Definite stress in her voice. “You don’t sound like yourself, Penn.”
Trying to fool my mother is a challenge akin to flying a 747 beneath NORAD coastal radar. “There’s a lot going on in City Hall. Do you know where Dad is?”
“I think he’s at his office, working on records. Penn, the last thing you need to do is worry your father over something. His angina hasn’t let up for days, and I know he’s taken at least one nitro already this morning.”
I’d like to ask Mom what time Dad left the house this morning, and also whether he was home last night, but my gut tells me to ask him first. “Seriously, it’s nothing major. I just need to ask him something about his retirement plan.”
“Well, I keep up with most of that information. You know your father. I’m sure I can help you.”
Christ
. “No, I need to talk to him.”
A long pause. “All right, then. Try the office.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Before she can say anything else, I click off. But instead of dialing my father’s office, I set the phone on the cradle and leave my hand on it. For the past few weeks, I’ve assumed that my father, after nearly fifty years of practicing medicine, has been dealing with his traumatic but inevitable decision to retire. Seven weeks ago he suffered a myocardial infarction that he survived only by virtue of luck and heroic medical intervention. Had not my mother, one of the most compulsively prepared humans on the planet, insisted that Dad keep portable defibrillators both in their house and at his clinic, my father would probably be dead now. He always argued that defibrillators only helped in certain types of heart attacks, so keeping them around didn’t justify the cost. Thus, no one was more surprised than Dad when, after dropping to the floor in his office, he was brought back to life by his young partner, Drew Elliott, using the defib unit Mom had demanded be always ready to hand.
Despite this brush with death—not his first, by far—my father has been driving to his office occasionally to catch up on charts, and making trips to the nursing homes to check on special patients during his “convalescence.” Dad and Mom have been arguing about his driving alone, but you can’t tell a doctor anything, so I decided not to intervene. His continued work has surprised no one, since despite several chronic illnesses—plus multiple heart and vascular surgeries—Dad has always soldiered on with a determination so relentless that his patients and colleagues have come to see it as normal. Chalk that up to the work ethic of a man born in 1932. I’d hoped that his desultory dabbling in medicine over these past weeks was part of the weaning process, leading slowly but surely toward full disengagement. But if Shad Johnson is right, Dad has been actively treating at least one patient during his recuperation period, and going to great lengths to do it.
“Miss Viola,” I murmur, wondering when I last spoke that name before today. “My God.”
According to the district attorney, my perfect vision of a nurse came back to Natchez after thirty-seven years in Chicago not to retire, as so many Natchez natives, both black and white, do—but to die. If Dad has been treating Viola, he has his reasons. And if her death was hastened a little in the name of lessening pain or maintaining dignity, he had reasons for that, too. I’d like nothing better than to leave all this between my father and his former nurse. Unfortunately, I don’t have that option today.
Lifting the phone, I dial the private number of my dad’s office. Sometimes he answers this line (if he’s between patients, for example), but today it’s answered by a warm, alto female voice I recognize as that of Melba Price, my father’s head nurse. Much like Viola in the 1960s, Melba is my father’s right hand in the clinic, and like every other woman who’s occupied that position since 1963, she is black. I’ve never questioned the reason for this, and
Trying to fool my mother is a challenge akin to flying a 747 beneath NORAD coastal radar. “There’s a lot going on in City Hall. Do you know where Dad is?”
“I think he’s at his office, working on records. Penn, the last thing you need to do is worry your father over something. His angina hasn’t let up for days, and I know he’s taken at least one nitro already this morning.”
I’d like to ask Mom what time Dad left the house this morning, and also whether he was home last night, but my gut tells me to ask him first. “Seriously, it’s nothing major. I just need to ask him something about his retirement plan.”
“Well, I keep up with most of that information. You know your father. I’m sure I can help you.”
Christ
. “No, I need to talk to him.”
A long pause. “All right, then. Try the office.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Before she can say anything else, I click off. But instead of dialing my father’s office, I set the phone on the cradle and leave my hand on it. For the past few weeks, I’ve assumed that my father, after nearly fifty years of practicing medicine, has been dealing with his traumatic but inevitable decision to retire. Seven weeks ago he suffered a myocardial infarction that he survived only by virtue of luck and heroic medical intervention. Had not my mother, one of the most compulsively prepared humans on the planet, insisted that Dad keep portable defibrillators both in their house and at his clinic, my father would probably be dead now. He always argued that defibrillators only helped in certain types of heart attacks, so keeping them around didn’t justify the cost. Thus, no one was more surprised than Dad when, after dropping to the floor in his office, he was brought back to life by his young partner, Drew Elliott, using the defib unit Mom had demanded be always ready to hand.
Despite this brush with death—not his first, by far—my father has been driving to his office occasionally to catch up on charts, and making trips to the nursing homes to check on special patients during his “convalescence.” Dad and Mom have been arguing about his driving alone, but you can’t tell a doctor anything, so I decided not to intervene. His continued work has surprised no one, since despite several chronic illnesses—plus multiple heart and vascular surgeries—Dad has always soldiered on with a determination so relentless that his patients and colleagues have come to see it as normal. Chalk that up to the work ethic of a man born in 1932. I’d hoped that his desultory dabbling in medicine over these past weeks was part of the weaning process, leading slowly but surely toward full disengagement. But if Shad Johnson is right, Dad has been actively treating at least one patient during his recuperation period, and going to great lengths to do it.
“Miss Viola,” I murmur, wondering when I last spoke that name before today. “My God.”
According to the district attorney, my perfect vision of a nurse came back to Natchez after thirty-seven years in Chicago not to retire, as so many Natchez natives, both black and white, do—but to die. If Dad has been treating Viola, he has his reasons. And if her death was hastened a little in the name of lessening pain or maintaining dignity, he had reasons for that, too. I’d like nothing better than to leave all this between my father and his former nurse. Unfortunately, I don’t have that option today.
Lifting the phone, I dial the private number of my dad’s office. Sometimes he answers this line (if he’s between patients, for example), but today it’s answered by a warm, alto female voice I recognize as that of Melba Price, my father’s head nurse. Much like Viola in the 1960s, Melba is my father’s right hand in the clinic, and like every other woman who’s occupied that position since 1963, she is black. I’ve never questioned the reason for this, and
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