9/25/01
Edward’s POV:
He looked so helpless lying there, chest rising and falling so softly as the tubes helped him breathe. I wished that I could be the one to breathe for him. Only two days old in this world and already I would give my life for him. Sweet Lilly was asleep in the chair by the incubator, looking exhausted and uncomfortable as she leaned on the thin wooden arm, though perhaps lucky for I was the one to have to speak to Lawrence. “The tests came back, Dr.Anderson?” I asked nervously, trying to put on a brave face. My smile toward the doctor who had proposed to my sister just days before was as fake now at ten o’clock at night as it had been that morning when little Michael had stopped breathing.
The doctor, with the same sort of routine smile on his face, nodded. “I can’t rule out much by the results. I’m afraid all we can do tonight is wait and watch.”
My hand, dug deep into the pocket of my slacks tightened to a fist. “We’ve been waiting all day—“
“Eddy,” he put a hand on my shoulder to comfort me, but I pulled away. I didn’t want his comfort, I wanted him to make my son healthy. I didn’t want him whispering sentiments to me in the dead of night, it was patronizing. He sighed, retracting his hand. “He has an irregular heartbeat, his lungs are struggling for air from his congestion, and his fever’s—“
“I know!” I hissed. Michael had been like this all day. And all I wanted to do was reach into the incubator, scoop him up in my arms and hug him so tightly. But all we could do was stroke him gently through plastic gloves in the wall and listen to the doctors ramble on about what they didn’t know about. “I know what’s wrong with him. Now I want him to feel better!” I must have spoken loudly because Lilly stirred at my words, as did little, sleeping Michael. I was lucky not to have woken either up.
He paused, pacing around the room a moment before speaking again, slowly, timidly. “I’ll be brining in Dr.Riker tomorrow morning for you both to meet. He’ll be taking over your case since tomorrow’s my last day here.”
Abandonment. He couldn’t heal my only son and now there was another doctor to take the case? A stranger? Lawrence was practically my brother in law and now my son’s life was in the hands of a complete stranger? “Dr.Anderson, we want you…” I caught myself just in time. Maybe it was the stress. Or the lack of sleep, but I’d forgotten. With my son nearly dying, my mind had been as far away from the war as possible. “I’m sure he’s a fine physician,” I mumbled, running my hand through my hair with a sigh. “I don’t care what it takes. I just want him healthy.”
Lawrence’s POV:
I hovered in the doorway to hospital room 342 a moment. Lilly was inside the room, awkwardly asleep in the chair. Edward hovered over the incubator, biting at his fingernails and staring. And little baby Michael lay sleeping to the sound of beeping heart monitor and whirring oxygen tank. So tiny and helpless, so sick. And here I was a doctor who couldn’t do anything for him. Edward, I was sure, was going to bite my head off. But the truth was, I was having trouble concentrating. How would I ever survive the jungles of Vietnam, amputating limbs and picking shrapnel from wounds when I couldn’t even heal my own newphew?
With a deep breath, I entered, standing beside Edward, beside Michael. How in the world would I start? This is why doctors shouldn’t get involved with their patients. We weren’t supposed to be assigned to family members. But I was there with Natasha that morning visiting when the baby’s breathing had stopped. Pure, utter terror as I resuscitated and rushed him to critical care. And Edward and Lilly pleaded for me to save him. And now here he was on machines. And all the while, my mind on the war. Damn the draft. Damn it all.
“The tests came back, Dr.Anderson?” he asked suddenly, nervously, hopefully. He always called me that at the hospital. When Nat and I ate dinner at his house with Lilly he always called my Lawrence. But not here. Never here.
But still, I needed to answer. What could I say, but the truth. “Yes they did. I can’t rule out much by the results. I’m afraid all we can do tonight is wait and watch. Maybe a solution will present itself in the morning.” It was going to be a long night of waiting, though I didn’t intend to sleep at all. How could I sleep when in less than four days I’d be on a plane to Vietnam? How could I sleep when I had less than four days to memorize everything about Natasha? The sound of her breathing, the smell of her hair, the curves of her body.
His rebuttal sounded angry and shot at me like a sniper from the bushes, “But we’ve been waiting all day—“
“Eddy,” I cut him off. Anger would solve nothing. Just was this war was solving nothing. What we needed was peace, love. What we needed was to be strong for Michael. I put my hand on his shoulder to comfort him. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to hug Michael. I wanted to hold Natasha and never let go. Never leave. But Edward would have nothing of it. Angrily he pulled away from me. I sighed. Couldn’t he see that I was doing all I could? In vein, I began restating the situation. “He has an irregular heartbeat, his lungs are struggling for air from his congestion, and his fever’s still rising. We gave him some more aspirin but it’s not helping yet—“
“I know!” This time, he cut me off. He was so scared, so worried. But he certainly had a right to be. “I know what’s wrong with him,” he spat at me, wounding my honor as a doctor. “Now I want him to feel better!”
