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"The patient," said Roger Carr, the green-eyed fair-haired chief resident of the sports medicine rotation said, "has hyper extended his knee.  Due to previous surgeries, there is scar tissue pressing heavily on the strained muscles surrounding the kneecap.  Patient is exhibiting symptoms of pain and swelling but numbness in the pelvic area.  What's the standard procedure?"  A ringed, red-tipped hand shot out.  "Tammy?"

 

The girl, her curves rounded slightly and her dark blonde hair tied back into a simple ponytail took a deep breath before saying, "arrange for a surgical consult."

 

He tapped his pencil against his nametag.  "Yes, but why?"

 

"Scar tissue could be pressing on a nerve group."

 

"Precisely right."  Doctor Carr pulled back the white curtain surrounding the bed.  "Mister Michaels, are you comfortable?"

 

The man in the bed locked eyes with Tammy.  "Sunny?" he mumbled.

 

Up shot the hand of Toni Kawada, whose efficiency Tammy despised.  "Patient is delusional.  Request a psych consult?"

 

Mister Michaels didn't hear her.  "Sunny?  What're you doing in Jersey?"

 

"Yes, Mister Michaels, it's Sunny in New Jersey," Doctor Carr scribbled something down on his clipboard.  "What did I just suggest?"

 

"Psych consult?" Toni asked.

 

"Chem pan?" suggested a tall redhead.

 

"Wrong."

 

Tammy thrust out her hand.  "Catscan.  The patient gets hit on the head for a living."

 

"Correct.  Very bright, Ms. Candito."

 

Toni shot Tammy a look of fierce disgust, as if she smelled something rotten. 

 

"All right, our next patient is experiencing fever and vomiting..."

 

Tammy lingered behind the crowd, looking back to her old lover.  "Doctor, could I stay behind and assist in prepping Mister Michaels for surgery?  I find his case...fascinating."

 

"It should, considering your former line of work," Doctor Carr said.  "You need to meet up with the rest of the group in the x-ray room in an hour," he signed off on her presence with another quick flourish of his pen.

 

"All right," Tammy said. "And I won't be late this time."

 

"Yes, I believe you," he said dryly, leaving her alone behind the partition.

 

Mister Michaels waited until she had drawn the curtain closed around the bed before speaking.  "None of them recognized me," he pouted.

 

"Toni spends her Mondays with her books, Mikla is a boxing nut and Doctor Carr knows all about me but he's not impressed."  She glanced at his chart.  "Another knee surgery?"

 

"You're surprised?"

 

"Not the way you move," she smiled at him directly.  "So, how's Themis?"

 

His brow furrowed, aging him ten years.  "I didn't marry Themis."

 

Awkward, she thought.  "Jenny?   Or Pam?"

 

He flushed.  "My wife's name is Rebecca."

 

Her expression of vague amusement didn't waver.  "Can I meet her?"

 

He looked like he'd rather blow a giraffe. "She's back in Texas with the kids.  We didn't wanna scare them, so she's pretending I'm on a trip."

 

"That's going to be hard when you're on crutches for a month."

 

"They're used to me limping around," he said lamely.  "You're a doctor now?"

 

"Interning.  This is my first rotation."

 

"Don't lie, Sunny - you know all about rotating."

 

She bit back a laugh at his limp joke.  He studied her tenderly as she checked his pulse and how many literes of fluid were left in his IV bag.  "You look pretty good." 

 

Tammy knew this man too well - he might have said she looked hard, but his southern gentleman gene wouldn't allow it.  "I'm not twenty."

 

"When I was twenty I had a mullet - you couldn't say I was gorgeous."

 

"You would," she retorted.

 

"That was before," he said very seriously.  "I'm a different man now - a man who's seen the error of his ways and knows the light of the Lord..."

 

Please don't try to convert me, she begged him mentally.  Though an ex-lover converting her in the hospital would be a great story for her next convention appearance...

 

"...And I hope you find Him, Sunny.  I hope Chris found him before he passed away..."

 

That made her eyes snap.  "Don't try to convert me through Chris," she said flatly.

 

"I'm not trying to convert you.  I was planning on calling you after he passed, but Rebecca doesn't like it when I talk to old girlfriends.  She thinks I'll cheat on her."

 

"You weren't Old Faithful when we were together," her eyes zeroed in on an item on his chart and she cackled.  "Looks like it's time for your shaving."

 

Shawn shrugged, pushing back his sheets. 

 

"Pull up your gown."

 

He blanched.  "Why?"

 

"Didn't you read the waiver?  They're taking a muscle from your abdominal wall to build new support for your knee."  She took a razor and a can of antiseptic cream from the waiting bedside tray.  "I have to shave you from knee to belly button before Doc Andrews gets in."

 

"Why you?"

 

"Just consider it part of my education," she smirked.  "I promise not to cut you if you'll lie still," she said when she bent over him...

 

...And she thought about how she'd shaved herself for him one hot summer afternoon when they were nothing but oversized children, too high, stupid and rich to care about God, fidelity or prickly heat.  In the afterward there was an awkward goodbye, and somehow she knew he'd see her again when the children were grown and she was a thriving private practitioner. 

 

Late at night while she cracked the books with a container of ramen, she wondered if Rebecca had seen her handiwork or if the orderlies had erased her white lie before he went into anesthesia.  She never would find out, but every few years she would remember the words "Sunny wuz here" and an arrow pointing down to a wilted penis carefully shaved into a fuzzy abdomen and grin.   




The End