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“She seems to be fitting in well.”
Axel tore his gaze from Betty and glanced at his father, who was suddenly standing across from him, looking formidable in his white lab coat and expensive suit. He didn’t see eye to eye with his father on many things, including the expensive tastes his father had.
His father had never understood Axel and Calder’s need to go to sea. He saw it as them wasting their medical training by serving in the tactical navy. Patrolling the coast of Iceland and providing emergency medical services at sea.
After the accident, his father had taken the opportunity to point out that if Calder and Axel had listened to him in the first place and pursued “proper” medical positions, Calder wouldn’t be dead.
“First Eira’s mother dies of cancer when she’s an infant and now her father is lost at sea. Now Eira is an orphan. Calder never should have died.”
His father’s pained words still haunted him and he knew that Eira thought the same things too. He could see it in her eyes when she was mourning Calder. Or when she thought about the mother she never knew.
Axel was all Eira had now. An uncle who knew nothing about raising a teenaged girl.
“Yes,” Axel replied. He was hoping that would be the end of the conversation, because, even though it had been two years since Calder died, it was still hard. To know that his father had loved Calder more and wished that Calder had been the one to survive.
I wish that too. It would be easier than bearing this burden.
“Did you give her my apologies about not being able to pick her up at Keflavik?” his father asked.
“I did. I told her that you were busy.”
His father was always busy.
“Thank you,” his father said stiffly. “I would’ve gone, but...”
“I know you were too busy, Father. Eira and I both know how busy you are.”
It was a dig. His father barely came to see Eira.
His father’s eyes narrowed. “I take my work very seriously, which is why I’m Chief of Surgery here.”
Axel shut the chart and set it down on the counter of the nursing station where he’d been working. He took a step closer to his father. “I take my work seriously too. I’m saving lives!”
“Except for one.” The words his father spoke stung Axel, because he couldn’t save Calder and his father could never forgive him for that. His father took a step back and straightened his lab coat. “I should go and make my introductions. She seems to be done with the patient for now.”
“Yes. Do that,” Axel said, annoyed with his father’s stubbornness as he watched him cross the triage area and introduce himself to Betty.
Axel’s head pounded and he turned on his heel, walking away.
His father was so stubborn. If his mother were still alive... He let that thought trail off because he knew his mother would never have survived losing Calder, the favored son.
Calder was the favorite, whereas Axel had always been the screw-up.
Calder had been the only one to love and support him when he was growing up and then messing up his life. It was why Axel had wanted to go into the tactical navy. It was why he’d wanted to be a naval surgeon like his brother. His plan had never been to work in a hospital.
Of course, his plan hadn’t included losing his brother and almost drowning.
Axel stepped inside an on-call room that was empty and took a couple of deep calming breaths as the post-traumatic stress disorder began to take control of him.
You can control this wave.
The therapist working with him on his PTSD had taught him the deep-breathing technique. He kept his eyes closed and kept breathing in and out, trying to drown out the sounds of the helicopter crashing into the water, of Calder’s last words or the howling of the stormy seas.
Instead he saw Betty’s face in his mind’s eye. That saucy, feisty pixie-like face. It startled him to see her there.
He scrubbed a hand over his head. Angry that he saw Betty’s face in his mind, mixed in with his torment.
He already knew that he had to be careful when it came to dealing with Betty Jacinth. This only reinforced his conviction to keep things strictly professional between them.
His phone buzzed and he frowned when he saw that it was Eira and that Eira was headed to the emergency room.
What in the world?
Axel pocketed his phone and rolled his shoulders, making sure that he had regained his composure before leaving the on-call room.
Axel headed to the emergency room, hoping his father hadn’t gotten word that Eira was in the hospital. No doubt Axel would be blamed for whatever had gone wrong.
He was always the one to be blamed.
It was always his fault, because Axel wasn’t Calder.
“Where is my niece?” Axel asked the head triage nurse.
“She’s in pod four with Dr. Jacinth. Bed three.”
“Thank you.” Axel headed over to pod four, which contained six beds. Bed three had the curtains drawn and he could see Betty’s shoes under the curtain.
He hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Is it okay if I come in?”
Betty peeked through the curtain. “Dr. Sturlusson, can I help you?”
“Your patient is my niece. I’m her guardian.”
Betty’s eyes widened.
“Is that my uncle?” Eira’s sweet voice came from inside the curtained bed in almost perfect English.
“Yes, if Dr. Sturlusson is your uncle,” Betty answered Eira.
“Yes. Or it could be my grandfather.”
“No, I don’t think it’s your grandfather,” Betty teased as she stepped to the side to let him by.
Eira looked so small against the bed. Her arm was wrapped up and he could see blood on her shirt and seeping through the wrapping.
