Chapter 6
Jade
T he storm still howled against the walls of the hospital, and after the loss of power, anxiety seemed to heighten, but the generators were functioning as they should, and the emergency lighting was working.
The staff had worked to calm the patients and the people sheltering in the hospital, and though the lights were slightly dimmer, there was not much difference.
Part of the reason for that was it was almost three in the morning, so most of the lights had been dimmed anyway.
Jade checked her phone, realizing that it had been almost twenty-four straight hours since she’d last slept.
While it certainly wasn’t the first all-nighter she had pulled in the hospital, and she was sure it wouldn’t be her last, she could feel her age deep in her bones.
She stifled a yawn as she headed upstairs to the breakroom again.
Maybe some coffee would perk her up a bit so she could ride out these last couple of hours.
She pushed open the door but was surprised to find Lillian lounging in one of the chairs in the room.
Acting on impulse, Jade locked the door behind her.
Lillian’s eyes lifted; she must have been as exhausted as Jade felt.
When they settled on Jade, Lillian’s eyes tightened, and she quickly averted them.
“How’s the OR?” Jade asked, trying to act nonchalant and failing. Her pulse was suddenly racing.
“Doing well, considering,” Lillian said without looking up. She fumbled with her phone, trying to appear distracted. Her demeanor was tense, however, and Jade couldn’t quite interpret the emotion that laced the lines of Lillian’s expression.
“Are you okay?” Jade asked, then immediately regretted the words.
“Fine,” Lillian said. She turned in the chair so that her back was to Jade. The gesture rankled her. She fumbled with the coffee machine, spilling her half-full cup.
“Damn it,” Jade muttered and grabbed a handful of napkins to mop up the liquid.
Lillian turned slightly but settled back into her position once she realized what had happened.
“Lillian, I…” Jade began, but Lillian turned and glared at her. She took a deep breath and tried again. “Doctor Holder, should we talk about?—?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Lillian said quickly, cutting her off, and Jade felt her heart twist in her chest. Maybe she had read too much into the situation. Maybe she was just some silly fantasy on Lillian’s part, and now she was just going to pretend nothing had happened.
“Okay,” Jade said and clenched her jaw. “Can we at least try to expel the awkwardness?”
“Fine,” Lillian snapped and set her phone on the table next to her. “What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know,” Jade answered. “Something, anything, you’re so tightly wound up that I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”
“What should I be thinking?” Lillian asked, lifting her chin.
“That’s not how this works,” Jade said, irritation flashing across her face.
“You’re the expert,” Lillian half muttered and turned her attention back to her lap.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jade asked, heat flashing though her.
“You always act on impulse, or to use your word, intuition ,” Lillian snapped and stood up from her chair. She walked over to stand in front of Jade, though she kept her at arm’s length.
Jade noticed. That’s what I wanted, right? Why is it bothering me so much?”
“You don’t know nearly as much as you think you do,” Jade snapped and flung her soiled napkins into the trash. “My intuition comes from years of study, years of paying attention and noticing the small things that others don’t.”
“Call it what you want, but you fly by the seat of your pants more often than you research,” Lillian countered.
Jade tilted her head, her clenched teeth made her next words come out in almost a growl. “Arrogance will cause you a lot of problems, Lillian . You shouldn’t make assumptions like that if you can’t back them up.”
“What do you want from me?” Lillian asked, catching Jade off guard.
“I want you to be real,” Jade said and took a step closer to Lillian. “I want to know what you are thinking, how you are feeling, not what the book tells you or where you are in your schedule. I want to get to know you, not just Doctor Holder .”
“Why?” Lillian asked, her voice going soft.
“I…” Jade stumbled. She wasn’t sure how to answer the question.
“Doctor Holder is me,” Lillian countered. “I have spent my entire life fighting to become Doctor Holder, and I’m proud of that.”
“I know,” Jade said. “And you should be.”
“Then what else do you need from me?” Lillian asked.
“Honestly, nothing,” Jade said, and her shoulders sagged. She really was tired. “For us to be colleagues, for us to run this hospital to the best it can be. I don’t need anything else from you, but I want it.”
