Instant Attraction, Part 7
Heart To Heart
By Miesque
miesque@looksmart.com

Follow-up to “The Domino Heart”

Previous installments: Instant Attraction, Room For Rent, Fired, Blackout, On The Line, Point of Refuge

Song: “Help!” by The Beatles

And as for the pronunciation of Sibenik, I got two answers from Ellen, and from my Canadian mentor, and both were pretty much the same.  So I went with a ‘Hukt On Foniks Werkt Fer Me!’ thing and did the best I could.  *G*



It was strange, how well this day had gone.

Of course, it had started out with a degree of hilarity that Luka had been unprepared for. Watching Romano being dragged away by those circus performers...it had taken all of Luka’s strength not to laugh out loud. And good riddance to him, too. The entire trauma had been out of control with Romano there, causing more problems than he fixed.

Carol was back from maternity leave, and Luka was faced with a familiar situation: a woman suffering from post-partum depression. Tatjana had been able to turn on the waterworks at any provocation...or no provocation...after Jasna was born. Of co rse, at the time, they were new parents. Totally inexperienced, deprived of sleep, worried all the time about the baby. Tatjana had been overwhelmed, unsure of herself, and Luka had found himself flapping around her, hovering, over-concerned, to the point that she would get irritated with him. He remembered holding his wife after she would break down into tears, listening to her apologies for being so unkind to him, and then laughing-gently-with her about it.

Nurse Hathaway’s difficult manner was just par for the course for Luka, and after treating the circus performers, Luka steered clear of her. He had learned-the hard way-that it was always best to just leave a PPD woman alone until she specifically requested his presence. Considering the fact that she was alone with twin babies, he had no doubt that it was hard on her. So he let her somewhat brusque manner toward him go. It was actually, in a strange way, comfortable and familiar to Luka. Not that he had really enjoyed Tatjana’s mood swings, but he had learned to deal with them, and in the end, it had made the bonds between them twice as strong.

Then, of course, there was the water shortage. That, too, had been kind of funny, but it scarcely even registered with Luka until the end of the day, when he heard about Chen’s practical joke on Carter. He had passed Kerry in the hall, and had seen her carrying all kinds of manuals on emergencies, looking harried. Luka only shook his head in amazement. As if a manual can solve a water shortage. At least they wouldn’t be sitting around starving, hoping a cow would come close enough to the hospital so that they could kill it and drag it indoors. At least they wouldn’t have to make a ‘water run’.

He was thinking about water runs when he walked outside into the cold. During the war, Luka had become quite accomplished at the ‘Long Distance Dash While Carrying Twenty Gallons of Water, All While Under Constant Sniper Fire’ event, which occurred daily, just before dawn.  He had checked the line-up of Summer Olympic events and saw that there was no such category. Too bad. Croatia needed a few gold medals, after all her troubles. He and his friends at Vukovar Medical Center had developed a kind of black humor about the siege itself. His friend Vlade had come up with the idea of a beauty contest: “Miss Embattled Vukovar, 1991” had been a great success-a brief respite from the day-to-day grind of survival.  The nurses had all competed, and Luka had been one of the judges. Tatjana, still recovering from her injuries, had teased that Luka had enjoyed the judging aspect of the contest a bit too much.

Luka saw Lucy Knight sitting there on the bench, apparently oblivious to the cold but looking very small and very sad. Still feeling good, Luka swaggered over to her, hoping he could cheer her up a little.

She reminded him of Jasna...or at least what Jasna would have been had she lived. Luka did his best to cheer Lucy up. Besides that, he could certainly relate to her feeling like she didn’t quite fit in. He joked with her, told her a story to distract her from her unhappiness, and found something interesting for her to do-that is, learning how to perform a procedure. That’s how you deal with a hurt child-apply balm to the wound, cheer her up, then find a good distraction. He knew Lucy wasn’t a child,necessarily, but he could at least regard her as a friend. At this point, a friend was what Luka needed most.



It was ten o’clock when he made it home, having picked up some groceries to restock the refrigerator. Walking in, loaded with grocery bags, Luka was startled to find Kerry in the kitchen, singing and dancing (so to speak) along with The Beatles.


