[2013] Life II Read online

  Max opened the letter. He navigated Garfield’s sloppy handwriting:

  Hey Max,

  I just had to write when I found out you got married. All of us are shocked here, but we’re happy for you, buddy. I saw your mom when she came over to visit my mom, and you were quite the hot topic! They couldn’t believe how sudden the wedding was. Your mother even went as far to say that you eloped. I don’t suppose there’s a little Thorning on the way, is there?

  Anyway, how are you, bro? How’s married life? I hope to find out someday, although my prospects aren’t looking good. I’m still trying to figure out what to do next as I’m still living at my parents’ place so I can save some money and get it together.

  Max knew that this letter was a cry for help. Should he respond? Or was the long silence between the two of them better left alone?

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  September 5, 1994 at 8:42 a.m.

  Pamela returned from her morning jog with a newspaper, cup of coffee, and a bagel with cream cheese. She sat down at the kitchen table beside Max, who was poring over his new schedule for his third year of medical school.

  Third year meant a pronounced shift to hospital work and long, tedious hours. He’d have to report to the hospital at odd hours to check on an ever-changing assortment of patients who would be assigned to him under the watchful eye of a preceptor.

  Pamela held out the newspaper to him as she sipped her coffee. “Look at this, Max.”

  “Not now, Pamela, I’ve got to focus on this,” he said curtly. Immediately he felt a twinge of guilt.

  “Why don’t you ever read the newspaper?”

  “It’s not news to me.” Not after twenty-six years of living through world affairs that now recycled endlessly through his head, like a bad soap opera.

  “Okay, but listen to this,” Pamela replied, ignoring his mild irritation. “In Alabama, an old woman who was legally blind was cured by praying in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary.”

  Max chuckled without meaning to.

  “What’s so funny about that?” Pamela asked.

  “Well, it’s funny if you’re not religious.”

  Pamela flattened her mouth and lowered her brows. “I am religious.”

  Max looked up, startled. “But you don’t go to church.”

  “No, but I feel God inside of me. I always pray for others.”

  Max stared. “Okay.”

  Pamela washed down her bite of bagel with a sip of coffee. “How can you not believe in God?”

  Max leaned forward, a little angry. “What evidence do you have that He exists?”

  Pamela shot back, “All you doctors say you must prove it. I’m sorry, proof is not everything. It’s like you can't prove love. It’s how you feel. I believe in my heart that the Lord exists and I feel His presence everywhere.”

  “What about the other planets?” Max charged, with a dangerous look in his eyes. “What about other beings? Did God create them, too?”

  Pamela appeared astonished. “What other beings?”

  “Aliens.”

  Pamela waved her hand quickly at Max, as if to remove herself from a travesty. “So you can believe in the presence of aliens that you’ve never seen, but not God. Max, I believe God created the Universe, then Earth.”

  Max wanted to blurt out, “You’re wrong.” But he loved her, and she was not receptive to his view of the origin of life, so it wasn’t worth arguing. Instead, he said, “I respect your faith in God, Pamela, even if I don’t share it. That’s what our marriage is all about. Being able to share everything, and respectfully agreeing to disagree when necessary.”

  Pamela seemed relieved. She held up the cup in front of her chest. “Absolutely, Max.”

  In a deep funk, Max decided to seize this opportunity to face the cupboard to get a glass to pour himself some orange juice. He grasped the handle of the cabinet door to steady himself, reeling from the sudden sinking feeling that he’d married Pamela way too fast.

  Still, it was fun thumbing his nose at his old Life I and blast away at how carefully he had laid out the journey of his previous timeline.

  He couldn’t help but smile at the wicked thought.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  October 23, 1994 at 2:46 a.m.

  It was almost dawn. Max walked through a brightly lit forest. Looking ahead, he could see three people seated in front of a large boulder, which was covered with moss. He knew who they were: it was Abby, Angela, and Brandon, just as they were before he’d returned back in time.

