Chapter 9
I stopped.
That sentence felt unbearable.
Of course she remembered me.
Or perhaps she didn’t.
Perhaps eight years had turned me into a story people told new residents.
The talented surgeon who married a billionaire and disappeared.
I deleted the sentence.
Then I typed again.
Dear Evelyn,
It’s Mara.
I would like to talk to you about returning to medicine.
I read the email four times.
Then I sent it before fear could persuade me to close the laptop.
The reply arrived two hours later.
Mara,
Of course I remember you.
Come by tomorrow at ten.
And don’t you dare arrive wearing one of those ridiculous gala dresses.
I laughed so hard I cried.
The next morning, I stood outside St.
Catherine’s for almost fifteen minutes.
Ambulances moved through the emergency entrance.
Nurses hurried past carrying coffee.
A man in blue scrubs walked out while speaking into his phone.
A woman in a white coat held the door open for a patient using a wheelchair.
The ordinary rhythm of the hospital hit me harder than I expected.
I missed it.
The noise.
The urgency.
The feeling that everyone inside had somewhere important to be.
I had spent years believing that I missed being needed.
Standing there, I realized the truth was more complicated.
I missed being useful.
Not decorative.
Not impressive.
Useful.
Inside, I asked for Dr.
Shaw.
The receptionist directed me upstairs.
When Evelyn appeared, I barely recognized her at first.
Her hair had gone almost completely gray.
There were deeper lines around her eyes.
But she still walked like someone who considered hesitation an unnecessary waste of time.
She stopped when she saw me.
“Mara Hale.”
I swallowed.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
She looked me up and down.
“You look expensive.”
I laughed nervously.
“You look terrifying.”
“Good.”
Then she hugged me.
And for some reason, that broke me.
I cried against the shoulder of a woman who had once made me repeat a surgical presentation three times because I hadn’t prepared it properly.
Evelyn didn’t ask questions.
She simply held me.
After a moment, she pulled away and handed me a tissue.
“Come into my office.”
I followed her through the hallway.
The hospital smelled exactly as I remembered.
Disinfectant.
Coffee.
Clean linen.
That faint metallic scent that seemed to exist in every emergency department.
Evelyn closed her office door.
Then she sat behind her desk.
“Tell me.”
I looked at her.