L'Hôpital Desrosiers

Esme's head whips to the side as the entrance swings open, and a man with broad shoulders and floppy hair enters with a hairy hand clutching his chest. "Doc," he rasps, "I think I'm havin' a heart attack!"

Esme immediately recalls the tell-tale signs of a myocardial infarction: chest pain, shortness of breath, diaphoresis; chest pain like "an elephant sitting on my chest" that radiates to your left arm. This man needs emergent treatment - a real doctor, with real equipment - and she's just about to say that, but Dr. Michalis beats her to the punch.

"Indeed," he hums, and with a calm, elegant motion, he gestures for the man to follow him upstairs. "Follow me, Mister...."

Esme steps aside, giving the man room to step behind the counter and follow Dr. Michalis.

"Adam Boucher," he says. "I popped a nitro on the way here." He's only halfway upstairs and he's huffing and puffing. "Didn't work. Chest still hurts. Feels like I can't breathe."

Esme thinks it's odd that nitroglycerin didn't relieve the man's symptoms, but she's not a doctor. She's just a scribe. So, as she hugs her clipboard, she swallows her questions and follows the two into the first evaluation room (R-01).

"When did your symptoms start?" Dr. Michalis asks, surprisingly nonchalant.

"About thirty minutes ago," Adam says before flopping onto the mahogany gurney. "I was... with a friend. When it started." He rubs his hands together, and his beard twitches as a shy smile tugs his lips. "Not doin' much at all, really."

"Miss Lachapelle," Dr. Michalis starts while holding his stethoscope out to Esme, "why don't we see what his heart and stomach have to say?"

Esme hides neither her skepticism nor disapproval while setting aside her clipboard and accepting the stethoscope. Whether or not Dr. Michalis noticed or even cared, she doesn't know, because he never stops smiling. He's a strange one indeed, she thinks while pressing the diaphragm against the patient's chest. Adam's heart is racing - tachycardia! - but she also picks up a rather peculiar sound, like hundreds of butterflies are caged in his ribs. She slides the diaphragm down to his stomach, and there's that sound again! She returns it to his chest then, right as his heart skips a beat. "Do you have heart disease?"

"Yeah." Adam flexes his fingers. "Lost my mom to it, too."

"Do you have a history of COPD or asthma?"

He shakes his head. "Used to smoke, but..." he trails off. As Esme looks up, she catches the flicker of a smile; a fond twinkle in his eyes, like drops of sunlight, so warm and pure. "You see, my friend - she's a woman alright, and don't like smokin', so I stopped a long while ago. Been five or so years now."

She picks up another fluttering sound. The stethoscope is much warmer than it was when Dr. Michalis relinquished it. She's quite puzzled by both the patient and the stethoscope, and Adam must see it, because his brow furrows with worry as he meets her gaze. She turns her back to him, returns the stethoscope to Dr. Michalis, and retreats to her clipboard, where she belongs.

But Dr. Michalis isn't finished with her, apparently. "What did you hear, Miss Lachapelle?"

She wishes her clipboard was big enough to hide behind, because now both Adam and Dr. Michalis are staring at her, and she suddenly can't remember a single medical term. "This is my first time listening to a patient," she explains, with miraculous ease. "You should listen, Dr. Michalis. It definitely doesn't sound normal."

His smile widens with a touch of mirth. "I assure you, Miss Lachapelle - and Boucher, sir - that what you heard is very, very normal. Especially, for this particular case." With how elegantly Dr. Michalis sits beside the patient, Esme wonders if he should have done ballet instead of medicine.

"Normal?" Adam asks, glancing between the two.

Esme averts her gaze. I'm just as confused as you, buddy.

"What you're feeling is normal, but let me assure you, this is no ordinary heart attack!" Dr. Michalis exclaims with child-like glee, his cherubic face aglow as he leans closer to Adam, who's uncertainty shifts into fear. "Your heart is under attack indeed, my friend. It's under attack with love!"

Somehow, the most baffling sight in that moment, as Esme's attention shifts from her keyboard to Dr. Michalis, is not the doctor's behavior but the sheer redness of Adam's face.

"Love?" The word escapes Adam's lips in a whisper as he backs up, sweating profusely. "You're sayin' I... I ain't havin' a heart attack?"

Dr. Michalis scoots closer. "Indeed, I am! You were with the woman you've been in love with for over five years now, yes?"

Adam, with no more space to back up into, sputters while scurrying off the bed. "What?"

Dr. Michalis stands up with him. "You can't deny it, Mister Boucher. You stopped smoking to please this woman. Whenever you're around her, your heart races. Your chest tightens so much that you feel like you cannot breathe! And you're so nervous, my good man, that it's no wonder your chest hurts. It's not nitroglycerin you need. The butterflies in your stomach..." he trails off, and with a twirl - a dramatic display - he exclaims, "need to be freed!"

This is starting to feel like a fever dream. When Dr. Michalis referred to himself as a heart doctor, such a thing as this would have never crossed Esme's mind. She sets aside her clipboard and debates the worth of staying or walking out and finding a new job.

For a moment, Adam simply stands there. He stares at Dr. Michalis wordlessly, so still and silent that Esme wonders if he's breathing, until his shoulders slump with a breathless laugh. "You're kiddin'." With a resigned sigh, Adam collapses onto the gurney. "Is that it?"

Dr. Michalis offers nothing more than a curt nod.

"That's why the nitro didn't work."

Again, Dr. Michalis nods.

Adam lifts his head and searches the doctor's face with pleading eyes. "Now that I think about it, my first heart attack didn't feel like this. But it was so sudden, y'know?" He sighs again. "It freaked me out. I don't wanna die before confessin'."

