Daisy must have noticed the way my expression changed because she moved on to a new topic. “So, Lizzie is going to Harvard, huh? She’s gonna party so hard…”
When I got home, I plopped down on the couch and put my feet on the coffee table to watch TV before bed. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I was used to the phone going off all the time that I could discern a text message from an email just by the vibration. I could tell it was an email, but never wanting to miss anything important even if I was about to go to bed, I checked it.
Subject: Please Read
From: Angelica Torres
Dr. Hamilton,
I know you aren’t practicing anymore, but my husband needs a cardiopulmonary bypass, and due to the other complications of his heart and valves, no other surgeon in the country will take on my husband as a patient. We’ve seen so many doctors and they’re calling it inoperable, but if he doesn’t get this procedure, he’ll die anyway. Please, please, please, could you consider seeing my husband? So many heart doctors have told me that you’re the only one who has the ability to do this, that you’re the best. Please consider it. Please.
-Angelica Torres
I read the email a second time before I released a loud sigh and closed my eyes, irritated that this woman had somehow hunted down my personal email to ask me for something I couldn’t give her. Just when I’d decided not to email her back at all, the guilt hit me so hard that I felt sick to my stomach. I could just ignore her and she would probably assume it was the wrong email, but I couldn’t let someone hold on to hope when there was none. So, I wrote back.
Mrs. Torres,
I’m very sorry to hear about your husband’s condition, but I’m no longer in practice. I’ve attached a list of recommendations that could be a good fit for your needs.
Take care,
-Dex
12
Sicily
I was at home when my phone rang from a number I didn’t recognize.
I would normally ignore it and consider it to be spam, but in my new line of work, I couldn’t afford to dodge calls anymore. I answered, even though it was in the evening and I was tired after the long day. “This is Sicily.”
There was a long pause of silence, but I could hear audible breathing over the line, so someone was there.
“Hello?” Maybe it was a butt dial.
A woman’s broken voice came through. “Who…who are you?”
My heart released a shot of adrenaline when I heard the shaky tears in her voice, heard the crashing of her entire world around her because she knew exactly who I was without needing the answer. My body slowly lowered back to the couch because I couldn’t stand with these weak knees.
“You’re sleeping with my husband, aren’t you?” There was so much rage in her voice, so many heavy tears.
I closed my eyes and had never felt worse. It was rock bottom, the epitome of self-loathing. Telling myself I didn’t know about his wife when I slept with him wasn’t a good enough reason anymore. I’d taken part in an affair—and I hated myself for that.
“Hello?”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to make this better. I didn’t want to make it worse.
“He says there’s nobody else, but I don’t believe him.”
It was time to hang up because my silence was enough of a confession. But I wanted to be there for this woman, for this stranger, because I could feel her pain like we had souls that were connected. “I-I didn’t know. I’m so sorry… I didn’t know.”
Click.
It was hard to keep my shit together at work.
Her despair had sunk deep into my skin, invaded my heart, and brought me into a depression I would never be able to escape. If I’d never hit on him at the airport, could all of this have been avoided? Would he have remained faithful if the temptation hadn’t been there?
Was this all my fault?
The doors opened to the floor, but I remained in the elevator, replaying everything in my head, looking for all the signs that pointed to his deceit, the signs that I didn’t see.
“Going out or…?”
He was in the elevator with me, but I didn’t know how he got there. I turned to look at him, realizing I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t been aware of reality at all. The backs of my eyes hurt because the tears were ready to take off. “Uh…” I faced forward and stepped out, trying to remember why I’d come up here in the first place.
He stepped out and joined me, the doors closing behind him. “Sicily, you alright?” He looked down into my face, wearing a genuine look of concern, his brown eyes even more beautiful when they were focused like that.