Chapter Forty-Two

The end of June

It was my last day as chief resident. There was no graduation ceremony, no cap and gown, no pomp and circumstance. There wasn’t even a diploma. We were just supposed to pack our things and leave. I met a couple residents in the hall. They were too busy to stop and talk but they clapped me on the back and wished me well. I went up to the residents’ lounge to clean out my locker and mailbox. Next to the mailboxes, in an old, overstuffed armchair, a resident in a rumpled blue sport coat was sound asleep, his head lolled to the right, his mouth slightly open.

I had handed my beeper to the operator at St. Mary’s earlier that afternoon, and for the first time in four years, was not given another to take its place. The educational odyssey that had begun in high school seventeen years before was over. The most prestigious medical center in the world had signed off on me, had told the world I was ready.

I didn’t feel ready. Oh, sure, I was a god to the junior residents—just as the graduating chiefs had been gods to me when I was a junior resident. But I still had so much to learn. When was I going to feel the equal of Cuv or Tom Hale or Antonio Romero?

Patti and I were sitting next to each other on the swing set in the backyard, not saying much. We had just come from the closing. Tomorrow night another family would be sleeping in our house.

“The raspberries should be ready to pick in another week,” I said, nodding at the patch in the corner of the yard.

“We won’t be here in another week.”

I could tell without looking she was crying. She was digging around in her pockets for a Kleenex. I don’t know why. She never carried one. I passed her my handkerchief.

She wiped her eyes and then said, “Can I have a hug?”

We each stepped off our swing and I put my arms around her.

“This is so nice,” she said, her head on my chest.

This is how I want to leave the world, I thought. I don’t care if I’m rich or famous; just let me die with my arms around Patti.

We were silent for a long time. I knew what was on her mind, though. “I hate to leave, hon,” I said. “Don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I cried because we had to come here, and now I’m crying because we have to leave.”

She looked at me and smiled. That was Patti, putting on the brave face and doing what needed to be done. I never told her how it broke my heart to see her with that sad smile. I guess no one ever told her that smiles and tears don’t go together.

“Well,” I said, kissing her on the forehead, “I guess I’d better get going. Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

“Yes,” Patti said, “we’ll be fine.”

It was Friday night. The movers were coming the next morning. But the movers wanted money; and as usual, we had no money. The movers said if we didn’t have a certified check waiting for them on Monday morning when they got to Chicago they would not unload the truck.

We had no money, but we had a plan. Patti would supervise the move, and then drive to Chicago in the station wagon with the kids. Meanwhile, I would borrow a car, drive to Mankato, and do a marathon moonlighting session: 7:00 P.M. Friday night until 5:00 A.M. Monday morning. When I finished, I would drive back to Rochester, drop off the car, fly to Chicago, go to our new bank, deposit my moonlighting check, get a cashier’s check, and then meet the movers at our new home.

And that is just how it happened. Patti supervised the loading of the furniture the next day. Then Mrs. Flaherty, whose daughter, Mary, had been our babysitter ever since we moved to Rochester, came over and sprinkled the car, Patti, and each of the kids with holy water, praying for a safe trip.

They arrived safe and sound at Patti’s parents’ house at eight o’clock that night, after four bathroom stops, three dirty diapers, and one episode of vomit—Patrick never liked the backseat.

I, meanwhile, was moonlighting in Mankato. At 3:30 Saturday morning an ambulance brought in a guy with a cervical spine fracture. I stabilized him, then called Mayo to arrange a transfer. Steve DeBurke was the ortho resident on call. He had just finished Basic Science and was a senior resident now.

“Is this the Dr. Collins, formerly of the Mayo Clinic?” Steve asked.

Formerly. It felt strange to hear him say it like that. But he was right. I was no longer one of them. A new group of residents, fresh from medical school, would start that morning. All my friends, all my fellow residents, were gone. Bill, Frank, Jack, and all the others had packed up and moved on. Their days as residents were over. But I was still there, still working. I was the last of us, the last resident.

“You know, I just thought of something,” I said. “I am no longer employed by the Mayo Clinic. I don’t start my new job ’til next week. I’ve sold my home and don’t close on the new one ’til Monday. So, right now I’m thirty-four years old. I’m married. I’ve got four kids, and I have no job, no home, and no money.”

Steve yawned loudly. “Did you call me at three o’clock in the morning to tell me this sob story?”

“No, I didn’t. I’ve got a guy with a C-5 burst fracture. He’s neurologically intact, but the fracture is unstable.”

“No problem. Just ship him over.”

When Connie Fritz came on duty on Sunday night she said, “You know this is sick, don’t you?” Connie had been working the night shift at St. Joe’s for twenty-seven years. She and I had become very close over the past four years. “I worked with you Friday night,” she said, “then I went home and slept, did some shopping and visited the grandkids. I worked with you Saturday night, then I went home and slept, went to church, and had dinner at my sister’s. Now I come back on Sunday night and you’re still here. You look like shit, you know. What the hell is wrong with you to work like this?”

I told Connie it wasn’t so bad. I had slept a little here and there.

“Slept a little my ass. Have fun dying when you’re forty,” she said.

“If I do, will you come to Chicago and raise my kids?” I asked.

“I’ll come to Chicago and piss on your grave.”

