Chapter Two – "Regrets and More Regrets"
"...Ja san budala...Seronjo! Debil! Glup sam k'o kurac! C'a san mislija juc'er?"
To most of the motorists on the Eisenhower Expressway, this soliloquy would be indecipherable. It was perfectly clear to Luka, who was cursing himself in his native language, attempting to make himself to feel guiltier then he already felt and not really succeeding. Soon, he ran out of curses to apply to himself in Croatian, so he switched to English, but that did not seem to put his mind any more at ease.
"Fucking idiot, asshole, dickhead," he muttered to himself, interrupting his self-deprecation when he spied his turn-off and managed to turn into the right lane at the last second. He barely missed running into a large pick-up truck that suddenly decided to do just the same thing without using the turn signal, honked the horn of his Saab aggressively and speculated aloud about the relationship the other driver's mother might have had with various farm animals. Just three more minutes, and he would be parked in his parking spot in the hospital garage, away from the assholes who must have gotten driver's licenses on the Internet judging by their driving. Just as he was ready to speed up, the traffic stopped completely, and he was stuck a couple feet away from the freeway exit, alone in the car with his thoughts.
The little girl got to him. She shouldn't have gotten to him so much, but she did, and he had no idea why her death upset him so much. Sure, it had been a terrible and undeserved death, but there had to have been something else that made him want to drown his compassion in alcohol, and need to stop caring about the world. His memory after leaving the hospital with Abby was not very clear, but he remembered thinking that Abby was drinking, and she was not supposed to, and she was laughing, her laugh unusual and high-pitched, while he sat there and thought about what people looked like after they stepped on mines. He thought about things he had not thought of in a long time, memories that were part of the past, memories that were in medical files, war crimes investigations and on gravestones. Abby continued laughing, and he sat there, thinking of how he wanted to kill the people who did this to the little girl, wrap his hands around their necks and squeeze the life out of them, because scum like that did not deserve to be alive. But then Abby stopped laughing, and started kissing him, and as soon they were at her apartment, their inhibitions disappeared. He did not remember much of that part of the evening, but he hoped that he did not harm Abby in any way.
The traffic jam finally cleared, and Luka continued on his way to work, thinking that leaving Abby at home while he ran off to work was markedly not the smartest move he could have made, but he could not face what happened, not until some time later – the next morning, Tuesday, next month, any time other then the current. Of course, it would have probably been smarter to stay at home along with Abby, since he probably felt even worse than she did, but he only realized that when he was halfway to the hospital, strangely enough. Oh well, he could live through the next twelve hours somehow, he'd gone to work feeling more hung over in the past. Just as he thought this, his stomach apparently disagreed with the thought and lurched, attempting to escape his body by any means necessary. Luka grimaced and willed his stomach to quiet down until he was out of the car.
Luka spotted the parking garage sign, drove in, found his spot, parked the car and got out. His head was letting him know that he needed some aspirin, but he ignored the signals for a while and went to sign in. Lab coat on, stethoscope on, one or two charts tucked under an arm to make it look like he was actually a caring physician. Fake smile to the right, to the left, going inside the men's bathroom. Fake smile at random doctor coming out. Luka made sure no one was in the men's room before he allowed his stomach to finally win and threw up his meager breakfast and whatever dinner he might have had last night. Usually, he never got sick when he was hung over, but this morning it was like he had drank acid the night before.
When the nausea subsided, he left the stall and walked to the sink to rinse his mouth. When he was finished, he shuddered slightly as he caught a glimpse of his own greenish face in the mirror, and frowned when he noticed a bruise on his chin. Some vague memory about meeting something hard with his face the night before came to mind, but he was still not sure at what point in the evening that happened. Bruise or no bruise, it was time to go practice some medicine, and if the fate was good to him, he could hide out with easy cases all day and avoid traumas. Luka sighed, glanced at the sickly reflection again and exited the room, colliding with someone the moment he stepped out of the door, instantly happy that he had already thrown up. He looked at the person who ran into him and discovered that it was Carter, loaded with charts and looking somewhat anxious.
"Have you seen Abby?" Carter asked, looking as if he expected Luka to produce her out of thin air.
Luka quickly scanned his mind for the lie he came up with during the car ride over.
"She has stomach flu," he answered, trying to put some conviction into his lie. "I think she got it from me. Or maybe I got it from her..." He hoped that his hangover made him look sick enough for the lie to be good. He certainly felt sick enough.
"Well, take it easy and tell Abby I'm hoping that she'll get better soon," Carter said, then hesitated for a moment before adding "I heard about last night - that must have been rough." When Luka didn't answer, Carter smiled nervously. "Well, I have to be going – I need to meet the pulmonology consult on Mrs. Gerardo." With these words Carter hurried off to the elevator, leaving Luka standing at the entrance to the restroom wondering why Carter had felt the need to bring up Friday night. His wonderings didn't last long, because Kerry came out of the elevator Carter got on, looking ready to kill anyone not diligently earning their pay, and after informing her of Abby's "illness" he ducked into a curtain area to start on his first patient of the day, a middle-aged woman with shortness of breath.
