“What’s wrong with him? Can you tell?” she asked quietly.
“He said his chest hit that rock.” Daniel nodded toward the large boulder next to them. He looked down at the injured man and spoke in a quiet, steady tone. “It’s hard to tell without an X-ray, but it looks like your trachea is pushed to one side and your lung has collapsed,” he explained. “We need to release the pressure right away or you’ll go downhill fast.”
“D-do it,” the man struggled to say.
Daniel had already taken a long needle from the medical bag. He wiped down the cyclist’s collarbone area with alcohol. The injured man seemed to be fighting for every breath now, and he looked agitated.
Daniel glanced up at the other riders. “Can I get someone to hold him steady?”
The biker who had run into the store quickly knelt down next to his friend, on the same side as Daniel. Liza was on the other side.
Liza glanced down at the man. His face was pale and drenched with sweat.
“Ready?” Daniel asked. Liza and the other helper nodded. The injured man closed his eyes.
With a quick, sure movement Daniel inserted the long needle just below the man’s collarbone. Liza felt the man flinch and in the same second she heard a rush of air quickly come out. The man’s body sagged with relief, even before Daniel withdrew the needle.
Everyone turned at the sound of the ambulance siren getting louder and louder. Daniel wiped the man’s forehead with a clean, damp cloth. “The ambulance is here. You’re going to be all right,” he assured him.
His patient nodded and closed his eyes again. “Thanks . . . thanks a lot . . . I think you saved my life.”
Daniel shook his head, but Liza could see he was moved by the man’s gratitude.
The ambulance pulled up and the emergency medical technicians jumped out. One of the technicians took Daniel aside and spoke to him about the man’s condition, while the other checked the man’s vital signs.
Moments later, the injured rider was loaded into the ambulance, which quickly drove off, headed for Southport Hospital.
The rest of the cyclists seemed stunned. Gradually, they picked up their bikes and rode off—at a much slower pace than the speed at which they’d come, Liza noticed.
Daniel and Liza walked back up to the General Store.
“Will he be all right?” Liza asked.
“Yes, I think so,” Daniel said.
“That’s good. It all happened so fast. It was pretty exhausting,” Liza admitted.
They had reached the benches where Liza had left her bike.
“Want a lift back to the inn?” Daniel offered. “I could toss your bike in the back of the truck.”
“Thanks, that would be great,” Liza said. She steered her bike over to the truck, and Daniel lifted it into the bed and closed the gate. Then they both climbed in, and he started the engine.
They drove along in silence for a while, both lost in their own thoughts. Liza felt shaken by the event but she guessed that Daniel was even more shaken, taking charge in such a stressful, traumatic emergency.
“So . . . what was wrong with the guy again? You said it so quickly, I didn’t really understand,” Liza admitted.
“When he was thrown off his bike, his chest hit that big rock. You’d call that blunt trauma. Like being struck with a heavy object. That caused his lung to collapse, but more importantly, air was coming into the lung space from a small leak in his chest with each breath, which it normally shouldn’t do. That caused his trachea, his windpipe,” Daniel translated, “to shift to one side. When that happens the extra pressure on the lung doesn’t let the body get enough oxygen, and you asphyxiate. And very quickly, too,” he added.
“He would have died right there,” Liza said, understanding. “Which is why you had to treat him so quickly.”
“Exactly. Pneumothorax will sometimes be very minor and resolve itself spontaneously, but a tension pneumothorax needs immediate care. Needle aspiration, or aspiration with a tube inserted into the chest. Sometimes surgery,” he added.
He spoke in an automatic tone, sounding as if he were reading out of a textbook he had memorized. A medical textbook, she realized.
“Do all EMTs know how to do what you just did?” she asked, turning to look at him. “I mean, diagnose that man on the spot like that and then treat him so quickly—for something that seems pretty rare, too.”
“Probably not,” he said quietly. “I guess it was just lucky I was at the clinic.”
