Hey guys! So this is the first thing I've posted here... I would very much appreciate any and all critiques, opinions, and whatnot. Please, be as harsh as you can. I really want to know what I'm doing wrong, and I'm sure there's a lot of that. x)
The title isn't cemented yet. My plots usually change course and a lot of my original idea changes, so I don't usually choose a title until the end. :s I'm trying, but I just can't come up with a title right at the beginning.
Just a warning: There is a huge medical aspect to this! Part One isn't bad at all, but there is an autopsy and surgeries later on in the novel{la}... if you're squeamish, don't read. xD I wasn't sure what rating medical scenes would earn the book, so if you have an opinion, please tell me. Oh, and it is kind of long: 2581 words. I don't think that's too bad...
Without any further ado...
***
Nicholas
Despite what the movies would have you believe, a marriage is never fifty-fifty. Sometimes it's sixty-forty, even seventy-thirty; there is a person who falls in love first, and a person who falls in love next. There is a person who worships the other. There is a person who loves more, gives more, tries harder, and keeps the ship running smoothly - and there is a person who is just along for the ride.
In the case of my marriage, I was always the thirty, maybe even the twenty. You would think it's harder to be the person who loves more - and I would tell you that you're wrong.
“Perfect.”
I glanced at my wife. She absently tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she adjusted the floral arrangement for the hundredth time that night; ‘tweaking’, she called it. She would pull a petal one way, and then frown and pull it back into its original position. When I asked her why, all she said was that it had to be perfect.
“Elizabeth,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. The dress was heavy purple silk and low-cut, leaving her shoulder bare, and I noticed how her skin flushes as soon as I touched it. Three years, and she still had this reaction to me. She moved the flower again, and I repeated myself. “Elizabeth.”
Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at me. Sometimes, it was so hard not to love her, even though I didn’t. Her lips were full and faultless, parted questioningly – her eyes danced. “What?”
“I think it’s good now.”
She turned away from me, striding over to the next table and tugging at the centerpiece there. I followed her, standing behind her and slipping my hands around her waist. Resting my chin on her shoulder, I said, “Even Dad won’t be able to complain with this.”
Elizabeth turned in my embrace, so she was looking at me. I placed my hands on the table behind her, trapping her there, determined not to let her move until she finally accepts that the decorations for my father – the noble Robert James Prescott the Second – were, in fact, perfect.
“He’ll love it.”
She sighed. “I’m just scared he won’t.”
She always tried too hard to please him, when it really wasn’t necessary. “He loves you.” At any rate, he adored my wife more than I did.
She smiled mischievously at me. “I know he loves me, but do you?”
I smiled back at her, even though it was more like a grimace, and gestured around me. “I love your decorations.”
She was about to say something, but Elizabeth caught sight of the clock behind me. She squirmed out from my grip, saying, “Shit. He’s going to be here in less than five minutes! Look professional, Nicholas.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wear a suit everyday. I think I know how to look professional in one.”
“Actually, your tie is crooked.”
She fixed it, her slender fingers lingering on my chest longer than absolutely necessary. Elizabeth was left-handed, and I caught sight of the thin, gold, band around her ring finger. I had a similar one on mine, although it was a little thicker, more masculine.
“Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.”
We turned around quickly to see my father. He was sitting in his wheelchair and clapping his hands, smiling broadly. His attendant, young Jeremiah, gripped the wheelchair tightly and cast a critical eye around the hall. It may not have been the most magnificent, but Elizabeth and were tight for money, despite my father’s riches. Although the public believed differently, we earned our money the old-fashioned way, and didn’t take charity from Robert Prescott.
“I love it,” he said. “I really do. Good job, Elizabeth.”
My wife flushed with pride and embarrassment – she could never take a compliment, especially from my father – and I moved forward to meet him. For as long as I could remember, my relationship with my father had been cordial and courteous, formal. The only times he had told me he loved me was when I almost died as a nine-year-old, and when my mother died. It was a statement about our relationship that someone needed to come close to death for him to say I love you.
“Hello, Father,” I said, offering him my right hand.
He didn’t take it. “Your tie is crooked.”
My left hand flew to my throat, fixing the knot that Elizabeth had adjusted less than two minutes ago. I let my other hand drop. “You look better today.”