After a steady line of patients with seasonal allergies and Friday-evening bar fight injuries, Luka finally found enough time to go to the cafeteria and get a bagel along with a cup of tea. Usually, strong coffee was his cure of choice for a hangover, but he felt that his stomach was not yet up to it. He returned to the ER and leaned against a wall near the admit desk, feeling okay for the first time that day – his stomach had almost settled down and the future confrontation with Abby seemed to be a long time away from the current moment.
"Dr. Kovac?"
Luka looked up from the cup of tea into which he had been staring and found himself staring at a nurse he vaguely knew. Lauren, or Lillian something.
"There is someone who wants to talk you in chairs – she says you treated her daughter. I told her you're on your break but she insisted..." The nurse trailed off as Luka put down his cup and walked towards chairs, strangely confident in the identity of the woman who was waiting for him. Just as he rounded the admit desk, a woman in a rumpled business suit jumped up from the chair she was huddled in and almost ran towards him, stopping abruptly before she approached him.
"Are you the doctor who took care of my Jane?" she asked, and he suddenly felt very cold.
Jane. Jane Johnson, the little girl of the evening before. Now he remembered more details. Jane was kidnapped when she was returning home from school in Detroit. Since Jane was epileptic, she wore a bracelet, and this helped them to identify her.
"I'm Marilyn, Jane's mother." The woman might have looked stunning any other day, but now her face was frozen in a grimace, and yesterday's make-up was smudged around her eyes and lips, making her look like an escapee from a Salvador Dali painting.
"I treated Jane yesterday when she was brought in." He did not want to remember the way she looked – the blonde hair in disarray, torn clothing covered in blood, eyes wide open but already glazed over. When he saw her on the gurney he instantly knew that she would not live. He was right, because the blood loss, skull fracture and hypothermia already did their work and she was dead moments later. They tried to get her heart beating again, but the trauma to Jane's body was too severe.
"I am very sorry, Mrs. Johnson. We did everything we could, but Jane's head injury was too severe–"
Marilyn took a couple of unsteady steps towards him, and then all of a sudden she was in his arms, crying silently, her body shaking with sobs. Luka put an arm around Marilyn's shoulder and held her carefully, feeling awkward and out of place. Some patients became aware of the commotion and were staring at Marilyn and him. He looked away, found himself looking at children's smiling faces on a poster and tried not to think about Jane's still body.
Several minutes later, Marilyn's sobs stopped and she almost jerked herself away from him. Luka lifted his arm from her shoulder and pulled a slightly crumpled Kleenex from the pocket of his lab coat. Marilyn managed a small smile as she accepted it and dabbed at her eyes, which looked like two giant bruises on her pale face.
"I- I am sorry. I shouldn't have-"
"I understand." They stood still for a moment, feeling tongue-tied and uncomfortable, their grief somehow out of place in the brightly lit hall.
"If you ever need to talk –"Luka took a pen and a business card out of his pocket and wrote down his private cell phone number, wondering why he was doing this, why he was giving his number to a complete stranger. Marylin accepted the card and managed a small smile.
"Thank you. I'm sorry that I- I caused a scene. Thank you for taking care of Janie..." Unable to say anything else, she turned around and walked away, swaying unsteadily on her high heels. Luka watched her disappear behind a corner, and wished, not for the first time that day, that he should have stayed at home. His cell phone rang, and he dug into of his pants pocket, finally locating it half a minute later and answering it with a lackluster "Hello."
"How are you doing, Luka?" Abby asked hesitantly.
He was surprised to get a call from Abby, and for a moment was not sure what to say.
"Well, I've been better. How are you?"
"Better then this morning. Listen, are you free now?"
"My lunch break is coming up."
"Can we meet at this little park by the lake? The one where we saw the fireworks."
"Okay. See you there in half an hour."
He let Randi know he was out to lunch and walked to the small park, where he and Abby once went to for a picnic. Abby was sitting on the bench, next to a plastic bag with some mysterious foil-wrapped objects.
"Here's a pastrami sandwich," she said in a way of greeting. He accepted it gratefully and ate it in silence, while Abby ate a sandwich with an unidentifiable filling. After they finished eating, they took a better look at each other, and did not really like what they saw.
"You look better," Luka said, wanting to talk to Abby about last night but not sure how to bring it up. 'Hey, let's talk about the sudden drinking binge and the wild sex afterwards' was hard to convert into nicer words.
"I look better than I feel, then," she muttered.
"Me too." He looked at Abby with genuine concern. He hadn't been very truthful, because she really did look like hell, and if she looked better than she felt... Still, he had to bring up last night, as much as it might be unpleasant for her.
"Do you remember anything about last night- other then the drinking?" he finally asked, hoping that she would say yes.
