23
Nick
I didn’t know how to describe Mia’s and my relationship. I felt closer to her the night she’d called me to help her father and we’d ended up spending the night together. The sex was cathartic, but even more so was the talk we’d had.
But that didn’t change the fact that we couldn’t be together because it was against hospital policy. Even if it weren’t, I wasn’t sure we’d be an item. Did I want that? I think I did, but that scared the shit out of me. Four years ago, I hadn’t considered the ramifications of loving her. I’d been so sure that her family and even Eli would want us to be happy. Like a silly teenage girl, I’d thought true love would make everything rosy.
Now, four years later, I was more cynical about most things in life. Whether you loved someone or not, they could leave you, either by choosing something else or through death. No matter how hard you tried to do your best, you could fail, which in my case meant, someone could die. So, while I always made the most of the time I could spend with Mia, I wasn’t going to fall into the trap of believing in a fairy tale.
With that said, I was glad for the fleeting moments with her because everything else in my life had gone to shit. The lawsuit was big news in town. The hospital administration had little to say to the public about it. While they didn’t want to say anything that could hurt the case, their vague statements and tepid defense of me only served to make the people in town think the hospital was trying to cover up an error.
I continued to receive unhappy messages. Not all were threatening. Some simply expressed their displeasure and told me to quit. Those people were happy to tell me who they were, and since they weren’t threatening, I couldn’t do much about it. Changing my number wasn’t an option because I was a doctor that people needed to be able to reach.
The number of threatening voicemails I received grew. I finally called the sheriff even though I worried if the hospital found out they’d put me on leave. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much the sheriff could do.
“They’re ominous to be sure,” the deputy said after listening to a few. “But they fall short of a real threat.”
“Can you trace it?” I asked, not liking how a message that suggested I might lose my hands so I couldn’t kill people didn’t measure up to a threat.
“Yes, but it’ll be one of those toss away phones. People are smarter now about these things.”
“Can you at least try?”
He agreed, and as he guessed, none of the calls could be traced to a person. I wondered if it was one person, or some sort of conspiracy with a group of people in town wanting to harass me. What was his or hers or their end goal? Did they want to hurt me or just run me out of town?
One day I came out of my home to find my windshield bashed in. I was happy Mia hadn’t been at my place, not just because she might have been outed, but because clearly someone was upping the ante. I was able to have a glass replacement guy come and fix it that morning, but I wondered how long before it happened again.
The resulting paranoia was taking its toll on me. The dreams came nightly now. They’d morphed from my past patients blaming me for their deaths, to more vivid images of how they died, and what they wanted to do to me. Jane Parker, Mia’s mother chopped my hands off. Ms. Mason came at my eyes with a hot poker. A shrink would probably say that the dream about Jane represented my feeling like I hadn’t done enough to help her and the one about Ms. Mason was that I hadn’t seen what was wrong. See, that’s why I didn’t need therapy as Mia suggested more frequently now. I knew what it all meant. Talking about this shit wasn’t going to make it stop. I was already jumping at the wind rustling the trees outside my home or a warning buzzer ringing in the hospital. I was in a constant state of hyper-awareness that I couldn’t seem to shake. One night when Mia turned over in bed, I woke in a panic, worried someone had broken in. Not that I told her that.
Was I having problems? Yes. But telling a therapist wasn’t going to help. And if it got out that I was seeing someone, I’d look guilty. Like I was in therapy because I couldn’t handle that I’d killed Ms. Mason.
“Can you believe those people?” Peggy said as she came into the lounge where I was trying to regroup after shocking a patient back to life when his heart stopped. “Did you see them out front? Picketing us. What happens if one of them has a heart attack? Where are they going to go if not here? Wouldn’t that be ironic?”
“The hospital needs a better PR strategy,” I said.
“It does feel like they’re hiding something.” She sat with me at the table. “I’ve been over it a million times, Nick. We didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t miss anything.”
I nodded, mostly to reassure her because I wasn’t sure.
“They’re getting obnoxious. I heard about your car.” She shook her head. “I wonder if we need more security.”
My heart rate ticked up again and I swore inwardly.
“Hey, Nick. Maybe you should take some time off?”
I glared at her. “Why?”
She shrugged and looked away. “You’ve had to deal with a lot.”
“So have you.”
She shook her head. “No. Not like you.”
“Do you think I can’t do the job?” I knew I sounded angry, but I was. Why was she questioning my ability? Of all the
