A Sea of Heartache

Anyway. As soon as I found out, I spoke to Charles over Skype to let him know he was going to be a daddy. He was as elated as I was. He was just a big kid himself, so the idea of having a child lit him up in glowing neon."

"Sara came along while Charles was still deployed. I'd Skype with him, making sure he saw his little girl as much as possible and, of course, we wrote each other and sent pictures almost every day."

"Charles' unit kept getting extended over there. Special Forces are kind of a stay till the job is done unit. He was supposed to be over there for eighteen months, but whenever the time came for him to come home, something new would come up and he'd be extended again."

I took Sara for her one year check-up with the doctor and she found something. She wouldn't say what she thought it was until she sent her for more tests at the children's hospital." Tears started to well up in Karen's eyes. Peter again held her close, softly rubbing her back. He reached for a tissue on the nightstand and gently wiped her tears away. He was almost as big a mess as Karen was. Feelings of deep sorrow for her, an emotion he hadn't experienced for longer than he cared to remember, and for the horror he knew was coming, were pulling his every remaining heartstring.

"Anyway. After they ran that poor, tiny, helpless little child through every painful, heartbreaking test they had, in the end, the diagnosis was AML." Peter let out a gasp, holding back tears of his own.

"That's unbelievably rare in children."

"So they told us. At first they said the success rate for curing it was excellent, but the treatments went on and on. We're going to try this. We're very hopeful that this will work. That didn't work so we're going to try something else. And all that time, I could see my poor, innocent, beautiful baby girl slowly slipping away." Peter crawled up in the bed and lay down beside her and held her as she spoke. She melted into him, her tiny shoulders quaking.

"She died on a Tuesday morning. It was a cold, snowy, miserable January day. I was sleeping in the bed beside her. When I woke up, she'd passed away in my arms during the night. They let me hold her for a little while, then they just swept her away."

"I was beyond devastated. Totally non-functional. My folks were doing what they could, but all I wanted was for Charles to hold me. I tried getting through to him relentlessly for days with no luck."

"Finally, my dad contacted someone with the army and they told him that Charles' unit was on some top secret, hush hush, mission and that they'd get the message to him when his unit came back in. His little girl was dead, his wife was a basket case and he didn't even know. Maybe that was a good thing, I don't know."

"We buried Sara on Friday. This beautiful, tiny white coffin with storybook characters carved in it. Her angelic little face and an image of that coffin are constant memories seared into my brain."

"The whole time, I was still trying frantically to contact Charles. I was going out of my mind. No luck getting through to him and no help from the army whatsoever."

"Sunday morning when we left the church, my folks were just about carrying me. I was a mess. They held a special memorial service for Sara that day. It was beautiful, but I couldn't concentrate on any of it. The whole town was there giving me those sad, pitiful stares. When we got home, there were two soldiers in full dress uniform standing on my parent's front porch. I just passed out."

"The next thing I knew, I was waking up on my parents' couch with both of them in tears, hovering over me. Charles unit had been in a firefight somewhere in that godforsaken dessert. Charles and one other guy were killed."

Peter had her wrapped tightly in his arms, kissing her soft cheek, trying to ease her pain, but he knew nothing could ease that deep seated, unrelenting pain. He knew all too well.

"After a few months of staying locked away from the world in my apartment, refusing to see anyone, I finally realized that I had two options: I could continue to wallow in my own private pity party and go completely out of my mind; or I could get ahold of myself, move on, go back to school and finish my doctoral thesis and try to learn to deal with the pain and anguish in a more productive way. Thankfully, I found some God given inner strength and muddled through."

"As soon as I finished school, I wanted out of North Dakota and to be as far away from all those horrible memories and all that pain as quickly as my two feet could carry me. I mean, I loved my parents with all my heart, but try as they may to help, seeing them just kept the memories alive. Every time I saw them, I saw Sara, Charles and happier times that I'd never know again."

I saw an ad in one of the scientific journals for this job. The idea that it was far, far from those memories, and I'd only have to deal with a minimal amount of people, seemed like exactly what the doctor ordered. I applied and the rest, as they say, is history."

"I can't tell you how sorry I am, Karen. Surprisingly, it was her wiping his tears away.

