—
I WAS SUPPOSED TO work only two weeks in November, but when an attending called out sick last minute, I volunteered to step in. Then Reese asked if I could take his Thanksgiving shift in exchange for one of my December ones. The day of turkey basting and feasting was his mother’s favorite—because it was just one day, as he explained, centered around family and not like Christmas, which for the entire month of December became a part-time job.
He said he’s never missed a Thanksgiving.
Not even one? I asked.
Thirty-three years and counting, he had no plans to start now.
I’d forgotten that Reese was a year younger than Madeline, though his reproductive window was much longer. Did it make sense to call it a window, if after puberty it was flung open for the rest of his life? Reese was our youngest ICU attending but by his first year had already made it onto the brochures, from his good relations with HR. For whatever reason, our HR department employed only late-middle-aged women, the same age as probably Reese’s mother. He would open doors for them, wave to them in the halls, or swing by their offices for a quick chat. The HR reception counter always had a filled M&M dispenser, and I’d seen Reese stand there, chatting and pulling the handle as if it were a slot machine, cha-ching, cha-ching.
But a doctor who has never missed Thanksgiving was an anomaly and I asked Reese how he had managed to do that.
He shrugged. Always able to find coverage, he guessed, someone was usually willing.
I almost rescinded my offer but wanted his hours more. I wanted everybody’s hours, so didn’t offer him any of my shifts.
A rite of passage almost, to miss all the important holidays, to be on weekend call and never there for your family or friends. A badge of honor to have missed your sister’s wedding or the major crisis of a close friend, to slowly become the person whom no one reached out to first and then the person who heard about personal news last. My brother’s engagement to Tami I didn’t know about until a week after it had occurred. But I texted and called you, he said, and indeed he had. He had even left a voice message that I’d meant to listen to, forgot, and while I was angry at myself for forgetting, I was also slightly proud. Because how else could you be providing great service to strangers if you didn’t take that time away from people who were not?
* * *
—
ON THE SECOND FRIDAY of the month, I was summoned by the director’s secretary to his corner office on the twentieth floor. The office faced northwest and had an uninterrupted view of the Hudson from bank to bank. Opposite this wall with the window was the wall of his degrees, five and counting, hung up in different types of brown frames. The latest degree was an MBA that he had finished online. The last time I was here, the degree was printed but unframed. Now it was in a frame more ornate than the one for his MD and MPH. He had a DPhil too. Prior to med school, he had studied linguistics at Oxford, a story he liked to tell new recruits during meet and greets, over drinks.
Medicine was a calling, he’d say, and sometimes you had to wait for this call while pursuing something else. Don’t rush into medicine, else you’ll be miserable; find new interests, challenge yourself with the unknown, etc.
Impressed by his journey, his degrees, I’d once asked the director how many languages he could speak, and he said that’s not what linguistics was about. The field was about the study of languages, not any in particular. Discovering that he knew no other language, I was both disappointed and confused. Even someone like me, along with most people in the world, knew English and a second.
I worried that I was being summoned for having worked four continuous weeks. While the director cared about productivity, the hospital’s HR department set limits and exceeding them was heavily discouraged. But my insane November schedule wasn’t mentioned and he jumped right into praising how unflappable I’d been these last three years and essential to their program in intensive care.
He asked about my Thanksgiving plans and I said I wasn’t going anywhere, since I was on service.
Good to hear, he said, and wished he could say the same. He was heading up to Westchester to see his in-laws. The wife is big on tradition, he explained. The kids like getting out of the city. That he had a wife (and kids) surprised me, and since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I used the same Etch A Sketch motion he used before on me when he asked if I had a father.
You have a wife? I said, swiping back and forth across my face. I didn’t know about her, but it made perfect biological sense. And with her help, you became a dad. That’s wonderful news.
The kids were mostly grown, in college or about to be. He listed for me their ages and I could imagine mini versions of him lining up behind him in a row. Now that it was established that we both had relatives, he asked if I wanted coffee from his Nespresso.
I said I only drank coffee from the atrium.
They do have good coffee there.
The best. It’s where my father and I last spoke.
He was here?
Yes, but just to the atrium.
The director apologized again: to not have had a proper goodbye with my father, that must have been hard. I said it was to be expected. Even with the speed of international travel, sometimes you just can’t get there fast enough.
Well, here’s me with some good news, he announced, and started twirling a pen between his index finger and thumb like a small cheerleading baton.
For a split second, I thought he was going to say that my father was still alive, that he was downstairs waiting for me in the atrium after having spent $17.99 to park.
Can you see yourself staying at this hospital long term? he asked. And what more can I do to facilitate that?
I said I could but that my brother thinks that I am wasting my life. He’s been suggesting for years that I move up to Greenwich and run a hospital there.
You certainly could, the director said slowly, but now the pen-baton was twirling faster. Any place would be fortunate to have you, but do you want to run your own hospital? To lead something like that, you would need an MBA. Meetings and politics would take over your life, mingling with hospital leadership. I suspect none of that interests you.
The director’s small mouth was moving, but I was also watching the view behind him, which was layered and hypnotic. Gray light, wintery light, but even through the fog, I could see the distant George Washington Bridge lined with cars and trucks, boats going under, a plane flying overhead.
Greenwich is too homogenous, he added. A doctor is only as good as her experience.
I agreed.
So, do you want your private office back? he asked.
I said I didn’t think so.
He wiped his entire forehead thoroughly as if it were covered in sweat except it was not. He then brought up a raise and gave me an estimate of what the hospital would be willing to invest in my future.
I had him repeat the sum since it was very large. Then I asked if he really meant to give me this much and was it something like a bait and switch. Even if the raise had been a dollar, I wouldn’t have been offended.
Then you are offended? he asked, clicking the pen-baton’s head repeatedly.
Did you mean to offend me? I asked.
He held his right hand up in a surrender or like he was about to make a pledge. I mirrored his hand and held mine up as well.
He asked if I had a question.
I said no, not immediately.
Then why was my hand up?
Why was his?