Free Shaking Off the Dust by Rhianna Samuels

follow. They’re afraid.”
    “I’m sorry, Tom. I made you go to them. Did it break your heart to hear their stories?” I walked to him trying to touch his face. I wanted to hug him.
    “Your skin is warm on my face,” he said softly.
    I stepped back to the couch and sat down, face hidden in my palms. Those children lost and left behind.
    Eduardo desperate to help his children. I hated to cry. I shook my head as the first tear rolled down my cheek. They fell in continuous fat droplets against my fingers.
    Shimodo knelt in front of me, pulling my arms down. He wiped tears off my face, pressing the tissue into my hands. He set next to me, putting his arms around my waist, drawing me closer into his shoulder, and whispered soothing things in my ear. I don’t know what he said, because he spoke in Japanese, but it calmed me. When I reached that shuddering-breath stage with my face swollen and red streaked, he got up and poured us each a glass of cool water.
    “I’m sorry. I have no reason to cry, but it breaks my heart, all those people who already died but still have to suffer. Tom, you’re a fool not to walk into that light.” I took a sip of water.
    “You didn’t, Hannah,” Tom said. “You died in surgery, but you didn’t choose the light.”
     

    “What are you talking about?” I turned to Tom.
    “You already knew that when the paramedics got to you at the scene of the accident you’d stopped breathing. But later in OR, things happened. It was storming that evening of your accident. In surgery the electricity went out right as I started to evacuate the bleed. When the generator came up, it caused a power surge in the equipment. You got an electrical shock directly into brain tissue. Your heart stopped for over two minutes.”
    My jaw dropped. “I don’t remember hearing about this.”
    “It was a Friday night and Takeshi had come to town for dinner. When I got the call about you, he went to the hospital with me. He even scrubbed in on your surgery. When your heart stopped, he did CPR.
    You fought to come back. You made a choice, we are your witnesses.” Tom spoke in his clinical, detached voice.
    “I’m the perfect lab rat for you, aren’t I?” I couldn’t keep the weariness from my voice. My expression revealed disappointment that he was merely a doctor interested in a fascinating case.
    “Hannah, I need to know what he’s telling you.” Shimodo reached out to touch me and I stood, moving away from him.
    “We should focus on what’s happening now. We have to get to those people.” Tom had already moved on. He stood there with his arms crossed, then shrugged. “They broke my heart too, Hannah. You are the one who made me go to them. Now we’ve given them hope, that there is a reason they are still here.
    So we have to do something, or at least we have to try.”
    Shimodo came up behind me, pulling me into him.
    “Tell me what he’s saying, Hannah. He’s told you something that upset you. If I don’t know what it is, I can’t help.” He bent over until he was inhaling my hair.
    I tilted back to look into his face. His mouth and eyes were close to mine, dark and intimate. I blinked back the urge to kiss him. Instead, I buried my head into his chest, ashamed I enjoyed the feel of him.
    I told him what Tom had said about getting to Spain. He gave me a little hug.
    “That wasn’t everything, was it? I wish you felt like you could talk openly to me.”
    I unwound from his hold, nearly throwing myself back on the settee. I needed space from him and my raw feelings. I meant nothing to him, and when he was near me, I kept forgetting that.
    Tom watched as if he was shocked. He shook his head a little and walked up to Shimodo. “He’s different. I don’t know if it’s because of the unique situation, but he’s very protective of you. He was always too involved with his patients for a clinician. It’s why he went into research and teaching.”
    I stared at my hands, not daring to glance