“You know my history,” Lillian said, her eyes flashing. “You know where I came from and what I’ve endured. I don’t want any of that anymore. I just want to be Doctor Holder. Someone who can help people, someone who can fix people and give them their lives back.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jade said. “You are the most amazing doctor I’ve ever worked with, or under, or even around. Forgive me for wanting to know even more of you. Tell me that your title isn’t a shield.”
Lillian opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. She wanted to argue, but she couldn’t.
“Your charts, your schedules, your constant research and drive to be the best you can possibly be, it’s awe inspiring,” Jade shook her head. “I mean that, but what’s underneath all that? You are an excellent surgeon, valedictorian, a devoted daughter?—”
Lillian scoffed and it caught Jade off guard.
“What?”
“There you go making the assumptions you warned me about,” Lillian said, and her shoulders sagged.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” Jade said.
“I was the only person my mother could recognize at the end of her life,” Lillian said, her face flooded with pain.
“And I went to medical school instead of staying with her. You know what drives me, Jade? Guilt, guilt drives me. If I’m not the best at what I do, if I’m not in control, then what did I do that for? ”
Jade pressed her lips together. She wanted to reach out and comfort Lillian.
Her heart twisted in her chest. She couldn’t begin to imagine what her life had been like, or what she carried from it.
She wanted to console her, tell her she made the right choice, but it wouldn’t mean much coming from Jade.
“Devoted daughter,” Lillian scoffed again. “You know what I felt when the home called me to let me know she had died?”
Jade’s throat tightened with emotion; she knew what was coming next.
“Relief.” Tears slipped from Lillian’s eyes. “I was relieved that she was gone. I was relieved that I no longer had to take care of her. What kind of ‘devoted daughter’ feels that way?”
“You were relieved that she was no longer suffering,” Jade countered softly and took another step toward Lillian, who didn’t try to move away. “That’s not selfish.”
“I know,” Lillian said and shook her head.
“I know all the things. I knew she wanted me to succeed. I knew she was sick and it wasn’t her fault.
I knew that it wasn’t my fault that I was all she could recognize, and it was likely a matter of time before that changed, too. The guilt though, it hangs on, always.”
Jade tentatively reached a hand over and touched Lillian’s shoulder. Lillian took a deep breath and calmed her emotions.
“Be proud of who you are, Doctor Holder,” Jade said calmly. “I’m not trying to take that from you, but I want to be more than your colleague. I want to see this side of you, this vulnerability. I want to know all of you. I want to know Lillian, too.”
Lillian let out a soft chuckle and shook her head.
“Why, though?” she asked. “You’re not the only one who knows people’s history.
” Jade could have sworn Lillian almost smirked, and her heart jumped in her chest. “You get up close and personal, but only to a certain extent. No one has gotten closer to you than arm’s length as long as you’ve been here. ”
Jade lifted an eyebrow, and Lillian spluttered for a second.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and both their eyes turned toward the ceiling.
Jade walked over to the plate glass windows that overlooked the parking lot.
Usually there were a lot of bright lights and movement outside the window at night, but with the loss of power it was all dark.
The rain made crystalline lines down the glass and occasionally she could see a bit of debris flying around, but otherwise the only light came from the soft solar lawn lamps that dotted the ground.
“You ask for vulnerability, but you keep yourself closed off if it gets too real,” Lillian called from the other side of the room. “Though I’ve heard through the rumor mill that there was supposed to be a wedding a few years ago.”
Jade pressed her lips together. “Yes, there was, and it was a lot.” She took a deep breath.
“I was supposed to get married. I thought I had found someone to share my life with, but she didn’t understand the demands of this job.
So, she ended it. I should have seen it coming; we had been getting more and more distant, especially when the talk began of my becoming Chief of Medicine.
I spent thousands on deposits and preparations, I had invited pretty much the whole damn hospital.
That was the most mortified I think I have ever been, having to go back and explain that the wedding was off.
My family was in town, everything.” Jade shuddered at the memory.
“Why do I get the feeling it’s not that simple?” Lillian asked. Jade watched the reflection in the glass as Lillian crossed the room and came to stand behind her.