Clarity 4: After the Storm (2 page)

It was my greed. My insatiable ambition and
lust for material things I didn’t need. I let it control me. I can
only pray that my actions haven’t caused me to lose the only woman
I have ever loved.

The day before...

Turning the small velvet box over and over
in my hands, I consider its implications for my future.

Is this the right time? Is she the right
person? Does she think that
I
am the right person?

Would I be a good husband? I work all day
and night, and I’m barely at home, except to sleep. Sometimes, I
even end up doing most of my sleeping here in this miserable
hospital staff room. My few days off are spent recuperating. Would
the long hours eventually upset her and destroy us? But she is a
writer; a special kind of woman who barely notices the passage of
time. She has her nose in a book all day, and hardly ever misses
me. I don’t think I could ever find a partner more independent than
my Winter Rose.

Helen Winters.

Even though she prefers to be called by her
pen name, I still call her Helen in my head. Is that dishonest? Is
it just another one of the secrets and lies I keep bottled up that
will eventually kill our relationship? I usually don’t worry so
much, but when this little ring box is in my hand, all my fear and
anxiety boils up to the surface.

“Just propose already, Liam,” says a female
doctor with a groan.

I look up in surprise; I hadn’t even heard
her enter the break room.

Dr. Jennifer Keating smirks at me. “Better
finish your coffee, kid. You’re gonna need it in an hour or two.”
She pops open her own can of soda and begins chugging the
contents.

“Thanks, Jen,” I mumble, reaching for my
half-empty coffee cup. I take a large gulp of the cold, bitter
beverage, and make a face of disgust.

The middle-aged woman chuckles at me. She
reaches into her pocket and tosses me a small packet. “Caffeine
pills,” she explains. “I couldn’t survive without them.”

I nod, reaching for the stimulant
gratefully.

“Gotta go,” she tells me, heading for the
door. “Oh, and Liam? Happy birthday.”

I try to force a smile, but birthdays are a
sour subject for me.

“Owen won’t shut up about the party he’s
throwing for you,” Jennifer says. “What are you now?
Thirty-five?”

“Twenty-nine.”

She whistles. “Jesus! Way too young to be a
doctor. When I was your age, I was still getting laid as much as
possible on campus.”

I force a smile again as Jennifer leaves the
room. Of course she was. She came from a good family and never had
any problems with money. I had to work ten times harder than people
like her, and I’m still not where I want to be.

Am I even in a position to be thinking about
marriage?

Could I provide a good life for Helen? I
know she makes a little income from her writing, and her family is
loaded. But I don’t want her to depend on her father forever. I
want to
be
someone. I’ve never really had a penny to my
name. All my adult life, I’ve been buried up to my neck in filthy
debt. I’ve tried and tried to claw my way out by doing more than
any of my peers, and seizing every opportunity that came my way.
But where has that gotten me? I thought that once I finished school
and my residency and got a
real
job, things would
miraculously change.

It turns out that I was wrong.

All my life has been spent waiting. Waiting
and preparing for something that never came. Patience is simply not
my strong suit, yet I have been forced to exhibit so much patience
that I think it might drive me mad. It’s not enough that I had to
sacrifice my entire youth for a grueling decade of school. I took
no breaks, and crammed classes in as much as possible to make it go
faster, but it didn’t really make a difference. I still feel like I
spent the last ten years of my life in prison.

Now that I’m finally free, I still need to
be patient enough to wait for each measly paycheck. After my
mortgage, car loans, credit cards, and student loans, each paycheck
disappears the moment it hits my account. How can anyone live like
this? I know I’m not the only one, but that doesn’t make it any
easier.

Cracking the velvet box open, I study the
unusual ruby stone with a sigh. If my grandmother hadn’t given me
this ring before she died, I doubt I could even afford one. That
might have made things easier, no? If I didn’t have the ring, I
couldn’t even consider proposing.

It’s the indecision that’s killing me.

Life might be a little less hectic if I had
a private practice with regular hours. But that could realistically
be years and years away. What woman would be willing to suffer
through another decade of misery with me while I get my life
together? But Helen isn’t just any woman. She’s
the one
. If
I don’t ask now, could I lose my opportunity?

Helen has been changing lately. She’s no
longer the hesitant, paper-thin girl that I met in the woods a few
months ago. Since her eye surgery, and her judo lessons, she’s
developed a new confidence and boldness that I find incredibly
attractive. But her newfound strength and enthusiasm for life makes
me afraid that she won’t need me anymore. What if she only needed
me to help her heal—and now that she has healed, there’s no room
for me in her life?

Gazing down at the slender gold band in the
blue velvet box, I wonder if Helen would even like the ring. I
remember it resting on the hand of a kind old woman who loved her
vulgar son far too much. My eyebrows crease as I think of my
father.

“
If you’re gonna ask a woman for
somethin’, boy, you better ask her on your birthday,” says the
muscular man, hoisting a rifle onto his shoulder. “Can you believe
yer mother let me get this gun? It’s a beauty, that’s for
sure.”

“
Will you let me shoot it, Dad?” I ask in
excitement as I follow him into the woods. “Will you teach
me?”

Turning toward me with a sneer, my father
shoves his large boot firmly in my stomach, sending me hurtling
back to the ground. He then proceeds to spit on me.

“
A tiny piece of shit like you ain’t got
no business handling a man’s weapon. I reckon it weighs more than
you do,” he says bitterly. Then he pauses. “Come to think of it,
the only reason you’re here is because I begged yer mother to let
me fuck her on my eighteenth birthday. What a waste. I should have
just asked her for the damn gun instead. A gun doesn’t ruin your
life and burn through all your money by shitting in thousands of
diapers because it can’t use the fucking toilet.”