“I might be dying, but I’m not dead yet.”
Elizabeth came up. She obviously had not heard me, because she repeated exactly what I just said – “Mr. Prescott, you look a lot better today!”
He beamed at her. “Why, thank you, Elizabeth.”
She offered to show him to his seat – the chair at the head of the huge table in the center of the hall – and took the wheelchair from Jeremiah. I stood beside him, ducking my head and tucking my hands into my pocket, feeling his questioning gaze on me.
The hall quickly filled up with people. I lingered near the door, pretending I was standing there to greet all the guests, since my father couldn’t. I shook hands with and took coats from a seemingly endless line of dignitaries and other people who believed my father actually liked them, counting them one by one.
She was the forty-second person to arrive.
I saw her before she saw me, and pulled at the collar of my shirt - a nervous habit.
Her long, red hair, as bright as any fire, was swept up and coiled around her head, tantalizing curls slipping out of the pins and framing her face. The dress she wore was strapless and had a deep neck, and a long slit up the side. Her perfect red lips smiled at me.
For a moment, she went out of focus and I saw him, standing behind her. Josh Comely. I looked at him, his face, his suit, and then his proprietary arm around her waist.
“Nicholas,” she said, even as Comely pulled her closer towards him. “I’m glad I came.”
I wanted to touch her pearly white skin, trace my finger down the bluish vein over the curve of her neck. Instead I kissed her cheek politely, and then drew away, keeping a careful distance between us. My body screamed at me to step closer; my brain could not stop thinking about the comfortable way Comely handled her.
“Vivian,” I replied. “So glad you could make it.” Forcing a smile onto my face, I turned to Comely. “And Mr. Comely – nice to see you.”
“Same to you, Dr. Prescott.”
I took their coats and stuffed them into the arms of some poor and unsuspecting woman beside me. Vivian gave me a little wave as Comely drew her toward their seats. She turned her head at the last moment and her gaze burned through me before she was whisked away.
I went to my seat, thinking the next twelve guests can find their way to their tables on their own. Elizabeth sat on my left, and my father to my right. I pushed Vivian out of my mind and made small talk with my wife; we talked about the band, relaxed as waiters brought around soup and appetizers. I didn't think about her for almost half an hour. Then, as I was sipping at a glass of water and Elizabeth was talking to her friend, I let my gaze wander.
I knew exactly where her seat was, and watched her talk to Comely. She threw her head back and laughed, a sound I knew by heart. Absent-mindedly, I traced my finger along the rim of the glass, eliciting a high-pitched squeal from it.
Elizabeth whacked my arm, bringing my attention back to my wife. She frowned at me. "You know how I hate it when you do that."
Just then, the main course was brought around – a choice between lobster and roast duck, with potatoes, salad, and more – and then a dessert for everyone. The waiter brought in the four-layer cake and my dad cut it as we sang Happy Birthday; after the remnants of the cake had been cleared away, we started to socialize around bottles of wine, and a glass of water for my father. I’m talking to Elizabeth when she accidentally knocked over my glass. I jerked sideways, knocking over my father’s, too.
“Oh God,” she said, looking like she might cry. “I’m so sorry!” She jumped to her feet, grabbing ornate napkins from the table and dabbing at the cloth, pouring us new glasses. “I’m so, so, so sorry!”
My father smiled gently. “It’s alright, dear.”
It was Elizabeth who suggested a toast. We all raised our glasses in unison as she said, in a voice clear and pure, “To the great Robert James Prescott the Second. To his next forty years!”
The clink of fifty-five glasses echoed around the room. I kept my eye on my father, who was grinning broadly. He took a sip of his water, and set the glass back down.
Within seconds, he was choking. A laugh bubbled from his lips as his chest rose and fell and he laboured to get out breath; chairs fell to the ground as those closest to him moved towards him. I was sitting beside him and fell to my knees as his legs jerked violently and he slid out of the wheelchair, slamming to the ground.
Elizabeth screamed as his limbs jerk rapidly. “Someone call 911!” She knelt down on his other side, looking at me imploringly. Tears sparkled in her eyes. “You’re the doctor, do something!”
