fall (5 page)

Peg’s father grunted.
 
He looked at Ivy with a critical
gaze.
 
“It’s only too bad that it
took a shotgun to the man’s head before he would do the right thing and perform
the dang surgery.”

Ivy swallowed drily and shrugged.
 
“I…I don’t know all the ins and outs of
it.”

“Dad, please.
 
She helped us make this happen.
 
Don’t give her a hard time,” Peg said
softly.
 
She smiled at Ivy and
mouthed a ‘sorry.’

Ivy smiled back at them.
 
Then she glanced out the window, trying
to appear lost in thought.

If only she still had her phone to check.
 
Anything to give her an excuse to keep
to herself.

Finally, she picked up a magazine and
paged through it, even though she was unable to focus enough to actually read
any of the articles.

This feeling was more than just nervous,
she realized.
 
A terror was slowly
growing inside her belly, growing and taking over until she was nothing but a
bundle of nerves and anxiety.

She tried to picture Cullen in the
operating room, head down, calm, doing his work and everything going perfectly.

But over and over again, all she kept
seeing in her mind’s eye was spurting blood, machines beeping frantically as
nurses and doctors scrambled to save the life of a dying patient.

Get
hold of yourself.
 
He’s going to be
fine.
 
The surgery’s going to be
successful
.

She kept repeating those words to
herself, like a mantra, while over and over again, her brain kept showing her
images of blood and horror and death.

She hated herself for being so
weak—for not being able to believe in him.

And then, strangely, Cullen was coming
back into the waiting room, still wearing his surgical scrubs.
 
He looked relieved, as if he’d just come
through the fight of his life and was simply happy to be able to tell the tale.

Ivy blinked, standing up, confused.
 
“Is everything okay?” she said.
 
“It’s over, already?”

Now Peg Woodhouse and her father were
standing as well.

“What happened to my daughter?” Peg’s
father growled, but his voice was trembling.

Cullen looked at everyone at once.
 
“The surgery hasn’t begun yet,” he
said.
 
“There will be a short delay.”

“Why?
 
Why the delay?” Peg asked.

“She needs to be operated on now,” the
father said, and his voice cracked from the strain.

Cullen put his hands out in a ‘stay calm’
gesture.
 
He smiled
reassuringly.
 
“Folks, I promise
everything’s going to go ahead as scheduled.
 
But just sit down and relax.
 
It’s going to be a few more minutes.”

“Why?” Peg demanded.
 
“Tell us why.”

Cullen sighed, but he replied without
hesitation.
 
“We’re just waiting for
the surgeon to arrive.”

There was a long, stunned silence.

“Is this your idea of a joke, asshole?”
Peg’s father said, and stepped forward in a threatening manner.

“Dad, please,” Peg said, trying to
restrain him.
 
She glanced over her
shoulder at Cullen, her eyes wide and helpless.
 
“I don’t understand, Dr. Sharpe.”

Cullen nodded.
 
“I know, it’s confusing.
 
But the fact is, there is a surgeon more
qualified to do this particular procedure and I’m going to let him take over.”

“What surgeon?” Ivy asked, trying to keep
her voice even.
 
Already, she had an
awful dawning suspicion.
 

And as the words left Cullen’s mouth, she
was proven right.

“His name is Doctor Xavier Montrose, and
he’s the best around,” Cullen told them.
 
He was relaxed, almost affable, like he was discussing the weather.

“You monster,” Peg said.
 

“Get out of here before I clean your
clock,” Peg’s father said.
 

The two of them were hugging one another
like they were trying to survive a storm at sea.

Cullen nodded again, turned and motioned
for Ivy to follow him.

As they were exiting the waiting room,
Peg called after them.

“You’re going away for this, Sharpe!
 
For a long time!”

And then Cullen was pulling her through
the double doors and into the hallway.
 
He didn’t speak until they reached an office, which he opened and let
her inside.

There was a desk and a few chairs,
bookcase, computer, window.
 
It was
a nice office.

Cullen looked at her.
 
“I know you’re probably confused,” he
said, as he checked his watch.
 

“I’m completely confused,” she said.
 
“What happened?
 
Why did you change your mind?”

He sighed, walking to the window and
looking out.
 
“I was going to do
it.
 
I was about to go in and speak
to the patient before starting anesthesia.
 
But I had this sensation that it was just wrong.
 
That I wasn’t supposed to do this.
 
And once I realized I wasn’t going to
operate on her, it was like this huge weight came off my shoulders.”
 
He glanced at Ivy and laughed.
 
“I know it sounds crazy.”

“Well…a little bit, maybe,” she
admitted.
 
She sat down in one of
the chairs and looked at him.
 
“So
then you called Xavier?”

“Which is kind of perfect,” Cullen told
her.
 
“After all, he’d been the one
who wanted to operate on Jillian before.
 
And I’d refused to hand her case over to him.
 
Now I can make up for that.
 
It’s all coming back full-circle, don’t
you see?”

His looked expectantly at her.
 
Ivy knew he wanted her to support his
decision.

