Chapter 6 - The Surgical Room
The operating theater at St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital was cold, sterile, and bathed in bright, shadowless LED light.
It was 6:45 a.m. on Thursday. I lay on the narrow stainless-steel operating table, wearing a blue surgical gown, my right arm prepped with orange antiseptic solution.
My surgeon, Dr. Aris—a sharp, efficient woman with dark eyes and graying hair—was standing beside the anesthesia cart, reviewing my MRI scans on a digital monitor mounted to the wall.
"Alright, Tessa," Dr. Aris said, walking over to my bedside and signing her initials with a purple surgical marker right above my right collarbone. "We’re doing an arthroscopic shoulder reconstruction. We’ll insert three small anchors into the bone of the socket, loop heavy suture through the torn labral cartilage, and tie it down tight. We'll also smooth out the Hill-Sachs lesion on the humeral head."
"How long will the procedure take?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly despite my best efforts.
"About two two and a half hours," she smiled warmly, patting my uninjured left shoulder. "You’ve got a long road of physical therapy ahead of you, but the structural repair is going to be rock solid. When I’m done with you, that joint won't go anywhere."
"Thank you, Doctor."
Beside me, the anesthesiologist adjusted the IV valve in my arm. "Count backward from ten for me, Tessa."
"Ten... nine... eight..."
The cold liquid surged into my vein, and the world dissolved into blackness.
When I woke up, I was in the post-anesthesia care unit.
The room was quiet, save for the rhythmic beeping of heart monitors and the soft rustle of curtains. My right arm was completely numb from the nerve block they had injected into my neck, held firmly against my body in a thick, heavy abduction brace that felt twice as large as the temporary one I had worn before.
Dad was sitting in a vinyl chair beside my bed, holding a paper cup of water with a bendy straw.
"Hey, kiddo," Dad said softly, his eyes crinkling with a relief so deep it made my eyes sting. "How are you feeling?"
"Numb," I whispered, my throat dry. "Is it done?"
"It’s done," Dad smiled, gently holding the straw to my lips so I could take a small sip. "Dr. Aris came out twenty minutes ago. She said everything went perfectly. She put four anchors in, tightened the capsule, and said you’re good to go home in a few hours."
I leaned my head back against the thin hospital pillow, letting out a long, shuddering breath. "Where's Mom?"
Dad’s smile faded slightly. He set the water cup down on the rolling tray.
"She’s at home," Dad said quietly. "She wanted to come, Tess. She really did. But I told her she couldn't be here unless she was ready to talk about what happened without mentioning Lena."
"And she couldn't?"
"She couldn't," Dad shook his head, a profound sadness in his voice. "She’s... she’s spiraling, Tess. Lena moved back into her old bedroom at our house two days ago. She’s refusing to look for a job, she’s blaming Mom for not stopping Caleb, and Mom is spending twenty hours a day trying to comfort her while ignoring everything else."
I looked at my father’s tired face. The deep lines around his mouth, the gray stubble on his jaw, the slouched posture of a man who was utterly exhausted by the relentless demands of keeping an unfixable dynamic afloat.
"Dad," I said softly, reaching out with my left hand to touch his wrist. "You don't have to stay there."
Dad looked at me, caught off guard by the sentence.
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"You've spent thirty years refereeing her behavior," I said, my voice steady despite the lingering anesthesia fog. "You don't have to spend the rest of your life watching her destroy your peace."
Dad stared down at my hand. A tear trickled down his cheek, disappearing into his graying beard. He didn't answer right away, but he didn't disagree either. He just squeezed my fingers gently, holding on as if I were the only solid thing left in his world.