“Make sure he doesn’t hit his head,” I ordered. I shifted into automatic mode, something that is familiar to any surgeon - in the face of an emergency, your body starts working on auto-pilot. You become separate from your emotions and see the logical choice, at least until the patient is either stable or dead. My fingers ripped open his clothes and searched for a pulse. I placed my hand over his mouth and nose. His body jerked again, but I could feel no air – he was not breathing.
His eyes rolled back in their sockets and his body fell still.
“The ambulance is coming,” someone yelled. I didn’t place the voice. I didn’t have time.
“He still has a pulse,” I muttered. “But he’s lost consciousness. And he’s not breathing.”
“Do something,” Elizabeth begged.
I leaned down and checked for airway obstruction, then sealed my lips across my father’s, trying to breathe life into him. After a minute, I stopped.
She covered her mouth with her hand and slowly backed away. I looked down at my father in a haze of panic. I had nothing with me – there’s no other action I could take. I felt a sudden rush of air from his mouth, and then his heart stopped.
Immediately I was on him, pumping, but his heart didn’t start beating again. “Live,” I muttered. “You have to live.” I counted the chest compressions – one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand – and waited for a miracle.
When the paramedics arrived, I was still pumping desperately, counting slowly. They moved me out of the way and one of them checked his pulse and breathing. They asked me questions I answered in a daze – “Are you a doctor? When did he fall? Were there seizures? Centralized? What was his rhythm before the cardiac arrest? Sinus tach? V-tach? When did he stop breathing?”
I watched as they took out a black bag and heaved his body into it, zipping it all the way up. The sound was jagged, broken, harsh, and carried with it a tone of finality. As they carted the bag out of the hall and sobs erupted around the room, I caught sight of Vivian hovering near the door, Comely trying to drag her out. I let my entire body go limp. Elizabeth caught me before my head hit the ground, and I let myself cry.
#
I managed to get home with Elizabeth supporting me. I marvelled at her strength; her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and there were tracks down her cheeks. Even as I watched, a silvery drop accumulated at the corner of her eye, and she reached up and wiped it off. Her lower lip trembled even as she murmured words of comfort and soothed me, driving me home with one hand stroking my back, and settling me into the bed.
The bed was a gift from my father. It had once been a wedding gift from Robert Prescott the First to his son when he got married to my mother, Marilyn. The great oak structure was a typical four poster bed, with intricate carvings detailing the posts. The scenes of nymphs and elves were too whimsical for my father, but he put up with “the monstrosity”, as he called it, for the sake of my mother.
When I got married, he showed up at my doorstep with the entire bed disassembled, and someone to put it together in our master bedroom. Until that point, we had just been sleeping on a mattress. I was reluctant to take the bed, and all the memories it held, but Elizabeth fell in love with it at first sight, and insisted we keep it.
As she disappeared into the kitchen with the promise of hot food, I stood up and walked to the master bathroom. I looked grimy and disgusting, my eyes puffy and lined with red. Tears had dried in long lines down my cheek. Repulsed by how I look, I reached for the heavy and ornate faucet, and splashed my face with cold water that stung.
My face looked a little cleaner after, although not by much. I found myself scrutinizing my reflection, marking all the similarities to my father as another way to remember him.
We shared the same square jaw and defined cheekbones. My eyes were completely my mother’s; an odd, faded grey-ish blue shade, so pale that many people called them distracting or disconcerting. My hair was the same shade of brown, so dark it was almost black, as my father – my naturally tanned complexion is inherited from my mother, however.
For a minute, my reflection morphed into my father’s. “Stop crying, Nicholas,” his image said.
“Don’t be a child.”
Another hiccup.
“Grow up and man up. Stop crying.”
The words were familiar, and my overworked, grief-wracked brain scrambled to place them. Then I remembered – my mother, the one who loved me and showed it, had just died. She had keeled over of a heart attack and died in minutes. I had been twenty-one, in my second year of medical college, up in Canada for the funeral. The ceremony had been open-casket, and I had gone up to pay my respects to her. I held her hand, delicate and ice-cold, frosted.
She had been the one who had loved me, who had supported me. She had been the one who tucked me in at night and kissed my forehead. She hadn’t even seen me graduate.
I had wanted to say something romantic, but what escaped my mouth was a sob. First one, and then another, and then I was being led away from the casket by my aunt, brought towards my father.