Oh yes, she did. "No," she lied. "Not a thing." After a whole day of contemplation, she was able to remember most of what went on last night, and that alone was enough to make her feel like dirt.
"Me neither," Luka said, and Abby knew he was lying as well. He must have been just as humiliated as she was. Luka smiled nervously, and almost hesitantly, put an arm around her shoulders. Abby closed her eyes and leaned against him, and they just sat on the bench silently for a while. Just as Abby had gathered up enough courage to try and tell the truth, Luka's pager went off, and she was ready to scream.
Luka glanced at the pager and sighed. "They had an big MVA on Eisenhower, so I've got to run. Sorry. We'll talk more this evening, if it is okay with you." He kissed her quickly, asked her to pick up some milk, said "See you later" and briskly walked back to the ER, still somewhat confused by this unexpected mid-day truce based on mutual denial. He got back just when the first ambulances were rolling in, and allowed himself to switch to the doctor mode, to leave behind an aching head and a guilty conscience, to do something he was good at. The only thing he seemed to be any good at, something spiteful in his mind added, and he hurried to smother this thought as he almost automatically intubated a young woman.
After several hours of running from one Trauma room to another, his shoes splattered with someone's blood, he was almost ready to go home, either to an unpleasant but much needed talk about the lost evening or to a forced make-up dinner. He just needed to go through some charts – the MVA created a lot of paperwork, so he needed to translate his undecipherable scrawls into something readable by the general population. He found an empty chair at the admit desk, piled the charts on a free stretch of counter, and began re-writing his notes more legibly. Just when he finished a chart and reached for what seemed to be the last one, he became aware of someone standing next to him.
"Are you the attending physician who treated Jane Johnson?" a female voice asked from above. Luka raised his head and found himself looking at a young woman who looked uncannily like a female version of Eminem. Was there anyone in the ER today that did not have to ask him about Jane Johnson? an annoyed voice in his mind asked.
"Yes," he said listlessly, wondering who the newcomers might be. "And you are?"
"Detective Hart, Detroit PD Homicide, and this," she pointed to a stocky man to her left, "is Detective Stivers, Chicago Homicide." The duo flashed their badges and looked at him expectantly. He wished that the ground would swallow him, and managed an almost desperate smile.
"We just need to ask you a couple of questions, Doctor Kov- Kova-"
"Kovac," he corrected unconsciously.
"Dr. Kovac," the woman repeated, noting his name down on a notepad. "When Jane was brought into the ER, was she conscious, did she regain consciousness later and did she attempt to say anything?"
"When she was brought in, she appeared to have a severe brain injury - she had a GCS of 4 and only had a minimal motor response and no eye response - and before intubation she also exhibited no verbal response," Luka answered, feeling very strange when he heard himself describing Jane's condition in impersonal medical terms. Detective Hart made some more notes and asked some more mundane questions - who was treating the girl, how they identified her, what procedures were used to treat her. He answered all of her questions, feeling more and more anxious with every moment. Now, he didn't care if that last chart was unreadable - he just needed to leave the ER before anyone else could ask him about Jane.
"One last question, Dr Kovac," Stivers said, looking slightly uncomfortable. "Who discovered that Jane was sexually assaulted?"
Luka almost snapped the pen he had been twirling when he heard the question.
"Nurse Lockhart," he said, trying to sound calm and failing.
"And where can we find her?" Hart asked.
"She's out sick today, but she will be back to work the day after tomorrow, I think. You can check with the desk clerk. Excuse me - I need to be going. My shift just ended." Luka stood up, put all of his charts into the somewhat precarious pile near Kerry's note that read "Please Sort Charts Alphabetically & Write Notes Legibly" and almost ran to the lounge. After depositing his lab coat into his locker and taking his jacket, he hurried off to the parking garage, where he got into his car and drove towards the expressway, which was still probably clogged with the remains of the MVA.
His prediction was right, and soon his car was hopelessly stuck in a traffic jam of evening commuters, and he felt like he was suffocating. A quick and nervous search through the glove compartment revealed an almost-full pack of cigarettes. He could barely hold his hand steady to light his cigarette, and he knew he probably should not be driving, and that he should not have gone to work that day, and that he should not have fought with Abby and that he should not have gotten drunk the night before, but everything probably shouldn't have been done in hindsight, and now it was too late to change the fact that he felt like the ghost of the dead girl was with him in the car and was accusing him of being a cold-hearted, self-pitying bastard. He pushed the thought away and held on to his cigarette with a shaking hand. Everything would be fine, he said to himself. They would have a long talk with Abby, and they would solve all of their problems, somehow. Everything would be just fine.
Note: The Croatian phrase above, or rather my pathetic attempt on Chakavian dialect with some curses thrown in, approximately means: "...I am a fool... Asshole! Moron! Stupid! What was I thinking yesterday?"
to be continued sometime in the future...
