CHAPTER 16 : The Night I Remember POV: Amelia

I’m just finishing reviewing a patient’s echocardiogram when the emergency call comes in at 2:17 p.m.

A nurse appears in the doorway, looking focused.

“Dr. Carter, we have a patient coming in from the emergency department. Female, 46 years old. Acute chest pain, shortness of breath, abnormal first ECG. They’re asking for cardiology.”

I close the report.

“Have they stabilised her?”

“She’s conscious. They’re monitoring her, but the pain still hasn't lessened.”

“Get the latest observations and ECG,” I say. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Before she has even finished talking, I’m already going.

The corridor is crowded. The lift takes too long. I run down the stairs, my shoes hitting each step. The patient is already in the emergency department when I arrive.

She is pale under the fluorescent lights, one hand pressed to her chest. A nurse reads her notes from the trolley while a second is hooking up the monitors.

“I’m Dr. Carter,” I say as I head towards the patient. “Will you please tell me your name?”

“Elena,” she manages.

“Elena, I want you to tell me when and where the pain started.”

She tries to answer, but another wave of discomfort breaks over her. Her husband stands near the wall, helpless, watching the team.

I look at the emergency physician.

“What’ve we got?”

“Chest pain started forty minutes ago. She is hypertensive, tachycardic, and her first ECG shows changes that concern us. We’ve done the initial assessment and taken bloods.”

I look at the tracing, compare it to the monitor, and ask for the proper history. The team continues with the emergency assessment while we organise the investigations needed to find out what is happening.

For a few minutes, the work is concentrated on the patient before me.

The questions. Observations. Decisions.

Then Elena touches the nurse’s wrist.

“Please,” she whispers. “I don’t want to die in this place.”

The nurse bends over.

“We’re on your side. The doctors are treating you.”

Elena glances around the room.

“How long will it take?”

No one can give her the answer she needs.

I move closer to the trolley.

“This is serious, Elena. We’re doing the tests we need to do and treating what we can identify. You have to keep telling us if the pain changes.”

She nods, listening, frightened.

I turn back to the team and ask for the next update. The treatment room door opens, and a blast of colder air crosses the back of my neck.

The present slips away for a disorienting second.

A hospital hallway.

The door opening.

An adult telling me to wait.

My hand in my mother’s hand, or maybe I just remember it that way. The memory is old enough that I am not certain about every detail.

I remember the lights the best. Too bright. Too white. I remember looking at a doorway every time I heard approaching footsteps, convinced that the next person to appear would bring news.

I remember asking, “When can I see my parents?”

I don’t remember who it was who answered.

“Dr. Carter?”

The voice comes to me from far away.

I blink.

The emergency doctor is looking at me, waiting for my answer.

“Yes,” I say, forcing myself to look around the room again. “Go ahead with the plan. Let me know when the next results are available.”

He nods and turns away.

I walk the team through the next steps, look at Elena’s observations, and ask about the pain. My hands don’t tremble. I have an ordinary voice.

Nobody else needs to know that, for one second, I was not standing next to a forty-six-year-old patient.

I was eight years old, waiting to hear whether my parents were coming home.

One hour later, Elena has been transferred for further evaluation, and the emergency team continues to monitor her condition. The first rush is over, but her situation still requires close attention.

I go back to the cardiology department to finish my notes.

I type the first sentence, stop, and read it twice without taking in the words.

My phone vibrates next to the keyboard.

A message from Maya appears.

Have you eaten anything today? Or will you again live on sheer stubbornness?

I look at it for a second, then reply.

I’ll eat later.

Her reply comes almost immediately.

So that’s a no. I’ll bring something when I’m done.

I change the receiver’s position and return to the patient record.

Maya has known me long enough to know when I am avoiding an answer. Unfortunately, she also knows when to ask again.

I return to the patient record and fill in the notes. I verify the details, fix a time entry, and save the file.

The work helps. It gives something for my attention to do.

But the memory is close enough that I feel its edges whenever the department is quiet.

I know the basics of what happened to my parents. It was an accident. They needed specialist treatment. There was a delay. They died.

Those facts have been with me through school, through medical training, and through every tough decision that led me into cardiology.

But the facts do not fill in all the gaps.

I could never piece together the entire sequence of that night. I remember waiting, the adults talking in low voices, and the awful change in the atmosphere when I understood no one would take me to see my parents.

Other details come and go. Sometimes I think I hear a doctor talking to someone at the reception desk. Sometimes I wonder if I have taken that image from another hospital visit.

I was eight. Memory at that age is not a full record.

I know this in a work context.

Knowing it doesn’t make the gaps any easier to accept.

“You’re still here.”

I raise my eyes.

Damian is standing at the door to the office, one hand on the frame. He has taken off his coat, and his tie is a little loose. I didn’t hear him coming.

“What are you doing here?” I say.

“I had a meeting nearby.”

“Do all the people you know have meetings within walking distance of this hospital?”

“Only if the alternative is to be told to reschedule.”

The comment should make me angry. Instead, I feel myself almost smiling.

“Well, what do you want?”

“I was told today I’d have my updated appointment information. The receptionist said you were writing up your notes.”

“Yes, it’s available. I can email it to you.”

“That will be all right.”

He stays.

I look back at my screen.

“Was there anything else?”

“Are you all right?”

My fingers are poised above the keyboard.

The question is asked quietly, without the usual edge he uses to challenge a decision. I look at him properly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You were quiet when I came in.”

“I was working.”

“You’ve been looking at the same line on your screen for almost a minute.”

I squint.

“Did you time me?”

“No. I was waiting for you to notice that I was standing here.”

