“I take responsibility also for something addressed in this letter.” His accent was faintly British, the years in America having softened it, but without accruing any jarring American inflections. The day he spoke to Deepak over my shoulder in the operating room at Our Lady, I hadn't registered a particular accent. “This letter came to me from the deceased patient's mother. I want to make sure that this does not happen again. Here is what she says: ‘Dr. Stone— My son's terrible death is not something I will ever get over, but perhaps in time it will be less painful. But I cannot get over one image, a last image that could have been different. Before I was asked to leave the room in a very rough manner, I must tell you that I saw my son was terrified and there was no one who addressed his fear. The only person who tried was a nurse. She held my son's hand and said, “Don't worry, it will be all right.” Everyone else ignored him. Sure, the doctors were busy with his body. It would have been merciful if he had been unconscious. They had important things to do. They cared only about his chest and belly. Not about the little boy who was in fear. Yes, he was a man, but at such a vulnerable moment, he was reduced to a little boy. I saw no sign of the slightest bit of human kindness. My son and I were irritants. Your team would have preferred for me to be gone and for him to be quiet. Eventually they got their wish. Dr. Stone, as head of surgery, perhaps as a parent yourself, do you not feel some obligation to have your staff comfort the patient? Would the patient not be better off with less anxiety less fright? My son's last conscious memory will be of people ignoring him. My last memory of him will be of my little boy, watching in terror as his mother is escorted out of the room. It is the graven image I will carry to my own deathbed. The fact that people were attentive to his body does not compensate for their ignoring his being.’ “
Thomas Stone folded the letter and put it away in his breast pocket. There was a rustle in the auditorium, a murmur, an uncomfortable shifting of body weight. I sensed a willingness in the room to shrug off the letter, to scoff at what it said, but Stone's demeanor made it necessary to conceal that urge. Stone stood there, silent, looking out, as if considering the letter's context himself, unaware of his audience. No one spoke. As the moment stretched on, even the smallest noises were stilled until there was only the hum of the air-conditioning. Thomas Stone's expression was reflective, certainly not angry. Now, as if waking up, he searched the room for a reaction, seeing if the writer struck a chord. The scoffers had reconsidered their position.
When Stone finally spoke, it was in a quiet voice that was firm and commanded attention. He asked a question.
I knew the answer because it was in his book, a book I'd read carefully and more than once in my voyage out of Ethiopia and during my stay in Kenya.
“What treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?”
Surely with about two hundred people in the room, at least fifty would know the answer.
No one spoke.
He waited. The discomfort grew even more acute. I could sense Constance stiffening next to me.
Thomas Stone spread his feet and put his hands behind his back. He appeared willing to stand there all day. He raised his eyebrows. Waiting. The students sitting to my left were too scared to blink.
Stone looked over to me, surprised to see a response from the row of dark suits. I felt his eyes bore into mine. It was only the second time he registered my being in this world; the first was when I was born. This time, I only had to raise my hand.
“Yes?” he said. “Tell us, please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?”
All eyes were on me. I was in no hurry. None at all.
Then my sight turned misty as I thought of Ghosh and the sacrifice he'd made for us. Though he died of leukemia, it now felt to me as if he'd given up his life from the time we were infants so that Shiva and I should have ours. When he died, it was as if a second umbilical cord had been severed. I thought of Hema, widowed, now laboring alone with Shiva at Missing, writing to me to say that her heart was breaking not to have me there, and would I forgive her for not giving me the attention and love I deserved? And all through those years, Thomas Stone probably never missed an M&M conference, never had a day of discomfort over Shiva, or over me. I thought of Matron, holding Missing together, an active and loving godmother to two boys, an anchor in our lives, and I thought of Gebrew, Almaz, and Rosina, who had stepped in to fill the void of this man's absence.
How unjust it was that Thomas Stone's reward for his failings, for his selfishness, should be to preside in that chair and command the respect, the awe, and the admiration of the likes of Constance and others in this room. Surely you couldn't be a good doctor and a terrible human being— surely the laws of man, if not of God, didn't allow it.
I met his gaze and I did not blink. “Words of comfort,” I said to my father.
The intervening years lay compressed between us as if by bookends. The others in the room looked from my face to his, distressed, uncertain if mine was the right answer. But no one else existed for me or for him.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice altered. “Words of comfort.”
He left the room, but looked back at me once when he reached the door.
I FOUND WHERE HE LIVED by accident. An elegant condominium complex across the river would have been my guess. But at the base of Tower A, I saw a glass door leading to the outside. Across the street was the lobby to another building. I saw Thomas Stone enter and a doorman greet him. I waited. A few minutes later he emerged, without his white coat and with a yellow-and-black box in his hand—a slide carousel. He was on his way to the transplant conference. I gave him half an hour, and then I went up to the doorman. I flashed my badge. “I'm Marion Stone. Dr. Stone forgot some slides he needed for a talk he is giving. He sent me to pick them up.”
He was about to quiz me, deny me, but then he cocked his head. “You a relative?”
“I'm his son.”
“By God you are!” he said, coming closer to look into my eyes, as if that was where the similarity resided. He beamed as if the news vindicated him. As if it gave Thomas Stone a human dimension, a redeeming quality.
“By God you are!” He slapped his thigh in delight. “And not a word to us all this time.”
“He never knew till this year,” I said, winking.
“Joseph and Mary! Get out of here!”
I smiled and looked at my watch.
“You know where it is?” he said.
“Fourth floor?”
“Four-oh-nine.”
I ENTERED HIS HOUSE using my penknife and the sort of ancillary surgical skills only a B. C. Gandhi can teach you.
It was a one-bedroom apartment.
The living-dining room had nothing to justify that label. A large worktable like a draftsman's desk occupied most of that area, with two side tables at its ends to form a U. There were papers in neat stacks on the side tables. Sectional bookcases covered three walls and were full of books and papers. They weren't arranged for display but for access.
The coffeepot in the kitchen was collecting dust. The stove appeared never to have been used. A toaster on the counter had a trace of crumbs on the top. The refrigerator held only a carton of orange juice, a stick of butter, and a half loaf of bread.
His bedroom was dark, the curtains drawn. There were no books or papers here. Only an army cot, a blanket folded neatly at its foot, as if he were camping for one night.
A single framed snapshot sat on the mantelpiece above the electric fireplace. The airbrush technique of the 1920S gave mother and son alabaster skin. They were posed like Madonna and Child. The boy was perhaps three, ensconced in the lap of the woman who must have been my grandmother—a presence in the world I realized I'd never once thought about.