Page 3 of Eight Naughty Notes

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CHRISTIAN

“Yes, Dr. Hughes. You can expect me there Thursday morning.”

“Good, good. I wanted to introduce you to the staff at a quick announcement meeting I planned to have at seven am.”

“That works for me.”

“Great. And uh …” His voice trailed off as he leaned in closer to the screen as if I couldn’t see him clearly for the past half hour we’d been discussing the details of my return to Pittsburgh and under his supervision. “I know that you and Dr. Clark have history.”

That would be an understatement. If history meant I‘d been balls deep inside of her sweet wet body and that she had called my name from the top of her lungs over and over, then yes we had history.

“Yes, but I would never let that interfere with patient care. Ever.”

“I don’t doubt that Dr. Powers. I just wondered if you’d be in touch with her before you arrived. That way she didn’t feel railroaded by your, uh, sudden appearance.”

He seemed nervous about how Tori would react to me coming back to the hospital where she and I first did our residency. Where we fell in love.

“Not sure that is necessary,” even though it likely was. “But I’ll try to reach out to her before my flight in.’

“Good, good.” He nodded his head and looked away as there was a soft knock on his door and a middle-aged dark skin woman with neatly curled hair entered. She gave Dr. Hughes an intimate smile that he returned and as if he realized he wasn’t alone, turned back to the screen.

“Well, that settles it. I’ll see you in two days.”

I watched the woman inside his office back away from the screen as I agreed. I heard giggling before the video conference meeting ended.

Damn, Dr. Hughes had a work honey, I thought.

It immediately made me think about how work was a good or terrible place to start a love story. Closeness bred familiarity and it either became the centerpiece of something special or had you grasping for straws in people that would otherwise not be your type. But you were around them a lot, and they started to look good. You saw qualities in them that might make them desirable beyond a co-worker, and boom you were sleeping with them. However, rarely were they ever the person you created them to be in your mind. No. They were just a fill-in for someone else. The trap of workplace romances often got married people in trouble as well. Sleeping with their secretaries, or nurses, or the doctor that brushed up against you one too many times. There was nothing better to do and your loins were leading you. I admit, I’d had casual hookups a few times with nurses or other doctors, but I know in my heart that I was trying to replace Tori. Nothing and no one could ever replace her is what I learned. It was that recognition that led me to accept the position to go back to where I met her, but I was almost certain she would hate the sight of me so warning her of my coming might get her to transfer out of there within twenty-four hours.

I had lost Tori once and I didn’t plan to lose her again. Not when I came all this way just to win her heart again. I could take a job anywhere. I could get almost any hospital in this country, or even abroad, to open up a position for me. My specialty in Pediatric Critical Care and the dire need for a physician qualified to treat and manage high-risk cases of children brought to the ICU, made me highly sought after to help in bringing those sick children back to health. I’d been working at the Children’s Hospital in Atlanta for the last few years to be closer to my dad as his health began to decline. The drive to Decatur was quick, and I could get to him in no time if need be and back to the hospital. It also gave me peace of mind knowing I could see his face whenever I wanted. The other reason I left for Atlanta, was knowing the torture of working side by side with the woman I loved but couldn’t be with. When she was accepted into a fellowship program at the hospital where we were doing our residency, I knew then that I should accept the fellowship at the hospital in Atlanta. She didn’t want to see me anymore than I really wanted to see her.

When she ended things, I was too arrogant to understand why. I was angry and saw it as her being selfish and putting work ahead of me. It took some time to realize that damn, why should she have done that? We were doctors, and Tori was one of the best and always had the qualities to be. That didn’t happen by osmosis. To become the best at anything you had to put in the type of time, and commitment that most people balked at because it meant having no life outside of serving others. I realize that a lot of people view the job as doctors as something glorious, but the reality was that outside of those exhilarating moments of holding what feels like life in your hands, a doctor feels helpless. You do what you can. You do all that your medical knowledge and science allow you to do, and still sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes, more times than a little bit, you lose a patient and when that patient is a child, your heart grows heavy. That child had barely scratched the surface of life. It seems cruel.

And yet even with the disappointment and heartbreak we sometimes felt, we still chose this profession. Millions of people choose to help people fight against disease whether self-inflicted or congenital. It didn’t matter. People needed help and doctors not only took an oath, but desired to help heal those who needed it. Being a black man in this position only made it that much more vital and important. We had hundreds of years of distrust of the medical system, or good reason and that led to my people avoiding preventative treatment and medicine, which could lead to birth defects or detection of conditions that could be lessened if caught in advanced stages. Part of my job included outreach for this reason, Christmas Dreams Do Come True, a non-profit founded in 2011 by husband and wife, Dr. Roger and Vivian Clouse. Dr. Roger is a pediatrician and Dr. Vivian, a child psychologist with a big family and a heart for giving back to communities of black and brown children.

