And I think how strange (as well as lucky) it is that Liv Crawford is also the only person I could have called for such a task, whether I wished to or not.
“Hey, Doc, are these take-home slippers?” she now asks me, lifting a flattened baby-blue terry pair from beneath the bed.
“Whatever you think.”
“They’re sweet, in a downmarket sort of way. You can use them outside, before and after your swims.”
“Yes, I can. Dr. Weil, however, is afraid my shingles will worsen with the chemicals.”
“That’s his malpractice premium talking. He’s not a dermatologist, so what does he know?”
“Physicians must all have broad, sound training.”
“Maybe you do, Doc, but I’m not so sure about Larry Weil.”
“He’s told me he’s a graduate of the Yale Medical School.”
“So what!” Liv cries. “The man plays golf four times a week. Two handicap, or so Renny used to tell me. Now how good a doctor can he really be?”
“He’s perfectly fine,” I say, feeling as though I’ve been his only defender. The nurses have also been harsh critics, as was Renny Banerjee the other day. And yet I’ve witnessed nothing to suggest that he’s anything but a competent, knowledgeable physician. He is a good doctor, I am sure, but not what they call gung-ho, or else inspirational, in the way some are. What is obvious, unfortunately for him, is his somewhat stereotypical physician’s mien, the stiff brush of his manner, the prickly tongue, that put-out-ness that is rarely endearing in a man so young, all of which is no doubt due to his frustration (as he’s often expressed) that he works in this sleepy upcountry hospital instead of in a big-city research and teaching institution with his own lab assistants and grant writers and ambitions of scientific glory.
I remember how I was when I was his age, heady with the quiet arrogance of a newly minted officer, feeling wise and capable and in command of any contingencies. Though not a true physician, I had been fully trained in field and emergency medicine in order to aid and sustain my comrades, to save them whenever possible, fulfilling my duty for Nation and Emperor. And while I was grateful for being part of what we all considered the greater destiny and the mandate of our people, I had hoped, too, that my preparation and training would be tested and confirmed by live experiences, however difficult and horrible; and more specifically, that my truest mettle would show itself in the crucible of the battlefield, and so prove to anyone who might suspect otherwise the worthiness of raising me away from the lowly quarters of my kin and reveal the essential, inner spirit that is within us all. And yet still I have always wondered if training or rearing tells more than the simple earth and ash and blood from which we come, or whether these social inurements eventually fall away, like the moldering garments of the dead, to reveal the underlying bones.
Liv Crawford, I have a feeling, would contend that neither is the case; it is what one does, right now, in the very fact of the act, that she champions. I like to hope that this is not simply the realtor modality. And the right now for her, thank goodness, is the business of getting me home.
“Ready, Doc?”
“Yes, Liv, I think so. Liv?”
“What, Doc?”
“I want to thank you for your efforts on my behalf. I am truly grateful.”
“Don’t start like this, Doc, or you’ll get me misty.”
“But I must tell you. Dousing the fire, helping to pull me out, the house renovations. Your coming today. I could not have asked a blood relative to do any of these things.”
“The office head put me up to it,” she says lamely, trying not to look at me. “She wants the exclusive someday. She’s already written on the board that it’ll be the listing of the year.”
“But you must know that the house would be no one’s but yours to sell.”
Liv smiles, almost shyly, obviously having difficulty with self-admissions of generosity and kindness. Of course she’s known. But she too much likes — and depends on — the blustery cover of commerce.
“You know me, Doc. I never take anything for granted. Not until closing. And even then, I make sure to read everyone’s signature and date. Make sure it’s right on the line.”
“Perhaps I ought to leave it in my will, that you’re to sell my house.”
“You’re being morbid again, Doc. But you know, it’s not a bad idea,” she says, perking up to her old self. She’s able to eye me now. “Of course I don’t have to say that I wish you would live forever. But”—and she pauses—“I do think I’ve made it clear that I believe I’m the agent to list your beautiful home someday, and I hope all the time that I’m that lucky woman. But there’s not a bone in my body that wishes that day to come any sooner than never.”
“I thought sharks don’t have any bones,” says a familiar voice, and I see it’s Renny Banerjee coming through the doorway, a sly expression on his smooth chocolate face.
“Ha, ha,” Liv can only answer, taken aback and also, subtly and obviously, tickled by his presence. This is an expected surprise.
Renny, surveying the room, says to me, “I asked at the desk whether you had left, Doc, and they said they didn’t see how, with all the flowers still arriving.”
“We’re on our way out,” Liv replies tersely, pointing to the giant lily bouquet. “That one’s yours, Mr. Banerjee. If you so please.”
“I please.”
“Thank you.”
We thus march out as three, Liv with my bag over her shoulder and two smaller arrangements, one in each of her hands; Renny hardly apparent behind the lilies; and I ambling under my own power, having already refused two offers of a wheelchair and nurse, the latter walking along with us anyway. I don’t tell anyone — including Dr. Weil, when he came earlier for a pre-discharge exam — about the strange burning in my chest that I awoke to this morning, an ever-angry tingle that feels to be webbing my lungs each time I breathe in tiny, almost electrical bursts. As we first gain the hall, I think there’s a chance I might actually fall down. But I steel myself, for though it would be perfectly pleasant to stay indefinitely (and idle with Veronica Como), I don’t want the messiness of further diagnoses and tests and proposed courses of treatment — in a phrase, the complications of complications. Simplicity seems all, or at least my expectations of it, which are my house and morning swims in the pool and my strolls down to the village, to view all the good people and shops.
At the ground-floor elevator bank, we come out and there is Mrs. Hickey, waiting to go up to the children’s ICU. She greets me with warmth. I ask the heavyset nurse if she’ll excuse us for a moment, and she complies with a hard grunt. Renny and Liv don’t know Anne Hickey, of course, and don’t pause on their way to the automatic doors. They hardly said a word in the elevator, only the four of us in the car, though I caught them gazing at each other quite intently if not lovingly, at least as yet; and so I tell them to go on to the parking lot, where I’ll catch up to them soon, and they exit, murmuring, a mini-procession of my flowers.
Mrs. Hickey is nicely dressed in dark pants and black shoes and a short, woolly red jacket. It could be a church day, from her appearance, though I can see it is probably her attempt to maintain an optimism and order in her days, for both Patrick and Mr. Hickey. She looks slightly haggard otherwise, circles about her eyes, with the pallor that comes from lack of sleep. But she smiles kindly and takes my hand and we sit on a bench in the waiting area.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t come visit before you left. I tried, but you were always resting or with the doctor, and I didn’t want to drop in unexpectedly.”