Chapter Two
Boyd scanned the white walls hoping he could concentrate on something other than the antiseptic smell and the glint of all that metal on the tray next to her.
“Okay,” Dr. Walters said, finally done with what Boyd prayed was the last round of poking and cleaning his hand. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and turned to a computer jutting from the wall.
“Was there alcohol in the keggle when you cut your hand?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I’m assuming everything in your… happy space is sterile?”
He nodded.
“Even better. When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”
He tried not to squirm at the mention of a shot, but his son’s last immunizations were years ago and it had been even longer since Boyd had been near a needle himself. Tetanus? Was that the big painful one or the one where they put the bubble under the skin? Christ, that one was nasty.
“No idea,” he said, going for aloof.
She washed her hands again and with her back to him, Boyd noticed where her hair gathered at the base of her neck. Long. Her neck was long. In fact, everything on her was long. Even though Petaluma wasn’t a small town, per se, it was a close-knit community. He was used to seeing familiar faces. Ever since he was a kid, anyone out of the ordinary was intriguing. That’s why he was noticing her, he rationalized; she was unfamiliar. She might have lived here forever, he thought. How would he know? It’s not like he hung around with the hospital crowd.
“Are you new?” He heard his voice before realizing his mouth moved.
“I’m sorry?” She was still typing.
“Nothing. How much longer do you think I’ll be?”
She turned to him, a strained curve to her lips, and pushed the glasses up again. She was pretty. What the hell? Had she given him something for the pain already?
“I’ll get you out of here as fast as I can. To be safe, I’d like you to have a tetanus shot and then I’ll stitch your hand. I’m going to numb it first because I’ll need to trim the skin.”
That time, he did squirm. She noticed and placed a hand on his shoulder. She seemed almost awkward at the physical contact. Wasn’t physical her business?
Whatever was going on with her, Boyd felt awareness. That was the only way to explain it. The sugar on her breath, the way her hair managed to look messy but contained at the same time. Her short nails and her narrow shoulders. Everything was in clear focus.
Obviously, he was in pain and she was a medical professional.
“Right, that explains it,” he said out loud again.
“Explains what?”
“I… was saying it’s great that you explained about the skin.”
“You won’t feel me trimming, but the cut is pretty jagged,” she continued.
“Great. Less information is better.”
“A couple more questions. Do you drink?”
“A little.”
Dr. Walters’s expression said she didn’t want to be asking the questions any more than he wanted to answer. He guessed some guy with a cut on his hand was not the most exciting thing for an ER doc. They both wanted this over with, a common goal.
“Smoke?” she asked, eyes back on the monitor.
“Used to.”
She closed her eyes and rolled her neck. Now that was hot. Boyd gave up trying to understand the sudden interest. All he knew was looking at her was more constructive than freaking out like a kid over some impending shot.
“Okay, Mr. McNaughton.”
“Boyd.”
“Okay, Boyd. I’m going to level with you. Connect, if you will. I’m tired. I’m sure a business owner such as yourself can appreciate exhaustion. I have no nurse, and I desperately need a bagel sandwich. It’s clear you are the guy who rarely uses Band-Aids. You hate hospitals and the people who work in them. I get it, believe me, but I’d really like to stitch up that hand before the caffeine wears off and I get loopy and forget all the fun stuff I learned in medical school. I think you’d like that too. So, maybe you could help me out here by being a little more forthcoming?”
She attempted to mask her impatience with another strained grin, but Boyd recognized the look. He was on “thin ice” as his mother used to say.
“Maybe you should sit back, make yourself more comfortable?” she said.
“That’s not going to happen until I’m out of here.”
“Noted. On a scale of one to ten, one being a nuisance and ten being excruciating, can you tell me your pain? Minus your anger at the candy-ass.”
“Six.”
“So, pretty painful.”
“I said a six, that’s middle of the road.”
“Yes, it is.” She appeared to tab through a few more fields on the computer. “But men tend to feign a high threshold for pain, so your six is closer to an eight.” She put the buds of her scope into her ears and took them back out.
