Chapter 29

I walk into the kitchen carrying two bags of groceries. I kick off my soggy shoes at the door, but the second I walk onto the tiled floor, my sock fills with water and I nearly slip and fall on my butt. I drop the bags on the floor and look down. The kitchen floor has two small puddles of water on it, one of which nearly broke my neck.

“Hey, you’re home.” Ben wanders into the kitchen in his bare feet. He leans in to kiss me on the neck. “Did you get more of that peanut butter with honey at the grocery store?”

“Ben.” I take a cleansing breath, trying to remember what our therapist said about not being confrontational or snarky. “Why are there two puddles of water on the floor?”

His eyes drop and he notices the puddles. “Oh,” he says. “I spilled some water earlier.”

“So… why didn’t you clean it up?”

“Well…” He shrugs. “It’s water . So I figured, you know, it’s self-cleaning… ”

“Ben, it soaked my socks,” I say. “And I nearly slipped. You can’t just leave a puddle of water on the kitchen floor.” You idiot.

A month ago, this might have started a huge fight. But today, it doesn’t. He just nods sheepishly. “I’m on it.” He goes to the counter and grabs some paper towels. “And I’m going to get you some new socks too from upstairs. Don’t even move. I’ll take care of everything.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling. “You don’t know where I keep my socks.”

“I think I can find them,” he says. “Give me a little credit here. I do have a Master’s degree.”

“Not in finding socks.”

“No,” he says, “but that was my major in college. I was summa cum laude in socks. My minor was shoelaces.”

I laugh and step back to allow Ben to clean up the water in the kitchen while I put away the groceries. He doesn’t have to bother with the socks though. Maybe I’ll put on my fuzzy slippers.

“Hey,” he says, as he straightens up with a handful of wet paper towels. “Guess what? I wrote a new app that I think is going to be a huge success.”

“Oh yeah?” I grin at him. “What is it?”

“It’s called ‘Sorry Dear.’”

“Hmm. I’m afraid to ask.”

“It’s an app that helps you apologize to your significant other,” he says. “So if you’re apologizing to your wife or girlfriend, it sends them a poem. And it gives you the option of purchasing flowers from a local flower shop.”

“And for the guy?”

“Sports tickets.” Ben smiles. “Or a salty snack assortment.”

“I have to tell you,” I say. “Your app sounds super sexist.”

“Yes, it is super sexy.”

I roll my eyes again, but actually, it does sounds like a good idea. Maybe he’ll make a million dollars and I can quit my job. Not that I’d ever really quit. What would I do with myself?

My phone starts buzzing in my purse and I go to pick it up. I see that the extension comes from the hospital, but it’s not familiar to me. Ben raises his eyebrows at me and I shrug as I pick it up.

I’m not sure whether to answer as, “This is Dr. McGill.” It’s the hospital, after all. Then again, maybe it’s just Lisa calling me from work. I don’t want to sound like an idiot, so I just say, “Hello?”

“Hello? Jane?”

I frown. “Yes…”

Leah chooses this moment to wander into the room holding her sippy cup. Yes, she’s four years old and still drinks from a sippy cup. If we don’t use a sippy cup, she spills whatever she’s drinking. At this rate, she’ll have the sippy cup till she’s eighteen. Well, at least she’s out of diapers.

“Old McMommy had a farm!” she sings loudly, “E-I-E-I-O!”

The voice on my phone says, “Hi, this is—”

“And on that farm, there were some Mommies!” Leah continues. “E-I-E-I-OOOOOOOO!”

I flash Ben a pained look. He gets the hint and herds Leah into the kitchen so I don’t have a soundtrack to my work conversation.

“Sorry about that,” I murmur. “Who is this?”

“Jane, this is Adam Wiseman in the neuro ICU.”

Adam Wiseman. I worked with his wife during residency, and I’d been out with the two of them several times before my life became impossible. He’s the attending physician in the VA’s neuro ICU, and from what I can tell, a really good neurologist. “Hi, Adam,” I say. “What’s going on?”

“Listen.” His voice lowers several notches. “I just thought you’d like to know that I’ve got your patient here.”

“My patient?” I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“I believe he’s a big frequent flyer with you, judging by the chart,” Adam says. “Herman Katz?”

I feel like someone just punched me in the gut. Herman Katz. In the neuro ICU. That can’t be good. “What happened? ”

“He had his carotid endarterectomy yesterday,” Adam explained. “Then this morning, he became densely hemiparetic on his right side and globally aphasic. Then he became difficult to arouse.”

Densely hemiparetic, meaning he can’t move his right arm or leg. Globally aphasic, meaning he can’t speak or understand language. Difficult to arouse, meaning they can’t wake him up.

“He’s a little more alert now,” Adam continues in that same low voice. “We decided not to intubate him, but based on his head CT, he’s had a dense MCA stroke.”

Great. I referred him for a surgery to prevent a stroke, but instead we managed to cause one.

“Why are you whispering, Adam?” I ask him.

He’s quiet for a moment, then he finally says, “You know that new surgeon, Dr. Reilly? Well, he did Katz’s surgery, and he specifically asked me not to call you.”

I grip the phone tighter. “He did?”

“Yeah.” Adam sighs. “And he’s such a dick that I didn’t want to argue with him about it. But I figured you’d probably want to know, considering Katz’s entire medical record is like a zillion notes from you.”

“Right,” I mumble. “Yeah, you did the right thing. Thanks for telling me.”

After I hang up with Adam, I feel numb. Ben starts rubbing my shoulder and asking me what’s wrong, but I don’t even know where to begin. After all, Ben doesn’t know about Ryan and I’m not going to open that can of worms.

The thing is, whatever else was true, I’ve always thought of Ryan as a really great surgeon. Everyone knew how good he was. A lot of surgeons are arrogant for no reason, but he actually deserved to be arrogant. He was amazing at what he did.

Except now I’m worried he nearly killed my patient.