Destroy (A Standalone Romance Novel) (24 page)

That afternoon we
dedicated most of our time to doing the laundry, cooking for the week and
catching up on some studying. By ten o’clock, I was ready to call it a day. We
hardly talked about my date with Jeff. I knew Tiffany was still mad at me for
accepting to go out with him, so I let it go at a simple comment like, “Yes, it
was nice. We had a good time.” Nothing more.

On Monday, I was bright
and bushy-tailed, ready to tackle the week. Dr. Kerry gave me my new assignment
sheet, saying, “I believe Dr. Aldridge already told you you’ll be working with
him this week.” I nodded. “So, no need for me to remind you that you need to
assist him in every type of surgery he undertakes. Okay?”

“Yes, Dr. Kerry. I think
I’m ready.”

“Well, I hope so, because
you’ll have a lot to learn in one week. And the hours may be long. So, try
keeping up with the pace, that’s all we can ask.”

I knew this was going to
be a very difficult assignment for me. The lengthy hours were a concern, of
course, but most of all, working with Jeff day in and day out worried me.

There was no way I would
be able to avoid grabbing his hand or kissing him when no one was looking or
even having a quickie in some hidden corner of the hospital. This was going to
be hard.

As soon as we started,
not even an hour into it, Jeff got a call to perform an emergency surgery on a
small child. He was in a bad way. He had peritonitis, meaning his appendix had
burst open and Jeff needed to intervene,
now!

It seemed that we were
scrubbed and ready in mere minutes. When the nurses’
aids
pushed the gurney out of the elevator, I saw two things. First, Jeff’s face
paled, and second, Tiffany was the attending physician. There was no time to
waste in asking questions. The life of our little patient hung in the balance.
We had to be fast.

Jeff and I worked across
the table from each other while Tiffany observed the procedure and closed the
abdominal incision when we were done. It didn’t take long, but in this
particular case, we didn’t have a moment to waste.

As we were going down the
hallway after we had shed our surgical robes, Tiffany asked Jeff quite a few
pertinent questions regarding the procedure. She took a recording of Jeff’s
answers and smiled to the both of us, before saying, “I’ll see you at home.
Don’t be too late, okay?”

I could have killed her
on the spot. She was still giggling as she retreated to the elevator.

Jeff was staring at me
when Tiffany was gone. I lowered my gaze and then raised it to his querying
eyes. “What do you want me to say? That I am sorry for talking to my
girlfriend? That I found the whole incident puzzling? That I cannot prevent
Tiffany from mocking me and the situation in which I find myself?”

Jeff shook his head. “I
know, Heather. I know what you’re saying, believe me I do. But when you told me
that you can’t resist my kisses, I believed you. And if I told you that I can’t
resist you either, would you understand what I’m saying. You’re like pollen to
a bee, Heather. I have to pollinate you. I have to make love to you. You’re my
pacifier. You’re my peace of mind.”

We fell silent for a
moment.

“Can I ask you a
question?”

“Sure. You can ask
anything you want. I’ll give you an answer if I know it.”

“Why didn’t you ask me
for my phone number when you left me stranded in New York? If I am the woman
you wanted, why didn’t you try finding me?”

“I thought it was
impossible. I could have searched for you had I known that you were a qualified
physician. But since we didn’t talk about our profession at all that night; I
was at a loss to know how I would be able to find you.”

“But you didn’t try
either, did you?”

“Guilty as charged,” he
replied, cracking a tentative smile.

Three days into the week,
we were walking out of the ICU and down the stairwell to return to the dungeon,
when Jeff took me in his arms and slammed me against the wall. We were kissing
feverishly when we heard the door on the upper floor open. We parted our
bodies, but we were still in an awkward, if not suspicious position, especially
when we realized that Elizabeth was coming down the stairs. Had she seen us? I
didn’t think so, but no women would ignore the way we faced each other.

I wasn’t ready to provide
an explanation to anyone. I simply ran down the stairs and stopped after
opening the basement door. Meanwhile I heard Elizabeth’s comments to Jeff. She
was not happy.

