Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 76436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Only more so.
Angie’s a student.
And…
Angie’s not Lindsay.
I pour myself a glass of bourbon, the liquid burning a slow path down my throat. The guilt, the sorrow—none of it washes away.
The room is quiet except for the low hum of the gas fireplace and the clinking of ice cubes in my glass. My gaze falls on the picture of Lindsay and our daughter that sits on top of the mantel. A wave of melancholy washes over me.
They were my world once, and now they’re not.
Angie.
She’s not Lindsay, indeed.
Lindsay was my first love. My only love. We met in college and hit it off right away. She had dated some awful creep in high school, and I was the first guy who treated her the way she deserved to be treated. She got a job teaching high school social studies while I went to medical school. It wasn’t easy. Our marriage suffered, and it only got worse during my internship when I was on call during all hours. We’d go days without seeing each other.
Then my fellowship year, Lindsay got pregnant with Julia.
We laughed at the time. About how we never saw each other, so how could it have even happened?
But we were thrilled.
And by the time she was born, I had an offer to be an attending general surgeon at the university hospital, and I had authored several papers. When I got an offer to present one of them in Switzerland, Lindsay couldn’t go with me because she was too far along in her pregnancy to fly.
I went without her, and I fell in love. Switzerland was so beautiful, and I promised I’d take her back there sometime.
But months turned into years, and we always put the trip off.
Just one of the many promises I couldn’t keep.
And among all of those broken promises, the one that haunts me the most is the promise of forever.
I glance over at the framed picture on the mantel again, my heart constricting. My wife, my daughter, both trapped in a still moment of time as I continue to live and breathe and feel an unbearable emptiness.
The guilt has been my constant companion ever since. It corrodes my soul, gnaws at me, an incessant reminder of everything I’ve lost.
Everything I failed to protect.
I down the rest of my whiskey in one gulp, grimacing as it claws its way down my throat. The empty glass clinks against the wooden table as I set it down a little too harshly.
Angie.
She’s not Lindsay.
I know this, but she’s young and full of excitement about psychiatry.
God, psychiatry.
But it excites her. She’s such a stark contrast to my own existence, which feels like it’s been in a state of perpetual winter since Lindsay and Julia passed away.
Passed away.
What a fucking euphemism.
I should really be truthful.
Three years ago…
Dazed.
Confused.
The airbag. It’s big and white and all around me.
Someone hit me. Or I hit someone. I’m not sure.
Head hurts. Blood.
My vision swims as I try to untangle myself from the airbag.
My ears.
Ringing.
High-pitched ringing.
Blood. I know the scent. Sharp and metallic. But I’m not in the OR. And the blood I smell is my own.
Blood.
Panic.
I squeeze my eyes shut and then force them open, hoping my sight will clear.
“Lindsay…” My voice sounds strange to me, distant and muffled. “Julia…”
I try to turn my head, and agony explodes through my skull. But it’s not the pain that makes me gasp. It’s the thought of my daughter in the back seat.
She’s strapped in. She’s okay. She’s got to be okay.
But why is there no crying? Why?
“Jul—”
I try to crane my neck to see the back seat, but another jolt of pain stops me. Panic and dread seize me when I can’t see her.
I fumble with the seat belt, my fingers shaking. Every nerve ending in my body screams in protest. But I can’t afford to give in to the pain. Not now.
“Julia…please,” I rasp out, choking on the words as I finally manage to unclip the seat belt. The car tilts as I climb into the back seat.
And the pain.
Fuck, the pain!
But I don’t care. I need to get Julia—
Julia!
She’s not in her car seat.
She’s…
“Julia!”
Her small body is wedged on the floor, her stuffed frog next to her.
“No! No!”
Tears mix with blood as I reach a trembling hand toward her, praying for any sign of life. Dread pounds in my chest.
“Julia, please! Oh my God, Julia.”
My right hand is numb, so with my left hand I grab her, lay her on the back seat, press my fingers to her carotid to find a pulse.
Blood flows from a cut on her head.
I’m a doctor. I should be able to save her.
I begin CPR. Or try to with only one functioning hand.
The rhythm, so familiar from years of training and practice, becomes a desperate lifeline in the back seat of our totaled car. I press, breathe, press, my heart pounding out a frantic rhythm against my ribs. My body moves mechanically, my mind trying to push away the horror that is unfolding before me.