All That Blooms in Spring Ch. 02

All That Blooms in Spring-02

Uncertainty continues with some resolutions

Part two of four. I may post the final two together, so readers don't get antsy.

Relax; it's just a story, people.

Continued from chapter one...

"That's enough for now," she said softly. "You need to rest. I'll be back in a few hours, and we're going to try some warm chicken broth. I know you have tons of questions. I suggest you try to decide their importance in order. It's going to take a day or two before you're talking normally. I'll answer them all, just not at once."

I tried to sleep, as exhausted as I was, but sleep did not come. I had too many thoughts, and they became questions - questions I couldn't answer and couldn't ignore. The first was whether I was truly awake and no longer dreaming. The second was why Jackie wasn't there with me.

The third was more poignant and frightening: was I Doctor Ann Angel's patient, or her prisoner?

The chicken broth tasted as delicious to me as any filet mignon I'd ever eaten. The egg-shaped lidocaine lozenge slowly melting in the bowl reminded me of mom feeding me that chicken noodle soup with the golden egg. Doctor Ann spoon-fed me the broth, and afterwards, she started spoon-feeding me answers.

I'd been dragged here on a makeshift stretcher. Ann had performed a crude surgery, and it saved my life. I was shocked to learn that it was April first. She took great pains to let me know I wasn't being pranked. I didn't laugh, but she did get a smile from me. All of those statements only created more questions. I wasn't handcuffed to the bed, so that was something, I guessed.

"So you were just out for a walk, in the middle of nowhere, and happened upon me, unconscious and all mangled?" I asked in disbelief.

"No," Ann said with a sigh. "I was out checking my traps on the quad, and saw some unnatural colors about halfway up the cliff face. That, I assume, was your backpack, so in the most literal sense, your pack saved your life, not me."

"Why aren't I in a hospital, if my injuries were... are, so severe?"

"No time," she replied, perking up, "is the short answer. It's about thirty-five, forty minutes to the general store from where you were. Your heartrate was all over the place, and your vitals were dropping rapidly. At the time, I was the most qualified person to make the call. I was also the only qualified person. I was also the only person."

"And I appreciate that," I said flatly. "It's obvious I owe you my life, so don't take this the wrong way. Once you got me... what's it called - stabilized? Once that happened, why didn't you get a hold of someone? Where's my wife? Who else knows I'm here?"

Ann pulled a chair up real close to the head of the bed. "No one," she exclaimed. "No one else knows you're here, including your wife."

"Why?" I asked incredulously, "What are you not telling me, Ann?"

She had a decent bedside manner, as doctors go, but the millisecond she averted her eyes I knew there was more to the story. That was thanks to what my wife had done to me, ironically. I wouldn't have been nearly so alert for signs of dishonesty otherwise.

"Alright," I continued, "I'm fine now. Let's go. Take me to that store so I can..."

It finally dawned on me. There would have been a search party, unless my wife and friends wanted me dead. People who go missing in the forest get a lot of media attention as well. Ann wasn't only holding out on my wife; she was holding out on a whole lot of somebodies.

Okay, listen," Ann said softly, filling the silence. "I can see the wheels spinning. I'm not a psychopath, alright?"

"When you have to lead with that, Ann," I replied, "it doesn't make me feel good or convince me." Seeing the stricken look on her conflicted face, I chuckled to put her at ease. It seemed prudent, given that I was fifty-fifty on her being a psychopath.

After a lighter moment, Dr. Pierce went on. "There's more to it, Peter - much more. The first two weeks, I couldn't leave you, not even for a minute. And yes, that's a professional opinion. You've been here for twenty-nine days, counting today. So the last two weeks are more complicated. I was scared, for several reasons, and I needed you to at least regain consciousness before telling anyone. We can talk more about my fear later, once I tell you everything.

"You also have a lateral break in your forearm. Your right leg was punctured by a branch. It's immobilized because I don't have any scanning equipment to see what's happening in there. Movement could be very bad for it, and for you generally. Your left leg is also broken, possibly in two places. You have at least one broken rib. Most are bruised because you fell about 30-40 feet, and the only buffers were branches, and those immovable objects do great damage to human bone. I've been monitoring your respiratory function the entire time, and it doesn't seem to me that any of your broken ribs, however many there are, have punctured any internal organs."

