“Yeah, I guess.” My voice was low.
“Trish used to say that Ava just froze in time when Jake died. She didn’t talk to anybody for years. Nobody really knows where she went all that time. She was locked away somewhere in her own misery or guilt. She wasn’t growing up emotionally.”
“What are you telling me?”
“Women are complicated.”
“I’m aware.”
“Do you love her?”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means you worry about her when she’s driving two and a half hours in the dark.”
I felt a stabbing ache in my chest. “I feel awful about that.”
“That doesn’t mean you love her.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Are you asking for my advice?”
“No.”
“Too bad. You’re capable of love and you need to fucking show her that, Nate. Show her that you will be there for her. That’s it. You think that the demand of your job is some sort of excuse to neglect the people in your life who care about you? Ask your dad what to do. He made it work, and I don’t remember ever hearing stories about your mom sleeping in the cold cab of a truck in a parking lot.”
I took a deep breath through my nose. Feeling resigned, I simply said, “Thanks, Uncle Dale. I’ll think about it.”
I hung up the phone and immediately dialed my father and asked him what I should do. His answer was simple.
“Go to Spain, you dimwit.”
“Wow, Dad. Thanks.”
“It’s like everything comes easy to you, Nate, except for this.”
“Well, it’s a bit hard for me to just up and leave.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
I went home that night and the emptiness of my house reminded me that I was alone. My house was colder, darker, and I felt weird there, like I didn’t belong. I thought back to the warmth Ava had created and wondered how long it would take for me to stop missing that, for Ava’s presence to stop echoing through the empty house. I tried to read a medical journal but I could only think about what it felt like to pull Ava toward me while we slept, how her back fit perfectly against my chest. With my face resting against her hair, I had felt alive, whole, healthy, and relaxed. Alone now, I felt anxious.
I called her that night and pleaded, practically begged, for her to call me back, but she didn’t. I resigned myself to the fact that I might’ve screwed everything up with her once again. This time maybe it was beyond repair.
At work the next day, I caught up with Olivia in the hall as she was heading out to fly back to California. “You leaving?”
“I have an hour. You wanna get a coffee? Or maybe find an empty on-call room?” she said, completely straight-faced.
I laughed. Maybe Olivia did have a sense of humor but just enjoyed watching men squirm. I called her bluff. “On-call room.”
“Screw you. There’s a coffee cart in the lobby. Come on.”
I smiled and followed her down the hall. Her walk was the same as it had always been, almost a goofy speed-walk. She turned back and looked at me. “Do they have something against Starbucks around here?”
“I don’t know. Who cares.” I heard her laugh but couldn’t see her face. She was walking three strides ahead of me, like the coffee was going to disappear.
We got our coffees and sat at a tiny round table in the lobby.
“So, what do you think happened? Besides the fact that he rejected the heart?” I asked between sips.
“Well, he clearly wasn’t healthy. Maybe that heart should have gone to someone who was taking better care of himself. You have to want to live, you know.”
“His family seemed devastated.” She blinked, expressionless, and didn’t respond. I grinned. “Olivia, are you missing some sort of sensitivity chip?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I feel for my patients, I just show it differently. Plus, we did everything we could.”
“Maybe I’m just really torn up about Ava.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“At first I thought you were being silly. After that night in L.A., when you just left, I thought you were making a huge mistake. But then when she came here and I saw how you chased after her, I understood what you wanted, what was more important to you in that moment. And then I saw how devastated you were when you came back without her. People do it, Nate. They learn how to balance it all, and you can, too. It’s never really been my thing. I don’t want marriage and family. I like reading books and screwing cabana boys when I’m on vacation.”
“God, Olivia, I almost admire how reprehensibly honest you are.”
She laughed. “I always said you and I were the same, but we never were. I knew it a long time ago. I remember one time after . . . you know, one of our nights, you asked if you could sleep over, and I said no. At the time it was honestly such a bizarre question to me, like who would want to do that? Who would want to wake up in the morning and have to deal with another person? I used to think being this way made me a better surgeon, which probably makes me the odd one. Though I think it also means you’re kind of a pansy.” She smirked.
“You’re such a bitch.” I smiled. “You were almost nice to me for a second there.”
“I love you, Nate. You are, by far, one of the sexiest pansies I know. All that love and girlfriend and family stuff, you can keep it. I’ll still respect you because as torn up as you were after Ava left that day, you performed better than any other surgeon I’ve ever worked with. That man didn’t die because of you.”