Broken

Copyright
Willow Rose 2012

Published
by DMC

All
rights reserved.

No
part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or
electronic form without permission from the author.

This
is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living
or dead is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work.

Unauthorized
duplication is prohibited.

Cover
design by
by
Dana
Sitarzewski
http://Jaguarwoman.com

and
Jan Sigetty Boeje

Special
thanks to my editor
Jean
Pacillo

www.ebookeditingpro.com

Connect
with Willow Rose:

http://www.willow-rose.blogspot.com/

www.facebook.com/willowredrose

https://twitter.com/madamwillowrose

"If you love someone, set them free. If
they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were."

Richard Bach

To my
daughters Lea, Caroline and Christina.

Because you fill my world
with magic.

Chapter 1

She
came to me
in a dream. I hadn't even realized I had
dozed off. It happened a lot lately. I was dozing off in the middle of the day
in my office between patients. Maybe it was caused by my not sleeping at night
for about a month. But there she was. Looking as gorgeous as she had ten years
ago when I last saw her. She walked towards me with her stunning smile and
glowing eyes. She was smiling her mouth muttering something. Her voice was
small, distant and I couldn't decipher what she was trying to say. I enjoyed
seeing her again immensely and woke up laughing. Torn out of my dream by the
buzzing sound of my secretary.

I was still in Florida, St. Augustine to be precise.
It was my hometown now. The year was now 1993. It was the year of the first
bombing of World Trade Center, the year of
Jurassic Park
,
Sleepless in Seattle
and
Schindler's List
.
The year when Ben Johnson was banned from athletics for life while
the World Wide Web was born at CERN, not that anyone knew what that would
mean to the world at this point. It was also the year that my former music-hero
Michael Jackson was accused by a 13-year-old Los Angeles boy of fondling
him to the shock of all of his fans. It was the time right after operation
Desert-Storm, the first TV-war transmitted live on CNN. It was the era after
the fall of the Berlin-wall when we no longer feared the threat from communist
Russia and a nuclear-war. The Cold War was over and we had just entered the
longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history, it was the
time of Bill Clinton before his sexual escapades were even suspected. It was
also a time when the shirts were short and the jeans high-
waisted
.
Everybody was talking about saving the rain-forest and Michael Jordan. A gallon
of gas cost one dollar and sixteen cents, a movie ticket four dollars and a
loaf of bread was only a dollar and fifty cents. Not that I cared much about
those things since money had never been an issue in my life and certainly
wasn't at that time.
    
"Mrs. McCoy
is ready for you in surgery, sir," the secretary said.

I leaned forward in my chair and pushed the button.
"Thanks, Julie. Be right down."

Slowly I closed my eyes once again hoping to somehow
recall
Aiyana's
face and hear her slightly singing
voice say my name. But she was no longer there. I drew in a deep sigh and got
out of my chair. I left my office at the clinic and took the elevator down to
the basement while a nurse caught up to me, walk-running slightly behind me. I
didn't slow down.

"Mrs. McCoy. 78 years old, cataract in her left
eye, causing severe myopia and ‘cloudy’ vision," she said as we walked
down the carpeted hallway towards the surgery-room. We entered room four where
another nurse had prepared Mrs. McCoy for me so all I needed to do was to walk
in and perform my procedure.
Like the magician in a
show
. The first nurse handed me the paperwork as I entered the room
and then she left us.

"So, Mrs. McCoy. Let's get this over with so we
can get you home to your husband in time for dinner, shall we?"

She nodded, slightly nervous as I sat in front of her
and examined her eye through our newest instrument to laser-operate. We were
among the first in the country to introduce this way of operating on the eyes
and that made our clinic among the top five in the country. In six months our
clinic had gone from having one operating-room to four in which clinic doctors
performed eye surgery. That meant we made four times as much money as Dr. Kirk
had back when he ran the clinic. Mrs. McCoy was my fifth patient this day. It
took me about five minutes to cut away a small circle-shaped area of the lens capsule
in her dilated eye and replace it with a new lens causing the cataract to
disappear forever from her eye. Less than a year ago I had been operating on
the old-fashioned way; using physical instruments like a phacoemulsification
probe to cut out the lens. So it is easy to say that the new technique had
improved my life a whole lot. And Heather's as well since we now had more money
for her to spend.

