Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I looked her up and down, having forgotten how pretty she was because it’d been so long since I’d last seen her. The last few weeks have given me time to decompress, to accept the inevitable, and now I could see the world through a clearer lens. “Yeah, that’s a bitchin’ outfit.”
Her eyebrows furrowed at my comment before she let out a chuckle. “No, I mean the office.”
“Ohh, that makes more sense.” I nodded and brushed off my embarrassment. “Yeah, it’s amazing.” I took a look around, crossing my arms over my chest as I moved farther into the hallway. “Really impressed.” I walked into one of the patient rooms and saw the equipment installed correctly, my echocardiogram, ultrasound machine, and all the other items I’d asked for. My eyes lingered for a while, seeing all the tools I used to use all the time, remembering my old routine and my patients. It felt like a lifetime ago, but also, like it just happened yesterday. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, lost in thought, but it must have been a few minutes before Sicily got my attention.
“Everything alright?” she asked from behind me.
I turned back around and looked at her in the doorway. Her smile was gone, and now she was tense, as if she feared I didn’t like the setup. “Yes, it’s great. I just… My mind went somewhere else.” I moved past her and checked out the other patient rooms and then passed the office on the right.
It had a floor-to-ceiling window in the background, and all the furniture was white and feminine, with a vase of flowers on the corner table and a floral painting on the wall. “This is your office?”
“Yes.”
“It’s nice.”
“Don’t worry. Yours doesn’t look like this.”
I chuckled and moved into the corner office, seeing a masculine setup with dark but neutral colors. My large desk was a deep mahogany color, and the chair behind the desk was made of leather with gold nailheads along the stitching. Bookshelves were on either side, already filled with books. On the walls were frames holding my medical degrees and my series of awards. There were also pictures of me doing my humanitarian work in South Africa. It took a while to survey it all, to step into the past as well as the future.
Sicily came to my side and stared at the wall with me. “Your mother gave those to me.”
“I’m not sure how…because I threw them away.” I’d left my practice and bagged up my shit and tossed it in the dumpster. I didn’t know if my parents dug through the garbage to get everything, or if they contacted my alma maters and got new copies of everything. I wasn’t sure how they got the photos.
Sicily crossed her arms over her chest and continued to look at the wall of accomplishments. “I really love this picture of you.” She stepped forward and examined the picture of me with a little boy from the village.
I moved to her side, getting a closer look at it. “His name was Thamuku. He was born with a heart defect.” I remembered how brave he was, how he didn’t cry when I told him I’d have to cut him open and operate. His mother was in tears, but he wasn’t.
“Yeah?” she whispered. “What happened?”
“I operated. This picture was taken a year later when I returned to his village to serve other patients.” I inhaled a deep breath when I remembered the first time I saw him. He recognized me instantly and sprinted toward me, that adorable smile on his lips. His mother brought me a fruit tray and said it was all she had to thank me for saving her only son.
Sicily turned to look at me.
I felt the distant moisture coat the surface of my eyes, not because I was sad, but because it was one of the highlights of my career. There were hundreds like him, hundreds of patients that were a part of me.
Her hand moved to my arm, and she gave me a gentle squeeze. “You’re going to help so many more people just like Thamuku. You’ll never forget them—and they’ll never forget you.”
We sat on the couches in front of my desk and faced each other. She didn’t use the back of the couch for support and sat with perfect posture, her long legs crossed and sheathed in her heeled boots. She had her notebook in her hand with her pen clicked open and at the ready.
“How did you pull this off in just a couple weeks?” It felt like an established practice, a place that had seen patients for at least a decade. It reminded me of my old practice, but much nicer. It had a feminine touch that I’d never experienced because I hadn’t had an assistant like Sicily before. I’d had people working behind the desk and an office manager, but not somebody this intimately involved in my life.