Her Three Lives by Cate Holahan

Author:Cate Holahan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2021-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

Leah and the kids were waiting in the neurosurgery ward. As Greg entered, they rushed him, driving Jade from his side with the force of their feelings. Leah’s eyes darted from him to the kids and back to him. Concern twisted her mouth. Though his ex was still battling him in divorce court, she would never wish anything bad to happen to him. The night he’d left, she’d said as much: “I love our kids too much to hate you.”

At some point in all the fussing, Jade sidled back beside him and announced that she wanted to find the doctor. Tears had carved their way down her cheeks. The sight of the tracks made some of Greg’s worst suspicions seem foolish. Surely, Jade wouldn’t weep over him as he headed into surgery if she only wanted him for his money or, worse, his life insurance policy, as Violet believed. Before he could suggest that Jade stay, his daughter caught his eye and rolled hers in his girlfriend’s direction. Forcing a tear or two wasn’t that hard, he decided. He told Jade that he’d see her in the recovery room.

Family time ended soon after she left. Nurses whisked him into a private room to prepare for his procedure. He changed out of his customary black T-shirt and dark slacks into a V-necked hospital gown with a garish blue pattern that Greg really hoped he didn’t die in. At least he wouldn’t be wearing the helmet.

From behind a curtain, a nurse instructed him to keep the gown open in the front and remove his underwear. Since the surgery would take several hours, the nurse explained, they’d have to insert a catheter. The idea of a tube being pushed into his urethra made Greg nearly more nervous than his skull being cut open a second time. He swallowed his concern though. The catheter wasn’t optional, and whining about it would only demonstrate his out-of-whack priorities. Mess with my head, fine, but please don’t touch my penis. Even thinking it made him sound like a character in a bro comedy.

A team of nurses set him up on a bed and wheeled him into the “operating theater,” a term Greg found ill-fitting for the glaring white room with the pedestal table in the center. Disc-shaped lights hovered above the slab, recalling movie spaceships before CGI. Two large orderlies helped him from the rolling bed to the table and positioned him according to directions from the reconstructive surgeon.

Dr. Gordon Epps was a fair-skinned man with a square forehead and a widow’s peak, both of which Greg noticed before any of Epps’s more prominent facial features thanks to his newfound interest in head shapes. He also had the rumbling voice of a man who either drank too much whiskey or perhaps didn’t speak often. Greg hoped it was the latter.

Through his mask, Epps explained what he would do while nurses applied local anesthetics to numb the areas where tubes would be inserted. Dr. Hsu was also present.

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