“Is that what you’re
doing with our interns?” she demanded. “How old are you, for goodness’ sake?”

“I’m sorry, Liz, but I
wasn’t flirting. Dr. Williams was explaining how the last child we operated on
reminded her of the little boy she lost when we had the bus emergency.”

“Okay, okay. I know all
about it. But you should know better than exposing yourself to a sexual
harassment suit, don’t you?”

I couldn’t hear Jeff’s
answer. Suffice to say that the incident cooled me off.
Sexual harassment
? Now there was a thought. Although I could never
imagine suing anyone for that sort of thing, Jeff had kept the possibility in
mind, obviously. Had he been sued before?

“So, you got caught, did
you?” Tiffany asked me that night.

“Yeah, we almost did,
that is. I don’t think she saw us kissing each other, but she surely saw that
we were together on the landing.”

“So, are you going to
cool your heels a little?”

We were “slurping” some
spaghetti Bolognese with sauce dripping on our bibs. It was hilarious to watch,
but I wasn’t in any mood to laugh. I felt as if I had gone into a cage
willingly and now I couldn’t convince myself to get out – even with the door
wide-open. A terrible feeling.

“I guess I’ll have to.
But there is something Elizabeth said that gave me pause.”

“What? What did she say?”

“She said that he should
be careful not to be sued for sexual harassment. That made me wonder if he had
ever been in court for that sort of thing. Do you think there’s a way to find
out if he’s been sued?”

“
Mmm
,
yes,” Tiffany answered, slurping another forkful of spaghetti. “I can talk to
my dad. He’s a lawyer. He can certainly find out for us.”

“Without telling him
who’s interested in finding out, of course?”

“Of course. Besides, my
dad is discretion personified. He’ll describe an entire court case without
divulging a single name or location. I tell you, no one can beat my dad as far
as discretion is concerned.”

“Sounds like the right
person to talk to.”

The following two days
were spent in interesting work, with only a couple of times where I grabbed Jeff’s
hand and kissed it. I knew he didn’t want a repeat incident. Otherwise, we
worked very well together. It was pleasant to discuss every case we handled and
my recording our conversations helped a great deal when it came to my studying.

On Friday night, Jeff had
left the scrub room just before I did. I walked down the hall leading to the
locker room and heard his voice through the door. When I heard Elizabeth’s
reply, I froze.

“Are you telling me that
you aren’t having an affair, when I saw you with her on the stairs’ landing?
You were kissing her, weren’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t,” Jeff said
in a low voice.

“Liar! I am telling you,
I saw you. I couldn’t believe it at the time, but when I revisited the incident
in my mind, I was sure that you kissed her. And you know why I’m so sure?”

“Why?” Jeff asked, his
tone still subdued.

“Because that’s exactly
what we did when we first met. Remember our sneaking around the hospital
whenever we could? We made out in the hallways, the washrooms, and even in the
lounge behind locked doors. Do you remember those days, Jeff?”

“Why don’t you stop it,
Liz? You’ve been after me since the other day.” His voice rose a few decibels
now. “You’re like a dog with a bone. You can’t let go, can you? But I can. I’ve
had enough.”

“And I haven’t, Jeff.”
She paused, while I wondered if he was taking her in his arms to calm her down.
But then she went at him again. “You’ve changed, Jeff. You know that?”

“How have I changed? Just
tell me that. And maybe you can tell me how you stayed the same. Don’t even try
explaining, Liz. I already know how your mind works.”

“Well, let me repeat
myself then. You have changed in ways that I couldn’t even imagine possible.
Since our son died in that stupid car accident, you’re trying to recapture all
we’ve lost. And that, Jeff, is impossible.”

I couldn’t listen
anymore. I was dumfounded. The boy he had lost, the boy he couldn’t save that
Corey told us about, was his own son.
Oh
my God! Oh my dear Lord.

