Page 110 of Lily In The Valley
I miss her. But I don’t miss losing myself.
Once I’d soaked up what little sun the cloudy Seattle sky offered, I headed back to the office I’d been using to write reports and do research. On my way, I peeked into patients’ rooms, checking in with their parents, passing out stickers here and there. Up ahead, I saw Dr. Sayegh speaking with a different attending in cardiothoracic. She flagged me down before I could turn the corner. When I reached her, she pulled me into her office before the next rotation.
“I wanted to tell you something,” she said, sliding into her chair. “You’re excelling. Not just technically. Emotionally. Professionally. You’re modeling exactly the kind of doctor we want leading this next generation. The doctor I chose.”
My throat caught. “I—thank you.”
She leaned forward. “Whatever you did while you were gone? Keep doing it.”
I nodded. “I’m trying.”
“You’re not trying, Kelly. You’re doing.”
Later that afternoon, I was reviewing a new chart outside of Room 516, peds respiratory, when I saw the name: Kahlia. Ten-years-old. Persistent wheezing. History of RSV. Standard. Familiar.
I knocked on the door, stepped inside. And everything inside me froze. The woman standing at the foot of the bed looked up. And I knew. Same bone structure. Same eyes. Same grief in the corners of her mouth. She wore her hair in a curly updo, a neutral wrap around her head. No trace of makeup. Just a plain black sweatshirt and hospital bracelet from checking her daughter in.
This bitch.
God had to be playing with me. All these years, all those quiet conversations. The heartbreak I thought I could soothe. The void he worked tirelessly to find and then replace. Stood there, right in front of me.
“Hello,” I said, my voice somewhere between panicked and professional. “I’m Dr. Kelly Reid. I’ll be overseeing Kahlia’s care.”
She smiled. But something passed through her eyes brief, sharp.
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “I’m LaToya.” She said her name like a test.
LaToya. LaToya.
I wanted to push it over the edge of a cliff as it passed around my mind. Instead, I nodded, even though my pulse was sprinting ahead of me.
“Dr. Reid, the symptoms?” Dr. Sayegh asked behind me.
Don’t react. Don’t assume. Don’t break.
I turned to the tablet in my hands to keep my hands from trembling. “How long has the wheezing been this persistent?”
“Couple weeks,” she said. “It got worse after her last cold. I thought it would pass, but…” She exhaled like she’d been holdingher breath since she’d walked out of the house with that damn blue suitcase. “It didn’t.”
I nodded again, mechanical. My jaw ticked as I fought to hold back the words I really wanted to say. “Any fever? Chest tightness? Difficulty sleeping?”
“Some nights, yeah. I tried giving her some fish oil to loosen it up, but it didn’t help not a bit.”
My eyebrow raised when it caught the distinct way she said oil with an ‘r’ added to the pronunciation. It was the same regional fleck my mother and grandmother had anytime they said “boil” and “foil.” I kept my voice neutral, the way I’d been drilled to do so from so many years of medical training. But inside my chest, boom after boom went off.
Because I knew. Knew the arch of that jaw. The hazel eyes with small flecks of green catching the light like fire. The guarded way she held herself like the world had asked too much, too often. As if she hadn’t left a hole of emptiness in the heart of one of the best people in the world. And here I was, struggling to maintain my composure. Be professional. When all I wanted to do was curse this lady out from here to hell. And she had the audacity to sit here with another child. Like the one before didn’t matter. “Does she have any known allergies?” My voice cracked slightly on the word allergies. Dr. Sayegh raised a brow, but let me continue with the examination.
“She had a bad reaction to something when she was younger. Bactrim. My poor baby broke out in hives all over. They told me it was a Sulfa allergy.”
I froze. My stylus hovered over the tablet. Sulfa allergy. Hives. The same hives I’d made fun of when Khalil had them while trying to recover from his sinus infection. Little red patches covered his body. I’d enjoyed making him my fake patient, rubbing ointment over his back and nursing him back to health.
My throat tightened. “Any other allergies?” I kept my voice neutral when all I wanted to do was scream,How could you leave him?
“Nope. Just that one. I’ll never forget it. Kahlia was miserable for days,” she said, smoothing her hand over the girl’s forehead.
I gave a tight smile. “I’ll be sure her meds are updated accordingly.”
“Thank you, doctor,” she replied. The word sat heavy between us.
