19. Ashley
19
ASHLEY
R ounds were going well and my very sick patient was beginning to improve, but I had been duly sworn off the investigation by both my father and Jack. Neither of them wanted me to risk my career and both of them cared about me, even if Jack wasn't willing or able to say it right now. I got the feeling something more than just Sam Gooding and this waning lawsuit were to blame for his grumpiness, but I didn't know what. I was still hell-bent on helping him figure it out, though. I wanted to see him happy.
As I passed the nurses’ station, I noticed Dr. Blake was there sitting behind one of the computers. She had a serious expression like normal, but I thought being friendly with her might help her come out of her shell a little or warm up to me. Jack hadn't been convinced it was her, judging by our conversation around his breakfast table last Saturday morning, but I just had a feeling I couldn’t shake.
I leaned on the counter and said, "Hey, Farah, how's your morning going?"
Her eyes flicked up to take me in for a second and she scowled. "I'm busy, like normal. Do you need something?"
Her fingers flew over the keyboard effortlessly even when she was looking up. It had to have been an old patient file or even a personal email. Whatever she was typing, she knew well enough to keep working through distraction and conversation.
"No, just wondered how you're doing with things blowing up around here." Since the discovery that both patients died of heart attack likely induced by potassium chloride, everyone on staff had been put on high alert. All of us were more tense and focused the past ten days. Farah was no exception, though it was fairly normal for her to act this way. It seemed like her personality to begin with.
"I'm fine. Am I supposed to be worried or something?" She stopped typing and stared at me blankly with a deadpan to end all facial expressions. The woman was ice cold. Either she hated me or she was just a robot to everyone.
"No, I mean… Two patients died and it's likely they were murdered. You don't think that's strange? One of them was your patient." Maybe I leaned a little too heavily on the accusation, but it sparked something besides numbness in her.
"Are you accusing me of something?" One eyebrow rose, and she leaned back in her chair and I felt cornered.
Lucky for me, Michael walked past us just as Farah said that. He pinched the back of my lab coat at the elbow and said, "Walk with me."
The last I glanced at her, she was glaring at me, shooting daggers with her eyes. I turned and walked in step with him until we were out of earshot, and he seemed as tense as everyone else.
"Just leave her alone, alright?"
"You don't think it's strange that she's the only person acting normal while the entire hospital is turned upside down with this investigation?" I straightened the lapels of my coat and cleared my throat.
"I'm saying, she just lost a patient in a kind of awful way. She's not weird. she's human. She just reacts differently to things like that." Michael gave her a little too much credit in my opinion, but he had a kind soul. I could see why he and Jack were friends.
"Yeah, well I think something is off about her. Did you know she was treating Dr. Stewart's patient before he did that surgery, and she was the other dead patient's primary doctor?" I shook my head. "Too coincidental. Plus, she said something about it being kinder if a patient died rather than living just to suffer more. Did you know both of those patients were post-remission cancer relapse patients?"
Michael scoffed. "Look, Dr. Sutton, I'm going to level with you. Dr. Blake is a really good doctor and she may have morbid thoughts at times, but I know her. She's not capable of that."
He walked away from me, leaving me standing halfway to my next patient's room. The idea that there had been three other deaths before Farah began working here didn't escape me, but it was too coincidental that she'd had opportunity, means, and a somewhat skewed motive. I still fully believed she was the one, or if not, she was working with the person who'd done this.
With my mind still chewing on the idea that I might very well be working with a murderer, I made the rest of my rounds. The day was slow, no surgeries, just checking on patients, and by lunch, I was bored and wanting to eat everything in sight. I finished my morning routine early and got to the cafeteria before anyone else, so I had my pick of anything on the menu today without being told they were already sold out.
I loaded my plate down with fresh fruits and veggies instead of the calzone and garlic sticks I wanted. Heavy foods had been making me feel very nauseous now for weeks, and avoiding them helped alleviate it. It didn't, however, alleviate the nagging thought that I might be pregnant. After seeing how uncomfortable Jack was around my father, I didn't know how to feel. And the way Dad reacted so immediately and intensely when he saw me at Jack's house only proved he wasn't on board with the idea.
I was stuck in a spiral when Sam walked past me with a tray and for the first time since I started here didn't sit down to eat with me.