My lip trembles as I fight back tears. I
don’t even understand half of what he’s saying, but I know that
it’s mean. And I’m pretty sure that I finished potty training in
half the time it took other kids.

“
Are you gonna cry?” my father asks,
slapping the side of my face with the nozzle of his rifle. “Gonna
cry like a little girl?”

“
No, sir.”

Frowning at the memory, I abruptly shut the
ring box. Reaching for Jennifer’s caffeine pills, I pop one out of
the sheet and place it on my tongue. I then use my cold coffee to
gulp down the pill. Shoving the ring box back into my pocket, I
rise to my feet and begin pacing erratically across the break room
floor. I am sick and tired of preparing and waiting. I want to be
with Helen for the rest of my life, and I want her to know that
now.
If only I could get confirmation of the research grant
I applied to, I could feel secure enough for the next little while.
Maybe even secure enough to get engaged.

Maybe if I could speak to Helen’s
father...

Reaching for my phone that lies on the
table, I scroll through my contacts quickly.

I just need a little confirmation. I just
need a little security, and everything will be okay. Hesitating
cautiously for a minute, I finally begin calling Richard Winters. I
pace back and forth as it rings, and find myself entering the small
kitchenette that is attached to the break room. I lean on a
countertop, and finally the older man picks up.

“Liam, son,” he says in greeting. “How's the
birthday celebration going?”

“I needed to talk to you, sir,” I say with a
small gulp. I try to decide what to mention first: work, or
personal matters? I mentally flip a coin before blurting out the
most important subject. “It’s about Helen.”

I can almost hear the man stiffening and
frowning over the phone. “What about her?”

Placing my hand over the ring box in my
pocket, I wonder whether I should do this in person. But if I
tried, the older man might decide to take my head off with a
chainsaw. I am positive he’d manage to do it in an elegant and
gentlemanly fashion, but my head would roll nonetheless. Clearing
my throat, I gather every ounce of my courage.

“Sir, I just wanted to ask for your
blessing. I’m thinking of asking Helen to marry me.”

There is a pause on the other end of the
line. I listen to the silence keenly, trying to figure out what it
means. When I am almost certain that he’s going to refuse to give
me permission, I rapidly change the subject.

“I also wanted to ask you about the research
grant, Mr. Winters. The one you wrote the recommendation for?
They've been really slow to get back to me, and I'm getting a
little worried. Knowing that I’ll be a bit more financially stable
could really help ease my mind before getting married to your
daughter. I just want to know if there's any chance you might have
heard...”

“Yes,” says Mr. Winters quietly.
“Unfortunately, Liam, I never got around to writing you that
recommendation. You didn't exactly fulfill your end of the
bargain.”

Pausing, I feel my chest muscles tense up in
disbelief. “What? You didn't write it?”

“No. Why would I have? You took my daughter
away from me.”

“What are you talking about, sir? I have
been taking care of Helen, just like you asked. I have been trying
my best to be good for her...”

“You said that you would make sure that my
daughter and I had a good relationship,” the old man reminds me.
“But I haven't heard from Helen in weeks. You have been driving a
wedge between us.”

“I haven’t! I swear to you that I haven’t. I
have done everything in my power to try to get her to reconnect
with her family. It’s Helen’s choice to stay away—mainly because of
Grayson. If you understood the whole situation, you would want her
to be safe, too.”

“Safe? The safest place for my daughter is
with her family! You need to do what I asked, Liam. Say whatever
you need to say in order to mend my relationship with Helen. Do
whatever you need to do! I am her father, and I know what’s best
for her.”

“I don’t know if I can, sir. Helen is an
adult...”

“She will always be my little girl, Liam,
and I won’t let you take her away from me. If I need to ruin your
career to get her back, then I will.”

A violent chill runs down my spine. I know
that he actually could hurt me. “Mr. Winters,” I whisper.

“Shut up and listen to me, Liam—”

“No, you have to listen to me,” I say
sharply. “I can’t keep lying to your daughter like this! Helen is
smart, and she’s going to figure things out.”

“She won’t if you are discreet. I want my
daughter back, Liam. If you can’t give me what I want, then I can’t
give you what you want. Actually, I can take away everything you’ve
ever wanted. I could make you lose your license to practice
medicine by informing the authorities that you were sleeping with a
patient
while
she was your patient.”

“That’s not fair, Mr. Winters,” I say in a
shaking voice. I hate being manipulated by this man’s power and
money. I completely understand why Helen wanted to maintain her
distance. Unfortunately, I am in desperate need of his help. “You
promised you would use your influence to help me get this research
grant. It’s really critical to my career right now, and I’ve done
everything you asked. Can’t you just call the pharmaceutical
company and put in a good word for me? Is that really too much to
ask?”

He laughs lightly. “You want me to help you
get successful so that you can marry my daughter and help her build
a life that has nothing to do with me? I don’t think so, son.”

My anger begins bubbling up in my chest like
a geyser. “Didn’t I hunt Helen down like you wanted? Didn’t I
convince her to come back here with me? Didn’t I convince her to
stay here even when she wanted to leave? Didn’t I perform the
surgery like I promised I would? That was our deal. That’s all. I
have gone above and beyond, and risked my job to take care of your
daughter—that was never part of our bargain.”

“You accomplished a great deal, Liam. That
doesn’t change the fact that my daughter is completely ignoring my
phone calls. She might as well be in another country. She might as
well be dead to me! And now you want to
marry
her? She’ll
grow even more distant. I’ll never speak to her again!”