Chapter 19 #2
“I’d overslept just a couple of minutes that morning, but it wasn’t enough to matter.
I’d missed my usual cup of coffee and still gotten to the hospital on time.
I spent an hour reviewing my plan, scrutinizing the patient’s records, and getting myself mentally prepared for the lengthy operation.
But while I was busy planning, out of nowhere, the question occurred to me: Was this career what I really wanted?
I hadn’t asked myself that before, and the thought startled me, given that I was about to go into surgery. ”
A dark cloud fell over Lucas as he paused for a moment.
“I talked myself out of even questioning what I was doing and tried to push it out of my mind. The patient had asked for me, specifically. He’d heard I was the best. I was supposed to do this job.”
Another pause.
“By the time they had him prepped and I was scrubbed up, it was 9:02 for a 9:00 surgery—perfectly prepared, like every surgery I’d done before.” He swallowed. “And then everything went wrong.” His gaze dropped to the hardwood floor.
The anguish on his face made Ava want to put her arms around him and comfort him, but she wasn’t sure of the new dynamic between them, so instead, she waited patiently for him to get out the rest of his story.
His chest rose and then fell.
“During the procedure, sometimes, the fluid that surrounds the brain can change the pressure inside the skull, and what’s called ‘a brain shift’ can occur.
If the surgeon fails to account for the shift, the electrode could penetrate a blood vessel.
I thought I had the right pathway. But the patient started to hemorrhage.
” Lucas’s voice broke, and he took a minute to gather himself before continuing.
“I didn’t work fast enough, and my patient died on the table.” His eyes glassed over, his lips set in a straight line, the agony of the situation still evident.
“I’m so sorry.” Ava took his hand once more. “You can’t beat yourself up. You’re not perfect. So many things are out of your hands.”
He shook his head, his body trembling just enough to be visible.
“I’ve been over it and over it. Like a coach with a botched play, tearing the scenario apart, studying every move, and trying to learn from the situation.
After reviewing everything in slow motion, I’ve realized I’d have been able to save him.
But in the panic of the moment, the strategy hadn’t occurred to me. ”
“We’re all human, Lucas.”
“He died under my watch, at the work of my hands. He chose me. I had to tell his wife.” Tears brimmed in Lucas’s eyes.
“I can’t live with myself for that. It ruined my relationships, my confidence to do surgery, my life …
I blame that one moment when doubt peeked through and I questioned what I’d chosen to do with my life.
Had I subconsciously already decided that being a surgeon wasn’t for me, and maybe my heart wasn’t in it?
“No,” she said gently.
He shook his head.
“I feel entirely responsible because of it. I couldn’t be the fiancé Elise needed.
She wanted to go out and have fun, and all I could do was wallow in the heaviness of what I’d done.
Even now, whenever you and I have a nice time, afterward, I feel guilty, as if I should be the one in the grave since the outcome was my doing. ”
“You can’t think like that.”
“I can’t do surgery anymore. I walked out on my last patient, and the hospital had to scramble to find a doctor to take my place. That’s why I came to Nashville. I took a job where I didn’t have to put myself in that position.”
A tear rolled down his masculine cheek, and he brushed it away with the back of his hand.
“I wanted to get out of there, go back to my roots, and find a way of life that would help me cope. I was overwhelmed, and I didn’t know how to relate to Elise anymore.
It wasn’t her fault. She’d planned to marry a busy surgeon, and she enjoyed our lifestyle.
I no longer wanted that. I didn’t feel like I was the same person she’d agreed to marry. ”
He let go of her hand and ran his fingers through his hair, blinking his glassy eyes.
“Did you talk to anyone?” she asked.
“Of course. Knowing how the brain works, I went to counseling right away, but it didn’t help.
I still couldn’t be that guy Elise had agreed to marry.
I finally sat her down and told her I couldn’t go through with the wedding.
We canceled the invitations, the venue, and we called the wedding party.
Elise returned her dress and all but threw her ring at me.
She was so angry that I’d ruined her dream.
But while that one week would be mortifying for her, she had no idea what that time period was like for me.
The broken wedding plans paled in comparison to what I was dealing with.
All I could do was ruminate over the fact that the guy on my table was no longer.
The smile I’d seen in my office a day prior—just gone. ”
The hair on Ava’s arms stood on end as the nothingness of her near-death experience tumbled back into her mind. Had the man on the operating table stepped into the same void? Or had he been able to move straight through to paradise?
“What if I told you that the man didn’t die? He just … moved places?”
“What?” Lucas asked with a skeptical tilt of his head.
“He was no longer there, on your table, because his body wasn’t working. He went somewhere else.”
“There’s no proof of life after death, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
His lack of faith in something more floored her into silence.