"Hey," I said, calling after him, but he didn't even respond. So I stood and picked up my tray and followed him. It appeared he wasn't even planning to sit in the cafeteria. It was a nice day, but I didn't want to go out in the sun. I stutter-stepped to catch up and walked next to him. "Hey, are you okay?" I asked. I'd been wanting to have this conversation since Friday when he called and went off on me, but he hadn't been around this week.
Sam scowled and side-eyed me. "Oh, now you care? What, did hubby send you to snoop around and make sure I'm not pressing charges?"
"Sam," I groaned. He was being immature, but I understood. Jack did slug him. But my history with Sam told me he'd have done worse to Jack if Jack hadn't gotten the jump.
"Don't 'Oh, Sam' me." He sounded angry, and I didn't realize it was such a big deal. Guys got into fights all the time, right? Of course, it wasn't like high school anymore, and they both knew better, especially Jack, but I wasn't the one who'd angered him.
"Hey, I'm not the bad guy…" I thought about it as we walked farther, nearing the doors to the employee patio where smokers took their lunch breaks in spring and summer. "I wanted to thank you for not telling the board about Jack and?—"
"And you?" he hissed, stopping short.
"I was going to say, and how he punched you. It was immature of him, and I'm sure he'll apologize for himself soon enough." My fingers clenched around my tray, though the emotion of this conversation had stolen my appetite. I knew it was a big deal to Sam, but after what he put me through, he still kind of owed me.
Sam huffed out a sigh and shook his head. "Look, I get it that Jack has a temper and he's going through some stuff right now. Everyone gets it. He's been treating nursing staff with disrespect at times too. We're all just walking on eggshells because he's a frickin’ fantastic doctor and what is happening to him sucks.
"What I can't get behind is how you two are brazenly breaking hospital policy. Marriage or no marriage, it's clear you're screwing him, at the very least. I think you'd better fess up to HR before someone else does. There are hospital policies for a reason."
His heart was hammering. I could see it in the way his pulse throbbed through the veins in his neck and the ones bulging on his forehead. He was insinuating that he'd turn us in, and I found that highly insulting, given our past. He refused to let me be happy if I wasn't happy with him, and I hated that.
"You're willing to throw my career away over this?" I asked, scoffing, and his eyes narrowed. In the dimmer light of the building with the backdrop of the sunny sky out the door behind him, his face looked sinister.
"Yes, I am. And it's not about you. Not everything is about you. Maybe I'm trying to save your patients' lives. Maybe that's why that patient died." I couldn't believe what he said. Pain and anger rose up in my chest. I wanted to smack him, but I couldn't bring myself to be that petty.
"You ruined my life once, remember?" I asked, stepping closer. My body was in full flight mode, wanting to run away, but I forced my feet to stay planted because the last time we had a showdown like this, I wasn't able to defend myself. I froze.
"You're ridiculous."
"No, Sam. I'm not. You sent me a text message on the day of our wedding, while I was sitting in the stylist's seat having my hair done so I'd look beautiful walking down the aisle to marry you. You left me with four hundred guests, including your parents, waiting to learn you ran out because you got cold feet. I never got back the rental fee for the church or the hall. I had to pay the caterer, and I ate mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli for weeks out of my parents' freezer."
I moved forward as I spoke, and he took steps backward. I didn’t care that people were staring or that he was looking embarrassed. He had no right to threaten my career for any reason.
"I called you and you ignored me. I had to mail back hundreds of gifts, and I paid for all that postage myself. The dress wasn't able to be returned, and no one buys a used wedding dress, Sam." I was seething, tears streaming down my cheeks, but I continued. "So don't come at me acting all high and mighty, threatening my relationship and my job because you got butt hurt that you couldn't date me again. I never wanted to date you again. I just hoped we could be civil, and I was even willing to be friends with you. But I don't think that's possible anymore."
I dropped my tray on top of his, ready to walk off, but he cut me off before I could turn. "All I see is a broken woman groping at anything to fix the hole in her own heart, taking risks that could cost her, and she doesn’t even see how blind she is. I was trying to help you, not win you back. Because after all that, I still care. But by all means, throw your career in the toilet for that old geezer. You're not the person I thought you were."
Sam turned instead of me, and he stomped back toward the cafeteria, and the few nurses who had stopped to stare scurried away. I stood there sobbing, praying to God that didn’t get back to Jack and knowing with all certainty that my time here at Cambridge was limited, if for no other reason than I never wanted to see Sam Gooding again.