"And you won't," Dr. Michalis hums while kneeling in front of Adam. "But you're not doing yourself any good by running away, my friend."

Adam's shoulders go rigid as he bolts upright, and Esme is sure he's about to go off on Dr. Michalis, but the man slumps with another heavy breath and shakes his head. "I know. But I'm a nobody. Mom's gone n' dad's a butcher. I like helpin' my dad out, and I like cookin'. Lots of townsfolk like my cookin' too." He flashes a weak smile. "But that's nothin' compared to other folks 'round here."

"Our value is not determined by our works, and love is not such a fickle thing." Dr. Michalis nods at Esme over his shoulder. She takes it as a hint to stop staring and start writing, so that's what she does. "We love not because of what we do, but because of who we are. Just like our Father loves us because of who He is."

Adam fails to smile. "She's a believer, too." His eyes drop to his hands as he wrings them. "Can't say for sure what I am. Your faith sounds real nice, but not everybody thinks like that."

"What you do, and what you believe, is in your hands, Mister Boucher," Dr. Michalis says while rising to his feet. "Love may be your affliction, but it's a gift - a cure. One that should be shared with the world. That's your remedy, Mister Boucher."

Adam shakes his head. "What if she doesn't feel the same way?"

Dr. Michalis doesn't say anything. They stare for a good minute, but the silence is swallowed by Esme's buzzing thoughts. She believes in God, but she's not religious. The orphanage she grew up in - Benoit Orphelinat in Chastain Place - just so happened to be funded by the local church. Then she met her foster family, the Brodeurs, who were Christians, but the hypocritical kind; the self-righteous kind whose reputation preceded them (and nothing else), and they were one reason among many as to why Esme spent less time reading the Bible and praying, and more time daydreaming about fleeing Valentin Province. God is good, but humans aren't, and they never will be, and that's why her heart aches for Adam, because you could love and love with all your heart only to have it beaten and bruised in the end.

But something happened in that silent exchange between Adam and Dr. Michalis, something that steels Adam's once wary gaze with resolve. "You're right," he says suddenly, jumping to his feet. "Thank you, Doc. Thank you." Then he rushes out of the room, good as new.

Dr. Michalis watches him with a smile, and he only speaks once the front door has opened and closed, announcing Adam's departure. "Miss Lachapelle, please document the following: Adam Boucher is a fifty-year-old male who presents to L'Hôpital Desrosiers with complaints of chest pain, shortness of breath, and diaphoresis," he dictates while pacing in circles, his hand fidgeting with the earpieces of the stethoscope. "This sudden onset was triggered by nerves, as the patient was spending time with the love of his life, who is currently unaware of his feelings. However, the patient, who has a history of coronary artery disease - and additionally notes losing his mother to this - attributed his symptoms to a potential myocardial infarction and administered nitroglycerin en route to the clinic. Upon evaluation, he reports no relief from this. His symptoms persist."

Esme can't write fast enough, and she's surprised that she's even trying to keep up with Dr. Michalis's insanity. She should've left already, but she hasn't, and she knows she won't, though she can't understand why. Dr. Michalis dictates the physical exam, and the differential diagnoses - things like "love, very likely" and "unrequited love" and "anxiety and low self-esteem, secondary to society's expectations" then finally, "myocardial infarction, very unlikely." And she must've made a face, because he stops talking, and his hand is suddenly covering her notes.

"Miss Lachapelle."

Reluctantly, she lifts her head, feigning indifference. Really, she's worried he's going to berate her, and images of the Broduers' faces flash across her vision. But he doesn't find him scowling, and it's not disappointment she sees in his eyes. Once again, he's smiling, and in such a way that makes Esme feel like a fool.

"A cardiologist is responsible for diagnosing and treating a sick heart. Mister Boucher has a cardiologist - quite a good one, I might add. But he was drawn here, Miss Lachapelle, not because his heart was sick, but because his heart has been wounded." He pats her clipboard before pulling away. "That's why he was drawn here. And believe it or not, Miss Lachapelle, that's why you were drawn here as well. You won't understand now, but as you go through treatment, you will."

Words utterly fail Esme in that moment. She can't argue with him, because he's right. She was scowling and doubting Dr. Michalis's practice though she knew, when she first applied for this job, that L'Hôpital Desrosiers is anything but an average clinic. She used to work at Tremblay Hôpital, but for some reason, she chose this.

Rumors of a strange clinic with an even stranger doctor float around Tremblay: a small, humble town ensconced in the Valentin Province of Sauveterre.

That clinic, encapsulated in the velvety, heart-shaped folds of Linden trees, in a forest teeming with fragrant lavender, is the L'Hôpital Desrosiers. The abundant branches of lush cherry blossoms unfold their rosy resplendence over the cobble pathway, sprinkling dappled sunlight and sweet perfume over every visitor. Rose bushes embrace the front door, their verdant vines sprawling across the aged doorway, iris-bedecked windowsills, and the chipped mailbox where a single rose blooms over the engraved numbers: 0003.

Oddly enough, the man it houses calls himself a heart doctor - not to be confused with your average cardiologist - who refuses to touch patients and carries a stethoscope he never uses himself. He's tall and slim, with unblemished ochre skin enriched by the sun, rouged wisps that curl softly at his ears, and deep browneyes that welcome and soothe with a single glance.

Compared to him, in her professional opinion, Esme is an eyesore. She can't compare, even on her best days, with her blanched skin, her mottled hands and reptilian knuckles. Her eyes are jade and jaded, but she likes the way the sunlight turns her hair and eyelashes to gold, and occasionally, she tolerates her smile. The freckles on her nose don't always look bad, but she'll never consider herself average or above, and that's fine. Because she's quickly come to learn that anything in L'Hôpital Desrosiers is average, so at least she fits in, in her own weird way.