~JOEY
Things went back to normal between my wife and I. She was still a little bit mad over my actions with Morgana, but she got over it pretty quick.
I went back to work, and she found new things to do with her time.
Like cooking. My wife had been cooking a lot now. It was weird, honestly, coming back home from work and seeing the table set with rows after rows of delicious food.
What made the entire thing even more weird was the fact that her meals turned out to be shockingly delicious, which made no sense. Because my wife had always been a terrible cook. A terrible, terrible one.
Where did this new found skill come from?
"You sure Lydia was the one who made this?" Rowan asked as he ate out of the lunchbox Lydia packed for me, and I shook my head at the skepticism in his voice.
"I am as surprised as you are, honestly. I woke up and she was already there in the kitchen, cooking. Weird as hell, right?"
My best friend frowned slightly.
"You sure she didn't order the food? Or hire someone to cook them while you were asleep?" he insisted.
A baffled laugh slipped past my lips.
"I had a five am shift this morning, Rowan. I have been awake since four, and the food was barely ready by the time I made my way out of the bedroom. You think someone came into my house to cook overnight? Come on, man. That's ridiculous," I said.
My best friend shrugged.
"Fine. That's a fair point, I guess. It still doesn't make sense though. I mean, everyone knows that your wife cannot cook to save her own life. What's with the sudden change?"
"Dude. I am as confused as you are. But since there is no reasonable or even logical explanation, I have decided to stop thinking about it. Call it a miracle, if you will," I stated.
Rowan looked like he was about to say something else, but before the words could come out of his mouth, an alarm blared in the farthest corner of my office.
There was an emergency.
I cursed as I rushed out of my office, not even bothering to close the door behind me. The alarm was a code red, which meant that there was no time on my side at all.
Bursting through the emergency doors, I almost ran into the chief resident.
She looked positively frazzled, and there was an expression on her face that I did not like at all.
My stomach dropped, but I managed to keep my emotions inside without betraying anything.
"What is the status of the patient?" I asked. She flipped through a clipboard, and I listened as she rattled off the necessary information I needed.
From what she was saying, there was a pretty slim chance that whoever it was would not survive.
But this was my job. And my job was to make sure that my patients survived.
"There seem to be a problem though. The patient is way too young to go through that much brain damage. And she came in with a tag."
"How old is she?" I asked.
"She is three years old."
My heart stopped.
Three years old. That was too young, and her already slim chances instantly went down drastically.
Still, I could not believe my ears.
"What did you just say?" I repeated, my legs suddenly refusing to move.
"The TA patient is three years old. There was no one else in the car with her, and if the passerby who called for an ambulance had not made the call, the girl would have died. She is still at the risk of dying."
I started to walk faster, practically running at this point.
"And what exactly do you mean by tag?" I asked, a feeling of foreboding spreading through my body.
This was bad. Very very bad.
My chief resident took a deep breath before she responded.
"Remember few months ago when your wife was rushed here, unconscious and labeled with a different name tag?"
I nodded. I would never forget that name. Elena Davidson.
"The girl is tagged as Allegra Davidson. I know the last name is common, but for some reason, there was a hand written note that was tagged to the girl's clothes. And on it was written: "Elena Davidson's daughter."
I almost lost my grip on reality.
"What?"
The resident nodded, apparently stunned too.
I took a sharp turn into the operating room, and my head was spinning with thoughts as I washed my hands and started to prep for surgery.
What on earth was happening?
Months ago, my wife was wheeled in here, bleeding and almost dead from a road accident. With a different name tag.
And now, there was another girl in here with the same fate — suffering from a tragic road accident — the same last name as the wrong name tag my wife came in with, and there was a handwritten note?
Something was wrong.
Totally, absolutely wrong.
But for the life of me, I could not figure out what it was.
We had no child, Lydia and I. My wife wanted a baby so badly, but no matter how much we tried, nothing happened.
There was nothing wrong with either of us medically, so we had nothing to worry about in that aspect.
That didn't stop my wife from getting heartbroken over her childlessness though. And no matter how much I tried to comfort her, she was always sad.
Always.
Now there was a small girl in here with very mysterious circumstances.
Who the hell was Elena Davidson?
I had no time to answer that question as I stepped into the operating room and started to work on the girl, but the question lingered in the farthest corner of my mind.
Maybe all of these was a coincidence. Maybe not.
But there seemed to be a link somewhere.
Who was Elena Davidson?
Why was her daughter apparently sent here at the very edge of death?
And why was my wife rushed here months ago with the wrong name tag? The name that seemed to belong to this young girl's mother?
But most importantly, what happened to Lydia for the whole three years that she was missing?