  Angela was seated on the ground to Abby’s left and Brandon was sitting on his mother’s lap. Abby had her arms around both of them.

  All stared at Max as he slowly approached them. They never took their eyes off him. He saw the impatience in their faces.

  “We’re waiting for you, Max,” Abby said crossly. This was the old Abby. The one who was constantly disappointed in him, wanted more from him, and complained and bitched about all he did—not the lovely girl he’d sought out on her college campus.

  Dad, we’re waiting for you, said a dejected Angela, through sign language.

  Almost in perfect turn, Brandon spoke out, “We’re tired of waiting for you, Dad.”

  Max said nothing. He kept approaching. Fifty more feet to go. Thirty more feet. Slow. Steady. His heart thumping.

  Again, his family never changed their expressions, nor turned away from Max. Brandon and Angela’s arms were crossed. Abby held on to both.

  Closer now.

  Head pounding.

  Eyes blurring.

  Max’s thoughts howling.

  He reached out.

  By then, the family had vanished.

  The silence absorbed Max completely.

  Light filtered down from the foreest. Max lifted his head to look around him. The pain in his head startled him. He shut his eyes, and endured the pain.

  Dimly, he saw the green-and-blue forest floor through his closed eyelids. The forest hovered over him. Max felt the pressure of the emptiness around him and clenched his fists and screamed.

  He woke up, drenched in sweat, his breathing labored.

  God, he thought, what’s happening to me?

  It wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  November 3, 1994 at 5:54 a.m.

  “Max, wake up!” Pamela was shoving on Max’s shoulder as he lay in bed. She was already dressed in a jogging outfit.

  “Huh,” Max said, drifting in and out of sleep.

  “Time for you to go to the hospital!” Pamela said, a bit too peppy for him. She was such a morning person. “Remember you asked me to wake you up by six?”

  “Yeah, right,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Thanks.”

  “Come on, Max. Get up!” Pamela frowned. “If you don’t get used to these early hours, you’ll never make it as a doctor!”

  He groaned as he tried to wake up. “I’m up. I’m getting up. I’m just doing it slowly.”

  Pamela looked concerned. “Sweetie, last night you were having a bad dream. You were calling out for someone named Angela. You said, ‘Angela, I’m coming.’ Over and over. Is she an old girlfriend of yours?”

  Max sat up, his eyes now open wide. He put a hand on the back of his head and rubbed it furiously. “No. She’s a child.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “No,” Max lied.

  “Oh. Then how do you know she’s a child?”

  “For God’s sake, it was a dream.”

  “Hmm. Max, you’re working too hard. Can you talk to your professor to see if you can get out of these damn hospital assignments?”

  “Oh, no sweat,” Max griped. “I’m sure he’ll be really receptive to that.”

  “I’m just so concerned about you,” she said, smoothing her hand through his mussed hair.

  Max reached over and kissed her tenderly on the head. “I’m okay.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  But he kn
ew he wasn’t.

  Chapter Forty

  January 25, 1995 at 11:45 a.m.

  Max and Nathan, decked out in lab coats, were among fellow medical students in Room 651, Calgary General Hospital, listening in to a case conference involving a patient.

  Dr. Hellyer showed the charts of the patient to the medical students and explained the symptoms. “Here we have a forty-year-old female with loss of bladder control and blood in her urine. What should be the diagnosis?”

  Nathan raised his hand.

  “Yes, Nathan?”

  “My diagnosis, based on the information given, would be urinary tract infection.”

  “Very good, Nathan. And what would you prescribe?”

  “You can give her ampicillin for the UTI.”

  Dr. Hellyer nodded. “However, as doctors, we must exhaust all possible alternatives until we come to the most probable outcome. In this case, her cultures were negative for UTI. There’s no sign of previous STDs or trauma. What would be the next thing to ask?”

  Max interjected, “Kidney cancer?”

  “No. The CT was clean for tumors and kidney stones.”

