I Regret Loving You for Five Years novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Last Plane

Marshall begs her onto the last plane and she stays, and the night's inventory shows most of the kit relabeled and the station's only defibrillator dead.

By dinner, everybody in the galley had read both statements.

I could tell by the way the room got quieter when I walked in with my tray.

The galley was warm and bright and smelled like chili.

Forty people at long tables, and a wall of windows full of white.

I sat at the end of an empty table.

A guy from the power plant leaned back in his chair.

"Hey, Doc. If one of us gets an asthma attack, you gonna chase us through the lobby?"

A few people laughed.

Most didn't.

I put a spoonful of chili in my mouth and chewed it slowly.

Then Boone set his tray down across from me.

"Don't mind him," he said loudly, and pointed his spoon at the power plant guy. "Last winter he got his tongue stuck to the flagpole on a bet. Twice."

"It was once," the power plant guy said.

"Twice. I've got pictures. The second time he asked me to hold his beer."

The whole table behind us cracked up.

The power plant guy went red and pointed his fork at Boone.

"That's a lie."

"I'll put it on the big screen at midwinter."

After that, nobody said anything else about the lobby.

I looked at Boone.

He was eating his chili.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"For what? I just like telling that story."

The power plant guy was laughing at himself now.

***

The summer doctor spent the week showing me the clinic.

It was two rooms and a two-bed ward with a curtain, an X-ray machine older than me, and one AED on the wall.

The physician assistant who'd be wintering with me was a quiet man in his forties who liked crossword puzzles.

He watched me open the drug safe and didn't say a word about the newspaper.

On the fourth day, the comms office paged me.

"Phone call for Dr. Bevan. Seattle."

I knew before I picked up.

"Thea." Marshall's voice was hoarse. "Thank God."

I hadn't heard him say God in five years either.

"How did you get this number?"

"It's on the Program's website. I've called a dozen times. They kept telling me you were seeing patients."

"I was."

"The last plane leaves on the fifteenth. I checked. Get on it. I'll meet you in Christchurch. I'll fly down myself."

"You can't fly here."

"I know that." He breathed. "Did you see my statement? I told them. I told everyone."

"I saw it."

"Then come home. We'll fix it. I'll fix it."

I looked at the window.

The sun went around and around the sky here and never set.

"Marshall. Who signs off on the Ludlow medical kits for the Program?"

There was a pause.

"What?"

"The drug kits. For the stations. Somebody at Ludlow certifies them. Who?"

"I don't know. Someone in Medical. Why does that matter right now?"

"It matters."

"Thea, I'm asking you to come home and you're asking me about paperwork."

"I'm asking you about my patients."

"I'll find out. I'll find out anything you want. Just get on the plane."

I hung up.

I didn't slam it. I just put it down.

The comms tech pretended he'd been reading something.

***

Harriet found me in the clinic that night.

She sat on the edge of the exam table and swung one boot.

"I've got a seat on the last plane with your name on it," she said. "If you want it."

"Are you firing me?"

"No. I'm telling you nobody here will think less of you. Eight and a half months is a long time to sit with what's in that newspaper."

"I didn't come here because of the newspaper."

"I know. You came here because of him." She looked at the drug safe. "And then you opened your boxes."

I didn't ask how she knew.

Harriet had been here eleven winters. She knew everything.

"I'm staying," I said.

"Good." She stood up. "I'd have hated to break in another one."

***

The last plane took off at two in the afternoon on the fifteenth.

The whole station went out to the skiway to watch.

Forty-one of us in red parkas, waving at a plane that couldn't see us.

It got smaller and smaller and then it was a sound, and then it wasn't anything.

Somebody started clapping.

Then everybody was clapping, and hugging, and somebody threw a snowball.

Boone stood next to me with his hands in his pockets.

"That's it," he said. "Now it's just us."

"Is that good?"

"Ask me in October."

***

That night I couldn't sleep, so I started the full inventory.

Every box, every line, every lot number.

Around ten, Boone knocked on the clinic door with two mugs of coffee.

"Saw your light."

"It's always light."

"Saw your other light."

He sat on the floor and read me lot numbers while I wrote them down.

It took until two in the morning.

When we finished, I added it up twice.

Fifty-two drug lines in the kit.

Thirty-one of them had new stickers over old dates.

"That's more than half," Boone said.

"Yes."

He rubbed his beard. "What about the heart thing? On the wall."

I took the AED down and hooked it to the practice trainer the fire team used for drills.

I pressed the button to shock.

The machine said it was delivering.

The trainer's screen said nothing had arrived.

I tried it again.

Nothing.

Boone and I looked at each other over the dead pads.

If anyone's heart stopped this winter, all I had was my hands.

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