Waiting for Love

Chapter 2

I started the car, shaking my head, trying not to think about the day our destinies collided.

"Go get me a coffee, big boy," Chanice told me between her teeth as she reviewed the shift sheet. It was my first day there, and I was lost and, frankly, scared. "I don't know why they always leave me with the newbies. As if I didn't have enough on my hands."

She looked at me, who was still standing in front of her, as if I were a ghost. "What are you still doing here, kid? Coffee won't prepare itself, and I don't have the entire day."

"I don't know where..." Chanice rolled her eyes at me and pointed to the hall behind her, interrupting me.

"Second hall on the left. There's a coffee machine there. Bring me a cappuccino."
I followed Chanice's instructions, and when I was making my way back with her coffee, I saw that one of the corridors led to a small room, where a lady was sitting, crying.

"Is everything okay? Do you need help?" It came to my mind that perhaps she was in pain, but the woman simply shook her head. However, when she raised her eyes and saw me, she jumped from the chair.

"Dr., I need you to tell me the truth. Please, tell me she's going to be okay." I had no idea who she was talking about, and that's what I told her.

"I don't know who you are talking about, ma'am; I recently..." She interrupted me, and as I would learn later, it was a common thing in the hospital; I would even get used to not finishing any sentence.

"Maddie, my little girl. We brought her in today. She had a seizure this morning."

I held her hand back.

"It's certainly nothing serious, she must have epilepsy, but she'll be fine." Her chin was trembling, and her eyes were red and swollen. I didn't want her to collapse in front of me, so I handed Chanice's coffee to her and instructed her to sit down. Sugar should help. "Stay calm. I will personally make sure that Maddie will be okay while she's here."

"Would you do this? Do you promise me that Maddie will be okay?"

"I promise Maddie will be okay; as I said, it's probably just a..."

A loud cough interrupted me, and I turned around to find Chanice with her arms crossed and an expression, not at all kind on her face.

"What he means is that we will do everything possible to make sure your daughter is well, ma'am. Let's go now, Dr. Sloan."

Chanice dragged me down the hall. I had barely had time to say goodbye to the woman.

"What do they teach in college these days?!" I could tell she was furious. "Look, we don't know if she's going to be okay, and, likely, she won't be. Madeleine -not Maddie- had a seizure, and we spent all morning examining her because she has a tumor in her brain. Now listen to me," Chanice held me by the shoulders and stared at me. I won't deny it; I was about to cry. Or throw up. "Never, ever promise to the relatives of a patient that they'll be okay. That's rule number one, always remember and never break it."

I followed Chanice through the hospital during that day, and we barely had time to sit down.

We talked and visited patients, and I noticed that although she was a little rude, Chanice cared a lot about the patients under her care.

"I need to check on Madeleine before she is prepared for surgery. Are you okay, or would you rather take a break and have a coffee?"

"Enough coffee for today." I made a face and followed her inside the room.
Maddie was not a little girl, as her mother described. To my surprise, she looked to be about my age, in her early twenties.

"She's pretty." It was all Chanice said, and then we worked in silence, interrupted only by her instructions or the beep of the machines that monitored Maddie.

Maddie's surgery was considered a success, they managed to remove the tumor in its entirety without causing any damage to her brain, but she did not wake up for some reason.
So I did my best to keep the promise I made to Mrs. Cooper, as I discovered her mother was called, that day.

As the days went by, I was always in Maddie's room when my shift ended, hearing Mrs. Cooper's anecdotes about her daughter's life, even though I should be studying for my final exams or going out with my friends.

"This is her favorite book." Mrs. Cooper put Jane Austen's book 'Pride and Prejudice' on my hands. "I won't be able to come tomorrow; the girl who was replacing me at work won't do it anymore. Sometimes I forget that other people's lives have not frozen in time. Could you read it to her? I'll understand if you're too busy; it's just that I wouldn't want her to be alone in case she wakes up".

"Don't worry. It's one of my mother's favorite books, and I've always wondered why she likes it so much."

The other day, after my shift ended, I lost count of how many hours I spent reading 'Pride and Prejudice' to Maddie. It had marks all over it and even some footnotes with comments written in Maddie's handwriting.

"'I might as well enquire," I read aloud with my best British accent. "why so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me what you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?!"

I stared at Maddie and raised my eyebrows.

"She is overreacting. I thought Mr. Darcy was very romantic in his speech. I don't understand what was wrong with what he said. If... if you wake up, I promise I'll watch all the movie adaptations with you."

When we finished Pride and Prejudice, we started reading Sherlock Holmes' A study in scarlet'.

"Dad gave me this book when I was around eight years old. I was so impressed, and when I found out that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had learned to do what he does with a doctor, I decided that it was what I wanted to do. Everybody thought I was crazy."

I told her all about the struggle of being a poor boy with a big dream. Maddie never answered.

There were days when it frustrated me, and the guilt eroded me-the heavyweight of a promise I shouldn't have made.

"Do you think it'll be long before she wakes up, Dr. Brad?" Mrs. Cooper would ask the same question every day, and the doctor responsible for her brain surgery always gave the same robotic answer.

"We can't say for sure, Mrs. Cooper. She should have woken up by now." Then she'd look at me, and I'd nod in silence, letting her know that everything would be okay.

Maddie would wake up. Or that's what I wanted to believe with all my heart.
I spent hours, days, and eventually weeks looking for how to help her wake up.

I read some articles that music helped, so I started taking my headphones to the hospital with me besides reading to her.

"She likes Lady Gaga." Mrs. Cooper told me one day.

I had never heard a song of hers before, but the next day, when I walked into Maddie's room, I had all of Lady Gaga's albums on my cell phone.

"What's your favorite song, Maddie? I confess I don't know yet, but we can listen together and find out, right?"
We heard together with the power vocals while I was studying for my upcoming exams; after a couple of hours, Chanice would show up and tell me to go home.

"Tomorrow, we will listen to some electronic music, and if you do, I'll take you out to dance when you wake up. See you tomorrow, Maddie."

A car passed by me and honked hard, it brought me back to the present, and I tried to concentrate on driving.

Until I got to the hospital, I thought that maybe I was dreaming, or that perhaps I had imagined the conversation with Chanice over the phone, but when I got there, and Chanice simply pointed to her room with a smile, I knew it was real.

"And don't run through the hospital, big boy." I heard her screaming as I ran down the halls that were already so familiar to me.

I stopped at Maddie's bedroom door. I took a deep breath before crossing the door, but not because of the crushing guilt I felt whenever I looked into Mrs. Cooper's eyes. This time I felt hope.