thing, I get the sense we really click. We’re also going to be having dinner with them. I just wanted to give you a heads-up, and see if you knew who her husband was.”
She yawns, leans back in her chair, and stretches, pushing her arms up over her head. Her T-shirt rides up to reveal her belly button and lower abdomen, which has remained remarkably flat after two pregnancies.
I drain the rest of my glass, lean across the table, and kiss her on the lips—lightly at first, then more deeply. She responds in kind, then pulls back and smiles.
She blows out the candle, takes me by the hand, and wordlessly guides me up the stairs. I peek in at the girls as we pass by their room at the top of the landing: Katie in her small bed, hemmed in by the wall on one side and a guardrail on the other; and Annabelle in the crib across from her. Their mouths are slightly agape; their tranquil, unlined features bathed in the soft yellow hues of the night-light.
Sally walks into our bedroom ahead of me. When she reaches the bed, she spins around to face me and slowly, provocatively, takes off her T-shirt. I close the door to our bedroom.
Maybe it’s the wine, or today’s double dose of good news and the promise it brings of great things to come, but our lovemaking tonight is much more erotic than it’s been in quite a long time. She sighs and moans and writhes as I explore the familiar contours of her body. The thunderstorm hits right as things are reaching their peak, and I’m grateful for the rain hitting the roof, and the thunder, which shield Katie and Annabelle from the unusually passionate clamor of their parents just across the hall.
CHAPTER 3
Wednesday, July 22
The last week has gone off without a hitch, except for one glaring exception: Mr. Bernard, the jovial carpenter from Maine. As if in direct challenge to my conversation with Dr. Collier, Mr. Bernard’s recovery hasn’t gone as well as it should have. In fact, it’s gone pretty damn poorly. It’s his kidneys: For some reason, they’ve stopped working, and we can’t figure out why. It seriously bugs me, this single blemish on my otherwise spotless record.
Today, instead of our usual gathering in the cafeteria, Luis, GG, and I attend morning report: a weekly meeting of all of the residents, nurses, and professors in our department with a rotating schedule of educational, scientific, and administrative lectures. Morning report, as with all of our departmental meetings, is always held in a lecture hall located in the center of the oldest section of University Hospital. The hall was originally built in the middle of the nineteenth century as an operating-room theater, but it’s since been converted into an auditorium with stadium-style seats facing a large projection screen and a lectern placed off to one side. Everyone calls it the Dome, a reference to its high, curved ceiling. Ornate marble lines the floor, and the wood-paneled walls groan under the collective weight of scores of fancy oil paintings and old black-and-white photos of the generations of redoubtable surgeons who paved the way before us, all stern, white males, their stale visages peering out over small bronze placards bearing the fading letters of their mostly forgotten names.
Luis, GG, and I find seats in the back of the room, near the projection booth. Today’s talk is a dull treatise on billing procedures presented by some managerial University Hospital type with a shiny bald spot, nasal voice, bow tie, and cheap suit. Most of my fellow residents nod off, but I spend the entire time brooding about Mr. Bernard’s kidney condition.
At the end of the lecture, Dr. Collier thanks the presenter and reminds the residents and medical students that, for those of us who recently volunteered to be participants in a University Medical School research study of a new experimental drug, the first round of dosages are going to be administered immediately after the meeting in the hallway outside the
She yawns, leans back in her chair, and stretches, pushing her arms up over her head. Her T-shirt rides up to reveal her belly button and lower abdomen, which has remained remarkably flat after two pregnancies.
I drain the rest of my glass, lean across the table, and kiss her on the lips—lightly at first, then more deeply. She responds in kind, then pulls back and smiles.
She blows out the candle, takes me by the hand, and wordlessly guides me up the stairs. I peek in at the girls as we pass by their room at the top of the landing: Katie in her small bed, hemmed in by the wall on one side and a guardrail on the other; and Annabelle in the crib across from her. Their mouths are slightly agape; their tranquil, unlined features bathed in the soft yellow hues of the night-light.
Sally walks into our bedroom ahead of me. When she reaches the bed, she spins around to face me and slowly, provocatively, takes off her T-shirt. I close the door to our bedroom.
Maybe it’s the wine, or today’s double dose of good news and the promise it brings of great things to come, but our lovemaking tonight is much more erotic than it’s been in quite a long time. She sighs and moans and writhes as I explore the familiar contours of her body. The thunderstorm hits right as things are reaching their peak, and I’m grateful for the rain hitting the roof, and the thunder, which shield Katie and Annabelle from the unusually passionate clamor of their parents just across the hall.
CHAPTER 3
Wednesday, July 22
The last week has gone off without a hitch, except for one glaring exception: Mr. Bernard, the jovial carpenter from Maine. As if in direct challenge to my conversation with Dr. Collier, Mr. Bernard’s recovery hasn’t gone as well as it should have. In fact, it’s gone pretty damn poorly. It’s his kidneys: For some reason, they’ve stopped working, and we can’t figure out why. It seriously bugs me, this single blemish on my otherwise spotless record.
Today, instead of our usual gathering in the cafeteria, Luis, GG, and I attend morning report: a weekly meeting of all of the residents, nurses, and professors in our department with a rotating schedule of educational, scientific, and administrative lectures. Morning report, as with all of our departmental meetings, is always held in a lecture hall located in the center of the oldest section of University Hospital. The hall was originally built in the middle of the nineteenth century as an operating-room theater, but it’s since been converted into an auditorium with stadium-style seats facing a large projection screen and a lectern placed off to one side. Everyone calls it the Dome, a reference to its high, curved ceiling. Ornate marble lines the floor, and the wood-paneled walls groan under the collective weight of scores of fancy oil paintings and old black-and-white photos of the generations of redoubtable surgeons who paved the way before us, all stern, white males, their stale visages peering out over small bronze placards bearing the fading letters of their mostly forgotten names.
Luis, GG, and I find seats in the back of the room, near the projection booth. Today’s talk is a dull treatise on billing procedures presented by some managerial University Hospital type with a shiny bald spot, nasal voice, bow tie, and cheap suit. Most of my fellow residents nod off, but I spend the entire time brooding about Mr. Bernard’s kidney condition.
At the end of the lecture, Dr. Collier thanks the presenter and reminds the residents and medical students that, for those of us who recently volunteered to be participants in a University Medical School research study of a new experimental drug, the first round of dosages are going to be administered immediately after the meeting in the hallway outside the
Similar Books
