I heard a cry from the waiting room. I watched as Meg, Lizzy’s mother, fell to the floor, sobbing. Somehow she knew; she could see we weren’t discussing good news.
I left my father, ran to her, and knelt by her side. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t . . . I tried.” Tears made their way to the front of my eyes and spilled over. I reached out and took her in my arms and rocked her back and forth for several moments while she screamed out, “No!” over and over in loud sobs.
When I felt Steve’s hands pulling me up, I looked into his tearstained eyes and said, “I’m so sorry.” My voice was trembling unprofessionally and laced with sadness and guilt.
He didn’t respond, he just pulled his shattered wife into his chest and walked out the door of the waiting room. I looked down to see my father still standing at the end of the hall, looking unemotional and stoic. I couldn’t face him.
I left the hospital and went to my apartment where I stayed for six days without speaking to a soul. My father rang the doorbell on a Sunday afternoon.
When I opened it, he gave me a pitying smile before walking past me into the living room. “It wasn’t entirely your fault, Nate.” I sunk down on the couch and watched him walk around, opening the blinds. “Son, you are the hardest-working person I know. Please don’t be discouraged. This is part of the deal. Every doctor makes mistakes and every doctor loses patients. We’re humans and we’re flawed. That girl needed a heart transplant, not percutaneous closure. Who knows if she would have made it long enough to get one.”
“You mean, if I hadn’t killed her?”
He stood over me as I stared at my fidgeting hands. “I put you in for leave.”
“What? Why?” I said with no expression on my face.
“I made an executive call. You were getting a little cocky, Nate.”
“You’re punishing me for losing a patient?”
He sat down next to me. “Look around this place. This is where you live? You’re almost thirty years old and you haven’t purchased any décor for a house you’ve lived in for five years, not even a television?”
“I’m never here.”
“You’re always at the hospital.”
“Your point being?”
“It’s not healthy.”
“Okay, so now what? You want me to take time off and decorate my apartment?”
“I called your Uncle Dale.”
“Why?”
“You’re taking a month off. I’ve got your patients covered. Son, look at me. . . .”
It was hard to look him in the eye because I knew he was right. I needed to get away but didn’t know what I’d do without the hospital. “What about Uncle Dale?” My father’s brother, a veterinarian, lived on a ranch in Montana, one that I had visited as a kid. The owners, Redman and Bea, were friends of my grandparents. We visited the Walker Ranch during the summers when I was a kid, but now my uncle lived there.
“Dale could use some help and they have the space. It’s beautiful there this time of year. You could fish. Remember how to do that?” He smiled.
“What, and help Dale deliver calves?”
“Something like that. You’re not above that, are you?” My father’s expression was one of disappointment. It was the first time I had seen that look in his eyes in a long while. The last time he seemed disappointed was when I was seventeen and I drove my mom’s car over her flowerbed in the front yard. That look made me feel small.
My jaw clenched. “No, Dad, I’m not. I’ll go.”
“That’s my boy.” He patted me on the back.
Even as reluctant as I was at the idea, two days later I was packed and ready to go. Frankie was going to live in my apartment and take care of my cat while I was gone. His brisk knock came promptly at six a.m.
“Hey, brother.” He gave me a sideways hug and dropped a large duffel bag in the entryway. He looked around and said, “Wow, you still haven’t decorated this place?”
“Haven’t had time.”
“You bring women back here?”
“Haven’t had time.”
“It’s not like it’s hard for you. You’re a doctor, and you look like . . .” He waved his hand around at me. “You look like that.”
“It hasn’t been on the top of my priority list.” My cat jumped onto the couch in front of us. “Anyway, that’s my girl.”
“Wrong kind of pussy, man. What’s her name again?”
“Gogo.”
He laughed. She went up to him, purring, and rubbed her back on his hip. He shooed her with his hand. “Go-go away.”
“You better be nice to her.”
“She’ll be fine. This situation is kind of pathetic; I don’t know why I agreed to stay here. This apartment and that cat are going to kill my sex life. You might as well get five cats now and just quit. Seriously, Nate, when was the last time you got laid?”
“I don’t know. Let’s go. Are you gonna take me to the airport or what?”
“Tell me.” He began moving toward me.
“A while,” I said, towering over Frankie’s five-foot-five frame.
“Jenny, that neonatal nurse told me that she would be willing to pay you to let her suck your dick,” he said, pointing at my crotch dramatically.