Help! I need somebody.
Help! Not just anybody.
Help! You know I need someone.
Help!

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind, I've opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down,
And I do appreciate you being 'round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground.
Won't you please, please help me?

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I've never done before.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down,
And I do appreciate you being 'round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground.
Won't you please, please help me?

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind, I've opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down,
And I do appreciate you being 'round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground.
Won't you please, please help me?
Help me. Help me, oooh.


“Good song,” Luka commented, setting the bags down. Kerry whirled around, startled, and actually blushed with embarrassment.

“How...how long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to see that you have good rhythm,” he deadpanned, and began putting his groceries up. “What are you cooking?”

“Lemon chicken.” She glanced back at him, hiding her smile at his pronunciation of ‘rhythm’. It was kind of late in the evening, but she had suddenly wanted to eat something with ‘zest’. Even so, she had made enough for two, hoping he might want to eat with her. Kerry liked her conversations with Luka-he was unlike any man she’d ever met before. There was a sophisticated world-weariness about him along with a charming kind of innocence. He seemed to know a little about nearly every subject, yet he still seemed to have great enthusiasm for learning. “Would you like some?”

“Sure,” he answered, politely stifling a yawn. “I haven’t eaten anything today...well, a bag of salted peanuts at lunch, and coffee. And I may have had a Dr. Pepper some time during the day...if that counts for a meal. Oh, yeah...did the water problem get fixed?”

She nodded, but was more interested in his eating habits. “Peanuts, coffee and Dr. Pepper do not constitute a healthy diet!” she said. “That’s all you’ve eaten? All day?”

“Yeah. It was really busy...” he tried to explain, but she was just staring at him, apparently appalled.

“That’s horrible,” she said. “I’ll bet you’re at least fifteen pounds underweight!”

“Try twenty,” Luka muttered. He looked over her shoulder at the chicken, which was now ready. “Kovac men don’t gain weight. It’s a genetic flaw.”

Kerry snorted and returned her attention to dividing up pieces of the meat for herself and Luka. ‘Genetic flaw’ doesn’t belong in the same sentence with ‘Luka Kovac’, she thought. What would that be, an oxymoron?

“So you’re what, one-eighty at best?” she said, handing him a plate laden with two chicken breasts and mixed vegetables.

He nodded and put the plate on the table, then gathered glasses and broke ice out of the ice trays, filling the glasses. “What do you drink?” he asked.

“Water will be fine,” she said.  He got a beer for himself. In a few moments, they were seated opposite each other, and Luka took a bite of the chicken. She watched his face carefully, trying to gauge his reaction.

“Pretty good,” he said at last.

“Do you cook, Luka?” she asked, pleased.

“Sometimes.  I haven’t really had a home-cooked meal since...since my wife died,” he said. “I think I got kind of spoiled at her table. In fact, back in ninety-one, I was at the correct weight, looked fairly healthy...well, no grey hair, at least. Those are the benefits of marriage, I suppose. Somebody to look after you.”

Kerry was silent for a moment, sipping her water and taking another bite of the chicken. She watched his table manners with interest. There was something regal about him, and his manners showed this. Manners, she had heard or read somewhere, were a way of showing respect to other people. Luka seemed to live by that rule. She suddenly felt compelled to ask him about his life in Croatia prior to the war. She had always been curious about it, but up until now, there had been no real opportunity.

“You said you were raised on the Dalmatian coast. Sibenik, right?”

“Yes. But it’s pronounced ‘Shee-buh-neek.”

“Oh...I’m sorry.” She cleared her throat, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

“That’s all right,” he shrugged. “I have great difficulty pronouncing ‘pericardiocentesis’.”

Kerry couldn’t keep from laughing. “Everybody does. What was it like? Your home town, I mean...your childhood.”

He shrugged. “Very quiet. Peaceful, I guess. My father was a train conductor, my mother worked in the local market. My
grandpa was a farmer.”

“Really?  Did you want to be a farmer at any point in your life?”