“This is only a suture,” she mumbled, seemingly going through a mental checklist. “I do need a temp though, so open up.” She pulled a stick attached to a curly cord from a box on the counter. Right when Boyd thought he couldn’t feel any more awkward, she placed what he now recognized as a thermometer under his tongue. Holding the thermometer secure in his mouth, she checked her watch. She smelled like vanilla, or maybe pralines. She’d recently had a Coke, he could smell the syrup. Fancy watch, he noticed. Definitely not a local.
The stick beeped. She took it from his mouth, ejected a plastic piece into the trash, and returned to the computer.
“Are these questions for the pain medication? What if I don’t need the meds?” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Ella hit the enter button and returned her attention to him.
“I don’t need anything for pain. Can someone stitch me up?”
Ella nodded. “That someone will be me and these questions should have been asked when you first arrived. I’m sorry, we’re playing catch-up here. Everything has steps. We don’t have to like them, but I need to do them.”
Boyd took in a breath and let it out slowly. He was rushing her, and he hated it when people rushed him. It wasn’t her fault he’d cut his hand or that for some reason she didn’t have a nurse.
“Brett’s Bagels, is that where you get your bagel?” he asked, hoping to change direction.
She smiled, a completely unplanned smile, and holy hell they were suddenly somewhere outside the sterile walls of the hospital. Pretty wasn’t the right word. Her face was sunshine peeking through pine trees on the best camping trip. The creases at her eyes spoke to her long nights but took nothing away from her flushed cheeks. She was beautiful and he wasn’t making her job any easier.
“Best bagels in town,” she said, as if he’d handed her one wrapped in their signature white butcher paper.
“Only bagels in town,” he finished Brett’s tag line. That almost curved his lips into a smile too. Almost. “I brew beer, so I do a fair amount of testing on the job, but I don’t drink more than eight ounces a day socially, maybe sixteen on weekends. I smoked a pack a day from sixteen until the baby… until I was twenty-three. I want to smoke every day, but I don’t. Better?”
He was rewarded with an even deeper smile. He must have lost more blood than he thought because he could not remember the last time he’d noticed the specifics of a woman.
“Yes. Thank you. I’ll be right back and we’ll get you stitched up.”
He scooted farther back on the bed. He would be here for a while and that was all there was to it.
True to her word, Dr. Walters returned and gave him a quick shot, the needle not nearly as long as he’d imagined. When she started stitching him up, or “trimming the skin,” as she’d put it, Boyd looked away.
Curiosity got the better of him a few minutes in and when he glanced over, his eyes met hers over her dark-rimmed glasses. She was probably checking to make certain he hadn’t passed out. Lights now brighter, he figured out the color of her eyes at last—stout. That last detail arrived unwelcome. It hit too close to home, too close to his life’s work as their worlds somehow meshed for a moment.
Boyd knew his place and he turned away, bringing his attention back to the water safety poster on the opposite wall instead of the stitches or the contrasting flecks in her eyes. His hand was numb, but the tug of the stitches was unnerving. He might have to kill Patrick with his left hand when he finally made it back to the brewery.
There were half a dozen shades of stout, and his thoughts betrayed him again. It was one of his favorite brews. Her eyes were more of an oatmeal stout, deep brown with a hint of amber, kind of like last year’s Golden Polish. That was a good year. Great beer. Great eyes. He allowed himself one more look.
Dr. Edwin Campbell finally showed up for his shift looking rested and tan. The big jerk. After hurried rounds of the whopping two patients they had, and returning a phone call from one of the guys in radiology, Ella changed out of her scrubs and threw the wide strap of her bag over her shoulder before backing out of the emergency room into the filtered light of an overcast afternoon.
Petaluma was special. For months after she’d arrived, she had missed the buzz of San Francisco. More accurately the buzz of Zuckerberg San Francisco General’s Trauma Center, but she’d come to appreciate the recurrent flapping of the flags overhead and the hum of shop owners and locals readying for the day or closing for the evening, depending on which shift delivered her back out into the fresh air.
If San Francisco was a five-lane freeway during rush hour, Petaluma was a small country road. A detour, she thought, which was exactly what she had needed when her ordered and methodical world had tilted on its side. Until that tilt, she couldn’t remember a time after graduating from UCLA Medical School when she hadn’t been at General. She interned there summers while she was in school and served her entire residency under the talent of their trauma team. The training and experiences had made her “one hell of a doctor” according to any of her colleagues. The accolades should have bred arrogance, but Ella grew up in a family that caused her to question her every move. There was little margin for error as far back as the second grade, so she was more than prepared for the rigors of medical school.
