She Always Chose Him

My wife, Claire Mercer, ran the hospital, and she still handed my mother's surgery to a junior physician. Only because he was the one child her late mentor had left behind. "Noah needs this chance to prove himself. Let him take your mother's surgery." I refused, and Claire decided I was doing it to spite her. "My mentor asked me before he died to look after Noah. Can't you try to understand me, just once?" Every urgent word of it was in Noah's defense. I looked at her and was suddenly very tired. Anything to do with Noah, and I was the one who gave way. A car crash put me in the hospital and the doctors issued three critical-condition notices; she was at Noah's birthday party. My mother's health collapsed; she took Noah traveling to cheer him up. Even in the house she and I were married in, there was always a bedroom kept empty for him. For ten full years, Noah had been wedged between us. I raised my eyes, my voice dry. "This time you're still choosing him, aren't you?" Chapter 1 Adrian's POV My voice carried clearly through Claire Mercer's office. She frowned as though I were the unreasonable one. "Adrian, how many times do I have to explain this? Noah is Warren's son. I owe that man everything, and I'm not going to turn my back on his boy." She tapped the consent form on her desk. "Sign it. Let Noah operate on your mother." I stood where I was, hands curled into fists, and didn't move. "So because you need everyone to believe Noah didn't get in through the back door, you're willing to gamble with my mother's life? If something happens to her, can either of you give her life back?" My voice kept rising, and the anger sat in my chest with nowhere to go. Claire didn't even change expression. "I'll guarantee him myself," she said. "If anything goes wrong, I'll resign." She said it so lightly that my head came up. Claire had always been ambitious; I'd known that for years. In a decade of marriage, our home had never mattered to her the way her career did. And yet for Noah she was willing to put all of it on the table. I laughed, because there was nothing else to do with it. "Why don't we divorce right now? I'll be the good guy and give the two of you my blessing. You keep calling this noble gratitude, but you're one step away from—" The slap landed before I finished. Blood filled my mouth, and for a moment my ears rang too loudly for me to react. The office door, shut until then, swung open. Noah Whitman leaned against the frame, and when he saw the swelling spreading across my face, something close to amusement crossed his eyes. "Adrian, how can you talk about Claire that way? You don't have to trust me, but your mother is in critical condition. Think about her before you throw a tantrum." Years of being indulged showed in every word. "I may only be a newbie, but I'm more than capable of performing this surgery. And if something does go wrong, maybe your mother's luck just ran out—" I had his collar in my fist before he finished, ten years of swallowed resentment coming up at once, and I hit him in the corner of the eye. That was what turned Claire's face to stone. She bent over him and checked the damage as though he were the one who'd been wronged, and when she looked back at me her eyes were ice. "If you're angry, take it out on me. What was hitting him supposed to accomplish? Apologize. If you don't, forget the surgery, and your mother can lose her bed along with it." Every word went into me like a needle. Noah pressed a hand to his swelling eye, pushed himself upright, and turned a wounded look on her. "Don't be so hard on Adrian. I know he doesn't like me. Once the surgery's done, he'll understand." The color went out of my face. "I never agreed to this." My objections had never counted for anything with Claire. If Noah wanted it, she made it happen. She didn't spare me so much as a glance; she simply steered him out of the office. "Everything's ready. You can go in now." Noah grinned and raised his eyebrows at me on the way past. I moved to follow, and Claire planted herself in front of me, her jaw tight. "Adrian, I'm the director of this hospital. Asking you to sign was a courtesy. You can refuse to let Noah operate, but then I won't operate either, and nobody in this building will pick up a scalpel for her. Do you want your mother to die on the table waiting?" She let go of me, her face blank. "If you barge in there now and something happens to her, I'm not responsible." Chapter 2 I watched the operating room doors swing shut, and Claire's words kept circling in my head. Ten years ago, on the day she and I were married, Noah's parents had been driving back for the wedding when their car went off the road. Both of them died at the scene. Our wedding turned into a funeral, and Claire went straight to the police station without changing out of her dress. When the body bags were unzipped, Noah broke. He couldn't accept it, and he