I let out a soft sigh as I stared at the resignation letter in my hand.
Upon hearing about my decision, the director of the hospital shot me a pained look.
“Isaac, we all know that this mistake is not yours. I know very well who did that surgery. I’m only suspending your employment. You can come back once the heat is off.”
I shook my head and said firmly, “Sir, I know the hospital is facing difficulties because of this. It will be better for everyone if I resign.”
In the end, he finally agreed.
When I left the office, Charlene was bringing Zachary to see the hospital director. She frowned after seeing me.
“What are you doing here? Don’t you know that your reputation’s very bad right now?”
Just as she said this, a few members of the victim’s family appeared to surround me.
A man yelled, “You murderer! Give me back my wife!”
His fist was already raised, and he threw it toward me. I could not react in time to avoid the punch and ended up falling on the floor with a bloody mouth. I looked up and saw that Charlene had instinctively thrown her arms around Zachary to shield him in her embrace.
“Don’t be scared. I’m here. No one will hurt you!”
I suddenly recalled a scene from the past. It had happened not long after Charlene and I had started working at this hospital. A patient had driven to the hospital with mad thoughts because he had not been assigned to the specialist he thought he needed.
I happened to be a resident under that specialist, and after having wrecked the nurses’ station, that man had come at me with a knife. At that time, Charlene had also been quick to react. She had pulled me into a similar embrace and taken the three stabs that were meant for me. Thankfully, the knife had not hit anything vital, but it left her with some lingering pain, sometimes triggered by rainy days.
“Hubby, if this had happened to you, it would have hurt me more than these three stabs.”
That instinctive protectiveness was presently not directed at me.
The victim’s husband vented all of his anger on me. I wanted to defend myself, but I could not bear to do it when I saw the pain and despair on his face.
It was only after he got tired from hitting me and was pulled away by the rest of his sobbing family that I could try to get back up. Charlene looked at how bloodied and wounded I was, and a hint of guilt flashed in her eyes. She came forward to help me stand.
“I’ll disinfect and bandage your wounds. With how much of a mess things are online, you’d better stay away from the hospital. Let me handle whatever needs handling.”
“There’s no need. I can deal with it myself.”
Before I could finish speaking, Zachary called out to Charlene with a panicked voice.
“What will I do if you both leave, Charlie? I get so terrified every time I see a medical dispute! I’ll have to see my therapist after work again.”
Charlene immediately let go of me to run back to Zachary.
She said to me, “Alright, you should get a nurse to help you, Isaac. Zach’s not very brave, and he won’t be able to deal with this without seeing a therapist. I’ll take him there.”
My injuries hurt so much that I could barely stand up straight, but I laughed. Yes, I watched her lead Zachary away and could not help but laugh. I laughed at myself for still having any sort of faith in Charlene as well as for not pushing her away immediately when she came to help me.
I did not wait for the cooling-off period to end to move out of the home I shared with Charlene. However, some days after that, it occurred to me that I had left my passport there. When I went back for it, I could not get the door to open. The code had apparently been changed.
I tried our wedding date, my birthday, and more, but the door still would not open. I had no choice but to call Charlene.
She hemmed and hawed. “Zach came to stay over a few days ago. He kept forgetting the code, so I changed it to his birthday.”
I looked at the electronic door lock and was assaulted by the memory of us buying this flat. It had been meant for our married life. She had personally set our wedding date as the door code.
She had been a vision of pure love at that moment. In that instant, though, her smile shone like a mockery in my mind.
Charlene rushed over to open the door for me. Her gaze held some guilt as she said, “Sorry, hubby. Zach’s been in a poor mood lately. I’ve been so busy spending time with him that I’ve neglected you. He has a surgery planned, and I’m scared that he might make the same mistake as last time. Could you do the surgery for him? I swear that I’ll take some time off after the surgery so that we can go on a trip. Didn’t you say you wanted to go to Valdives?”
I had seen Zachary’s posts on social media. Charlene had brought him overseas these past two weeks to relax.
Ha.
