Page 32 of Broken Dream

How can she think I don’t listen to her?

A few minutes pass. Dr. Morgan doesn’t speak.

“Lindsay,” I finally say, my throat dry. “I’ll listen. I promise you that I’ll listen.”

“Okay,” she whispers, reaching out to place her hand on mine. It’s cold, just like everything else since we lost Julia.

I squeeze her hand. In that moment, I make myself a promise too. That even if all of this feels pointless, even if it feels like we’re stuck in this perpetual state of grieving with no end in sight, I won’t give up on her.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all those years in the operating room, it’s that sometimes it’s not about cutting away the damaged parts or stitching up the wounds. Sometimes, it’s about sitting quietly by a patient’s side, holding their hand and waiting for them to heal in their own time.

Except how can we heal when my wife won’t admit that she blames me?

Present day…

I get to the lab early.

Today these students will cut into a human body—albeit a dead one—for the first time.

God, I remember the thrill, the satisfaction of my first time.

And then the first time I cut into a live body.

It was exhilarating.

And something I’ll never again experience.

I look at the lab tables, the bodies covered in cloth. Who were these people? Did they get to live their dreams? Or did they get them ripped away from them by a cruel twist of fate?

As I did?

I jerk when my phone buzzes.

Interesting. It’s Dr. Louisa Matthews, my neurologist.

“This is Jason,” I say into the phone.

“Jason, Louisa Matthews. Is this a good time?”

“I teach anatomy lab in fifteen minutes,” I say. “But I have a little time.”

“Good. I’d like you to come in and see me. This afternoon if possible. We have a new visiting neurosurgeon. She thinks she may be able to repair your hand.”

I nearly drop the phone but catch it in time before it clatters onto the tile floor of the lab.

“What?” I say, not sure I heard her correctly.

“I know. Don’t get your hopes up, but she’s been experimenting with a new technique for a nerve transplant.”

A wave of hope, tinged with the dread of disappointment, rises inside me. “Louisa, I’ve been through this before?—”

“I know, Jason,” she cuts in. “But this is different. Dr. Patel is a pioneer in this field. She has successfully performed this operation already.”

“How many times?”

“Well…once. In Switzerland. She’s here on an O-1 visa.”

“What’s that?”