The surgeon entered the room and crossed the floor to the side of Danni’s bed. She stared down at the woman sound asleep, gauging the space left in the bed. ‘There’s enough room. I could just lie down beside her and…’ Garrett shook her head and let a lung full of air escape out of her mouth. ‘What are you thinking, Trivoli. Don’t be stupid.’
She picked up the journal from Danni’s hand and tucked the covers around the young woman’s body. "Night, my friend," she whispered and smoothed out a stray lock of hair on the blonde’s forehead. Turning to the nightstand, she flipped over the journal and started reading the lines on the page where Danni had left off before sleep overtook her.
The two bodies seemed to morph from one into two and then back again. Each time, a little more of one became part of the other until after a while they could no longer be seen as two distinct people but rather only as one soul, housed in two bodies.
Garrett set the book down, but the words kept running through her head. Her blue eyes drank their fill of the woman in the bed. The surgeon started taking stock of herself and how much she had changed in the last eight months since meeting Danni. It seemed to be funny, as she was changing, so was the nurse who now took chances that she would have walked away from before. The surgeon looked back to the journal and the words came to haunt her again. ‘No longer be seen as two distinct people but rather only as one soul…’
Wasn’t that what they had become when they responded to a call for assistance? The Flight Team was the embodiment of their soul and even though they were two distinct people, they acted more like a single unit with one mind.
Garrett closed her eyes, trying to calm her fast-paced mind. She felt like the walls were going to crash right in on her. It was time to get out into the open and let her mind think about the whole thing without being pressured. Without the woman that tormented her soul being so close at hand. The surgeon turned off the light on the nightstand and let the light from the hall be her guide away from this Garden of Eden that was so ripe for the taking.
The nurse stirred as she heard the sound of the front door closing and the locks clicking into place. Gazing over at her bedside clock, Danni saw that it was only 2330. She put her head back down on her pillow and began to burrow into it when the sound of Garrett’s Blazer being started made her sit up. Leaving her bed and looking out the window, Danni could just make out the set of taillights as they drove off down the street.
The young woman sat back down on the bed, her heart sinking with the pain that her friend must be in. "Please, keep her safe and help her to weather this storm," she prayed to any deity that would listen. "Let her eyes be opened to what is in my heart. But most of all, let her find what is true and right in her own."
Driving around aimlessly in the night, the surgeon found herself at the one place that she always considered as her domain. She was the authority figure here and that never changed. It was one world of hers that had not been rocked by the turmoil she now was confronted with.
Throwing her Blazer into park, she jumped out, leaving the vehicle haphazardly placed in one of the on-call spaces right outside the door to the E.R. Striding with an air of purpose in her steps, Garrett breezed by the waiting room and the nurse’s station on her way to nowhere. She needed time to think, and people, well, they would only get in the way and confuse her all the more. The surgeon made her way to where she always thought the best, the O.R.
Changing into a set of scrubs, she stepped into the first empty surgical theatre and just let the aura of the room seep into her being. She thought about her many hours spent in rooms just like this one and all the patients that had benefited from her skills, her confidence in her own judgement. From that first simple appendectomy when she was just a budding Medical Student, to the woman she had worked on the night before where all of her experience was needed to keep her alive. What would they think of her now if they were privy to her mind? If only there was someone that she could talk to. Then it dawned on her. Perhaps it was time to check in on her patient, Chris.
Garrett stopped in at the nurse’s station, taking time to check Chris’s chart. She made every effort to act more like a doctor than she could admit her mind was presently capable of. The few minutes that she spent perusing the chart afforded her the time to muster her courage for what she intended to do. With a steady gait and a determined purpose, the surgeon strode to the patient’s room, where she knocked first before entering.
The short curly ringlets of hair stood every which way on the head of the woman in the bed. Her thin wiry build gave her a comical cartoon look.
Garrett was nearly to the bed before her eyes opened and she greeted her savior. "Hey, Doc. Thought only those students keep these late hours. You didn’t have someone up in the O.R. did you?"
Garrett shook her head. "No, just came in to check on you." The surgeon fiddled with the I.V. line acting as if it was customary for her to do so. "Besides, I didn’t want anyone else to come in her and disturb you and Marie."
"Hmmm…sounds to me like you got some things weighing on your mind." Chris watched Garrett’s expression as it changed to one of almost startled disbelief. "I guess that just goes with the job, though. Don’t it?"
The surgeon cleared her throat. "Ah…yes, I believe it does." She smiled weakly and then motioned to Chris’s abdomen. "Mind if I take a look while I’m here?"
"Heck, Doc, you know me inside and out." She giggled and looked over to the sleeping form of Marie in the chair next to her. "Almost as good as her, except she’ll tell you that she don’t know me at all sometimes." The thin lips of the patient pressed together and formed into a smile.
"I guess that comes from living so closely with someone. My friend says that she seems to know me better than I know myself, then out of the blue I do something that completely baffles her." Garrett drew in a breath. "Say, Chris, how did you and Marie ever get together? You seem so different from each other."
"I just held my breath and waited her out. I wasn’t the kind to strike up a conversation. I guess she knew it, too. It took her nearly a whole month before she spoke those first words to me."
"What were they, something philosophical?"
Chris looked over at Marie and stroked her hair. "No, she asked me what I was using for bait."
"Bait?" Garrett raised her eyebrow in response. "Was she referring to you cologne or your style of dress?"
"Neither, I was sitting out in the morning sun with my feet dangling over the edge of the wharf with a fishing pole in my hand." They both smiled at each other for a moment while Chris waited for the next question from the surgeon.
"Was it love at first sight or did you have to think about it for a while?"
"Hmm…now that’s a tough one. In my heart, I think it always was love, even before we talked. Now, my head, well let’s just say that I could have known her more closely for a lot longer if I’d listened to my heart."
"You’d choose going with your heart, then?"