He had looked at me with open and undisguised repulsion. “Stop crying, Nicholas,” he had said. “Don’t be a child. Grow up and man up. Stop crying.”
I had reached out and before I knew it, I had struck him across the cheek, tears pouring down my face.
He didn’t move, a stone statue. “Stop crying,” he repeated. When I didn’t, he had turned away. “You disgust me.”
He had started to walk away. My words had been garbled and choked by the tears. “Damn you,” I had yelled at his back. “You damn coward. There’s no shame in tears!”
He had kept walking.
Now I looked up at his face in front of me. Thinking of her funeral was a dangerous road. I told myself that if my father was here, he’d probably say it again – “Stop crying, Nicholas.”
I turned away from the mirror. When I looked back, the reflection was all mine again. With renewed resolve, I turned on the shower and stripped down while I waited for the water to heat. When it was hot enough to burn - I always took my showers with wildly hot water, something Elizabeth often said was crazy - I stepped inside and let the water wash away any semblance of grief from my body. I scrubbed until my skin is pink and raw, until I was convinced that I’m clean again.
Outside, I donned fresh pajamas, luxuriating in the feel of soft flannel against my skin. Dad hadn’t had have enough time for a death bed wish, but I knew what it would have been – he would have told me not to cry, not to grieve, but to move on with my life. He would’ve been revolted to see me cry and go to pieces, to see me have to rely on Elizabeth just to walk.
What would Vivian say if she saw you like that? Would she still find you attractive?
I shook my head to clear my mind, concentrated on my father. He might be dead; he might never have shown me any real affection – but despite all that, I was half him. Part of him lived on in me, and I could imagine his horror that his own child, his own flesh and blood, could be so... weak. That’s what he would see it as. Weakness. I remembered all the times I dared to show real emotion and he called me weak, or sickening. If I kept up the crying, I would prove him right.
I refused to give him the satisfaction.
I went into the kitchen. Our house was fairly large, as it wasn’t hard to afford a house in a small town: a spacious living-cum-dining room, a decent kitchen, the master bedroom with two guest bedrooms, one of which we turned into a study, one bathroom, one half bath, and a basement with laundry room.
Something simmered on the stove, the aroma rich and mouth-watering. Elizabeth was hunched over the stove, and at first I thought she was stirring the food – then I saw the slow heave of her back as her body shook with sobs.
It scared me. Elizabeth had never dealt well with intense emotion. “Elizabeth,” I whispered, so quietly she didn’t hear me. I thought about how awkward her name sounded on my lips, even after a year of dating and two years of marriage. My tongue didn't curl around the syllables of her name like they did around... To stop that train of thought, I said my wife's louder - "Elizabeth" - and she whipped around.
Quickly she wiped her tears, and somehow forced a smile onto her face, even though it wavered. She must have seen the question perched on my lips, because she said quickly, “I’m fine.”
“Like hell,” I replied.
“I am,” she insisted.
I went up to her and put my hands on her shoulders. At first she refused to meet my gaze; forcefully, I tilted her chin up so she was looking at me. “We’ll get through this,” I said firmly.
“I know.”
“Dad – he wouldn’t have wanted to see you cry.”
She sniffed a bit, wiping her nose with her sleeve, and smiled bravely at me. “Wouldn’t want to let him down.”
“Good,” I said, and clapped my hands together, pointing at the stove. “What’s cooking?”
“Soup,” she said. “Cream of potato.”
I made small talk with her until I was able to convince myself that she’ll be alright, that I’ll be alright, that we’ll be alright. It was only later, when the soup bowls were scraped clean and the salad was done, that I dared to say what I knew must be said.
“Elizabeth...” I trailed off, not wanting to upset her, all the while knowing this was essential.
“What is it?” Her voice was soft.
I forced myself to meet her gaze and speak calmly. “We need to order an autopsy.”
She didn’t say anything. For a minute I thought she would start crying again, but she just stared down at her empty plate, not speaking. Then she looked up, looked at me, and swallowed. And slowly, bravely, she nodded.
***
I changed a bit so it flows better and decided to switch to past tense because I had trouble consistently writing in present. I also changed the location to Canada, simply because I wanted a place which I had more knowledge of. I think this is my final edit, and I'm moving onto part two. Thank you for all the reviews! :3
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