When a representative reached out to me to see if I wanted to participate in their auction that focused on granting wishes and gifts to kids for Christmas, I assumed the follow-up call would be with the rep but was surprised to learn it was Dr. Roger Clouse. He wanted to personally invite me because my specialty as a Pediatric Intensivist was near and dear to his heart. After discussing some renovations recently made to the pediatric ICU at my hospital, we discussed the auction and why this year was so important. It was the 10-year anniversary, and a large gala was being held to celebrate how many children had been helped since its inception. Even though the couple started the foundation in Dallas, they had since spread the organization around the country and when they mentioned they would be holding the large event in Pittsburgh, I immediately thought about Tori.

The conversation I had with Dr. Roger was like talking to a mentor and I found myself opening up to him about wanting a change in pace which I knew had a lot to do with my father no longer being here. He mentioned that there was an opening at the Children’s Hospital and wondered if I would be interested in it. I made no promises in applying but found myself reaching out to Dr. Hughes given he was the Director back when I was a resident there. I wanted to just get a feel for the environment before I made a move. He seemed to be expecting my call.

“Dr. Clouse mentioned he’d spoken with you,” he started off by saying. “So, are you coming back home?” He asked.

A weird feeling came over me because Atlanta was technically home, but since Pop had died, it lost the feeling for me. My mom had died first and a year later, my father followed. So, Dr. Hughes calling Pittsburgh home at a time when I felt I had lost home, made me think he was providing a lifeline when I needed it and at a time when I seemed to be thinking of Tori more and more. In fact, Tori weighed on my thoughts a lot since he died because of his fascination with her in the days before his death.

Right before he passed away, my dad who had few lucid days, asked me about “the young girl you were sweet on in Pittsburgh … what’s her name?”

“Tori, Pop. Her name is Tori.” Beautiful Tori. The love of my heart.

“Yeah, that’s right. Well, I want to see her before I go.”

“Go where?”

“Hush. Just go get her. I need to speak with her right away.”

I brushed it off because in his lucid moments, he knew that Tori and I had been broken up so there was no way I’d be able to get her for him. But I lived to regret not fulfilling his request. At the time I thought he had drifted back to that place where my sister and I called his sanctuary. Where his mind didn’t have to deal with the troubles of this world and he reverted to his youth, unable to recognize us in the present, but now that he’s gone, dying only a day after that conversation, I think he was as clear-headed as he’d been in years. After I had time to think about anything else but the pain of losing my father, I was able to remember that day and how adamant he had been about seeing Tori.

He’d only met Tori one time when he and my mother came to visit me in Pittsburgh. My mom was skeptical of Tori, only because she saw Tori’s commitment to her job, the hospital, and her future, as something that would eventually getting in the way of our relationship. She was right of course but at the time I had been too blind to see that. Only my love for her mattered. My father held a different opinion of Tori. He took to her immediately, asking her to join him as he flipped the meat over the fire of the grill. She seemed to like him too. Either that or she was avoiding my mother who did nothing to hide her skepticism. Even still, Tori loved that day with me at my parents’ house and by the time we headed back to our hotel room, I was trying to think of how to add a wife, to my immediate goals. Which was so far from the path I had set for myself. Women had always been bells to my whistle, not required beyond fun. Tori changed that and I believe I had changed it for her too. But when we returned to the hospital after our brief but needed break, things took a turn. Within days, she was no longer taking my calls and though we were still working together, we were back to barely speaking if it did not directly involve a case we were both assigned to. I felt like my heart had been trampled all over by her because I had given it to her and though she never committed to accepting it, she had it anyway. However, I held the pain of that inside until I completed my residency and moved back to Atlanta to complete my residency.

But no matter how busy I became, and no matter how many patients I helped to save, Tori never left my heart. Even after countless women in my bed, in my arms, wrapped around my body, I still couldn’t get those big brown eyes and those heart-shaped lips out of my mind.

Why? Because no matter where I go, no matter who I try to place inside my heart instead, to fill up that empty space, Tori is the one who remains there. She even remained in the mind of my father and that reality told me that no amount of distraction could remove this fact: Tori was the only one for me and I had to go get her.

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