  Another student, Amanda, piped in, “What about her sodium level?”

  “Low.”

  Nathan added, “Then it can be endometriosis in the bladder.”

  Amanda disagreed. “Yes. But it can also happen from low sodium intake in her diet.”

  Nathan countered, “The toxins may be absorbing her sodium.”

  Dr. Hellyer took control of the discussion, “Maybe. As Nathan pointed out, she may also have endometriosis. We’re doing a cystoscopy tomorrow to be sure.”

  “Told ya,” Nathan whispered to Max.

  Dr. Hellyer instructed the students, “Now, back to your stations. We meet again tomorrow.”

  Nathan and Max conferred as they walked down the halls past the bustle of the hospital, which continued non-stop, twenty-four hours a day. Just like Max’s memories of Life I.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Nathan confided in Max, “I may specialize in orthopedic surgery or thoracic surgery. I’d love to try cardiac surgery, but it’s really competitive.”

  “I don’t think I’m cut out for surgery. I was thinking more along the lines of general practice.”

  “Come on, Max. Really?” Nathan said dismissively. “That’s for lightweights.”

  “Well, there’s a huge demand for them. And I kinda like the idea of having longer relationships with patients than just cutting them up and passing them along.”

  “Well, you gotta do what’s right for you, I guess.”

  They entered the elevator, walking up in front of a small crowd within. The doors closed.

  The elevator doors opened and the two colleagues walked out.

  Max and Nathan walked up to a junction in the hallway where Max knew they’d part to report to their respective stations. He finally surrendered the question that’d been gnawing away at him all morning, even if he wasn’t the one on the hot seat.

  “You still going to fly home tonight?” Max asked with a lump in his throat.

  Nathan’s face suddenly fell. “Yup. It’s time.”

  Max knew Nathan was going to stay at his parents to take up much-delayed family time. Only, it probably wasn’t the idyllic Norman Rockwell moment that his parents had probably been expecting.

  “You going to tell them?”

  This time, all Nathan could manage was a grunt and a nod. Max felt awful, wishing he wasn’t in Nathan’s situation. Then again, Nathan probably never wished it upon himself either. All Max could do was support him.

  “Give me a call anytime if you like,” Max said, pressing a hand on Nathan’s shoulders.

  Before he nodded and spun around to head to his assignment, the blood had drained from Nathan’s face.

  Dr. Junkin walked up quickly to Max. “E.R.,” he grumbled. “Stat.”

  Max followed Dr. Junkin to the emergency room. Dr. Junkin met the duty nurse and peppered her with questions while Max listened.

  “We have a 37-year-old female transported here, who is fully immobilized,” she reported. “The patient was involved in a two-car accident. There was a prolonged extrication at the scene. She got hit on the driver’s side, right at the door, by another vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed. The car skidded sideways and spun once. Then it rolled over.”

  “Vitals?”

  The nurse ticked off all the stats on her chart.

  Dr. Junkin bent over to view the patient. She was fitted with a respirator mask and didn’t respond to stimuli. There was a deep wound on the left side of her face. Her hair was matted with dried blood.

  “There’s a very large laceration over the lateral mid-anterior left thigh,” Dr. Junkin said, “which is open. It’s contaminated with some debris. There’s also an open laceration approximately six inches in length into the muscle layer of the distal lower leg. The upper lacerations are approximately three-by-five inches. There’s no other sign of external trauma. There are multiple superficial abrasions over the posterior, upper left arm, and left temple.”

  Suddenly Max heard an agitated male voice. “Let me in!” He whirled and saw a man with a pre-teen girl rush into the emergency room.

  Dr. Junkin was furious. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to wait outside.”

  “I just want to know what the hell’s going on!” the man shouted.

  The man was anxious at the sight of the woman under the respirator mask. Max guided him and the child away from the treatment room. They stood together in the hall.

  “Sorry, doc,” the man apologized. “It’s just…I’m her brother, and I got very upset. This—” he motioned toward the girl, “—is her daughter, Chloe. We want to know what’s going on.”

