Page 6 of No Other Love

Some people snored. Some people talked in their sleep. It was perfectly natural. Nothing to worry about.

I straightened my scrub top, retied the drawstring pants, and wrinkled my nose at the disgusting smell of day-old scrubs that had seen everything – from a newborn pooping green goo to assisting in an emergency C-section. I wore the white coat I’d used to prop my head on and walked out of the nurses’ station.

***

I reassured the worried parents of Baby Sheikh that their daughter’s lungs were underdeveloped because she was a preemie (prematurely born) and the attending had to operate on her tiny air pipe because of an unforeseen obstruction during pregnancy. But that she was absolutely fine and ready to meet her parents as soon as they were sure there would be no infection.

This was the part of my job I loved most. Telling the loved ones of utterly tiny, helpless, new human beings that they could stop worrying. Their wait was almost over. The end was near.

Medicine had once again triumphed over the horrors of life.

Pediatric surgery was delicate in the extreme and required nerves of absolute steel. It also required a certain degree of detachment because the patients were so tiny, hardly bigger than the palms of my hands sometimes, that caring about them was catastrophic. It would mean I lost focus on the job at hand and would cause harm to my patient, an unacceptable outcome.

Vikrant had accused me in the lawyer’s office of being dead inside, of allowing the job to consume my soul….and I’d said something equally punishing to him.

But lately, I’d begun to wonder if he was right.

If, maybe in the quest to be the best peds surgeon in the department, I had pushed down all empathy and feeling andonly used sex as an outlet for a real connection. In the end, even that had withered away.

It wasn’t wrong, of course, but maybe I could have given a calmer ear to his concerns. Maybe my ambition had blinded me to his need.

***

‘There you are, Dr. Chakraborty,’ Dr. Dsouza looked up as I came back to the doctor’s lounge, once I finished up with morning rounds. There were only three patients in the NICU, all in stable condition – so it was a fine morning for all the staff on call.

‘Yes, Dr. Dsouza?’ I straightened my spine immediately.

Dr. Dsouza was the Dean of Medicine at the hospital, the ultimate decider of all our fates. Having him talk tome, a lowly, second-year surgical hopeful was an honor beyond imagination.

‘I spoke to your father last night. I didn’t know you were Vivek Chakraborty’s daughter.’ The veneration in the Dean’s voice was sickening. And expected.

Vivek Chakraborty was a god in Indian surgery and being his daughter wasnotsomething I was proud of.

I shrugged. ‘I didn’t think it mattered who I’m related to.’

‘Of course not,’ he said smoothly. ‘But I’m sure you could put in a good word to your cardiothoracic surgeon father to come to visit us here sometime and show us that new procedure he just won an award for.’

I smiled mechanically. ‘Sure, Sir. I’ll talk to him about it. Was there anything else you needed me for?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said absently, checking his phone screen. ‘I just saw your husband down in the cafeteria. I didn’t know he was back from Goa. Why didn’t you tell me?

I felt the breath leave my chest in a rush and the floor tilted dizzily, while I clutched my stethoscope tightly between my hands. The cool metal helped steady my breathing and my wildly beating heart as three words danced in my head like cartoon birds.

Vikrant was back.

Three

Vikrant

I walked through the pristine white corridors of the place I haunted like a goddamn ghost when I worked here. The hours were long and brutal, the pay didnotmatch, and the competition was fierce. Not to mention all the fucking bureaucracy and jumping through hoops. Because we were an internationally accredited organization, thus, paperwork was our second job.

I loved it. Every adrenaline and norepinephrine-filled second of it. Norepinephrine, by the way, is the chemical that’s released in our brain when we are overwhelmed and unable to take a breath. It usually ends with us throwing a punch or running away to another place.

I had done both here. Thrown a punch at a male desk clerk who went on an hour-long tea break while a poor family needed emergency approval for their son’s knife wound treatment. And I ran away when I couldn’t fight anymore.

Not the system. Not my wife. Not the ambition that consumed her and left me hollow.

I remembered all the times Anika brought me piping hot coffee from the nearby fancy coffee place, because I preferred it. Even though we could not afford it, and she had to pull in an extra shift to cover our expenses. I remembered the massages she gave me when I was bone tired from working a double shift in the ICU, making sure the patient lived with a full quality of life.