She could tell he was trying to sound offhand about the matter. But Liza wasn’t ready to let it go. They were nearly at the Gilroy farm and would soon be at the inn, she knew, and it might be a long time before she would have another chance to talk to him.
“He was lucky,” Liza agreed, “lucky that you’re not the typical volunteer EMT. You’re a doctor, Daniel, aren’t you?”
Liza saw Daniel’s entire body tense at her question. For several long moments he didn’t answer. He just drove, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Liza was beginning to wonder if he’d heard her when he said, “Yes, I have a degree in medicine.”
Liza waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.
“That’s all right. You don’t have to tell me anything more if you don’t want to. I’ve had time to think about things, Daniel. I’ve decided that I don’t want to lose your friendship over this. If that’s all it can ever be, then so be it. I’d rather be friends with you than not have you in my life at all. So if you need to keep your privacy about certain parts of your life, that’s just how it has to be,” she said finally.
Daniel turned to her. “Oh, Liza . . . ” He swallowed hard and looked back at the road. “I’ve been thinking, too . . . and I’ve been an idiot. About a lot of things.”
He pulled the truck over to the side of the road and turned to her. “I don’t want to lose you from my life either. The last few weeks, trying to stay away from you, has taught me that,” he admitted. “And when I saw you today, when I came out of the clinic, it seemed like more than a coincidence. It felt like you’d been sent there to help. You, out of everyone I know,” he said quietly. “The procedure I did wasn’t easy—the needle has to go in at exactly the right place, and I haven’t done it in a long time and didn’t know if I could. But having you there helped,” he admitted. “It probably helped me save that guy’s life. And since you were there, you figured out what I couldn’t tell you. Well, at least part of it.”
Liza felt a quiet thrill at his words. She had given him strength to do something important today, and he had missed her. He didn’t want to end their relationship.
Suddenly the truck cab seemed far too small a space to contain the happiness and hopeful feelings rising up inside her.
“Why don’t we go down to the beach and take a walk? I need to clear my head a bit,” she said.
“Good idea.” They hopped down from the truck and Daniel came around to her side. He took her hand and they soon found a path down to the shoreline.
Though it was a hot day, there was a strong breeze off the ocean that felt immediately refreshing.
Daniel glanced down at her. “No more questions for me?”
Liza shook her head, determined not to push. After what they’d just been through, she was happy just to walk with him like this and just . . . be.
If he wanted to be closer to her, he would have to come in his own way, in his own time. If he wanted to open his heart, he was the only one who had the key.
“Well, I have one for you,” he said. “How have you managed to put up with me? I was defensive and hurtful to you, disappearing and not being honest. You didn’t deserve that, Liza. I’m truly sorry for acting like that.”
Liza was surprised by his apology. “Thank you for saying that. But it’s all right now, honestly. In fact, I have a feeling you don’t want anyone else to know what you told me, that you’re a doctor. Don’t worry. I can keep a confidence.”
“I’m sure you can. You’re the only one on the island who knows,” he told her. “I’ve never told anyone, not even Reverend Ben. It’s hard for me to talk about. There are things that happened I’d rather forget,” he added.
Liza had guessed as much. She glanced at him but didn’t reply.
“I did think about telling you, Liza. A million times. I even wrote you letters—but ended up throwing them all away.”
He stopped and turned, gazing out at the water. “The problem was that I was always afraid that once you heard the whole story, you might not think that well of me anymore.” He turned and looked at her. “I’d like to tell you now. I want you to know, but . . . ”
Liza understood. He was still afraid that the truth would drive her away. She answered the only way she could. “I think you have to take that chance, and give me a chance to try to understand.”
Would she think less of him? Would the story diminish him in her eyes? She truly hoped not but part of her was truly afraid to finally hear what he had to say.
Once you’ve found love, you want to protect it, Liza realized. Even if it means being less than honest with the one you cherish. But then it isn’t authentic. It hasn’t stood up to the tests. So how can you really say you love that person? she reminded herself.
Because she did believe now that she loved Daniel. Or could love him. If she knew all of him, not just what he chose to show her.
