My heart was racing, pushing blood to the center of my body, thumping so powerfully that it actually scared me. I ran marathons and cycled for miles, I was conditioned for stamina, yet I found myself completely out of breath in her presence. I hadn’t thought about the hospital or Lizzy or surgery at all that day, but suddenly, and for the first time in my life, as I sat there breathing Ava in, I thought about our hearts in relation to love.
Surprised by the thought, I got up abruptly, breathing rapidly. I stood prostrate from the shock, held my hand over my chest, and stared down at her. I couldn’t form words.
A horrified look washed over her face and then morphed into embarrassment as her cheeks flushed pink. She got up and began running over the rocks toward the hill. I felt confused and guilty and chased after her.
“Ava, wait!”
Her bare foot slid across a moss-covered rock and sent her flying off her feet backward. It seemed like slow motion as I watched her turn in the air to protect her body. She landed on her side violently over jagged rocks.
She let out a deep moan. I ran to her and knelt. Her eyes were pressed shut as she began to cry. Her cry reminded me of Lizzy’s mother, unprocessed and real.
“Are you hurt?”
“Yes,” she managed to force out with a heavy breath.
“Where?” I said frantically. I scanned her body as she lay curled in the fetal position.
“Inside.”
“For Christ’s sake, where, Ava? Please let me help you. I’m a doctor.”
Her bloodshot eyes opened as her hand moved slowly to her chest. She firmly pressed the space over her heart. “In here. I’m bleeding. I must be,” she said, falling into a fit of full, powerful sobs.
Complete understanding struck me. I took her into my arms, cradled her like a baby, and let her sob into my chest. I had gone too far back on the rock and she was struggling with it.
After an hour of holding her tight, I felt her body relax. She had fallen asleep in my arms.
I thought back to a time when I had assisted on an eighteen-hour surgery with my father and another established doctor. Things kept going wrong but my father had remained steadfast. It was hard to understand how he had the physical stamina but I quickly learned that being a doctor required that. I had held forceps and a clamp on a bleeding artery for four hours straight during that surgery while my father tried to figure out the problem.
I held Ava for hours in the same way near the stream as she slept that day. My arms were tired and tingling with numbness but I held her with determination. It was unbelievable how deep and relaxed her breaths were. Examining her body, I noticed that her feet were tiny and her toes were painted pink, which I found adorable but peculiar, knowing the type of lifestyle Ava led. They looked newly painted and I wondered if she had done it for my benefit.
She made no sound as she slept. I felt her pulse with my hand and then bent to hear her steady heart. That woman must never have slept so peacefully. It was like she had fallen into a temporary death as she lay next to the trickling stream. Her body was as seemingly lifeless as the bodies I cut open on my table. No sign of life until you peer inside and see the organ pulsing. The strange thing is that when you first see a beating heart, you expect to hear that rhythm that is so synonymous with it, but there’s barely a sound. Instead it’s just a motion like it has an independent existence. The heart will actually beat a few times once it is outside of the body, and even though I’m aware of the scientific reason, I wondered in that moment, holding Ava by the stream, if maybe our hearts really could be broken by shattered love or tragedy.
When she finally stirred and opened her eyes, she looked to the sky first, her eyes registering the observation that the sun was much lower than it had been when she’d fallen asleep in my arms.
“What happened?” she asked with a bemused expression.
I laughed. “You fell and then took a little nap.”
“How long?”
“A few hours.” I helped her stand on shaky legs.
“And you held me that whole time?”
“It was the nicest few hours I’ve had in a while.” Putting on her shoes, she seemed quiet and withdrawn again. “I didn’t mean to overstep my boundaries earlier. I’m sorry,” I said.
“I shouldn’t have, you know . . . we shouldn’t.”
I sat down next to her on a rock. “Are you still feeling a lot of grief?” What a dumb question that was.
“Grief, yes, I’m still feeling it and I always will. I don’t think it ever gets better.”
“It takes time to heal.”
“I don’t know if it’s the healing that hurts. I just miss him and I’ll never stop missing him.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” she said. She wasn’t being snarky; her eyes were wide with curiosity.
“I’m trying to.”
She nodded her understanding before looking back at the stream. “Let’s clean the fish down here. Bea can barbecue them tonight.”
Her abrupt change of subject was welcome. I thought it was interesting that the last time I had eaten meat was a piece of trout I’d ordered at a five-star restaurant in Hollywood. I watched Ava slice the belly of the small fish from neck to tail and then proceed to remove the guts. I thought about how she had wasted five years in her twenties grieving over a man who was too cowardly to live for such a strong, beautiful and capable woman.
She held the open fish belly out to me. “See? Nice and clean.” I scrunched up my nose. “You can’t be squeamish, you’re a surgeon.”