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everything to save one child, and if I left to come back to you, then maybe someone would have died or that child wouldn’t have been saved. Dr. Jackson said that if I hadn’t gotten the other kids out of the way, someone could have died,” Bruce said.
    Well, crap. How could she have been so selfish? “I didn’t know,” she said.
    “I know you didn’t, Kim. I’m not telling you this to hurt you but so you understand my decision to stay. I became a doctor to help people where there was a need, and even though I wasn’t a doctor yet, I was where I needed to be. I could make a difference. So I stayed. Unfortunately, after hearing about your wedding to another man, you made the decision easier for me, so I gave everything I had to making a difference. I stayed away because I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing you with Craig, and I hated you for so long, believing you’d found it that easy to move on when I never could.”
    “But I didn’t move on, Bruce, not really. I’m so sorry about Craig. I really wish I could go back and change what I did. He didn’t deserve to be with someone who couldn’t love him, but I felt torn, having my parents push me his way. I was confused and young and stupid and selfish.” She shook her head as she thought about the young Kim who’d listened to her father, believing fairytales really didn’t exist. He had told her that marriage was about compatibility, being with someone who could look after her, who had the right qualities to be a good husband. But what her father had never talked about was love. Where was love? She needed love, to feel it, to give it to a man she loved deeply, otherwise what was the point of marriage and being together? “I realized, after two years of eating my heart out, missing you and hurting a man I could never love, that my father was wrong, and unless I could have love, I’d rather be alone.” She paused. “Is that why you chose to be a pediatrician, your time in South Africa?”
    He seemed to consider something. “Some of it, I suppose. You don’t really decide your specialty until your residency, and then something happens that helps figure out what you’re meant for. Kids are so innocent, and so much of what happens to them is beyond their control. I’ve seen a lot of things, neglect, abuse, and I needed to be one more voice that some of these kids need.”
    He’d grown so much. He’d had a lifetime of learned wisdom, and it was something he’d done without her.
    “You said before that there was someone else and you were together a long time?” she asked, trying to lay all the cards on the table. She didn’t know if she could feel any worse than she did right now.
    “Grace, she was a good friend. We were roommates for a while, studied together, shared everything. It’s inevitable when you’re with someone day in and day out. There was always an attraction, and we just kind of fell together. After we passed the boards, I got an offer from the children’s hospital in Columbus. Grace was surgical, specializing in cardiology. Wexner was on the table, but she had other offers: Hopkins, New York Pres, Cleveland, too. She settled for me. Not that Wexner’s not a good program, but she wanted the best, and she settled so that I could have the best instead. We moved and stayed together as friends, and then suddenly fourteen years had passed and we were comfortable. Then one day I asked her to marry me because it felt so logical, like the next step.”
    Kim couldn’t have been more shocked. It hurt to listen.
    “She said no. I was angry and rejected, and after three days of having to deal with my wounded male pride, she said, ‘I didn’t turn you down to hurt you, but you don’t love me with everything. I’m not the love of your life. I know you care about me and love me, but it’s not enough. If you want to marry me, I have to be the one.’ Then she begged me to tell her she was wrong, and I started to, I really did, because I