Chapter 6: Letter's from Home.

A month had now passed with out a word or even a phone call from David. I wasn't upset or even worried about it. Maybe he had finally got in thru his thick skull that we were over and the divorce was just the formality of ending something that was already dead.

I had managed to work around Doug. I had been glued to Abby for the past few weeks as my ER rotation was ending. But I knew that my time in the ER wouldn't be over. My surgery rotation was starting on Monday and this would be my last shift as an ER med student.

"Well have you learned as much as you hoped you would?" Abby asks me.

"You've been the greatest resident that I could have asked for Abby." I say smiling back at her, "I have learned more than I ever thought that I would. You are a great teacher."

I watch her as she does her famous eye roll at me. I can't help but laugh a little, we had grown to like each other, not that we were best friends or anything but closer than we had been when I had started. "You know you are under no obligation to say that." She hands me an envelope.

"What's this?" I ask, unsure of what she is handing me.

"That is your evaluation. You know of your work in the ER, what I thought of your skills and your work." She says back to me.

"Ahh," I say looking at it, not that I really want to open it.

"Erica relax," I hear Abby say to me, "it's all good, I didn't have anything bad to say about you. You have been eager to learn, on time, respectful, the perfect little scut puppy for me." I watch her laugh at the last part.

I let a smile cross my face hearing that, "well you never know." I say back to her, "but thanks for everything Abby."

"Where are you off to next?" She asks.

"That would be my surgical rotation." I say, "Something about 36 hours of call, running for labs, ER consults, it sounds like a picnic, and I would rather stay here."

"Oh well you can always come back." She says to me, "I rather enjoyed having you as a med student. You knew what you were doing and if you didn't you had no hesitations about asking. You'll go far."

"Now you are just blowing smoke up my ass Abby." I say joking back, "you don't have to do that."

She pats my back, "that I am not doing, good luck upstairs."

"Ah thanks." I walk over and stand next to Jerry. I hug him, "ah I don't want to leave you big guy."

Jerry smiles at me, hugging me back, "I don't want you to leave me either. I hope that the newbie is just as good as you."

"That's asking a little much now isn't it. You know they broke the mold when they made me." I am trying to crack jokes.

"You got that right." He says poking my side, in an attempt to get me to giggle again.

"Hey not fair," I say as laughter escapes my lips and I bat his hand away from my side. "I'll be back before you know it."

"I know you will kiddo." He says smiling at me, "oh before I forget this was dropped off for you earlier in the day."

I take the thick envelope from him unsure of what it is until I look at the return address, it's from David. I am hoping that these are my divorce papers and he just accidentally sent them to the hospital because he couldn't remember my home address, "thanks Jerry."

I head for the lounge for the last time this rotation. Abby's review in one hand the letter from David in the other. I grab a cup of coffee and sit down, the day shift would be coming on soon and I didn't know if I wanted to be there when they got on, but I sit down anyway opening up Abby's review first, good news before bad news. She was right; I had never gotten a more glowing positive review in my life. But then this was the first one that I had gotten. With what she said, I knew that I could do this.

My hands start to shake now as I start to open the other one stopping when I see Dr. Lewis and Dr. Carter come into the lounge talking happily to each other. They are followed by Dr. Kovac and his wife Sam. I'm sure that they have noticed me as they get their lab coats from their lockers.

"Hey, good morning Erica," I hear Dr. Lewis's friendly and warm voice say to me.

"Good morning to you too, Dr. Lewis," I chirp back.

"You know its okay to call me Susan when we are not in front of patients. You don't have to be so formal all the time." She smiles at me.

"Sorry Susan." I say grinning back at her, everyone here has been really nice and fun to work with. If you could call what we do that.

"Aren't you leaving us?" She asks.

"Well temporarily. I am starting my surgical rotation Monday." I say smiling.

Sam looks at me for a minute with her arm still wrapped around Dr. Kovac, "Ah, well I am sure then that we will still see lots of you. That explains why Jerry isn't smiling this morning. He's losing his coffee and muffin gopher."

I can't help but laugh at that, "yeah well temporarily. I am sure that I can still find time to slip him a coffee and a muffin occasionally."

Susan smiles at me, "good luck Erica." I hear her say to me as I watch them leave the lounge to start their day.

I pull my attention back to the letter from home. Now opening it all the way, I am surprised at what falls out. There must have been a thousand dollars now sitting on the table in front of me. I put it back in the envelope and wonder why David is sending this to me, and where he had managed to get it. I can't help but wonder if he has in the last month started to get his life back together and maybe just maybe stop drinking. I look up as Doug comes into the lounge followed by Abby.

