Page 80 of The Love Operation

A few minutes pass. I tell Dahlia to head out early. She’s relieved our OR schedule got fixed but still pissed the whole thing happened in the first place.

Honestly, it feels like it happened a week ago.

I just want to see this last patient, send Robot Sharif on her way, and go home. But it’s a new patient, which always takes a while.

I finish my chart as Elizabeth reappears, flipping open her notebook. She launches into her case presentation. “Mr. Wilton Calder is a seventy-one-year-old male who presents with sudden-onset back and leg pain after trying to move a refrigerator on his own.”

She keeps talking, but I stop hearing.

Because—Wilton Calder?

A chill rolls down my spine.

My stomach drops, that free fall moment right before a crash.

No—no, it’s just a coincidence.

“I’m listening,” I say, but I hear the unsteadiness in my voice. I wouldn’t believe me if I was her, but she keeps talking.

I swivel to the computer, pull up the clinic schedule, and click on the entry for Wilton Calder. There it is—under Emergency Contact: Benedict Calder.

Everything in me freezes.

“Dr. Wren?” Elizabeth’s voice cuts through the static. “Are you okay?”

My mouth is suddenly dry. I swallow hard. “Who was in the room? Just the patient?”

She shakes her head. “No, his son’s with him.”

My entire body liquefies.

“Benedict?” My voice barely works.

Elizabeth shrugs. “Umm . . . I didn’t ask his name. I think Mr. Calder is embarrassed to be here, and his son was trying to help.”

It’s him.

I feel unmoored, like I’ve stepped off a curb and the ground’s not where I expected it to be.

I turn slightly, trying to collect myself—and come face-to-face with Sharif. Damn. I forgot she existed.

“Okay,” I say, forcing steel into my voice. “Keep going.”

Elizabeth hesitates. “Are you sure? Because—”

“Keep going.”

Great. I’m about to see my ex for the first time since college, and a human computer’s going to record the whole thing on her clipboard.

Chapter 20

Emotional Herniation

Since I was a child, I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I knew I wanted to change the face of medicine—to shift the statistics for people of color, both the ones being treated and the ones doing the treating. And I knew I could, because I worked twice as hard, learned what I didn’t know, and kept going long after everyone else turned out their lights.

So I’ve never hesitated. Not to walk into the next treatment room. Not to step up to the next hospital bed. Not to pick up the next instrument in the OR.

Until now.