The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel by T. Ainsworth

Flushing the toilet, he’d argued the point with himself for days. “Nah…fuckin’ prick deserved it.”
    His words suddenly softened. “Cay…You would’ve scolded me, I know.” He thought the worst. “Been ashamed…I’m sorry.”
    Childlike, he started crying into the carpet where he lay haunted without pity.

    Their jog through Grant Park had taken them a mile out in the lake at the end of Navy Pier. A leisurely stroll back gave them time to let their conversation drift.
    “Why ‘Cay’?” he asked. Morgan had been curious many times.
    “Daddy called me that since I was little.” She laughed, her face glowing even without makeup. “Who knows why fathers do what they do?” A shrug suggested acceptance. “It just stuck.”
    “You said not everyone’s allowed to use it.”
    A sudden breeze swayed her ponytail. “My nickname’s very personal to me,” she replied, begging the next question.
    “So when you called me from the airport, and I called you Cay…you didn’t correct me. Why?”
    Caroline stopped and smiled at him, then said the words that would stay in his heart forever. “I only let people I love call me that.”
    Morgan couldn’t believe it. She had loved him from the beginning.
    “Come on,” she said, “let’s go get cleaned up. Saturday’s a-wasting.”
    With shampooed hair tucked under a towel and her bathrobe open in the immodest style he loved, she gathered their running clothes and headed for the washing machine. He went toward her.
    “Cay…” he stammered, “Caroline…I love you. Will you marry me?”
    An overt sigh followed.
    “You’re going to need to work on your timing, Dr. Morgan.” Nonplussed, Caroline loaded the clothes in the washer. “Every girl dreams about this moment…and you realize, of course…” She measured the soap and softener in exact detail and started the cycle. “You’ve just asked me to marry you while I’m doing your laundry? Regardless…” Her eyes twinkled above a smile and she threw her arms around him. “My answer is…yes!”
    “Then we need to go shopping,” he said.
    The Michigan Avenue jewelry stores consumed them that afternoon. When the salesperson handed Caroline a loupe and a large diamond, she became restrained and asked for a minute alone with Morgan.
    “Wes,” she told him, “no big diamonds.”
    “I can afford them,” he replied.
    “No,” she said firmly. “I’m not your second wife…”

    “Oh, Cay,” Morgan wept into the carpet. “You never knew I bought the ring! You never knew I was coming to surprise you...”
    How he loved the secret planning! Even though they had spent the entire weekend making love at his townhouse, Caroline never had an inkling what he was up to.
    His phone rang. He listened through the answering machine.
    “Dr. Morgan,” the unemotional woman said, “this is a reminder that your disciplinary hearing is at one p.m. this afternoon. Please be prompt. Thank you. Goodbye.”
    She hung up.
    “I have nothing left,” came his exhausted whisper after the click. Finally fulfilled by Caroline’s presence in his life, his world had become perfect—until it was destroyed.
    “Nothing…”
    He was on his knees.
    “Oh, Cay…”
    The anger had beaten him. Exhausted, his mind, body, and soul were ruined.
    “I can’t do anything...”
    He fell to the floor, weeping into his forearm.
    “Oh god, Morgan…you’re so fucking weak!”
    The tears soaked his skin.
    “A spineless jellyfish!”
    He rolled onto his back, sucking mucus from his nose to the back of his throat.
    “Fuck,” he uttered, trying to swallow the tenacious slime. “Fuck…”
    He started coughing. Propping up his head and neck against the side of the sofa, his vision wandered tiredly around the room.
    On the shelf beside the fireplace were his surgical textbooks. Every chapter covered a problem in the human body and the ways to operate on it—an instruction manual without wasted words.
    “Split the muscle in the