PROLOGUE
ADEM KEPLER REMEMBERED the car ride like it was yesterday. The rough blanket from his bed had rubbed his cheek raw as he tried to brace himself against the bumps on the dirt road he’d once called home.
His dad’s breathless call had set the wheels in motion, the flashing lights of the plane that had sent them on a flight to a new country. A new home. He hadn’t realized at the time just how sick his younger brother was until he was several years older.
But at fifteen, all he really knew was that his mother’s tears seemed endless and his dad had a white pinched look around his mouth that said his family’s whole world was about to change. Looking back, he could see it was a blessing in disguise and the flight into the night had saved Basir’s life.
He’d had no idea of any of that at the time.
But he did now. Brain tumors knew no nationality. No financial status. No gender. All he remembered was the powerlessness and anger he’d felt as he left all of his friends behind.
The first years had been hard. Learning a new language. A new culture. But slowly, the angry teenager became a man who understood the sacrifice his parents had made, even though he’d hated it at the time. Where the seriousness of Basir’s condition should have brought the family together, it had taken an already strained marriage and turned it into a battleground. They were too proud to seek outside help, so the arguments and fights had morphed into silence and resentment. His dad had lost himself in the restaurant he’d opened, spending more and more time away from the house.
Many of Adem’s decisions had been the product of his childhood, even his decision to go into neurosurgery. And it was also why he’d petitioned the administrator of London’s Queen Victoria Hospital to open a clinic in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. When asked if he’d head up the project and run with it he’d jumped at the chance, becoming the clinic’s director.
He could make a difference for people like Basir. He believed that. If he had anything to do with it, this new clinic would minister to those in crisis, whether it be illnesses, family relations or pregnancy. It was where his heart was. He might not have been able to fix his parents’ problems—or the fallout from it in his own life—but maybe he could help others avoid some of those pitfalls.
If Adem could change one person’s life for the better—just one—it would be worth it.
It had been his mantra as he settled into medical school, as he’d done his training and as he managed the clinic.
And he would allow nothing to come between him and that goal.
Ever.
Copyright © 2020 by Tina Beckett