Page 30 of Healed Heart

I stop pacing, lean against the window, and stare blankly outside.

My mind wanders to the dusting of snow on the ground, the way it softens everything.It clings to rooftops and tree limbs, quiet and cold, untouched by the chaos.

I walk out of the office and into my living room.The photo of Lindsay and Julia on the mantel stares at me.Her smile is bright, her eyes shining with happiness and love.

Damn.

I truly thought she and I would be together forever with Julia and eventually another child.That I’d be one of the greatest surgeons in the country.

That…

Yeah, I thought a lot of things.

Life can change in an instant.

R.Lyon.

I doubt that it stands for Rebecca.Lindsay didn’t mention that Rebecca might have been a lesbian.Of course, it’s possible Lindsay didn’t know.Or she didn’t mention it.Being gay isn’t that big a deal anymore, and it was a rare occurrence for her to talk about her past anyway.

The R from the Facebook posthasto be Ronny Burgundy.The old boyfriend who was so obsessed with Lindsay that her entire family made a move from New Jersey to Colorado when she left for college.

Odd, though.

Ronny never contacted her after that.

Unless he did… And Lindsay didn’t tell me.

An internet search does me no good.While there are many Ron and Ronald Burgundys online, some of them in New Jersey, not one of them stands out as the one who might be Lindsay’s Ronny.Besides, most of what I find areAnchormangifs.

A search of court documents yields few results as well.If Ronny was still underage when all this happened—and since they were in high school, he could very well still have been seventeen—records wouldn’t be available anyway.

How is this even happening?

Just when I fall in love again.Just when I have the chance to regain function in my right hand so I may be able to perform surgery again.

As soon as I decide to move on… The past comes back to haunt me.

It’s eight o’clock, and I don’t have classes scheduled today.

No more emails from HR, thank God.Unless they hear from the anonymous source again, they’ll consider this a closed case.

I head to Facebook to look at Lindsay’s memorial page on my desktop computer?—

Everything cuts.Screen black.Silence.

An instant later, my computer restarts.A simple electricity blip.

Then the annoying beep of my motion security system.I rise, head to the kitchen where the keypad is, and reset it.

I sigh.

Maybe Angie is home.

If I were a better man, I’d leave her out of this.I’d let her go about her life, finish medical school.Go into psychiatry.Help make the world a better place, because if anyone can, she can.

My phone buzzes.

“Hello?”I say without bothering to look at who it is.