Chapter Three
Spencer
Some surgeons prefer not to use the patient’s name outside of a clinical setting.
They feel it’s too difficult and they could get attached, but I want to know their name.
I want to see them as a human, with feelings and flaws.
Olivia is my patient. I want to know that Olivia plays tennis and that she has a cat and a dog.
I ask these questions because when I improve or even save a life, I feel a connection.
It sprinkles peace into my empty heart. I’d like to say it fills it, but nothing ever has, or ever will, since the accident.
If I can save a life, mend that person, and spare a family that bone-crushing loss, the tiniest bit of color may briefly touch my black heart.
I should be operating on her today. God, I hope that Paul is available.
I looked her and her husband in the eye and said I was confident she was going to be okay.
Paul and I are some of the few doctors in the country who can navigate through the neural pathways at the base of the skull.
I can’t make promises, but I can give them hope, hope that she would be able to hold her baby in her arms and watch her grow.
That she would survive, and her husband wouldn’t be a widower.
I rub my hands over my temples, feeling the raised lines of scratches as I chomp down so hard on my teeth they could crack.
I cover my eyes, and my hands shake against my face.
How could I let them down like this? They needed me and—
“Spencer? Are you all right?”
I drop my hands and slap on a poised and confident look. “Oh, hey, good morning. Yeah, I’m fine, just processing the situation a bit. How are you feeling?”
“Well, like I’ve been in a plane crash.” Her voice has a slight rasp to it from sleep.
I huff and offer her a small smile. “I want to check your head and ankle out again. Want breakfast first?”
“Yes, I’m starving.”
“That’s a great sign,” I say as I toss her a granola bar. “If the snow has stopped, I want to go out and explore our surroundings. See if I can climb the ridge and see any signs of civilization.”
“I can come with you.”
“I think you should ice and elevate your leg for a few days before you try walking on it.”
She rolls her lips in and pauses before nodding. “Fine, but I want to try soon.”
“Hopefully, we will be rescued, and you won’t have to walk anywhere up here.” I toss her the bottle of Advil, and she easily catches it again. “Nice catch. Another good sign.”
“Was that a test?”
“Possibly. If you pee in the container and it’s clear, you can take two with your food.”
“Yes, Doctor Spencer. Wait, what’s your last name?”
“Grey.”
“You’re kidding me, right? Like ‘Paging Doctor Grey’ from Grey’s Anatomy?”
“That isn’t the first time I’ve heard that.”
“I’m sure it isn’t.”
“I don’t think I’ll be gone long; I just want to look around. Do you need anything before I go?”
“No, thank you. I think I’m good.”
I step out of the cabin, sinking into over a foot of freshly fallen snow as I squint through the sunlight that is lighting up the never-ending white blanket.
We are not far from the top of the mountain, so I choose a smooth path between rocks to climb up a slope that will show me my surroundings.
The snow is crunchier under my boots than it was yesterday.
There are parts that are steep, and I use my palms to guide me up, the motion pulling against my stitches, sending pricks of pain into my side.
I straighten when I reach the top, amazed at how the clouds and the snow blur into one.
The tops of the mountains poking through are the only indication that I’m not in heaven, or possibly hell.
There is no sign of humans as far as the eye can see, only a sea of daunting peaks, ice, and sky.
I have the urge to yell for help, although I know no one will hear me.
Perhaps it’s to unleash anger, or perhaps hearing my own echo respond will bring me comfort.
My head still pounds as I swallow down the bleakness of the situation.
How would we climb down from here? There must be a gradual incline somewhere.
I lean back and scale down the ridge to a plane of rock that I can’t see over, curious if just past it, there may be a safe pathway down.
There is a scuttle of snow and stones, and the earth moves underneath me and takes me with it as I’m swept forward like the surf of the sea, my stomach plummeting and panic tightening every muscle as I’m being carried to my possible death.
I flop over onto my stomach and dig my fingers and toes into the crumbling snow and earth, slowing myself down, but not enough to stop.
I whip my head over my shoulder to the fast-approaching ledge with nothing to grab between it and me.
I claw one final time, thrusting my hands into the powder, only to feel the packed surface moving beneath vanish into nothing as I fall backward with my arms flailing.