“Hell, no,” Luka laughed. “It’s a necessary career, of course...without farmers you don’t have food, and if you don’t have food you can’t eat, and if you can’t eat you can’t go on a diet and then what would people with their lives? But it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to be a doctor since I was about five. But I did have a good time on the farm when I was a kid. My brother and I did a lot of work for my grandpa. Driving tractors, herding the damned sheep, milking cows. God, sheep are such stupid animals. And cows... a cow has a way of kicking you... they don’t just kick, they scrape. They have cloven hooves, you know... like Satan?... and when they kick you they scrape down, leaving rolls of skin like the Dead Sea Scrolls.” He shuddered slightly at the memory. “Plus getting your feet stamped on by horses wearing heavy, metal shoes. Farming is a dangerous, bloody, smelly occupation. Not for the faint of heart... heh... just like medicine.”

Kerry was already laughing before he even got to the part about cloven hooves. Luka grinned at her, remembering a particularly humorous-well, humorously morbid-story. “Farming killed my uncle Timo, in fact.”

“It did?”

“Well, actually, my aunt Milla killed him. With a combine. Later, when they were separating the corn, she kept finding these bits and pieces, and said “Look at this...this looks like a piece of Timo’s shirt. And this looks like a piece of Timo’s overalls. And this looks like a piece of Timo’s leg...””

That did it for Kerry. She had to put her head down to cover her laughter. She knew Luka possessed a rather black sense of humor, but this was too much. “Luka, stop it!”

“But he did have a very nice funeral.”

“Stop it!”

“He had a tiny coffin...” He held his hands apart, thumbs pointed together, index fingers up.

“You’re making that up!” she gasped, unable to contain her laughter any longer.

He grinned at her. “Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. But it’s a great story, isn’t it?”

She wiped her eyes. “It’s disgusting!” But she was still laughing. “I take it all Croatians have your sense of humor?”

“Noooo...” he shook his head. “My sense of humor got me into lots of trouble when I was a kid.”

“What kind of things did you do?”

“Bad things. Things that made my father just shake his head in amazement and wonder if I was really his son. I mean, some of it was accidental. Like, when I was sixteen, I left the gate open and an entire herd of pigs got loose...fifteen pigs, running at an amazing speed into town. Destroyed the market. Got into the post office...” He shook his head at that memory of total chaos. “And then my father’s mare got loose and she ended up in the parish priest’s garden, tearing up his prize- winning tomato plants. That, too, was an accident. Of course, that all happened on the same day so by the time I discovered the mare was loose I was too tired from chasing the pigs to doanything about it so I told my father to get his own horse. Oddly enough, he didn’t have a fit. He just went and collected her and never said another word about it. Plus, my brother and I, and our friends, would tip cows. Stupid sport, but it kept us from robbing liquor stores, I guess.”

“You tipped cows?”

“Yeah. But only if the service was good.”

She rolled her eyes, and Luka grinned. “You walk up to a sleeping cow and give her a little push and she kind of flops over. Of course, there was that time we went into a field that contained a very wide-awake bull...”

“What did you do?”

“About sixty-five miles an hour, as I recall...” Luka said, with a straight face. Kerry couldn’t keep from giggling.

“And what else?”

He gave her a wicked grin. “Well, there was the mooning incident, which is still discussed in awed tones all over Zagreb.”

“’Mooning incident’?” she raised her eyebrow, allowing herself to be drawn into this rather risqué conversation.

“Let’s just say that I paid dearly for that one. And I stole a Mercedes-Benz that belonged to a Sorbonne professor and put it on the roof of his house.”

“Good God!  How’d you do that?”

“I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.” Oddly enough, from what Luka could remember of it, the car didn’t get a single dent or scratch. But then again, Luka was well known among his friends in medical school for his precision.

She chuckled. “Somehow, I’m not surprised to find out that you had your wilder days, Luka.”

He grinned at her. “I take it you had some wild times, too, Kerry.”

Kerry just smiled back. “That’s classified information, Dr. Kovac,” she answered smartly, taking care to pronounce his name as correctly as possible, and that caused him to finally laugh. She found the sound his laughter to be strangely comforting. It was a deep, rich chuckle, and it only added to his appeal.

“Well, you know, I do have my sources. I think I could uncover a few things about you.”