Ella was practically born to lead a trauma center until the day, 9:53 in the evening to be exact, when what she’d known for certain turned fuzzy. Once the dust settled, she retraced all the pieces to understand how she’d arrived at such a place in her life. After some time and distance, she’d come to believe it was difficult for anyone to see around a lie, but even two years out, her conscience still hinted that she’d played a part in keeping the deceit alive.
Ella possessed a lifelong need to dissect the “how” and “why” of things. She’d been born with what her high school biology teacher termed “intellectual curiosity,” but the day she left for Petaluma had nothing to do with intellect and everything to do with getting out from under the weight of disgust before the shame swallowed her whole.
She paid the girl behind the counter at Brett’s Bagels and dug into the brown paper bag before she started her car. The first bite was heaven and when she washed it down with strong coffee, all was right with the world. Closing her eyes, she allowed the warmth to ease her exhaustion, but in the next moment, she put her seat belt on and drove home before she fell asleep in the parking lot.
Everything about her life in San Francisco had suited her. Her work was intense and rewarding. Cherry on top, she was in a relationship with an exciting man who was equally as committed to his career. On the surface, a full and accomplished life stretched out before her and when one of her pillars crumbled, she realized the whole thing was interdependent. That, and all her adult years had been spent sterile and cold. She was a name tag, a curriculum vitae and predictably, she drew those same types of people into her circle. Once Ella had examined all the pieces, the shock that she was made of the same material as her father nearly brought her to her knees.
“Never shit where you eat, Ella Marie,” had been her father’s advice, which was delivered via speakerphone and always with a dash of reproach. “This is no one’s business. You are the head of their blood and guts department. Keep that position, do you hear me? It’s certainly not your fault you’re a silly woman. Roll of the birth dice, dear. No need to throw away your perfectly pricey degrees.”
She understood that most people would cower at his comments. Ella had certainly seen enough of her father’s associates recoil, but she was used to it, had been raised on it. For an instant, she thought to mention that her father hadn’t paid one cent for her education. That she’d earned a full ride and worked through college and medical school, but there was no point. The man was an unyielding wall, devoid of any warmth or shared experience. Before she succumbed to the same fate, she had resigned—to the utter disappointment of her department and much to her father’s fury.
The better part of the two weeks that followed had been a blur. Sleeping on her couch and then the floor, the still-fresh shock overshadowing the logistics of uprooting everything. By the time the last of her boxes were loaded onto the moving van, she had found enough footing to propel herself north and settle into the riverside town of Petaluma. That was over two years ago and while the sound of a helicopter overhead still made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up in exhilaration, the human being in Ella, the woman, had no regrets.
Pulling up to her house, she realized she thought more about the past when she was tired. She had taken a scalding hot mental shower years ago that should have erased the parts and pieces of a life she no longer wanted to miss, but the mind was fascinating in its capacity to hold on to memories. Fortunately, the heart was resilient. Through pain and scars, it kept beating. Ella had seen it firsthand. A seemingly dead heart could spring to life in an instant under the proper care.
She clicked the button to lock her car and tossed her breakfast trash into the green can she’d left on the curb before work. It was empty now and she should have left it there and gone straight to bed, but Ella liked a tidy home, so she mustered the strength to pull the can to the side of her carport. Enjoying the sound of the chirping birds overhead and the smells of early spring, she pulled open her black mailbox, grabbed the stack of what felt like mostly catalogues, and shuffled up the small walk to her “little cottage,” as her mother, another thoughtless soul, had put it when she’d viewed Ella’s home online.
It was quiet on her street. She valued the extras in her life now, the stability of being alone. She dropped her bag by the front door, tossed her mail on the table, turned the lock, and barely made it into the pajamas hanging on the hook in her bathroom. After brushing her teeth, she ignored the urge to floss as she climbed under the covers and buried her face in the relief and isolation of her down pillows. There was no way of knowing her last thought because before her mental list of what she’d done right and wrong in the last twenty-four hours had a chance to take hold, Ella was asleep.