CHORALE SANDERS

EPILOGUE I: CHORALE'S POV

Two years later.

"Kayla!" Chorale called out to her baby girl. She was sitting in the sofa with her daddy and her uncle Caleb, watching football.

She ran to the kitchen upon hearing her name. She had only started to walk and it made her so happy, and naughty. She was even trying to climb the stairs now and starting to talk too. The first word she said was "Dada." How happy and full of himself Kay was that day!

She jumped into her mother's arms. Chorale was cooking for Kay, and his friends who would be coming over to also watch the football match. She was almost done with the cooking. Mama Rica had helped a great deal, before leaving to go somewhere with Obed, and she was so thankful for her help.

Kayla hadn't eaten much that morning because her daddy always fed her food to her, but Kay hadn't been around at the time. He had just returned from working the whole night. It was the first time he had stayed up that late and she wasn't too comfortable with it, but she understood that he had to work. Now that he was back, Kayla would eat.

Chorale put some food in her bowl and gave it to her to go and give to her daddy. She gave Chorale a very wet kiss on her lip and managed to say "Thank you, mama". Chorale put her down and off she went, running. She almost fell.

From the kitchen, Chorale couldn't help but admire her beautiful family. Everything had been going on smoothly so far.

Just a week ago, Kay and Kayla celebrated their birthdays: Kay's thirty-third and Kayla's second. Chorale had organized a small party for them, and it was wonderful. The whole family was present: Dwayne, Agnes, even Valerie and Liam. Valerie was in the early days of her pregnancy and was feeling sick but she still managed to come. She was done with school and she was ready to start a family now. Chorale was so happy. Derrick hadn't come because he was in Mexico, for further studies. Caleb had also invited Josephine, then there was Kay's mother, his siblings and cousins. It was beautiful.

The food was ready now and she had done everything she had to do. She wanted to go and take a nap. Kayla wouldn't come with her even if she begged her to. The girl was a terrible daddy's girl! Chorale dished out the food into aluminium foil food containers. She then went upstairs to take a shower and rest a while.

By the time she was done bathing, she saw that a lot of cars were parked in their driveway, that meant that Kay and Caleb's friends had arrived. Kay had a lot of employees and many of them had become friends with him. Some others too had been or were still beneficiaries of some of his charitable acts and on some occasions, he invited most of them.

Just as she was about to lie down, her work phone rang. She was now the head of her department and that came with a lot of work.

She was on leave and had asked that she be called only when there were emergencies. She answered on the first ring, "Dr. Anderson speaking."

The nurse on the other end of the call responded immediately, "Dr. Anderson, there has been an emergency. Your attention is required in the theatre."

"I'll be there in fifteen." She told her and hang up the call. She knew it would be very impossible to take a leave and not have these interruptions. They came with the job. She missed Jose Luis so much. Had he been alive, she could've 'bribed' him to come to Ghana so they work together. But he wasn't and every single day she missed him.

She quickly got dressed and got down the stairs. She met Kay. He came in briefly to take some drinks to the guests. The others were at the forecourt of the house, watching the match on a giant screen.

She walked over to him and pecked him on the lips.

"I have to go to the hospital. There's an emergency."

He gave a reaction she couldn't quite read and said, "Okay, baby. Be safe."

She went out through the back gates because if she used the front gates, she would have to stop and chitchat with all the guests and she didn't have that much time on her hands. She sat in one of Kay's cars that was in the back garage and sped off. There was an unusually heavy traffic on her way to the hospital but she was able to get there on time for the surgery.

By the time she was done, it was past six in the evening. She had not planned for her day to go like this but she was happy she could save a life. There were other minor cases for the day but she had to leave. No surgeries were required and so she left her student doctors in charge.