started saying he wanted to go with them. When he went over the second-floor windowsill, I grabbed for him and we both went down. Claire pressed her hands over the wound and cried. "How can you gamble with your own life like that? Warren's death was an accident. Noah's old enough. He'll come to terms with it in time." To keep him where she could see him, she moved Noah into the house we'd just started our marriage in. "Adrian, he isn't stable. I can only breathe if he's in front of me. I've already lost Warren. I can't lose Noah too." I agreed. Claire owed Warren Whitman everything. He had opened the doors, done the training, built the career she was standing on. And at first I felt for Noah as well; he'd lost both parents in a single day, and helping him seemed like the decent thing to do. Then it stopped having a bottom to it. Straightening up his room one day, I found one of Claire's bras under his pillow. When I asked him about it he went red and told me my mind was filthy. "There is nothing between Claire and me. My parents are dead, I don't feel safe, I can't sleep, that's all it—" Then his voice climbed. "Fine. I knew you couldn't stand the sight of me. I'll stop getting in your way." He shouted it and ran out of the house. When Claire found out, we had the worst fight of our marriage. It was pouring, and she went out without an umbrella and looked for him for a full day and night. Once she'd brought him home she barely left his side, and the way she looked at me that night was the first time my own marriage made me cold. "Adrian, I am genuinely busy. I asked you to help me look after Noah. I didn't ask you to drive him out of the house. If Warren knew about this, do you think he could rest?" I bit down on my lip and said it anyway. "This year he's hiding your underwear under his pillow. Next year he'll be in your bed. In case you've forgotten, you and I are married." That only made her angrier. She pointed at the open door. "Why are you keeping score against someone who isn't well? If you can't stand it, go. Neither of us will be in your way." That was when Claire changed. She trusted Noah without condition and spoiled him without limit. When an accident put me in a hospital bed, she was celebrating his eighteenth birthday. When my mother was critically ill and needed surgery, she was taking him around the world to cheer him up. Again and again. I sat on a bench outside the operating room all night, until the light above the doors finally went out. They told me my mother was out of danger, then parked her in a general ward and stopped paying attention. Her numbers never came down. Claire frowned at the chart and took Noah's hand. "A little inflammation after surgery is completely normal. Have the nurses start her on antibiotics and she'll be fine in a while." Then, over her shoulder: "You could try thanking Noah for agreeing to operate at all." She left the hospital with him. I watched the two of them walk out side by side, and whatever had been holding my back straight gave way. She chose Noah again. She always did. I was never anywhere in her choices. Chapter 3 I couldn't leave my mother alone, so I stayed at the hospital with her for a week before I went home for a change of clothes. The front door wasn't properly shut. It occurred to me, too late, that neither Claire nor Noah was on shift that day. I pushed it open and found the two of them wrapped around each other in the living room, Noah's mouth on hers. Neither of them had expected me. Claire pulled back from him fast, her lips moving like she meant to explain. A few years ago the sight would have destroyed me. Now I only looked away from her swollen mouth and found I had no appetite for any of it. Before I could say anything Noah was on his feet and across the room, blocking my way. "Adrian, Claire and I were just messing around. We've always been like this. When I was little she used to— Look, don't let me wreck things between you. She really does love you. I'm the one with nobody else." He kept going, the self-pity thickening as he went, and I couldn't make myself care. "Sure. Are you done? I've got somewhere to be." He stood there looking foolish, and whatever Claire had been about to say stuck in her throat. She frowned. "It isn't what it looked like." Then, stiffly: "How's your mother?" I stopped. I thought about her, still not awake. "Thanks to the pair of you, she still hasn't opened her eyes." I pushed past Noah to get my clothes, and my not caring seemed to get under his skin worse than shouting would have. He cut me off again, his eyes going red. "Adrian, you're Claire's husband. I've always respected you. Why can't you stand me? Your mother was already in that condition. If I hadn't operated she'd be in a coffin by now. Someone that far gone taking up a bed is a waste of hospital resources—" I hit him before the thought finished, and when I came back to myself half his face