"That's depressing," I responded, "so let's stop talking about all that for now. Ann, can we talk about what's so complicated for a bit? I'm pretty nervous right now, being here like this, and it would help me sleep tonight if I felt better about my guardian angel not doubling as my captor."

Ann laughed finally, and then nodded. "I can see that," she admitted. After taking the empty bowl to the kitchen, she came back with more chopped ice for me, and a beer for herself.

"Where should I start?" she asked, and I wasn't sure if her question was posed to me or to herself.

"How about with why a brain surgeon is hiding in the middle of a forest?" I asked as she fixed my pillows.

"I'm not exactly hiding," she jabbed back. "There are about seventy-five people living in this community."

"And do you have any neighbors within a mile of you?" I pressed.

"No," she replied after thinking it over.

"Then it makes no difference how many people live out here," I told her. Then I waited.

Ann fiddled with her hands. It looked like a habit. She was contemplating what or how much to tell me. I was going to use all my faculties - the ones I'd foolishly let atrophy with my lying, withholding wife - to read her as she related her story.

"I was an up-and-coming brain surgeon in Chicago," she started. "I worked very hard to get there. I married Ralph a year out of college, and I thought we were in love and good together. The problem was, I was married to my job too. As I was building my fame, I was also pushing my husband away. It wasn't like we never talked about it. I just never listened to him... to his concerns."

Her voice was becoming tiny, and there was introspection there. I felt her sincerity.

"Finally," she continued, "he stopped talking. We had just celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary." She chuckled bitterly. "'Celebrated' isn't right in any sense of the word. I forgot about it totally. I could see the hurt in his eyes when I got home so late. He motioned towards our dining room table, saying not one word, and went to bed. There was a card for me, and a dozen red roses.

"All of the next five days, I'd made plans to get away. I'd moved my schedule around and called in some favors from my colleagues at other area hospitals, desperately needing to make this up to him. The fifth day, I'd been greeted at work by a process server. The note inside the envelope had said not to contact him. He'd left the country with most of our money, and his twenty-four-year-old admin. He'd coldly ended with 'Have a good life, bitch.'"

There were some tears. I didn't need all my faculties to know how sincere she was. I also got the sense that few people had heard her tale of woe, and that she badly needed to unburden herself.

"That day," she began again after taking a long draw off her beer, "I had a 10:00 am surgery. Lindy Evans was a beautiful eleven year-old girl with a large, but operable, brain tumor. I should have postponed. We'd learned that over and over: 'Don't perform surgery under stress or duress.' My God complex had gotten in the way. I made a critical error and an eleven..."

Tears were flowing more freely. There was anxiety, and despair, in her voice, but in her eyes... in her eyes I saw relief.

"...I killed an eleven year old girl." Doctor Ann Pierce was quiet then, overwrought by her previous actions and current confession to a mere stranger. I laid there thoughtfully watching her as she cried, and my heart went out to her. I had no need to hear more of her story. It had been clear she had run away from her horrible situation.

"I'd give you a hug," I said sincerely, "but I'm a little, ah, tied up right now." Ann looked at me finally, wiping her eyes, and gave me a smile. She appreciated me lightening the mood, if I read her correctly. But then she surprised me by leaning in and cautiously hugging me.

"Is that why you're out here?" I asked. "In the middle of nowhere?"

"Mostly," she admitted. "In one day - one fucking day - I lost everything I held dear. Two parents lost the treasure of their young lives, at my hand. There was nothing left for me there."

"Well, now we know why," I simply stated.

"What?" she inquired. "Why, what?"

"You were put here to be my angel!" I exclaimed. "You saved me. It sounds like without you, I wouldn't have made it. So now, at least for me, I know why. I mean, who has an accident like that, and is stumbled upon by a brain surgeon? What are the odds?"

I watched Ann process my words. She had probably helped save plenty of lives before the tragedy with Lindy Evans. Saving mine was probably second nature and an afterthought to her. To me, naturally, it was everything.

