Husband Fled with First Love, I Saved World with Medical Expertise Chapter 04
I managed to score the blood pressure meds from my neighbor, Nancy Brooks.
She lived across the hall, somewhere in her fifties, a retired nurse from the local community clinic.
When I knocked on her door, she was in the corridor diluting disinfectant in a bucket.
“Blood pressure meds? I still have half a box left. What is your mother-in-law on?”
“Nifedipine E.R.”
Nancy rummaged through her medicine kit and handed me a blister pack.
“This should last ten days. By then, the clinic should be back to filling orders.”
“Thank you, Nancy.”
She glanced at me. “Are you in medicine?”
The question stung. “I used to be. Not anymore.”
“What field?”
“Epidemiology.”
Nancy’s entire posture changed.
“Claire, do you have any idea how desperate we are for someone who actually knows what they’re looking at?”
“We’ve got two community doctors for the whole district, and they’re run ragged.” “There was a suspected case in Building Three the day before yesterday.”
“Everyone was terrified, and nobody here even knew how to assess the situation.”
I didn’t answer.
It had been three years.
Three years since I’d set foot in a lab.
Adrian used to say, “One income is enough for a family. You staying home to take care of Mom matters more than anything else.”
And Evelyn always said, “What is the use of all those degrees? A woman’s place is managing the home, PhD or not.”
My publication record had stopped three years ago.
Every New Year’s Day, Professor Harrison sent me the same message: Claire, the institute’s doors are always open to you.
Every year, I replied, Thank you, Professor, and went right back to simmering soup, buying groceries, and playing the dutiful daughter-in-law.
When I got home, Evelyn looked a little better.
The pills had kicked in. She was leaning against the couch, watching TV.
“Claire, look at this.”
There was a PR clip on Adrian’s company, praising its “humanitarian efforts” in shipping PPE abroad.
Then the camera cut, and I saw him.
He stood front and center in a perfectly tailored suit, a commemorative banner framed behind him.
Behind him was the sky over Port Kensington, painfully blue.
A woman stood beside him in a fitted black blazer, her hair in a sleek updo, a familiar shimmer at her throat.
I knew that necklace.
A Swarovski swan pendant. Adrian had given it to me on our anniversary the year before.
I’d worn it once, decided it was too flashy, and put it back in the jewelry box.
Now it was resting on Vivian’s skin, sparkling for the world to see.
Evelyn didn’t recognize it.
The only thing she cared about was her son. “Adrian’s lost weight. His face looks so thin. Being out there all alone… I hope he’s eating properly.”
Someone was.
And taking very good care of him.
With my necklace.
I went into the kitchen and turned the faucet on full blast.
The white noise of the water was the only thing that kept me from screaming.
I stood there gripping the edge of the sink until my knuckles turned white. Water ran through my fingers, cold as ice.
When I finally shut off the tap, my phone rang.
Professor Harrison.
“Claire, you know what the situation is. We’re desperately short-handed at the center, and you were the strongest modeler we ever had in the field.”
“Professor, I haven’t worked in the field in three years—”
“Three years, that’s all. You haven’t lost your mind, and the literature hasn’t stopped moving. I read your review paper. Your love for medicine never went away.”
I said nothing.
He knew I’d still been reading the journals.
Adrian didn’t know. Evelyn didn’t know. Only my advisor knew I had never really let go.
“Come in as a volunteer for now,” he said. “No pressure. But Claire, a mind like yours is wasted in a kitchen.”
After I hung up, I stood on the balcony and looked down at the empty courtyard.
Dead leaves had tangled in the swings. There was no sound of children laughing.
The whole city felt as if someone had pressed pause.
But some things had been waiting a long time to start again.