"I thought that you would have been long gone by now." Abby says smiling at me.

"Uh yeah," I say, "I was on my way out but this came from David." I toss the envelope back down onto the table.

She sits down next to me as she pulls off her lab coat, "not what you were expecting I take."

I shake my head, "no, I wasn't expecting this at all. I haven't had a chance to go thru it all yet." I glance up Doug is standing in front of his locker, I'm not sure just how far to go into this with Abby. She had been understanding and sympathetic all the times that we had talked over the last 6 weeks of my rotation.

I watch as Doug hands Abby a cup of coffee and surprisingly refills mine for me with out me even saying anything. Then he sits down at the table with us. I look at Abby eyes wide not sure what to say or even what to do.

Abby looks at me with concern in her eyes, she knows that this can't be easy on me, and really, it's not. It's harder than I thought it would be. In my heart, I still loved David, but what he had done to me was in my eyes unforgivable, no matter how much or how hard he tried to change.

"What did he send you this time?" She asks.

"Money," I say as I dump the contents of the envelope out on the table again, this time actually looking more at them this time. There were pictures of our house that he has fixed up and painted. Looking at them bring tears to my eyes as I think of the time that we were happy there. I look at the note that he had tucked into there that was lying now next to the picture, I don't know if I can bring myself to read it. I pick it up just staring at it for a minute before I can actually get my eyes to focus on the handwriting that was so clearly his.

"Erica, honey I know that I can't undo what I have done. The hurt and the pain that I have caused you are unforgivable even in my eyes. I haven't had a drink in almost a month now. I miss you, I really do, if you can find it somewhere in your heart to believe that. I promised you that I would stand by you and help you achieve your dreams. I will stand by that promise even if I am not your husband anymore. I know this isn't much but it should at least help pay the rent, put a little more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on your table. I know you've been eating those, it's all you ate your first two years of pre-med when money got tight for us." I find that I am reading his words out loud thru misty teary eyes.

"Maybe there's a small chance that we can try and work out the bad stuff that's happened between us. You know the more I think about it, and with you not here beside me I have had a lot of time to think, what mom told me, I shouldn't have taken it the way that I did. I only know her side of the story not his. I talked to Grandma earlier and she told me that he really wasn't like that, well not anymore, he had his troubles, but really, he's a good person. I can only try not fall again, try to make up for everything that I have done, but I need you to give me another chance, a second chance to make it all up to you. I don't want to give up on us, what we had was special and I think that you know it too. I love you and only you."

I stop reading as I come to the end. I lay my head down in my hands on the table as I can feel the tears coming harder and faster than they were at the beginning of the letter. As the sobs start to wrack my body I can feel two strong hands on my back pulling me from my sobbing position on the table into a very tight hug giving me a shoulder to cry on.

The only sound in the room now is the sounds coming from my crying body. I am not trying to hold them back anymore. I don't pull away from Doug's shoulder, I can tell that it's him that is holding on to me not Abby, the arms around me are to big and the shoulder that I am crying on is too broad to be hers. Up on the roof now what seemed an eternity ago he said that he wanted to be my friend and now here I found myself letting him actually be the one to comfort me. I must have cried for a good 15 minutes onto him. I could feel the damp spot on his shirt from my tears. I pull back away from him as I wipe my hand under my eyes.

"I'm sorry Doug." I say rubbing my eyes again. I am willing the tears to stop the best that I can but they don't want to seem to stop falling from my eyes just yet. This shouldn't have been as upsetting as it was and I should have seen this coming but somehow it has blindsided me.

His arm is now around my shoulder as he is giving me a small but meaningful hug, "don't you worry about it, and I'm a friend, even if you don't think you need anymore."

I try to force a smile on my face, but it's not there, "I can't do this again. I love him more than I have loved anyone in my life, but I can't let him do this. It hurts to bad."

I know that I am talking about his son, and walking away from a marriage that is sinking, but I didn't think that I had the strength to keep doing this to open up to David again and risk having my heart broken again.

Doug just hugs me as he pushes the hair back away from my face. "You have to do what you feel you have to do, eventually David will understand and if he doesn't, and then he never does."

I sniffle a little now. I guess he felt the need to give a little fatherly advice to his soon to be ex-daughter-in-law. That really doesn't bother me though. Maybe he and I could get to be friends regardless of my relationship with David. He does seem like he is a good person. I might have over reacted when I said that I didn't need any more friends, right now I could use all the friends that I could get.