He shook his head. “I want to think there’s life after this one, and I try really hard to believe it, but I haven’t been entirely convinced. There’s no evidence in my life that there’s a higher power. ”
“Then why go to church?” Ava asked. “You were the first one to say you’d be back. If you don’t believe me, why go?”
“The sermon talked about freedom and love for one another. I think that’s a great message.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “That is a great message. But I can almost guarantee that everyone in that congregation has faith in life after death. That’s what church is all about—a belief in something greater than us.”
The tension in his shoulders eased, and he shook his head. “I used to believe it. I want to believe it …”
“You can, but you have to actually let God in.”
Ava said the words before she’d even comprehended them herself.
And it hit her: Even without a near-death experience, people who saw miracles in everyday life experienced them because they were open to them.
Those who got signs got them because they were looking through the eyes of faith.
Had that been why she hadn’t seen her dad? She hadn’t had enough faith?
“I guess with my scientific mind, I need proof,” Lucas said.
She turned back to Lucas. “I’m your proof.”
His brows pulled together. “What?”
Ava told him about how she coded and entered the void and the voice that she could only assume was God.
She left out what God had commanded for now, but she told Lucas everything else—how the void was more real than where they were sitting at this moment, how much love she’d felt, and how the experience had changed her.
“It could have been your natural defense mechanism kicking in to protect you from the trauma you were facing,” he said, picking up his wine. “Or it was caused by dysfunction in your temporal lobe, which can produce euphoria or the feeling of an out-of-body experience.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you done? ”
“I work on the brain enough to know, Ava.” He took a sip from his glass.
The only way to get Lucas to fully understand the significance of what she’d gone through was to tell him everything . And given that he’d divulged his entire story to her, she owed it to him.
“I thought I’d gone crazy. And it took me a while to figure out what had actually happened. But I felt a presence, and the voice spoke to me.”
He stared at her with a steady gaze.
“I was given a choice that included you. The voice said, ‘Find Lucas Phillips and live out the rest of your life, or pass on peacefully.’ I chose to live to save myself.”
His face crumpled in confusion. “You heard my name?”
Ava leaned in and took his wine from him, setting it on the coffee table.
“I hadn’t seen you in years. There was no reason to think of your name specifically.
And I’m telling you, Lucas, it was a genuine experience.
I was still me, but my body was gone. Even though I still felt as if I had a body.
I could move and walk, and I was myself. ”
He frowned, his face contorting as if he were thinking it over. “It could’ve been alack of oxygen to the brain. High levels of distress can lead to vivid experiences.”
“Then explain to me why you had one final patient before leaving Columbia-Presbyterian, and it was me. Tell me why, when I chose to live, the first person I saw when I opened my eyes in that hospital room was you? Tell me why you could’ve taken a job anywhere in the continental US, and you decided to come home and work in Nashville?
And I could’ve stayed in New York at home, where most people recuperate from an event like this, but I traveled here, and you were the one on my case? Those are quite a few coincidences.”
His look drew inward, evidently making sense of this strange thing that had happened to her .
Then, Ava realized, when she’d heard “ You’re not done yet ,” it might be because she had to help Lucas understand …
He didn’t believe. And this moment made clear that even though she did, she had a lot of learning to do.
Having to explain the experience to Lucas had shown her the holes in her faith.
What, exactly, did she believe? She was meant to go back to church as well.
She needed to start her journey of faith.
“Lucas.” She leaned toward him. “When it’s our turn to go, it’s not up to us.
It’s up to him.” She pointed to the ceiling.
“I coded on that table. Everyone told me it was an absolute miracle that I survived. The other driver was in ICU, and I don’t know if he made it.
But I’m sitting here with a few broken ribs, some stitches, and a bang on the head. ”
She pushed herself into his view once more.
“I was asked to find you because I was supposed to tell you that God wanted that man on the operating table to leave this world when he did. And I’m willing to bet that the man chose you specifically because he was led to.
He had to have you to get where he was going.
And let me tell you, the love there will blow you away.
He’s in a better place than he was here. ”
Tears spilled over Lucas’s lashes. He put his face in his hands and sobbed, big heaves of what seemed like relief—months of torment releasing into the air.
Then, he pulled Ava to him and held her in his strong arms, the cotton of his shirt mixing with his familiar scent, and she melted into it.
He held her as if she were keeping him alive, as if he’d crumble if he let go. She didn’t ever want to leave him.
Finally, he pulled back and searched her face. “Could this really be true?”
“I’m here to tell you that it is. We don’t see the why behind everything that happens, but the God I met made me feel like there are no mistakes. All he asks of us is that we show up and do the work. ”
“You’re my angel,” he said, looking into her eyes.
Ava shook her head. “I’m not an angel. I’m just the messenger.”