 

By Monday morning at five I had been working fifty-eight straight hours. I had managed a few hours of sleep, but was coasting in on fumes, stubble-chinned, bleary-eyed, and working by instinct. I was neither awake nor asleep, neither alive nor dead—a condition not unlike that in which I had spent much of the past four years. I shuffled dumbly from one task to the next: peering in infected ears, palpating painful bellies, auscultating ischemic hearts, repairing jagged lacerations.

I liked repairing lacerations the best. I could turn off my brain, and function at some simian, subcortical level, frowning in concentration as I slowly, deliberately placed each stitch, the delicate twist of the wrist bringing the needle into and out of the edges of the laceration. There was a numbing rhythm to the ratcheting click of the needle-holder, the snip of the scissors, the silent daub of the gauze. There was something comfortingly bourgeois and reaffirming in suturing lacerations: mindless, repetitive steps proceeding to a defined goal; the edges of the laceration slowly coming together, stitch by stitch.

When I finished the repair, I wiped away the last bit of blood, carefully dressed the wound, then stood up. I was suddenly lost, out of focus. What now?

With nothing immediately demanding my attention, I found myself incapable of attending to anything at all. I desperately wanted to be done, to close my eyes, to rest, and yet I was painfully aware that I actually liked this, and in thirty minutes it would be gone forever.

When the last drunk was stitched, the last chest pain admitted, the last antibiotic prescribed, I tossed the prescription pad on the counter, threw my lab coat in the laundry basket, and kissed the nurses good-bye. I was swallowing the anchor.

Connie handed me a cup of coffee and said, “Now get out of here, you big lunk.” Then she and the other nurses gathered in the doorway and waved to me as I drove out of the parking lot. “Drive carefully, Doctor.” “Take care of those kids.” “Come back and see us sometime.”

I rolled down the windows, unbuttoned my shirt, turned up the radio, and headed east, into the rising sun, going back to Rochester one last time. In a dreamlike, sleep-deprived state I drifted along, flooded with memories. Eagle Lake, Smith’s Mill, Janesville, there wasn’t a town along the way that didn’t have someone I had stitched up or casted or repaired or resuscitated. I felt a fondness for them all, and a sense of gratitude that I had been able to help them. It had been a lot of work. At times it felt like I was killing myself. And yet the only thing I could recall at that moment was how much fun it had been, and how wonderful it was to do this for a living.

I managed, barely, to stay awake on the ride back to Rochester, but almost missed the flight.

“You’d better hurry,” the lady at check-in told me. “The plane’s about to depart.”

I tried to sprint down the gangway, but my legs wouldn’t do what I told them. The flight attendant was starting to close the door to the plane as I stumbled up to her. She looked at me curiously, checked my ticket, and motioned me in. I mumbled my thanks, staggered down the aisle, dropped into my seat, and finally closed my eyes.

 

Urrr.

There was a noise. A noise from far away.

Urrr.

It was a voice.

“Sir,” the voice was saying.

I opened my eyes. The voice was coming from a face. Why was there a face in front of me?

“Sir, the plane has landed. You have to get off now.”

Plane? Landed?

“Sir, are you okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“We’re in Chicago. You have to get off now.”

“Have to get off now.” I got to my feet and stumbled into the aisle. The plane was empty.

“Sir, is that your bag?”

“My bag? Yes, my bag. Thank you.”

My brother Tim was waiting for me. I had no luggage. Tim took me to the bank, where I got the cashier’s check. Then he dropped me off at our new home. Patti and the kids were already there.

Patti was looking at me funny.

“What?” I said.

“I was trying to remember why I married you.”

I rubbed a hand over my chin. “It was for my dashing good looks, my savoir faire, my—”

“Do you have the check?”

“Check? What check?”

“Don’t make me hurt you.”

It was nine o’clock. The movers got out of the truck. They stretched, yawned, and sauntered over. Patti was on a first-name basis with all of them. They, of course, loved her. She had laughed with them, gossiped about the Twins and the White Sox, and had given them cookies, pop, and beer when they loaded the truck in Rochester. They, in turn, played with the kids, learned their names, and heard the story of the strange husband who was going to work three days and three nights in a row to pay for the move.

“So you made it, huh, Doc?” the mover said as he folded the cashier’s check and put it in his shirt pocket.

“Yeah, I made it.”

“Did you ever sleep?”

“Some.”

“Well, here’s your receipt,” he said, handing me a sheet of paper. “We’re going to need you to sign a few things when we’re done.”

“I might not be here.”

“Huh? Where else you gonna be?”

“Asleep.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “Say, wait ’til you see this.” He lifted a heavy bar and swung open the back door of the moving van. The first thing I saw was our bed. “Patti made sure it was the last thing we loaded on the truck. She said you might be needing it.”

Just then Patrick ran up and slapped the mover a high five. “Hiya, Ollie!” he said.

“Hi, short legs. You gonna help us move this stuff?”

“Evewything,” he said, throwing his arms in the air.

In ten minutes we had the bed assembled in our room. Patti, who thought of everything, even had a set of sheets and a blanket for it.

“That sure is some woman you’re married to,” the mover said to me.

“Patti? She’s the best.”

I sagged down on the bed, curled my arm under the pillow, and closed my eyes. As my last bit of consciousness faded, I realized how lucky I was; and I knew that everything I had to endure over the last four years—the long hours, the lousy pay, the studying, the moonlighting, the nights on call—was worth it. Every bit of everything I had to endure was worth it.

The mover picked up the last of his tools and switched off the light. I was asleep before he closed the door.