the time you need. Your mother understands the situation and agreed to this extension of your father’s life. Let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll let him go.”
It was surreal.
I thanked Arturo and turned back to Dad’s bed, practically falling into the seat beside him.
Lonely.
Why did so many of my thoughts swing back around to her, especially in quiet moments like this? Why did she have to haunt my dreams and days with her crazy hair and bright blue eyes? Why hadn’t she called? The question was like a worm tunneling through my mind.
“Dad, I know you wanted to see me settle down, and I will. I promise. In fact, I thought I’d found someone who could step into that role, but it didn’t work out.” I took his hand. It was rough and callused like mine. “But that’s progress, isn’t it? A damn big step from total avoidance of women to me seeing a little possibility for a future relationship.” If she had fucking called my number. “That should give you a little hope in me yet.”
I exhaled a long breath, wishing he could do something to show me he was listening, was hearing me. Understood. There was only the lift and lower of his chest as the machine did the work for him.
“Looks like I have another big step in front of me too. Filling your shoes. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so reluctant to come back here. I’ve been afraid I couldn’t measure up to you.” I squeezed his hand. “I’ll try, Dad. I’ll do my best to not let you down. I’m back, and I’m staying, so you rest easy about that.”
The heart rate didn’t change. There was no movement. Nothing.
“I hope you’ll forgive me.”
A soft hand came down on my shoulder. I hadn’t heard my mother enter, and if I hadn’t been so tired, I would have jumped out of my skin at her touch.
“There’s nothing to forgive, Langston, sweetheart,” she told me, wiping at the tears in her eyes. “Your father loves you very much and was… is… very proud of the man you’ve become. He was even proud of your desire to do things your way, and he also knew you’d come back if needed.”
I wished I could believe that.
“I shouldn’t have gone away, Mom. I should have stayed here and helped him. Taken some of the burden off.”
She gave a dry laugh that sounded so brittle it could break apart and be swept away with the wind. “Sweetheart,” she said softly, stroking her hand through my hair. “Even if you had come back, your father wouldn’t have retired or even cut back on his schedule. He loved his patients. Loved the operating room. You know that.”
I nodded. She was right.
But the guilt stayed with me as the medical staff turned off the machines, giving my father the rest he deserved. It stayed as I helped Mom with the funeral arrangements. Grew even deeper as we dealt with the aftermath at his practice. His patients. His schedule.
The life he had worked so hard to build was now lying firmly in the palms of my much weaker hands.
There were a million things to do, and they all fell on my shoulders, so I took a deep breath and soldiered through them all. When the burial was over, I drove Mom and my grandparents to the house on King’s Point, where she had decided to stay for a while, needing to get away from the city and the endless memories there.
I couldn’t stay with her. There was too much work to be done. My only solace was the cottage house, which had been restored beyond my imagination. The floors gleamed through the expansive three-floor home. The floor-to-ceiling windows flooded the entire place with light.
The decorator wasn’t done yet, but she had promised to at least have the master bedroom furnished by the time I made it back from King’s Point. I could have stayed in the penthouse, but that wasn’t where I wanted to be.
I walked into the master bedroom and stared at the vintage panel bed, the dark charcoal contrasting nicely against the softer shade of the walls. The decorator had done well. Subtle carvings didn’t detract from the masculinity of the piece. She’d made it up with crisp-looking sheets, blankets, and a comforter I probably would never use.
As beautiful as the room was, it was… lonely.
As was I.
It needed a pop of red. A hint of blue. It needed laughter and soft gasps.
Sleep was a long time coming as my mind conjured my mystery woman beside me, then she faded like a ghost in the night.