was swollen with the print of my fist on it. Claire was there instantly, pulling him behind her, staring at me with something close to hatred. My palm was stinging; I put my hand behind my back. "Apologize. That's twice you've hit him, so apologize, now. Adrian, people are supposed to know what gratitude is. He saved your mother's life, and you questioned him, you hit him, and you've never once said thank you. Where were you raised?" Each sentence went in like a splinter and stayed there. For ten years she had come down on Noah's side, every time. She called it a debt to her mentor, but I knew what was in her face when she looked at him. I looked down at the long scar across my palm. I have never been able to forget that day. The rain had my car sliding on the highway until it rolled, and a steel bar went through my shoulder. The hospital issued three critical-condition notices and there was nobody to sign any of them, because Claire was at Noah's eighteenth birthday party. They called her more than a dozen times and she never picked up. I used to tell myself that once Noah was grown and able to stand on his own, Claire and I would get our life back. It never once occurred to me that she would fall in love with him. Looking at her face now, the last of that hope went out. "Isn't that your job as a doctor?" Claire blinked at me. "Or does every patient you've ever treated owe you their undying gratitude? Doesn't the hospital pay you? Did I sign that consent form? Did either of you ever treat my mother's life as a life?" Her face went through several colors. She laughed, furious, and picked up her phone. "Aren't you something now. If you won't apologize, don't blame me for teaching you a lesson. Ten years of marriage, and you know exactly how much I've done for that woman. I'm having her bed cleared right now. She's taken up this hospital's resources long enough." Chapter 4 I hadn't thought Claire would go that far, that she would hold my mother's life over my head. "She's just come out of surgery. She can't be moved. Something will happen to her." Nothing I said made any difference. She had made up her mind. The order hadn't even reached the ward before my phone rang. "Mr. Foster, your mother's condition is unstable. You need to come now." My head filled with a ringing sound, and I lost all interest in arguing. By the time I got there her bed had been pushed out of the room and into the corridor. "What are you doing? You know how she is. Why would you move her?" She lay on the gurney with her face gone gray, bringing up mouthful after mouthful of blood. The nurse beside her looked cornered. "Director Mercer gave the order. Beds are very tight, and there are patients in worse condition than—" I nearly went down. "My mother is dying in front of you and you're standing there talking about bed shortages." My shouting drew a crowd. They murmured to each other, pity mostly, and not one of them offered to help. One bed freed up was one bed for somebody's family. Dr. Elena Vance, my mother's attending physician, came at a half run. "Mr. Foster, thank God. I can't get through to Director Mercer. You're her husband, so tell her to come in. We think Diane has an intracranial infection, and she's the only surgeon here who can take this case." I nodded at everything without taking any of it in, holding my mother while she slipped in and out, dialing Claire with my other hand and wiping my face. It rang out every time. On the thirtieth call she picked up. "Ready to apologize to Noah?" "Claire, something's happened to my mother. Can you come to the hospital? You're the only one who can operate—" She cut across me, perfectly calm. "What could possibly have happened? The surgery went well. You don't get to smear Noah just because he was the one holding the scalpel." I couldn't watch my mother go through any more of it. I lowered my voice. "I'm sorry. Everything earlier was my fault. If you'll come and operate on her, I'll get down on my knees and apologize." "You should be apologizing. I'm busy. Noah's upset. Sort it out yourself." The line went dead. I looked up at Dr. Vance and opened my mouth several times before anything came out. "She isn't coming. I'm begging you, find another way. Save my mother. Please." They took her into surgery. An hour is not a long time and not a short one. At the end of it, she was gone. "Mr. Foster, there was surgical gauze left inside her skull and it was pressing on the nerves. We did everything we could. I'm sorry." I stood beside the bed with the sheet drawn over her and didn't move. What was on my phone screen was a photograph of Claire and Noah. She was wearing a pink wedding dress, the one she'd worn when she married me. The caption read: "The kid wanted to see me in a wedding dress. What can you do but spoil him." My mouth pulled to one side, and I shared the post. "Congratulations to the homewrecker. I've signed the divorce papers."