  “Your sister’s vital signs are stable,” Max said. “She has a huge gash in her left leg, but the extent of the wound is not life-threatening.”

  The man released a long sigh. He bent down and hugged Chloe, who was motionless and expressionless the whole time. “Your mom’s going to be okay,” he told her.

  “When will Mom be home?”

  “Probably by tomorrow,” Max said. “They’re going to stitch up the main wound and do some tests to make sure everything else is okay.”

  The man massaged his eyes. “Jesus.” He turned to Max. “Martha’s a single mother. The father’s never been around much. If Martha went under, then...” His eyes misted when he glanced at his little niece.

  Chloe suddenly started to cry. “Is my mom going to die?”

  “No. No.” Max patted Chloe on her shoulder. “She’s not going to die.”

  Chloe sobbed. “She had blood all over her. She’s going to die.”

  Max stood helplessly as Chloe’s uncle attempted to comfort her. “Doc, come on, tell her again,” he pleaded.

  Max leaned over. He spoke in his best doctor’s voice. “Your mother’s actually better than she looks. She’s strong. She’s going to make it. Trust me.”

  Chloe slowed down her sobs, nodding at Max.

  “Thank you, doc,” the uncle beamed. Then he turned to Chloe. “Let’s go get some ice cream. How’s that?”

  Chloe nodded once again, wiping her eyes. The two left, with the uncle waving and smiling back at Max. Max smiled and waved back.

  This was what it was all about. Coming back here, and doing everything over, in Life II. Doing everything in my power to help people. To rescue them. To save lives and keep families together.

  To heal.

  To comfort.

  Max felt a tug at his heart. But this time, no tears would be involved. And even though this life was wearing him out, Max held his shoulders higher as he returned to the emergency room. There was more work to do.

  He was needed.

  Chapter Forty-One

  July 16, 1995 at 2:10 p.m.

  Max and Pamela pulled into Kamloops in their 1987 Volkswagen Beetle.

  “We’re here!” Max said.

  Pamela hugged Max
from the passenger seat. “Aren’t you glad I got you to get away, Max? This whole medical school is ridiculous, just slave labor, if you ask me. Don’t they realize that doctors have their own lives too? Hello!”

  “True,” Max admitted. He was exhausted just thinking about his life back home in Calgary.

  “You don’t have a pager with you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good—keep it that way! If I hear it beep one more time during the night, so help me God, I’ll chuck it into the toilet!”

  “You don’t like being married to a doctor?”

  “You know I do, baby,” she said. “I just want you to myself.”

  That would be nice, Max thought. But this trip to Kamloops had another purpose.

  Max stared out the window. He looked at his map again. GPS hadn’t been invented yet. Have to do it the old fashioned way, he groused, using the plain old road maps supplied by the government.

  “Kamloops!” Pamela whooped. “Time to unwind!”

  Max contemplated the breath-taking scenery around him. Kamloops was located in a dry, semi-desert valley, carved into the Interior Plateau by the Thompson River and glaciers of the last ice age.

  They drove into town. With an overwhelming sense of foreboding, Max checked for his sister’s address on the map, then kept driving. He clenched his teeth as he steered the little Bug into Jenny’s neighborhood. Nothing here but dreary-ass rows and rows of duplexes and triplexes. Previously, he had imagined his sister’s house out in the country, with two acres of unmowed grassy land and a forest for a backyard. There’d be a small wooden fence, near collapse but still charming. He even added in the mental picture of a horse grazing on the lawn, tethered to that fence, for good measure.

  Instead, Jenny’s house one half of a gray duplex. It had a one-car garage and a tiny brown front lawn. Just like I remembered it in Life I. So, Max sighed, Life II had done nothing to improve his sister’s lifestyle. Major disappointment. However, Pamela was already giddy about the prospect of meeting his only sibling, so they’d agreed to take this trip.