Chapter one
Carl
“Oh my. Who is that? He’s delicious.” I could feel eyes on me, but I didn’t even bother looking. I wasn’t interested.
“Shhhh, quiet. Don’t let him hear you. He’s an arsehole. He may look good enough to eat, but he’s poison. That fine specimen is the famous doctor Silverspoon.”
“No way.” The first voice now whispered. “He’s real? I thought the doctors just made him up to scare the interns.”
“No. He’s real, and he’s the biggest douche around.” The voices faded, but I didn’t care anyway.
They always talked about me and I didn’t give a flying fuck what any of them thought of me. The nasty gossip had been going on for years and I knew it would never change. They were all beneath me. I was a Silverman, but I was still the doctor they avoided. I was the doctor interns begged not to be put on rotation with. My nick name was Silverspoon, because they said the silver spoon is stuck up my arse. Ha, ha. I didn’t find it funny, but apparently all my work colleagues find it hilarious. There was even a running joke they played on new people telling them to call for Mr. Silverspoon, or told them it was my name and so when they introduced themselves they called me by that. When I was younger the name had hurt, but as I aged I realized I didn’t care what the ignorant idiots thought of me, what anyone thought of me. The only person I cared about was me. No one else was going to care for me if I didn’t. I was one of the best damn doctors in the hospital. Probably the state. So I ignored their jokes and snide comments.
Being the youngest of four and a late in life baby to my parents, I watched my much older brothers move out of home, fall in love, and have children. I always thought I would follow in their footsteps. It never happened. As the years went by, I never met any woman and that dream faded. I stopped believing in love, or what my family called the gift of the gypsies, a gift that helped every Silverman find his one true love.
When I first started my residency I was too busy to care that I hadn’t found anyone. When I finished my residency and choose to specialize in general, I started to worry that I hadn’t found my one, my soul mate. My older brothers had been married for years and all had children. I hadn’t even met anyone. So I started going out and dating, seeing if I could find the woman who was meant to be mine, hoping to feel something. I admit the closer I got to forty, the less I believed in the stupid gift and the more I came to see it as a curse.
At almost forty six, I thought the gypsy gift, or curse, was a made up story to help keep the Silverman men faithful to their women. I didn’t believe for one friggin’ second that my very young nephews had suddenly fallen under the curse. I called bullshit.
“Dr Silverman to consult in emergency.” Getting up out of the chair, I logged off the computer and made my way to emergency.
Annabelle
“Mum, can you stop chatting up the nurses?”
My mother rolled her eyes as she lay in the hospital bed. “She was hot. Stop being such a Debbie downer.”
I closed my eyes and prayed for patience. My mother had been rushed to hospital only half an hour ago. I’d left work in a rush thanks to Principal Ranch telling me I had to stay until school finished. I had one class left when I received the phone call, but he wouldn’t get anyone to cover for me so I could leave and get to my mother even though I covered for teachers and other work mates all the time. I was a school librarian and I loved my job, but over the last couple of years I’d noticed more and more, that I was the teacher that did everyone favors, but I never got any in return. I always stayed back until well after school finished at three thirty, catching up on work.
I didn’t mind too much though. I mean, I had my dream job. Books were my world. From a young age I would escape in as many books as I could. The library was my safe place. I was conceived as the result of my mum and one of her friends having a one night stand of sorts. My mother wanted to make sure she was gay and, as she tells it, see what all the hype was about being with a man. The one night not only confirmed she was a lesbian, but it conceived me. Children were fine until a parent or older kids found out about my mother. Then the teasing began and it always escalated into bullying. So I ended up spending most of my childhood in the library hiding away.
“Do you think they called a hot doctor?” I opened my eyes and glared at my mother. Since the pain meds had kicked in she hadn’t shut up and had become very crude. “I haven’t had doctor pussy in years.”
I covered my ears, horrified at what my mother was saying so loudly in the emergency room with five other beds not far from hers. Letting my hands fall I leaned forward and hissed, “Stop it! People don’t want to hear that. My God, I don’t even want to hear that.”