“What happened?” he asked, instantly feeling guilty that he hadn’t been there for her.
He was never going to get the hang of balancing working and being a guardian to a teenage girl.
How had his brother ever managed?
“I slipped in a puddle of water in the bathroom at school.”
Axel gently pulled away the gauze and could see the angry, ragged wound on her arm. It didn’t look as if she’d just fallen on the floor. It looked as if she’d hit something metal and sharp.
“I’ll help you. It’ll be okay.”
“Uh, I don’t think so,” Betty said, stepping in. “You’re her family. You can hold her hand, but I’m the doctor here.”
Axel wanted to argue with Betty, but she was right in this case and he didn’t want to upset Eira.
Axel stepped away and then took a seat on the opposite side of the bed.
Eira looked uncomfortable. As if she didn’t want him to be here.
“Uncle, if it’s all the same to you I would like to talk to Dr. Jacinth, privately.” A pink blush crept up her cheeks and Eira couldn’t even look him in the eye.
“Okay. I will just be outside the pod doing some charting. If you need me I can be back here right away.”
Eira nodded and he left.
Betty closed the curtain and his stomach sank.
Eira and he used to be close, back when he was fun Uncle Axel and not her parental figure.
Just another way his life had changed since the accident.
He missed the way it used to be.
* * *
Betty could tell that Axel was sad that he was asked to leave but she could tell that Eira was uncomfortable. She couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the girl’s parents. Axel hadn’t even mentioned that he had a niece, but then again Axel wasn’t terribly forthcoming about anything except for the fact he disapproved of her winter footwear and didn’t think that she was capable of walking anywhere safely.
“So, what did you need to speak to me about? Or was that just a ruse to get rid of your uncle?” she asked as she pulled a chair over and began to gently clean the wound.
Eira winced. “Well, a bit of both, I suppose.”
“Well, you can talk to me. There is a doctor-patient confidentiality that I can’t violate.”
Eira sighed. “I didn’t slip. I fainted.”
“Fainted?”
Eira nodded. “I started...there was...blood.” A blush crept up the girl’s neck and bloomed in her cheeks. Betty completely understood.
“How old are you, Eira?”
“Fourteen, but I will be fifteen soon. I know it’s late for... I’m the last of my friends to get it.”
“It’s not late. If you were over sixteen and hadn’t had the onset of menarche I’d be worried then. I was fourteen too when it happened for me.”
“You were?” Eira seemed relieved. “My mom died when I was little so there’s no one to talk to about these things.”
“I get it. Your uncle or your grandfather aren’t exactly people you feel comfortable talking with about it.”
“Right.” Eira blushed.
“I understand completely.”
“You do?”
Betty nodded as she continued her work on Eira’s arm, cleaning the wound. When she’d fainted, Eira had cut her arm on a metal grate, so it needed a few stitches. A resident or an ER doctor could handle this, but it was slow and they weren’t busy. Betty didn’t mind.
“My mother died when I was a baby and it was just my father and me. He was a surgeon too, but... I had a hard time talking about it with him. Thankfully my grandmother in Tennessee was still alive and she guided me through my first monthly.”
Eira frowned. “My grandmother died before I was born and my mother died shortly after my birth. I just had my dad but...” Tears welled up in Eira’s eyes and she wiped them away with her good sleeve. “He drowned.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Betty said gently. “Was it recently?”
“Two years ago. My uncle Axel was my guardian and I went to live with him after he recovered.”
“Recovered?”
“My uncle Axel was in the same accident as my father. They were both doctors in the tactical navy. They were in a helicopter on a training mission over stormy seas when there was an engine failure. The helicopter crashed. Everyone but my uncle died.”
Betty’s heart sank. It explained so much. The aloofness. The aversion to water. That must be a hard thing to overcome.
It made her issues seem silly.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Betty said. “How about I get you cleaned up so you can get out of here? Do you want me to talk to your uncle? Explain what happened?”
Eira nodded, a relieved expression on her face. “That would be great, Dr. Jacinth.”
Betty smiled. “You can call me Betty and, I don’t mean to overstep, but if you have any other questions I’m here in Reykjavik for the next three months and I would be happy to help you any way that I can. Your grandfather and my father were friends so it’s the least I could do.”
“I would like that.”
“Good. Now, sit tight and I will be right back.”
Betty collected up the soiled gauze and disposed of them. As she went to get Eira some sanitary napkins, she found Axel pacing outside the pod, not charting as he’d said he was going to do.
And she couldn’t blame him.
“How is she?” Axel asked.
“She’ll be fine. I haven’t done the sutures yet. She wanted me to talk to you about something delicate.”
Axel frowned. “What’s wrong?”