He insisted on helping her clean up the dishes, and in a few minutes the kitchen was sparkling clean again. Luka thanked her for the meal, complimenting her cooking in a manner that she could only describe as ‘gracious’ and then said goodnight. She nodded, and stood in her kitchen, drying her hands and laughing to herself.

“...a piece of his leg!” she chuckled, shaking her head.

It had been a good day.



It was laundry day for Luka. Besides sending his best suits to the cleaners, he had lots of clothes to wash. Kerry wasn’t up yet-he hoped-so he spent the early part of the morning washing. He actually chuckled to note how dark all his clothes were. He tried to remember the last time he’d worn anything lighter than grey.

He was wearing green scrubs while he worked. One-size fits all...well, that’s a crock, he thought. The shirt was too short and he didn’t like the baggy pants. Of course, Luka rarely voluntarily wore scrubs. They made him uneasy, bringing up memories he’d repressed so well that they were a blur to him. The siege at Vukovar had had several effects on Luka’s day-to- day habits, and one of the effects had been what kinds of clothes he wore. He had his suits carefully tailored: it was necessary, considering his height. He always wore a tie to work, no matter what. And he had picked out a rather expensive watch, which covered those marks on his wrist. The band was just wide enough to cover them...

He was sitting in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee, engrossed in an article about heart surgery, when Kerry appeared.

“Morning, Luka.”

He jumped to his feet, terrified, the coffee cup went flying across the table, bounced off the seat of a chair and landed with a jarring crash on the floor. The cup was broken into several large pieces, and coffee seemed to be everywhere. Kerry was startled to see his reaction. He went terribly pale, and he stood there a moment, shaking. It was strange, but he kept his eyes downcast, not meeting her concerned gaze.

“I’m sorry, Luka,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “I should have given you more warning. Are you all right?”

He attempted to speak, but shook his head. “I’m all right...you just scared me, that’s all,” he choked.

She felt terrible. He most certainly was not all right. Quickly, she gestured for him to sit down again. “Let me check your pulse...” She lifted his arm and placed her fingers on his wrist. His pulse was racing. Kerry ignored the broken coffee cup and sat down opposite Luka, watching him. His eyes were still downcast. He wouldn’t even look up.

“Luka, have you given any more thought to seeking treatment for PTSD?” she asked softly.

He finally looked up, eyes angry. “I said I was all right!”

“No, you’re not all right. Look at you. You’re pale, your pulse is practically off the scale. You’re shaking...”

Luka felt sick to his stomach. He wasn’t sure how to deflect her attention-to change the subject. He didn’t want to talk about this. Damn, and he had been feeling fairly good up until now! Of course, Kerry hadn’t intentionally ruined his good mood- he couldn’t imagine that she had deliberately snuck up on him like that. He shifted his gaze to the broken coffee cup, and another painful memory hit him. The day after the shell hit his building, he had gone back to see if anything could be salvaged- photos, favorite toys of the children. But everything was gone, burned up in the fire. Just shards of broken glass and pottery, crumbled bricks, piles of rubble everywhere.

“Luka,” Kerry said gently, breaking into his torturous thoughts. “I’m only saying this because I’m concerned.  I do hope you think of me as a friend...someone you can trust, because I feel that way about you.  That I can trust you...hell, I think I could trust you with my life. But you have to seek treatment. You have several classic PTSD symptoms...”

“Like what?” he snapped. “Oh, I can tell you, Kerry. I don’t sleep very well. Food usually makes me nauseated. I have nightmares when I do sleep. Sudden noises scare the hell out of me. I’m afraid of the dark. I try to avoid anything that reminds me... but damn it... everything reminds me...”

“Then let me refer you to a therapist. I know of at least three doctors who specialize in PTSD and survivors of violent crimes. Either of them could really help you, Luka. They would listen to you.”

He looked away, still balking. Kerry had come to know Luka to be a rather obstinate man. Hadn’t he worked hard to get Dillon a job as a superintendent at that apartment building, and for Jake to get into a special school-even to the point of swallowing his pride a little and working with Adele Neuman? And before that, he had taken on Dr. DeRaad, then let a wife- beater hit him to try and prove a point. His stubborn will was a force to be reckoned with, but so was her own.