"I have a feeling you've felt that kind of pain, Peter. I think I've known it since the first time I looked into those haunted eyes of yours. We're kindred spirits, you and me. I could always see a deep-rooted pain deep inside you: a desperate sadness in your eyes. So much pain. I'm seeing it right now. And I'm also seeing compassion for me, and pain for us both on your handsome face. I see that same, apocalyptic pain in your eyes that I've been carrying around for years."

Peter let out a long sigh, the tears still flowing from his eyes unchecked.

She wrapped both of her tiny hands around one of his, squeezing it encouragingly. "Come on, Peter. You can talk to me. Believe me. Sharing with someone who understands, and truly cares about you, does wonders. Getting it all out there can do some amazing things.

Peter unwrapped himself from Karen, sat up, got off the bed and started pacing the room.

"Peter! Please don't leave. You don't have to share anything with me. I just wanted you to know just what that something you said I always kept bottled up was. Please come back and hold me again. Please, Peter. We don't need to talk." Peter kept pacing. When she realized he wasn't leaving, Karen laid back quietly, letting him pace and think.

"I...I..." He stuttered out, then stopped.

"You're scaring me, Peter. Honey, you don't need to talk if you don't want to. I didn't tell you all that to draw anything out of you."

Peter turned a deathly shade of white. A horribly sad, searing pain coursed through his veins, followed by an all encompassing numbness, a far off look crossing his twisted face. His shoulders started heaving and a prickly sensation ran along every inch of his skin. Something deep down inside of him, be it Karen's horrible story, or the fact that, deep down, he always knew he had feelings for her, and the sudden, blaring realization that he truly did share in her pain, he didn't know, opened the flood gates he thought he locked almost five years before. In that moment, he knew that he could trust her completely. That she, more than anyone else in the world, would understand. When he finally spoke, it came out in an eerie monotone as if it was coming from somewhere far away.

"I developed that bypass surgery I did on your leg, Karen. I developed and perfected that very vein graft-bypass surgery. Most vascular surgeons even call it the Richardson procedure. Up until that time, I'd had to do so many radical amputations and archaic things to save a life that I just knew I had to find a way to stop the carnage. I was sure that if I could figure out all the pratfalls and perfect it, that surgery would one day make the vast majority of trauma induced circulation injuries and diabetic circulatory insufficiency amputations unnecessary. I became obsessed with it. I was spending every free moment working to perfect it." He sighed, sadly, shaking his head; incredulous. He, again, wiped away tears and continued.

"Unfortunately, while I was trying to save the world, I was neglecting my wife and my two children."

"I was totally oblivious to it. I certainly didn't do it intentionally. I didn't set out to do it. I just couldn't see past my zeal to make the bypass a reality. I never once even let my huge ego diminish enough to realize I was doing it. I was so wrapped up in that stupid fucking procedure that I was almost living at the hospital; doing surgeries by day and working on that procedure at night."

"It went on for a couple of years. I was almost never home. When I should have been going to my son's T-Ball games, or going to father daughter dances with my little girl, I was sitting in a lab experimenting on pigs. And It was coming along, but it was coming along in bits and pieces. Small victories, but never the definitive process. And believe me. It was no easy process. But every success just made me that much more determined and obsessed with bringing it to reality. I poured my heart and soul into it."

"In the meantime, I'd all but totally forgotten about my wife and kids. And I was just too fucking absorbed and too stupid to realize that they were far more important than that god damned surgery."

"The night I successfully performed the surgery for the first time, I was walking on a cloud. All those years of hard work had finally come to fruition. And it made me a fortune. I mean, I'd invested well all along. We were very well off, but it wasn't enough. I could have retired before I even started experimenting with that fucking surgery and lived the life of leisure. I could have been there, raising my family, but I was so fucking cocky. So determined to see my name in the medical literature. Making that surgery, and the instruments I designed to perform it, a success was clouding everything else. Everything that should have been important to me. And to a point, I was successful. Your leg is testament to that."

"Anyway. I went home that night feeling so accomplished and full of myself. I was on top of the world. I was Doctor Invincible. I kept going back over the statistics of how many toes, feet, legs, arms, the works, that procedure was going to save. The numbers were running through my head like a ticker tape. It actually gave me a god like air. My sorry fucking, self serving, egotistical ass!" He was still pacing, his body trembling, tears flowing harder than before.