The time seemed to slow down, even though we were busy. At first, Ann kept massaging my legs and arm to keep them from atrophying. The right leg bandage was first off. All of the Amoxicillin she'd given me since day one had kept my wound infection-free. Now I was up to one good arm and leg. The other two were still crudely splinted, and she was constantly telling me to quit trying to adjust myself in bed. My left leg was released from captivity shortly thereafter. After examining me the best she could, I was told we'd need to begin physical therapy. Walking was a chore, at first, even within the confines of the cabin.

Ann had left me alone several times since I became alert again. I wasn't sure what Ann was up to when she left. I'd come to trust her, so I'd tell myself that whatever it was, it was likely in my best interests and hers. I assumed she was going for supplies or to check her traps, but I never asked.

Evenings, we'd sit together and enjoyed dinner, and some beverages made with spirits, which I'd sorely missed. Then, we engaged in comfortable and familiar conversation. Ann was easy to talk to and I found out about her entire relationship with Ralph, her ex, and all the good times they'd had before the dark days. I learned that she was so adept out here in the wilderness because she'd grown up with 'prepper' parents in northern Idaho. Living off the land for her was like tying a shoe. Ann was thirty-four years old. She had the wisdom of a forty-year-old. I'd find myself studying Ann, when we ran out of words. I'm sure she'd picked up on it. Her body and face were very average - plain. Whether by fate or by design - maybe a bit of both - I'd gotten to know it fairly well over the past month. Without knowing her beautiful personality, I'd have walked right past her on the street and never paid any attention. She was, indeed, a beautiful person, and my earlier suspicions had melted away.

She asked me about my life as well. I told her most everything, including the untimely death of my parents. I mentioned my wedding day, and Jackie's name on several occasions, but never what had occurred on that fateful night.

It was a Saturday night, at the end of April when Ann brought in a bowl of freshly-popped corn and sat next to me. She'd been slowly moving closer to me over the previous three weeks, like a cat warming to a new person, and finally, she was more or less, in my lap.

I raised an eyebrow to her. She gave a little snicker, but also a hopeful look that spoke in a universal language. That wasn't her only surprise.

"Alright, Peter," she began with a pressing tone, "tonight, I want to talk about you and Jackie."

I just shrugged, hoping to avoid the entire mess, but her expression made clear she wasn't going to budge.

"You're married to her," she continued, "yet I never hear anything about your wife - except superficially, that is. Why not?"

I was sure that she already knew something about my wife. Her beautiful personality hadn't completely dulled my newfound skepticism and suspicion. She was the one who had to go into town to get supplies, groceries and toiletries. She may have seen something on the TV or in the paper.

I considered it highly unlikely that anybody in my former friend group - and certainly not Jackie herself - would have aired out their dirty laundry. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that Ann had only heard one side of the story. That was strange to me, though, because it felt like she knew more - that, perhaps, she hadn't bought into the bullshit that Jackie and her orgy friends had likely fed to the cameras.

I really liked Ann. I had to admit that it was more than that, though. I was starting to develop feelings for her - the kind I'd once developed for Jackie. I didn't want to screw anything up by lying to her, but I wondered if telling her the whole truth might not do the same thing.

"Had it not been for my accident, we were headed for divorce," I said firmly. "I don't really want to talk about her, unless you're forcing me to."

Ann paused, deep in thought. "She thinks you're dead!" Ann suddenly proclaimed, her voice urgent. "She's a wreck, Peter. I've seen the news footage."

I quickly understood where she was coming from, and didn't hold it against her. Just as I'd suspected, Jackie hadn't told the whole story, and therefore, Ann didn't know the circumstances from the night of my accident. And Jackie probably was a wreck. She'd only meant to cuckold me, after all, not to kill me. I could picture Jackie at a podium, sad and racked with guilt. I could also see her running home to a big orgy with her friends afterwards, as consoling as that would be. I refocused on what Ann was saying - or getting to - and I unfortunately let my emotions take over.

"So," I deadpanned, giving her a steely look, "when are you going to tell the world? When is your big reveal, Ann?"

First, the bowl of popcorn slipped, then flew off her lap. Then, she was up in a flash and into the small bathroom, slamming the door behind her. That was the very last thing I'd wanted to do - hurt her. My reaction surprised me, and an uncomfortable truth became clear. While working hard to recover physically, I wrestled uncertainly with my feelings about Jackie and the end our relationship.