Over a hundred times that day I’d explained that this had happened to other children recently, and we did not know what caused it. Some of the babies made it through, others were not so lucky. We could only do our best. We could only give medicines and assistance and love. A hundred times I'd told him this. But that wasn't what he wanted to hear. Of course it wasn't. He wanted me to heal, to do my job. To be a doctor at a time when my country was sending me to certain death for the same purpose. I would heal... but I could never explain.
This time… this time it was different. The sort of difficult case which would normally keep me up all night with a pot of coffee and every medical textbook in the library. But this time it was personal. The sort of personal I would use every ounce of my being to care for. But this time, I wouldn’t be able to. Fate had picked me up and was whisking me away to serve a government I disagreed with, to save the lives of people I had never known in a country I had never seen. Fate had put a baby’s life in danger and I couldn’t save him… all I would be allowed was to abandon him. I couldn’t save baby Michael, and I couldn’t save myself. And of the two of us, I was the one with the higher probability of death. Plain and simple.
When I spoke again, I spoke slowly to keep my tears inside. I controlled my voice, I controlled my emotions. I was, after all, a professional. “I’ll be brining in my associate Dr.Riker tomorrow morning for you both to meet. He’ll be taking over your case since tomorrow’s my last day here.”
The words stung to say. I’d worked in this hospital since I was a medical student. It was the only hospital I’d ever known. And now my hospital would be nothing more than a few tents and cots if I were lucky. And though the words hurt, Edward’s hurt even more when he replied, “Dr.Anderson, we want you…” he didn’t have to finish. Alone, it sounded like a natural command. But with the desperation and anger behind the words, I knew he meant he wanted me to remain Michael’s doctor. In all his worry about his son’s death, he’d forgotten mine. He quickly followed up, turning from me, mumbling, “I’m sure he’s a fine physician.” He paused, making himself quite clear. “I don’t care what it takes. I just want him healthy.”
I put my hand on his shoulder once more, and this time he invited it, covering it up with his own. Softly, I answered, “That is all I would ask for.” I was a doctor above all else. My life was devoted to my patients. My life was devoted to my calling. And that would be my end as well.
3rd Person Omniscient POV:
The machineguns fired. The heartbeat skipped. The landmine exploded. The temperature rose. The soldier cried. The baby cried. And the doctors cried.
Emotions spilled through hugs and kisses the sunny Saturday when little Michael Galich entered the world, and Lawrence Anderson confessed that he would soon be leaving. Emotions ran rampant that soggy Sunday when little Michael’s breathing stopped for a moment, and Dr. Anderson’s papers were finalized at the VA. That night, the situation remained unchanged, but emotions had built so high they were liable to burst.
“The tests came back, Dr.Anderson?” asked the worried new father, speaking to the doctor who might have been his brother in law. He was nervous, of course, and had spent the last few hours alone in the room with his son, the machines, and a sleeping wife.
“Yes they did. I can’t rule out much by the results. I’m afraid all we can do tonight is wait and watch,” replied the doctor, just as worried, speaking to the brother of his loving fiancée. He was frightened, uneasy, and had spent the last few hours in the lab overlooking the tests and pouring over recent medical journals hoping to find a clue.
Waiting all they had done since the morning. Waiting was all they had left that night.
Edward, with a yawn and an air of naturally impatient frustration, “But we’ve been waiting all day—“
“Eddy…” Lawrence moved in to comfort. Comfort from a specialized professional who could do nothing. Comfort from a man hopeful man who had been doomed to his slaughter. Comfort, in the form of a warm hand on the shoulder. Comfort that Edward would have none of. He pulled away sharply, leaving Lawrence’s well-intentioned comfort to dissolve into the nothingness of the night.
And yet, Lawrence was the one to speak again, biting his lip unconsciously, “He has an irregular heartbeat, his lungs are struggling for air from his congestion, and his fever’s still rising. We gave him some more aspirin but it’s not helping yet—“
“I know! I know what’s wrong with him, now I want him to feel better!” Desperate words. Desperate emotions.
Desperate lives of two desperate men without any control. The father who could only standby and watch. The doctor who wouldn’t be allowed to do even that. Lawrence’s voice softened with the sadness of the situation. “I’ll be brining in Dr.Riker tomorrow morning for you both to meet. He’ll be taking over your case… since tomorrow’s my last day here.” And had he not had this emergency, his last day would have been today. And by the end of the week, he might not have any days at all left. Death. War. There was no room for life any more. No hope for any of them.
Edward treated the suggestion of another doctor as an insult. “Dr.Anderson, we want you…” but realized his error halfway through. Blushing and wishing very much that he had controlled his emotions better, “I’m sure he’s a fine physician.” He paused to contain his emotions, and to make his point as clear as possible, “I don’t care what it takes. I just want him healthy.”
Nearing tears, Lawrence choked out a reply, “That is all I would ask for.”
The father who promised his son the world, could only wait in worry. And the doctor who had devoted his life to saving others’ could not save his own.
In the end, there were no more gunshots, no more tubes. Only tears. Tears of loss. Tears of joy. Tears of pain. Tears of healing.