"What I was too blind and stupid to realize was that my blatant neglect had driven my wife into a deep, dark depression. I was so involved in my own world that I missed all the classic signs. I'm a fucking doctor, for Christ sake, and I was too preoccupied to even realize that the woman I loved was sinking into a spiraling abyss of her own."

"That night, while I was in that OR showing off to all the surgical hierarchy, supposedly saving the world, my wife was home feeding our two children their favorite dessert: chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream and sprinkles...and enough amitriptyline stirred in to drop an elephant. I was so self absorbed that I didn't even realize that she'd been seeing a shrink for her depression, and the shrink had her on a pretty heavy dose of that shit! Apparently, she hadn't been taking them. She was just hoarding them, hiding them somewhere."

"She bathed the kids after they finished their desserts, put them to bed, and once they were out, she sat in the bathtub and slit her wrists."

"Oh my God!! Peter! Come here, honey!" She was sitting up in her bed, waving him to her in a panic, her arms outstretched, but Peter had left the building, his empty body just stood there trembling; frozen.

"Everything ok in here." Cathy asked, rushing into the room after hearing Karen's raised voice.

"Cathy! Help him! Please!"

"Peter...Hey, Peter?! Are you ok, Doc?" Cathy blurted out, startled, pulling up a chair and easing him down into it.

"Bend over, Big Guy. Put your head down between your legs. Breathe!" She was rubbing his back.

"Is he ok, Cathy!?" Karen was in a full-blown panic."

Cathy rushed to the door and hailed Sandy. "What's wrong," Sandy asked, bursting into the room.

"It's Peter. Looks like shock." Sandy rushed over, checking his eyes and his pulse. Talking softly to him.

"Peter. It's Sandy. Can you hear me?" He just nodded numbly, unable to speak.

"Cathy, get me ten of diazepam." Sandy was rubbing Peter's back, speaking soothingly. "It's ok, Peter. You're just having one bitch of an anxiety attack, and you're a little shocky. We'll have you fixed up in just a sec."

Peter still couldn't speak. That was the first time he'd brought that nightmare out into the light of day since that horrible night five years before. Something he'd fought to forget since that nightmare ended his life had just spewed from him in a flood of gut wrenching pain at a level he hadn't experienced since finding his wife and children that horrible, lamentable night.

"Sandy! Bring him over here! Please!" Karen was sliding over to one side of her bed, making room.

"Come on, Peter. Let's get you laying down. You're too big to pick up if you fall," she smiled, trying to relax him. "You're going to be fine." Sandy helped him stand, still rubbing his back, and settled him down on the bed. Karen took charge immediately, gently easing him down beside her and wrapping him in her arms.

"Here you go, Sandy," Cathy said, still shocked, handing an alcohol wipe and the syringe to Sandy as she rolled up Peter's sleeve. "Little pinch, Peter. Just relax."

Karen was squeezing him tightly, her soft hand petting his face, tears flowing from her big, beautiful eyes, while Sandy gently rubbed his thigh, both talking softly. Cathy reached up and pulled off Peter's shoes, while Sandy unfastened his belt and the button on his jeans to help him relax.

"Let's get his legs up on a pillow, Cathy," Sandy said softly. "He's still a little shocky."

It took ten minutes more before Peter finally started to regain control of his fleeing sensibilities. His muscles slowly began to unlock. He looked over and realized he was wrapped in Karen's arms, her tears falling on his cheek. She was squeezing him to her breast, kissing away his tears. An unfamiliar, long forgotten warmth flowed through him. He looked into her beautiful eyes and gave her a wink and a small smile.

"You gave us quite a scare there, Buddy," Sandy said, rubbing his shoulder. "Keep breathing."

"I'll be fine, Sandy. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now just lay there and get your bearings, Sailor. I have to go pull some sutures and recast one of the less fortunate of our survivors. I'll come back and check on you in a bit. Keep breathing. Karen, if you need me, just press the button." Sandy smiled her patented, cheerleader smile and left.

Karen kept Peter wrapped tightly in her arms, still rubbing his face. "Just relax, Peter. Don't talk." She was gently kissing his forehead.