She licked her lips.
 
“I…I don’t know.”

His brow creased.
 
“Don’t know what?”

She shifted uneasily beneath his
gaze.
 
“Something about this just
seems.
 
I don’t know,” she shrugged.

“Tell me,” he said stiffly.

“It seems wrong,” she replied.

“Wrong.”
 
He made a face like he’d stepped in dog
crap.
 
“Because I don’t want to kill
some poor woman, performing surgery on her out of fear?
 
Fear that I might get punished
or—“

“Or go to jail,” Ivy reminded him.
 
“If you don’t do it, they’re going to
make sure you get put away.”

“They can’t do anything of the sort.”

“Cullen, you have every right to make
your own decisions.”

“I know that, thanks,” he shot back.
 

Ivy got up and went to him by the
window.
 
She tried to take his hands
but he pulled away from her.
 
“Tell
me what’s going on, Cullen.”

“I already told you.”
 
He refused to look at her.

“You never told me the whole truth.
 
About Jillian’s surgery.
 
About what exactly went wrong.”

He turned and looked at Ivy,
stricken.
 
“Why would I do that?”

“Because, it’s important.”

He ran his fingers through his hair and
moved away from her.
 
“No, I don’t
think it is important.”
 
He shook
his head.
 
“No, I’ve made my goddamn
decision.”

“Cullen,” she said softly.

Ivy didn’t know how, exactly, but
something told her that Cullen was holding back a vital piece of
information.
 
And she was determined
to find out why.

“Stop pushing me,” he said, slamming his
hand on the desk.
 
It was like a
thunderclap in the small office.
 
His blue eyes were wide and intense, so intense that she stepped
backwards.

But then she remembered something.

I’m
married to him.
 
He’s my husband.

And so she drew herself up to her full
height and stepped forward.
 
Then
she stepped forward yet again, maintaining eye contact with him.
 
“I’ll push you when you need pushing,”
she said.
 

“Is that so?” he asked, his lips hardly
moving.

“Yes, it’s so.”
 
She glared back at him.

“Fine,” he said, smiling an unhappy smile
that was more of a grimace.
 
“You
want all the details.
 
Why, I can’t
fathom.
 
But okay, Ivy.
 
I’ll tell it all.
 
How I cut her open, cracked her skull,
and she wasn’t ready.
 
She had an
underlying condition.”

“What underlying condition?”

“Weak blood vessel that led to a
spontaneous cerebral hemorrhage during the procedure,” he said.
 
“And I wasn’t able to get control of
it.
 
She died, and I should have
known, Ivy.
 
But I didn’t know
because of my ego, because I refused to step back and let anyone else have
control for even a moment.”

“How could you have known?” she asked.

He stared at her.
 
“It’s my job to know,” he replied.

“But how?
 
How would you have known?
 
Did you miss it on a test or something?”

Cullen didn’t answer.
 
He wiped his mouth with the side of his
hand.
 
“Don’t,”
 
he said, turning away from her once
again.

“Cullen, answer me.
 
How could you have known about her weak
blood vessel?
 
You were operating on
a tumor.”

“I suppose you’re a doctor, now,” he
laughed bitterly.

“You can’t seem to tell me exactly how
you made a mistake.
 
You won’t say
what you did wrong.
 
What part of
that was your fault.”

He slammed his fist into the wall.
 
“She died right in front of me!” he
shouted, so loud that the walls actually shook.
 
And when he turned again, his chest was
rising and falling rapidly and his face was pale.
 
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he said,
rushing to the wastebasket.

“It’s okay,” Ivy said.

He fell down to his knees and retched
over the wastebasket but nothing came out.
 
“Fuck,” he moaned.
 
“She was
dying the entire time I knew her.
 
She was slowly dying, changing.
 
She started becoming someone I didn’t know, someone I didn’t even like.
 
And in the end, she became violent and
paranoid.
 
But I kept thinking I
would fix it and it would all just be a bad dream.”
 
He looked up, his face pale and almost
waxen in appearance.

“Cullen,” Ivy said, kneeling next to
him.
 
“You know that you didn’t do
anything wrong.
 
But you blame
yourself because the great Doctor Sharpe should have been able to save
her.
 
Except you can’t save
everyone.”

He nodded, his throat clicking.
 
“I should’ve done better.”

Ivy pushed harder.
 
She needed the answer.
 
“Were you truly responsible for her
death, Cullen?”

He closed his eyes and didn’t answer for
so long that she almost thought he’d finally snapped for good.

But when he did look at her again, his
eyes were clear and focused.
 
“No,”
he said, calmly.
 
“I wasn’t
responsible.”

He sat back and put his head in his
hands.
 
And then, as if a damn had
broken, he began to softly cry.

Cullen was relieving himself of
something, and Ivy knew that this needed to happen if Cullen was ever going to
forgive himself and move on.

After a time, he stopped crying, and he
wiped his eyes, chuckling.
 
“Shit,”
he said.
 
“You’re turning me into a
blubbering baby.
 
I’m going soft
thanks to you.”