I felt a total fool. A
selfish idiot. The man needed consoling arms. He needed love and understanding,
and all I was giving him was grief and a bit of sexual satisfaction. He was
trying to escape a marriage that had been destroyed by the loss of his son. At
that moment, I wanted to run out and cry my eyes out for him, for Elizabeth,
and for their son.

Chapter
26

Yet, as if I was glued on
the spot, tears running down my cheeks, I returned to listening to Elizabeth’s
ranting. She was not giving him an inch; only an entire length of rope with
which to hang himself.

“You’re nothing but a
self-centered bastard, Jeff. Do you think for one moment that I have not
suffered since Daniel died? Do you think you’re the only one who shed tears for
him? I’ve got news for you, Dr. Aldridge, I was his mother: remember? And as such,
I have a huge hole in my heart that you will never be able to fill. Daniel is
gone and now you are too!”

With these words,
Elizabeth burst through the locker room’s door and glared at me as she marched
out to the elevators. Stunned as I was, I could not move. I watched her getting
into the elevator and wondered how I was going to survive the next day or the
rest of my life. This was the type of thing I feared the most: being embroiled
in a scandal from which no one comes out unscathed. I leaned against the wall
and wiped my eyes with the Kleenex I fetched out of my pocket. At the same
moment, Jeff came out of the locker room. He stared at me for a fraction of a
second before blurting out something that sounded much like an apology. I
didn’t want to hear it.

“Sorry, Dr. Aldridge, but
I’ve got a patient waiting for me upstairs. I’ll talk to you later,” I said,
rushing off to the nearby stairwell.

I hoped Jeff knew better
than to follow me. I was in no mood to talk to him. I do believe that if he
had, one of two things might have happened: I would have pushed him down the
stairs out of pure unadulterated rage or I would have kicked him in the nuts
for his trouble. Neither instance would have served any purpose, except perhaps
to assuage my anger against him.

Of course, I could not
deny that I was truly attracted to the man, but good sex can be found anywhere
if one knows where to look. However, a good man with the loving qualities Jeff
didn’t seem to possess is not easily found, no matter where you look.

For the moment, I had
slotted Jeff in the first category. He was marvelous in bed, but his emotional
conduct toward his wife in the wake of his son’s loss was appalling. I didn’t
understand why he couldn’t return in the arms of the woman he once loved and
who was the mother of his child.

Yet in medicine, you see
all sorts of situations, which are very hard to understand as long as you have
not experienced a similar ordeal. Research shows that the loss of a child in
extremely sudden and difficult circumstances can create a rift between the
parents. The rift can rarely be closed. The same thing occurs when women
undergo cancer surgery and become ghosts of their former selves. Often times
the husbands move away or divorce the women they once loved with all their
hearts and souls. The distancing is irreparable in most cases. Jeff was
distancing himself from his wife for inexplicable reasons. He wanted out of the
marriage. He wanted out of the nightmare. He could not understand that the only
person who could probably repair his broken heart was his wife, simply because
she knew only too well what he was going through.

However, Elizabeth had
possibly tried everything she knew as a remedy to their physical separation
without realizing that all of her attempts were futile. And if delaying the
signing of the divorce papers was her way of trying to plead for Jeff’s
patience or understanding, perhaps hoping the hurt of his son’s death would
diminish, she was terribly mistaken. He saw her actions as a further hurt. Her
delaying tactics was pushing him further away from her every single minute of
every day. She should have known better.

Nevertheless, who was I
to judge? I could not be blaming the man for his conduct since I had never lost
a child of my own. I could only sympathize with the feeling of loss. When the
little boy died in my arms, I had a glimpse of what Jeff and Elizabeth must
have felt when they lost their son. But it was only a glimpse. I overcame the
ordeal in a few days. When his little sister left the children’s ward with her
parents, that’s the last I saw of the family, and that would probably be the
last time I would have any contact with them. But for Jeff and Elizabeth, the
hurt is always present. It’s there when they go home. The ghost of their son
occupies their thoughts and every inch of their home. There is no way I could
survive and endure such suffering for any length of time. I would try escaping
the house, the reminders of my son’s presence as fast and as often as I could.