Love Wins

She was tired. Her body and brain felt abused and bruised. On the outside she appeared to be successful and together, but she was not feeling together, and she feared that that feeling will show on her face during the award ceremony. So many other women looked up to her, revered her and tried to emulate her but she felt like a fraud. Her future goal made it possible to keep going.

Aviola was forty-seven but, no one knew her exact age because she never discussed it. They all knew she was in her forties, but most assumed she was forty-one or two because she looked like twenty-eight. She was sapodilla brown or for those that don’t know that delicious fruit, she was caramel toffee brown. She was always seen with a smile and always had a kind word for everyone, even the few who tried to criticize her. Oh yes, there were some people who thought she was too good to be true.

Her reply when asked about those individuals has always been: “I understand why someone would think that way. Life is so full of disappointment that they want to avoid putting anyone on a pedestal. You avoid disappointment.”

She was not sure when it all started. Going back to her high school days, she remembered she was just an average student. By her family‘s standards anyway. She did not get straight A(s). She got a couple of B(s) mixed with many A(s). Those B(s) kept her from getting the solid praise from her family that her brothers got. They were the straight A students in the family home. One was now a prominent US Senator, and the other was in Sudan, working as a brain surgeon, helping people who did not have money nor a prayer to survive without his expertise and God’s help. He did this all for free while his wife worked for the foundation which collected donations worldwide for him to continue doing the work voluntarily.

She was just a nurse. Well, that is how her family phrased it. She was a Nurse Practitioner with 25 years’ experience in Emergency Room Management and Administration. Maybe the pressure was from her parents’ expectations that all their children must soar from the minute they popped out the womb. Her brothers made it look easy, but she was beginning to realize that no one was immune to the pressure and most times the show is just that, a show. The real life and real person may be so different it would stun the audience.

Now she did not only have her parents expecting much from her, but she had fans. Yes, she who was wallflower shy had many fans. She was a bestselling nurse writer. She wrote hospital thrillers with a nurse, Nurse Dala, as the major sleuth. Her reading audience loved her, and they all thought she was Dala in real life. When she wrote she described Dala as a mixed-race Amazon. Dala was Brazilian and Scottish.

Aviola was born in a South American country just like her fictitious nurse hero. The fact that she was a nurse and mixed race also caused the fans to associate her with Dala. Her dad was a Pharmacist from Australia her mom was a Nanoscience Engineering professor from Guyana. Her mom met and married her dad in Canada just weeks after they met at a convention. They had migrated to the US when she was just a baby. Her brothers were born in the US. The three siblings were exactly one year apart.

Friends of the parents made engineering and pharmacy jokes about the precise timing of the children’s birth. Growing up, Avi used to be deathly embarrassed by those jokes. She did not want to think of her parents doing any pregnancy planning.

With the constant pressure as an ER nurse practitioner, a bestselling writer, and the daughter of two loving but demanding parents, Avi felt like a blow-up doll with a pin stuck in her side. She was slowly leaking air and getting limp.

Aviola had been married right out of college when she was twenty-two to a thirty-year-old high-flying Japanese chef. He was still high flying, but solo. Preparing meals all around the world for celebs, presidents, and Arab kings. He owned 5 homes around the world. He was still close friends with Aviola’s family. They viewed him as their son.

Their falling out occurred 2 years after the wedding. He was always traveling, and he wanted her with him. Her career could not get off the ground because she was the devoted wife following her husband around the world. After 18 months, she asked him when she will get to use her degrees in nursing? He jokingly said she could be his nurse. He later said he was nervous and afraid of her question, therefore, to cope, he made a joke out of her serious question. She packed her bags that night and flew back to the US. He did follow her home but one day after, he was in Nigeria cooking for a Muslim prince of a small kingdom meanwhile, his wife was home in the US crying her eyes out because she was not more important than a lamb chop.

They both agreed that even though they were good together, their careers were not compatible. Her parents did not take sides. They were crushed the marriage ended. Yukori did not have parents, however, his uncles, aunts and multiple cousins thought he was unwise to throw away his wife. Both Aviola and Yukori remained single, and it was 23 years since they parted ways. He was now fifty-five to her forty-seven.

What was Aviola’s dearest wish? She wanted to go away to a place where no one knew her. No hospitals and no book agents or fans. Just sunshine, the ocean, and a pile of books. She was an avid reader. Covid strangled her love of the ER. Now she dreaded going into work. She had lost so many colleagues to the pandemic. Some died and some just walked away from the job. ER nurses were the most affected by Covid in the hospital world. They were the first to deal with cases. Even when a patient came to the ER with an unrelated injury or emergency, 75% of the time that person had Covid and shared it with the nurse caring for them so her best friends, and many acquaintances had died.

She was contemplating just being a writer and no more nursing. She was willing to let go of her 25-year career in exchange for life and peace. She truly thought her life was endangered each day she went into work. She had already signed up to teach nursing to RN to BSN students online. She also accepted a book deal to make one of her books into a movie. A renowned writer whose books were converted into movies regularly was guiding her in this new venture.

She was getting dressed for an award dinner where she was being honored for her latest best-selling book, The Next Patient.

No one knew that she planned to retire. Remember, they all thought she was twenty-eight years old. So tonight, her parents, the head honchos at the hospital, and her fans would be getting the shock of their lives. She was leaving the hospital, going on a sabbatical for one year and most importantly she was remarrying her Yukori. Yes, after much talking, and planning and compromise they had decided that no one else was worth their time.

They still loved each other. Maturity and Covid had slowed Yukori down. He was now teaching catering classes online, and he had produced multiple cookbooks. He was stationary in New York. They were going away to their home in Curaçao for one year. From there they would both be able to teach their online classes. At the end of a year, they planned to return to the US. She would continue her online teaching and complete the consultation on the movie adaptation of her book. Yukori would continue his online teaching and host a cooking show he had agreed to become involved with.

She knew some of her speech tonight would distress her parents. They had dreams of her taking a director position at the hospital. Nevertheless, they would be ecstatic to hear that Yukori will be their son officially again.