When Ann returned, I asked - almost begged her - to please sit down next to me.

"Listen, Ann," I said apologetically, "that was very wrong, and I'm sorry. I haven't come to terms about dealing with my wife, and I'm not sure I'm ready to, but I'd certainly like to start that conversation over. I'll tell you what you want to know, and maybe you can tell me about what you've seen in the news."

She agreed and accepted my apology. After sweeping up the spilled popcorn, she brought us fresh drinks, setting the entire bottle on the table next to us.

"Peter, before we get into what I'm sure is going to be a painful story," she said, "I have to address what you said and why I ran out.

"You see," she continued, "I was a good surgeon. At the risk of boasting, I was a great surgeon. The mistake I made was horrifying to the world, and especially to my world. I couldn't get past the fact that I should have seen the obvious risks - both things, if you're wondering. I should have seen what was happening with my husband, and I should have known that nothing good could have come from doing surgery on that poor little girl that morning, in my emotional state. I couldn't forgive myself, and I still can't.

"But then, here I am again. Perhaps you don't realize the implications here. I saved your life. That's where the fairytale ends. After that... to be honest, Peter, I'm not sure what in the hell I've been thinking this whole time."

Call it Stockholm Syndrome if you like. Hearing her admit that she knew the situation was weird - and probably criminal, even if I didn't press charges - made me feel better, not worse.

"First, Ann," I replied, "to quote one of my favorite Tommy Lee Jones films, 'You can't stop what's comin'. Sure, you could have been more aware of your ex-husband's concerns or woes and not communicating. Would he still have run off with his assistant? We'll never know for sure. You can blame yourself for the botched surgery if you want to, but we both know that what happened was the very last thing you ever intended. I know this: you saved my life - probably with stuff from your kitchen drawers or your shed."

"The problem remains," she said stoically. "I fucked up. As soon as I decided not to make the phone call that first night - maybe that second day, let's say - I tied the noose around my neck. I could argue, as a medical professional, that you could have died had I left to make that call, but I should have alerted the proper authorities, and I didn't. 'Good Samaritan' laws provide for the do-or-die scenario, but after that, I would look like that women from the movie Misery."

"I'm sorry, Ann," I said quietly. "For what it's worth, I'm never going to say you kidnapped me, even if tortured. I mean, I am free to go aren't I?"

She looked a little apprehensive.

I let a smile cross my mouth, and then let out a little chuckle. Ann's mood changed and I watched her shoulders relax. She really was stressed out. I supposed she should have been - and I ought to have been too. Within seconds, though, we were both laughing our heads off. In an awkward moment, our eyes met. I leaned in - close, but not all the way. Ann suddenly looked unsure. But then she tilted her head slightly, and our lips met for the first time. The kiss was tender and tentative. She tasted good.

Suddenly, I had a need to adjust... my cock. It had been a long time for me, but I knew at least that part of me worked, because I was reminded each morning. There was no way to hide it from Ann, and, since she'd been my doctor and caregiver, for a while now, I didn't think there was any need for embarrassment.

She saw me do my not-so-subtle move too. With a smirk, she asked, "can I help you take care of that?"

I didn't know if she had a boyfriend or even a friend with benefits out there in the woods, but she seemed eager, and I certainly was. I nodded like a young teen, with a slight blush, and I'm sure a ridiculous, nervous smile.

It was slow going back to the bedroom, just like everywhere I tried to walk. Once there, I pulled Ann close with my good arm and began kissing her some more. After a bit, she pulled away and then gently pushed me back on the bed.

"We're gonna have to do this my way," Ann said. "We can't risk you getting hurt." I felt fine, and told her so. She wasn't having any of it.

"Peter, you're recovering from a severe head injury," she told me in her doctor voice. "We can't have a lot of blood flow to your brain, or your heartrate getting too high. That could cause a hemorrhage." As Ann explained, here hands were busy unsnapping the jeans she'd bought me, and releasing the zipper. I wasn't going to argue with her warm hands brushing against my painfully engorged penis.

She stood after getting me somewhat undressed and set some pillows up high against the headboard.