I can’t help a short laugh.

It goes by quickly.

Damian’s face is still attentive. He doesn’t seem pleased to have made me laugh, nor does he immediately demand an explanation.

I tell him, “I had a bad emergency earlier.”

“Is the patient okay?”

“She is being further assessed. We haven’t figured everything out yet.”

He nods.

“And that has affected you?”

I look at the monitor, but there’s nothing there that needs my attention.

“Something about the situation reminded me of my parents.”

He is silent.

That’s good enough. It would be enough to explain the silence without giving him anything else.

But he has already asked me a question I have been avoiding for years, and the memory has made the space between those two conversations feel smaller than I would like.

“I remember being in a hospital waiting for news. I remember people telling me to be patient.”

My throat constricts. I stop, irritated by my body’s reaction.

“At that age, you believe that if someone tells you to wait, there must be a reason. You think the answer will come if you just sit still long enough.”

Damian pulls out the chair opposite my desk but doesn’t sit down until I wave him to.

“What else do you remember, then?” he asks.

“Bits and pieces.”

I look at my hands.

“Bright lights. Footsteps. Adults who fell silent when I approached. I remember asking if I could see my parents.”

“Not then.”

The answer comes out more sharply than I intend.

I take a breath.

“Eventually, I was told they had died. I understood what death meant in theory. I had no idea what it meant to lose both parents at once.”

Damian’s face changes, his usual guarded expression giving way to something quieter.

“Did the doctors explain what happened?”

“Not to me. I was a child. I received the explanation the adults around me thought I could handle.”

“And later?”

I hesitate.

“Later, I learned that they needed specialist attention and there was a delay. That was the part I couldn’t get out of my head.”

“Are you aware of the reason for the delay?”

The question lands right where I thought it would.

No. Not every little thing.

I turn the pen over in my fingers.

“I know what I was told, and I know what I learned about the medical situation. But I don’t know the whole story behind every decision that was made that night. I don’t know exactly when each person realised how serious their condition was or what options they had at each stage.”

“Have you tried to find out?”

“Not the way you’re thinking.”

He waits.

“I was young when it happened. I was old enough to ask more complicated questions, but my life had already moved on. School, college, medical school. There was always something to do.”

“And the questions?”

“They remained.”

The words hang between us.

I haven’t meant to tell him so much. I certainly wasn't going to open that can of unanswered questions.

But he listens without trying to make the conversation easier for himself.

“Do you think knowing everything would help?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

That’s the most truthful answer I have.

“A part of me wants to know every detail. Another part wonders what I would do with the information if I discovered that something could have been different.”

“Would it change what happened?”

“Not at all.”

“Would that alter your feelings about it?”

I look at him.

“Maybe.”

He leans back, thinking.

“When he was ill, my father kept things from me,” he says. “He thought he was protecting me. I wished for years that he had told me more.”

I remember him telling me about hearing conversations and picking up bits of information. His voice is controlled, but his eyes are fixed on a spot past my desk.

“Did you ever learn everything you wanted to know?” I ask.

“No.”

“How did you cope with that?”

His mouth tightens.

“I made sure I never had to depend on someone else telling me what was going on again.”

I understand the urge. It's not the same as mine, but it comes from somewhere I know.

“And has that worked?” I ask.

“Professionally, yes.”

“And personally?”

He flashes me a quick, mirthless smile.

“You ask questions, Doctor.”

I’ve heard that before.

The tension eases for a moment.

Damian looks at me again.

“When you think about that night, what bothers you the most? Not knowing what had happened, or not knowing whether someone could have changed it?”

I drop the pen.

The question is too narrow.

“I don’t know how to separate those things,” I admit. “I remember waiting for help. I remember it not coming fast enough. But I don’t know every decision that was made or what each individual knew at the time.”

“That must be difficult to live with, not knowing.”

“It is.”

I look down the corridor and see a nurse pass with a stack of files.

“But I can’t base my life around a question I may never be able to answer. I can learn from what happened. I can make sure I take my responsibilities seriously. I can give the care my patients deserve.”

“And this is enough?”

“Some days.”

He accepts the answer for what it is, not trying to improve it.

That’s more comforting than it should be, I find.

My phone buzzes again. This time, it’s a reminder about the next patient to review.

I stand and pick up the file beside my keyboard.

“I’ve got to get back to work.”

Damian rises.

He walks to the door, then stops.

“Amelia,” he says.

I look at him.

“You don’t have to answer every question just because someone asks it.”

For a second, I don’t know what to say.

The words sound almost alien coming from him, a man who spent weeks demanding answers from me and negotiating every limit I set.

“That’s good advice,” I manage.

“I have some occasionally.”

“Occasionally?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

I smile, and this time the smile lingers a little longer.

He gets the details of his appointment from reception and leaves.

I watch him walk down the corridor, then turn back to my patient list.

His concern should be a small thing. A quick question from a patient who happened upon an awkward moment. Nothing else.

But Damian has heard the parts of my story that I usually condense into a few sentences, and he hasn’t tried to tell me how I should feel about them.

That’s enough for now.

I pick up my pen and return to my notes, but my thoughts keep circling back to our conversation.

For years, I have treated the unanswered questions about my parents as something I had to live around. I built a career, learned to make difficult decisions, and dedicated myself to giving my patients the care I believe everyone deserves.

I told myself that was enough.

Most days, it is.

But today, for the first time in a long while, I find myself wondering whether leaving those questions unanswered was truly my choi

ce—or simply the easiest way to keep moving forward.

I look at the door Damian walked through.

Perhaps the past doesn't need to dictate my future.

But that doesn't mean I have to stop looking for the truth.