The Love We Choose

Chapter 28

Huan sat at his kitchen table, silently sipping on his third glass of Japanese whiskey. No matter how hard he tried to push the events of his last shift to the back of his mind, he couldn't achieve that goal. Instead he decided the only feasible way he would be able to get some well needed rest was with the help of a liquid sleep aid. Not in the mood to deal with anything, he turned his phone off, moved to the couch and laid on his back in silence until the smooth, smokey alcohol took effect.

In the depths of Huan's dreamless slumber a buzzing noise began to persist. "Huh?" He groaned groggily as his body registered the noise. Turning his head to the side, he tried to locate his phone in an effort to silence the alarm that must be buzzing. However, he is confused when he notices that the screen is black and the device is off. I must have been hallucinating. He thinks as he turns over to go back to sleep.

All attempts to return to a dreamless sleep were defeated when the buzzing returned. This time, instead of happening in patterns, one long buzz continued to ring out in his apartment. Eventually registering that someone was buzzing his door, Huan pulled himself upright and stalked, sluggishly, to the answering panel.Who in the fuck was bothering me today?

"Hullo?" He rasped out.

"Open up and let us in, Huan. Fetus wants to eat with its father."

Scrunching his eyebrows he attempted to shake the whiskey-fog from brain and registered the voice, "Lynne? Is that you?"

"Who else is housing your fetus? Wait, don't answer that. An unexpected response could do some serious damage to my self-esteem and I would have to rethink my decision to show up. Now are you going to let us in or leave us out here on the front steps in this wonderfully icy November cold? I left my key at home so I can't let myself in."

"Come on up," he pressed the button to let her into the building and unlocked his own front door so she wouldn't have to wait for him to open it when she made it up to his floor.

Looking out the window he noticed that it was now dark outside. While he waited for Lynne to make the trek up the stairs, he tried to remember if they had dinner plans he had forgotten. Once he had finished his shift, he had felt emotionally and physically exhausted. He had just clocked out and was heading to the subway when Lynne called him to check in. They hadn't communicated since early Thanksgiving day. Thanksgiving had been two days ago and he hadn't left the hospital until late that Saturday afternoon. Unable to figure it out, but plagued with the images from his shift, Huan grabbed the whiskey bottle off the kitchen table and brought it with him to the couch to refill his glass.

XXX

As Lynne waited for the tell-tale buzz letting her know she could enter the building, she thought back to her call with Huan just a few hours ago. Usually, their post-Thanksgiving/Black Friday phone calls were filled with an animated Huan regaling her with the most outrageous tales of mind-blowing disasters that brought people to the E.R. on the holiday. The schadenfreude of the situations brought about by out of shape adults reliving their glory days in family wrestling or football matches, sharp kitchen utensils, undercooked food, simmering family feuds, people willing to do anything for a Black Friday deal, and copious amounts of alcohol made them giggle like idiots. Always, the issues he shared were superficial and the patients were patched up and sent out on their way. She had been looking forward to seeing if anything could top last year's tale of middle aged knumbskulls who had decided to play a heated game of family football with a 22lb. frozen turkey. Apparently, it was a family tradition. This family tradition led to two of the hardest headed ones colliding and blacking out.

However, their usual lighthearted conversation did not follow the usual pattern. Instead of adding new Thanksgiving and Black Friday horror stories to her mental bank, he let her monopolize most of the conversation. The usual light he let shine through was absent in his voice pattern. Sensing that something was up, she let him hang up with her abruptly when he said he was tired. He never talked to her without mentioning his work on their decompression phone calls. This was a red flag to Lynne. Emergency medicine is his ish. Formulating a plan, she packed up the leftovers her mom sent her home from Thanksgiving dinner, made a pit stop at the grocery store to get Huan's favorite ice cream, and headed to his apartment.