“Will you at least think about it, Luka? Will you consider it, for your own good?” She decided to give him some space for now, but she was nowhere close to finished. One way or another, she would convince him to seek help.

Finally, having calmed down, his color back, Luka nodded in agreement. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” she smiled. “I’m making French toast for breakfast. Would you like some?”

“No. Thank you. I have some errands to run. You know that today is my day off.”

Kerry nodded. “Well, I’ll see you later then.”

“Yeah.” He was still a little shaky, but he gave her a half-smile anyway and quickly left.



Luka went for a long drive that morning, but ended up where he always went when something was bothering him: his favorite spot along the lake. He got out of his car and walked down to the water’s edge, looking into it for a long time before turning and strolling along the shoreline, listening to the seagulls scream and the comforting sounds of water and boats.

On first arriving in Chicago, he had come to this place a lot, to look at the water and the city. It was beautiful, and on summer nights he could sit and watch the lights sparkle on the water. In a small way, it reminded him of his boyhood home in Sibenik.  As a teenager, he and his friends had sailed around the islands off the coast, fishing and swimming in the Adriatic, and at night they would drop anchor and sit on the boat, talking about their future plans, watching the lights from the coastal villages flicker on the sea, listening to fish jumping.

Among those friends had been Tatjana Iveljic. Luka had known her since early childhood. At first, she had just been a friend- someone to run around with, to go sailing with-to get into trouble with sometimes. In fact, she had always been his closest friend and confidante-Luka was, even in childhood and early youth, somewhat wary of telling just anyone his thoughts or ideas.  He was not an ‘open book’ person-not even Davor could fully understand what went on in his head.

But one summer, when she was sixteen, Tatjana went away to Split to stay with relatives and came back in September as something Luka was unprepared for. She had left a slightly plump, shy girl with just a promise of beauty. She returned a few inches taller and breathtakingly beautiful, with the dignity of a queen. Luka, not quite eighteen at the time, had taken about twenty minutes to fall hopelessly in love with her and set about winning her heart. By the time he was twenty and she was eighteen, he had convinced her-somehow-that he was worthy of her love, and they were quickly married. A year later, Jasna
arrived.

“Everything happens for a reason.” Luka’s mother had told him and Davor that a thousand times. At the time, it hadn’t really registered with him as to what that meant. He married Tatjana because he loved her, not necessarily because he could see some greater reason to apply to his life, except that he wanted to spend it with her. There was no other woman he could ever love. Of that he had been completely certain.

Seven years. Just seven years of marriage to her, but it had all gone by so quickly   More like seven days, or seven minutes. If Luka had known it was going to end so horribly, he would have spent every waking moment with them. But now, it was too late.

“Everything happens for a reason.” Well, damn it, Luka asked himself. What was the reason for his wife and children to be murdered? Why had he survived only to lose them? It was almost nine years now, and he still hadn’t figured out why.

He stopped walking and watched a yacht sail by. A little girl on the deck waved to him, and Luka waved back, suddenly feeling even more blue. Every child he saw reminded him of his own children. Sometimes it was the eyes, or just an expression, or the sound of their laughter. On some days, it was painful to remember. On others, it made it a little easier. But it never went away. The gnawing pain was always there. He had told himself a thousand times to get past it, to move forward. After all, he was feeling more and more drawn toward Carol Hathaway, who seemed to appreciate his offers to help her with her house and with the twins. He was having a hard time reading her, though, and often came away confused and uneasy. Like something wasn’t working quite right, or with a feeling he had forgotten something or left something out. He still hadn’t told her about his family, and wasn’t sure he could ever tell her.

But the past was always there, hanging over his head, waiting to crash down on him at any moment, like Damocles’ sword. It tired him out, making him feel lost and vulnerable.

Watching the yacht sail by, Luka straightened his shoulders. Damn, but Kerry was right. He did need help. The doctors in Italy hadn’t benefited him much, except to diagnose his condition, but maybe...maybe someone here in Chicago could help him. If Luka could swallow his pride and bend a little, he could seek the help he needed.


To be continued...