"The nurse will provide you with glasses to wear
as you leave the clinic," I said as I completed the procedure. "Your
pupils are still dilated and you need to protect them from the sun." I
rolled my chair backwards and looked at her. This was the only few seconds I
actually spend with the patient. The rest was taken care of by the nurses. They
prepped them and dilated their pupils and so on. This small procedure was all I
had to do. But this was what they paid us for. I nodded and sighed. "Any
questions?" I asked, glancing at the clock on the wall behind her.

Mrs. McCoy shook her head. They always did. They never
dared to actually talk to the doctor when he finally made his appearance. They
spent all day waiting for this moment and just like that it was over.
"Okay, then. Feel free to call the clinic at any time and if you feel any
pain or discomfort. Miss Maria here will take care of you from now on."

"It's Mrs. now," the nurse said.

"What's that?" I asked.

She lifted her hand and showed off a ring. "Tied
the knot last Saturday. You sent
Buccellati
torchon
salad serving spoons."

 
"That
must have been Julie," I mumbled. "Anyway. Congrats on that."

"Thanks."

I put on my "doctor smile" that had once
been my irresistible one. "You take care now, Mrs. McCoy and don't forget
to call if anything comes up and if the other eye starts acting up we will take
care of that too." Then I walked toward the door. The nurse followed me
outside. She handed me the papers and I signed them. As usual, I didn't even
have to use my own pen. She smiled shyly and disappeared back through the door,
back to the patient whose name I would forget as soon as I entered the elevator
again and pushed the button that would bring me back to my office. So many
faces, so many destinies and yet they made no impact whatsoever on me. I was
doing something good, I kept telling myself. I was actually helping these
people. Being able to see is one of the most fundamental things in a human's
life. And she would definitely go blind if she hadn't come to the clinic. So
yes, I was helping her. I was helping people just as I had always wanted.

It just didn't do anything for me.

"Mrs.
Langaa
is on line
one," Julie said as I passed her desk on my way back into my office, the
place that had become my hide-out, my sanctuary during the past few years
.

Mrs.
Langaa
.
How Heather despised being called that name. Once we got married she wanted me
to take her father's name instead since my Danish name was too hard for anyone
to pronounce. But I had refused. She had gotten her way in so many other areas
where I didn't want to fight her. But on this one subject I wouldn't bend. It
was my family-name and I wanted to keep it. I wanted my son to have it and pass
it on. I owed my father that much. My father, who was so proud of me even if it
meant there would be no one to take over his practice in Denmark once he was
gone. My father who was now all alone in that big old white house that I had
grown up in. The same house where my mother had died when I had been no more
than thirteen.

I sighed as I stepped inside the office to my big
mahogany desk that had become just as intimidating in size to visitors as Dr.
Kirk's had been it to me when I sat in front of him while he had offered me the
opportunity to one day take over his clinic and marry his daughter.

The light next to line one on the phone was flashing
red, signaling that someone was waiting. I didn't pick it up right away even
though I knew she probably had been waiting a while furious that I wasn't
always available for her to call at any time and moment to discuss what color
cushions we should get for the new couch in guest bedroom number three or
whether the lamps for our five-year old son's bedroom should be brown or blue.
I poured myself a scotch while thinking of William. The only good thing in my
life. The reason why I got up in the morning. It had been the most precious moment
of my life the day he had been born. Five years had gone by so quickly and I
had missed most of it. Work had stolen those years. And I would never get them
back. I emptied the glass in one gulp and set it down. The alcohol rushed
through my veins and sedated me just enough to be able to pick up the phone.