They laid there, silently, for what seemed like hours. Karen never faltered in her attempts to calm him. When she felt every muscle in his body settle into her, she spoke.

"And you've been carrying around that horrible weight all this time, Peter? And correct me if I'm wrong, but these humanitarian things you do for the islanders is an attempt to atone for what you've convinced yourself was your fault?"

"It was my fault, Karen. All of it," he choked out, the grief washing out of him again in a flood of tears. Karen just held him tighter, kissing away his tears.

"I never saw it coming. I mean, she was always so supportive. And she seemed happy. She had her friends and family, and she and the kids spent a lot of time taking trips and keeping busy with all their functions. When we'd talk about it, she said she was fine, and that she understood how important my work was. She'd even say she knew when she married a doctor that she'd be sharing him with the world."

"And I'm sure she meant it, Peter. I'm no psychiatrist, but believe me, I know depression. It manifests itself in mysterious ways. Most people suffer in silence, not wanting to be questioned or looked on as some kind of abomination. They feel that they're weak and that admitting it proves that they were right. Trust me, I know."

"I guess you do. My God, Karen. What you must have gone through."

"It's an ongoing nightmare, Peter. I kept praying that I'd wake up and find out it was all just a horrendous dream. But it wasn't. It was my new reality. And I've been doing exactly what you just described for over six years now. Between you and me, I had a bottle of pills in my medicine cabinet that I was ready to swallow more times than I care to remember. But laying there under that truss, I had a sort of epiphany or something. Life is short. We're only here for a short time. Just a blip in on the radar. And while I have a strong faith, no one truly knows what's on the other side. I just decided then and there that, if I lived, I was going to start living life to the fullest."

"Well not to get all mushy or anything, but I, for one, am very happy that you came to that conclusion."

"Well let me start off on this new life by telling you that I would have never said those horrible, terrible things to you were it not for my foggy head. I didn't even know I'd said them. Adele told me. It tore my heart out. In reality, what I truly wanted to say was totally opposite of what came out."

"I deserved what you said and a whole lot more."

"No, Peter. You didn't. I was a willing participant in our dalliances. It's not like you drugged me and dragged me on that boat. I'm a grown woman. I was there of my own free will. If we're being honest here, I will admit that, after a few "dates" with you," she giggled, "I started realizing I had an ulterior motive. I was hoping to one day get you to open up and realize that I was falling for you; regardless of my determination to never let anyone get close to me ever again."

"Dalliances?" he laughed. "Someone's been reading far too much Kate Chopin," he smiled.

"Not much else to do out here on this rock," she giggled.

"Now. I'd very much like to talk to you about everything you just told me: but only when you're ready. But I'd be remiss in my promise to myself to be totally forthright and open with everyone in my life from now on if I didn't look you in the eye and tell you that I have fallen for you. And I've fallen hard."

"How could you possibly, Karen? I'm the Webster's definition of a shitshow. A curmudgeon in every sense of the word. I'm no more than a hollow shell of a man."

"That's your definition, Peter. Not Webster's. I see something completely different. I see a very talented, handsome, intelligent man with the weight of the world on his shoulders," she smiled, running her fingers through his hair gently, her soothing voice calming him more.

"I don't know how you can say that. Seeing as how we're being completely honest here, it took every ounce of restraint I had, which isn't much, to keep from taking you up on your offer in the galley that night to, in your words, knock one out," he laughed.

"That's bust one out!" She was giggling. "And as mad and as upset as I was, I wish you had!" Now they were both laughing.

"I don't know what you want from me, Karen?"

"What I want is for you to heal, Peter. Step into the light. I have. And I can honestly say that it's a wonderful thing. And when you do, we can see where things between us go from there."

"You didn't kill your family, Peter. As horrible, terrible, unthinkable a thing as that was, it was her responsibility to come to you and bitch at you, nag you, have an affair, tell you how she felt, leave you or something. Anything. You were on a noble task which she led you to believe she supported completely. And while you definitely should have put forth a little more effort to balance work and home life, you're far from the only person guilty of that offense. You have a drive in you. You had a goal and you were moving heaven and earth to achieve that goal. You had no idea any of that was going to happen. And that surgery you developed has saved a whole lot of people a whole lot of pain and heartache."