Chapter 2
Chapter Two
AMAY
“Sir.”
Amay looked up from the operating table, his gloved hands still in the patient’s chest cavity. He glared at the intern standing near the door, the young boy’s hand trembling against the doorjamb.
He kept his own hand steady on the clamp as he raised one eyebrow at him. “What?” he asked gruffly.
“There’s an accident case coming in. Mangal Sir requested it to be on your list.”
“I’m off duty post this surgery. Tell the on-call surgeon to take it.” Amay turned back to his patient, mentally dismissing the younger man.
“He has loose motions Sir.”
Someone snickered in the background. Amay didn’t bother to look at the joker. He looked at his senior theatre nurse and right hand instead.
Chandrika Mohan’s grey brows lowered ferociously over her nose. “Then call the backup doctor. Stop disturbing Sir.”
“She’s already in surgery, Ma’am. It will take ten hours, I believe.”
“How is she already in surgery if she is the backup?” Chandrika muttered, slapping an instrument into Amay’s hand without him having had to ask for it.
“Because of Dr. Manju’s loose motions Ma’am.”
The snickering started again.
“If I hear laughter again in my theatre,” Amay said calmly, the scalpel in his hand slicing through a globule of fat. “I’ll spike your food to induce the very same diarrhea. We’ll see if you’re still laughing then.”
Amay finished the last of the planned incisions, a gush of blood spraying over his gloved hand.
“Who else can we call in?”
Chandrika was already shaking her head. “At this level, no one. Dr. Mithali Gupte is at the conference in Europe.”
“Done,” Amay muttered. “Clamp?” Chandrika was already waving it in his face. He inserted it into the chest cavity and made sure it set right before continuing with clean up.
“Should I add it to your list, Sir? Nobody else is available.”
Amay looked up briefly. “Yes. Now get out,” he said simply before going back to work.
“You’ve been on shift for close to thirty hours now,” Chandrika murmured as he stepped back to allow a junior to close up.
“Do you have another option?” He pulled off his gloves and binned them, pushing out of the theatre and towards the sinks. “Get the patient ready for surgery and page me. I’m going to try and rest my eyes until then.”
She muttered something to herself before stalking away from him, presumably to wait for the ambulance bringing the accident patient in.
Amay scrubbed clean, his gaze on the team closing up his patient in the surgical theatre behind the glass. Once he was sure they’d done a good job and there would be no issues, he walked out without another word to anyone. He didn’t believe in wasting time or energy talking to people when he could be using the same for something more productive – like ignoring them.
Pushing through the doctor’s break room, he threw himself into one of the uncomfortable sofas, stretching out full length, a soft groan escaping him. God, he was exhausted. All he wanted to do was sleep for the next week. But, lucky him, in the next hour or so, he’d have to get up and do it all over again.
He loved his job. He truly did. There wasn’t much he had in his life that wasn’t the job but on days like this, he wondered why he hadn’t decided to become an accountant or a fashion designer. His lips tipped up the slightest bit at the thought. He was shit at math and his fashion aesthetic extended to clean scrubs. That’s probably why.
A perfunctory knock sounded on the door and a head with a mop of unruly hair poked around the corner.
“Sir? Patient’s here.”
“Preliminary check’s been done?” he asked, pushing his exhausted body into a sitting position.
“Yes Sir.” The mop walked into the room, hair bristling in every direction. “I have all the reports here.”
Amay scanned the file handed to him. Shit. The air bag had deployed causing bruising around her chest cavity but that wasn’t the worst part. He saw the bloom of internal bleeding on her x-ray, framing the space around her lungs.
“Prepped for surgery?” He pushed to his feet, the fatigue sloughing off as adrenalin kicked in. This was why he did this job. It was a high like no other.
“Yes Sir. Theatre Four.”
Amay strode out of the break room, scrubbing his hands over his face. “The fracture in her arm and the minor lacerations can be tended to post surgery.”
“Yes Sir.” The mop of hair kept flopping in and out of his peripheral vision.
“Who’s on my assist?” Amay shouldered through the doors of Theatre Four, heading straight to the scrubbing station.
“Dr. Faraz, Dr. Sathe and the theatre staff.”
Scrubbed clean, Amay let them gown and glove him before moving into the main surgical space.
“She’s under,” Dr. Faraz, the anesthetist said from the head of the table.
Amay nodded his thanks. “Scalpel.” He was making the cut even before the last syllable left his mouth.
Four hours later, Amay rolled his shoulders and stepped back. The damage had been far more extensive than the reports had showed. The patient was lucky she’d reached the hospital when she had.
“Post op and then ICU,” he said, voice rough with fatigue. “I’ll speak with her family now.”
“Her husband was killed in the car crash.” The nurse’s voice dripped with pity. “No attenders to speak to at the moment.”
Tragic but Amay didn’t care. He’d done his job. The rest of this shitshow was the unconscious woman’s problem.
All he wanted to do was fall into the bed in the break room and sleep. “Wake me if-“
But whatever he’d been about to say died on his lips as the anesthetist removed the mask and he caught sight of the patient’s face.
“Dr. Aatre?” One of the nurses came to stand beside him, puzzled.
“Her husband died in the crash?” he asked through numb lips, his gaze still frozen on the unconscious woman’s face.
“Yes Sir. Except-“ She trailed off, her demeanour stiff and uncomfortable.
“Except what?” Amay asked, taking a step closer to the table, unable to help himself. He could feel the years dissolve as he stared at her. Under the bruises, the swelling, the cuts, she looked the same.
Dhrithi. His Dhrithi.
“They weren’t in the same car,” Dr. Faraz’s dry voice cut through. “He was the one driving the car that rammed into hers.”
Amay’s heart pounded, its beat a roar in his ears. “What was the asshole’s name?”
“Some Gokhale.” Faraz shook his head. “I peeked at the initial police report while they were prepping her for surgery. The cops are still out there, not sure what they’re waiting for. The dude is dead and this lady won’t be waking up for a while.”
The dude was dead.
Decades later, Varun Gokhale was dead. And Dhrithi Sahay or Dhrithi Gokhale, as it were, was back in his life.