“All right . . . here goes,” he started. “I did go to medical school and earned my degree. But I wasn’t lying to you about working construction jobs while I was in college, that part was true,” he added. “Anyway, I put myself through med school and became an emergency room doctor at Mass General, in Boston. It was hard to be in a serious relationship while I was in training, but once I finished my residency, I did start dating and got engaged. But a few months before we were supposed to get married, it started to become clear to me that I had rushed into this commitment and we really didn’t see things the same way—or want the same things in life. We were arguing all the time. It was taking a toll on me. It was hard to concentrate on my work. I wanted to go into counseling, but she wouldn’t do that. She insisted that it was all my problem—my long hours and the demands of my job. She wanted me to leave the hospital and start a private practice. . . .
“Well, one night we had our last argument. A real blowout. I knew it was over and I just walked out. All I wanted to do was walk. I walked for miles. I must have walked around the entire city that night. I walked until I was completely exhausted. I got back to the apartment after midnight. My fiancée—or ex-fiancée, actually—was gone, along with a lot of her stuff. That hit me hard, too, and all I wanted to do was just drop down on the couch and sleep. But I realized that I had never checked my messages, and when I did, there were a few from the hospital. They needed me, right away. A multicar accident.” He paused and took a breath. Liza could see how hard it was for him to tell this part of the story.
“I knew my judgment was totally off, but I went in to the hospital anyway. ‘Hey, I’m a doctor,’ I told myself. ‘I’ve trained for situations like this. I can handle it.’ You know, the real macho code. But I couldn’t handle it. I had no focus, no mental clarity.” He drew in a long breath, then went on. “I was treating one of the accident victims and ordered the wrong procedures. The man went into a coma for three days. Fortunately, he survived. But there was brain damage, a loss of faculties. There’s no telling if the outcome would have been the same just from the accident, or if the treatment was the cause. But I knew that what I’d done was wrong. It was selfish and self-indulgent. I should have just admitted I wasn’t capable of being a doctor that night, but at the time, it felt like a terrible humiliation on top of everything else I’d been through that day. My ego was too big to stand back.”
Liza could hear the deep regret in his voice, his self-disdain.
“Did you get in trouble afterward? Is that why you left?” she asked quietly.
“Amazingly . . . no, I didn’t. Though I should have. But you know how doctors stick together,” he said with a note of bitterness. “The family filed a complaint, but they never filed a lawsuit. My performance was reviewed by the board and I was reprimanded. But my job was never on the line and I never lost my license. I had to mete out my own punishment. I knew in my heart that I’d made a huge mistake. It was a weak moment and another life was damaged. I couldn’t continue practicing. I tried, but I just couldn’t. I left the city and I came out here—at first, just to take a break and pull myself together. After a while there didn’t seem a reason to leave.”
“I know the feeling,” Liza said with a small smile. The ending of his story was pretty much part of her own.
They started walking again. This time, Liza took his hand. Daniel had made a terrible mistake, a life-altering mistake. But she wasn’t going to stand in judgment of him. Daniel was doing a thorough job of that on his own.
“You did make a mistake,” she said finally. “Maybe you even hurt that patient. But it doesn’t change the way I think of you. A person is more than a single moment in their life, or a single act. And you can’t let this one mistake define the rest of your life. You’re a good person, Daniel. You do a lot of good in the world. I know that much about you.”
He glanced down at her. “I appreciate you saying that, but I don’t feel like a good person all of the time. Not when I think about that night. I suppose, living out here, I don’t have to think about it that much. There are no real reminders, not like there would be back in the city. This place is like another world. It’s . . . somehow healing.”
“It is,” Liza agreed.
But she also knew at a certain point, the healing is done. Was that what Daniel was trying to tell her when they’d had their serious discussion before the wedding? When he’d said he was thinking of leaving the island?
“But are you finished here?” she asked. “Are you ready to go back? Or go someplace else?”
He took a deep breath and stared out at the water. Liza wasn’t sure if she even wanted to hear his answer, but she knew she had to hear him out. She had to know the whole truth.