This is how I die. I see the cops and paramedics at my house when I was thirteen.
My mother screaming, then collapsing on our outdoor patio and my father sobbing while clutching her.
Then, standing in the graveyard, watching my sister’s tiny coffin lower into the ground.
That’s the most my memory will allow me to see of those moments, even in death.
My brain flashes to surgery. My heart finding hope with each life I save, and the happiness I feel looking into the eyes of their loved ones, telling them they pulled through and will live another day.
My back slams into a solid surface as the wind is knocked from me.
I don’t move a muscle as I prepare for my soul to travel from this life to the next, but there is a ledge over me.
I’m not dead. I only fell about ten feet.
I cautiously move my limbs to check for numbness, weakness, and lack of mobility.
All seems in check as I sit up and roll to my hands and knees. I fell onto a snow drift.
There is no easy way down from here. We will have to find another way, and now I have to figure out how I’m going to climb back up without killing myself.
A snow-covered mound with twisted roots poking out catches my attention.
It’s an uprooted tree. I carefully crawl over to it and dig through the snow until I come to its roots.
I brush more snow off along its trunk, careful not to get too close to the edge, finding its branches.
We could use this for firewood. The tree appears to be dried out a good amount, indicating it has been dead for a while.
I tug and bend a branch, and it snaps. There is no way I am going to be able to climb back up holding branches, so I throw it over the ledge above me, and a tight scream escapes as my side burns.
I continue with this process until I have thrown close to a hundred twigs and small branches.
I take a longer route as I scale along the ridge back up to the top, worried the ground is going to give out on me like before, but it holds.
I’ve survived death twice now; I hope my luck doesn’t run out.
I peek my head in the doorway of the plane.
“I got some firewood. I’m putting it in here to dry off. ”
“Firewood? Where did you find that? And what took you so long? I was starting to get worried,” Amanda says, sitting on her bed with her knees bent, leaning on the overturned seat behind her.
She has on a dark gray winter hat, and the tip of her nose is pink despite it being somewhat tolerable in here from the small fire burning.
“I almost fell off a cliff.”
“Very funny.”
“It actually wasn’t.”
“You’re serious?”
“Correction, I did fall off a cliff but landed on a shelf where I found a dead tree. Anyway, did you pee in the container for me?”
She shakes her head and laughs. “What? Yeah, I did. Here.” She hands me the bowl and rolls her eyes. “I think it looks good, but I’m no doctor.”
I take it outside to inspect it. No traces of blood or dehydration.
I empty it out, then wipe snow in it once or twice to clean it.
We can use this to melt the snow and make some new drinking water.
I will erase the thought that Amanda just peed in here.
Mental note to sterilize this. I return inside.
“And you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I have to go back up and get the rest of the wood I threw up the ledge. When I return, we can make a fire outside for planes to see. I want to wrap and elevate your leg again. How is your head?”
“It hurts. I’m hoping the Advil will take the edge off. How’s yours?”
“Like I’ve been in a plane crash,” we both say simultaneously and grin.
We find a deck of cards buried near the cockpit and spend the remainder of the day playing Crazy 8s and War.
I repeat the act of changing the bandage on my side and disinfecting the wound.
We treat the scratches on each other’s faces again.
There was a moment last night when I was unprofessional.
I allowed myself to feel her eyes on me and looked past her cuts to notice how unblemished her skin was over her cheekbones and how her nose was small and delicate and slightly upturned, with a light dusting of freckles.
The perfect amount of cute and sexy. My colleagues in plastics would say it was the type most requested for a nose job.
I’d bet many of her features would be. I noticed her full lips sat on a smaller mouth, which gave them a pouty effect, like she was almost puckering.
When our eyes met, hers darted away, and I played my doctor role and calmly dropped them to the scabs on her cheeks, relieved I wasn’t hooked up to a heart monitor to see it jump up ten extra beats.
I check my phone, which obviously has no signal, to see it’s 11:30 p.m. We have been here for almost thirty-six hours.
We still have plenty of kindling and a decent amount of firewood.
I want to conserve it to burn it for warmth, but I also want planes to see us when they fly over.
Help should be coming soon now that the storm has passed.