“Didn’t you just pronounce someone dead? And call their family and tell them that person was dead? Think about it. That’s not normal.” He smiles a broad, plastic smile, and his voice deepens an octave. “‘How was your day at work, honey?’” He shrugs and continues breezily, answering himself, “‘Oh, standard. Someone died, their family was devastated, let’s make dinner and watch a movie.’”
I nod. “I’m supposed to carry on like it’s all standard procedure. Meanwhile, if I let myself think about it . . .”
He finishes my thought. “People in other, normal jobs might have their computer crash or someone take their hole puncher—that’s their day-to-day office crap. Our day-to-day office crap is death and human suffering.”
“I don’t know if I made the right career choice. I feel so incompetent,” I say. I immediately wonder if admitting incompetence in front of your supervisor is a workplace blunder, but he smiles kindly.
“Everyone feels incompetent at the beginning,” he says. “If you don’t feel like an idiot at least some of the time, you’re doing something wrong.”
“Okay, but what if you feel like an idiot all of the time?”
“That means it’s working,” he says with a laugh. He glances at his pager.
“What’s working?”
“It. The process. Making you into a doctor. Preparing you for the awesome responsibility of holding life in your hands.” He stands suddenly. “Gotta run. Bianca has a pancreatitis that’s going south. Don’t mess with the pancreas; there’s another pearl of wisdom for you.”
“I’ll have that embroidered on a pillow,” I say.
He laughs again, and dimples momentarily appear at both corners of his smile. I’ve noticed them before, probably when we first met, and registered it in some neglected recess of my mind: He’s handsome.
“See you at rounds, Norah,” he says.
I watch him leave, his stride confident, ready to deal with whatever this wayward pancreas is going to try to throw at him. I wonder if I’ll ever feel that way—cool, competent, prepared for anything—instead of feeling like a bumbling, emotional mess. What if I miss a diagnosis? What if I accidentally hurt someone?
I’m not used to this type of doubt. I like certainty. I’m truly comfortable only when things are logical, the outcomes predictable, the evidence and limits well-defined and irrefutable. I remember finding out from Paul, when I was six, that Santa Claus isn’t real, and being relieved instead of disappointed, because it all finally made sense. Ah, a magical bearded man doesn’t break into millions of children’s homes over a twenty-four-hour period. It’s all an elaborate hoax that, oddly, is the only explanation I hadn’t already considered. It was satisfying, like the final piece of a puzzle snapping into place.
I like that distance divided by time is always equal to velocity. It scratches some subconscious itch of mine that one carbon molecule attached to two oxygen molecules is always carbon dioxide. Science makes sense. X plus Y equals Z. I love everything about X and Y and the fact that the two of them can be consistently relied upon to produce Z.
Human anatomy is consistent and logical: the biceps muscle is always controlled by the musculocutaneous nerve. The hip bone is always connected to the thigh bone (technically, the acetabulum is always connected to the femur).
Human behavior, on the other hand, is neither consistent nor logical. I was ten when my father died, and my mother went to pieces in a way no one could have predicted. There’s nothing scientific about the way a person’s mind falls apart. Ma’s periods of rationality are punctuated by random bouts of destructive self-negligence and spending. Long before we were old enough to know what was happening, she frittered away Dad’s life insurance money on trinkets and clothes and furniture we didn’t need. Now, Paul and I take turns being her parental figure and therapist, reminding her to take her insulin, balancing her checkbook, making her doctors’ appointments, and—when she’s really at her lowest—filling her refrigerator and reminding her to eat. We both went to college locally and lived at home. I went to medical school in New York, a twenty-minute drive from Ma’s house in north Jersey. For over a decade, this is how it’s been. Paul and I dedicate every spare moment to keeping Ma from lapsing into a diabetic coma or spiraling into a depressive void.
So it follows that, for a person in my midtwenties, there are a lot of things I’ve never done. I’ve never ice-skated, attended a college sporting event, or spent New Year’s Eve doing anything other than watching fireworks on my television, flanked by Paul and my mother. I’ve never traveled by myself. Other than a sip here or there, I’ve never had an alcoholic beverage. I’ve never gone to a school dance (I spent my senior prom night with two other dateless friends, watching Friends reruns), attended a fraternity party, or been part of a large group of girls without coats wearing cocktail dresses and high heels and cramming themselves into a taxi in the dead of winter.
I envy confident people who can befriend anyone with an easy smile or a quick joke. At parties, I’m the bespectacled girl drinking orange juice and carefully studying the wall art. I can only think of clever things to say days after the occasion. I’ve been on a total of two dates in my life: once with a fellow medical school classmate who spent the whole evening talking about professional wrestling, and the other in sixth grade when I sat at a table in the lunchroom with Jeremy Corkie, who tried to hold my hand and then stole my sandwich.
* * *
* * *
I met my best friend, Meryl, at Lenape Day Camp in sixth grade, and I’ve always been grateful for her; if I’m a social island, she’s my tether to the mainland. A week later, on Friday night, she stops by my apartment on her way home from studying at Barnes & Noble.
“Wear something skanky,” she calls from inside my closet.
“I don’t have anything skanky. Besides, it’s a work event.” I pull a plain black blouse over my head.
“It’s a pharmaceutical dinner. It’s business-skanky.” Her hand appears, dangling a pair of silver pumps, from behind a row of hanging clothes. “These still have the price tag on them. When did you buy these? They were expensive!”
I grab the shoes from her and sheepishly clear my throat. “I’ve been meaning to return them.”
“Is that guy Ethan going to be there?”
“Ethan, my chief resident? I don’t know. Why?”
Meryl laughs and rolls her eyes. “Come on! Why? Because all you’ve done is talk about him for the past week.” She does a terrible impression of my voice. “‘Oh, Ethan made the greatest diagnosis! Ethan said the funniest thing! Ethan is the most gifted doctor the world has ever seen!’”