“And here's some words of wisdom from a man whose days are numbered: Enjoy life now, Dave. Do the things you want to do now. Don't put them off till later—sometimes later doesn't come.”
He left Dave sitting in the chart room, staring at the floor.
Will stifled a belch as he walked toward the door of his two-story faux Tudor townhouse in Mount Kisco. He'd started renting it when he and Annie separated, and wound up staying on after the divorce. It wasn't fancy, but he didn't need fancy. He needed functional. This place was situated halfway between his office and the hospital. Mostly he just slept here.
He rubbed his abdomen. He felt a little bloated. He'd overeaten again at Armondo's Place, a dinner of steak au poivre, asparagus hollandaise, twice-baked potato, and German chocolate layer cake. He figured since he no longer had to worry about the long-term effects of saturated fats, he might as well indulge in a heavy meal whenever possible.
Too soon he'd be reduced to a liquid diet.
He was inside and halfway down the hall when he heard a knock. He opened the door and found his ex-wife standing there.
“Annie. What—?”
She stepped past him. “Dave Andros called me this afternoon.”
“Oh, hell.”
He closed the door and faced her. Annie was as attractive as ever, looking considerably younger than her forty-eight years, although she appeared slightly disheveled tonight. Her chestnut hair wasn't perfectly brushed, and the whites of her large brown eyes looked red. Had she been crying?
“‘Oh, hell’ is right,” she said.
“He had no right—”
“Let's not get sidetracked on the patient privilege issue. Dave is your friend and he's worried about you. So am I, now that I know. I've been sitting out there in the parking lot for hours, waiting for you to come home.”
He was touched. “You didn't have to.”
“I'm hoping I can talk some sense into you.”
Will gave her a smile. “You never could when we were married.”
“But maybe I can now that we're not. I still care about you, Will. You know that.”
He did know that. The breakup of their marriage had been his fault. Not because of a woman, but because of another kind of mistress, a very demanding one: his practice. He hadn't been a bad father to their only daughter, but as far as husbands go, he'd been mostly absent; Annie had needed more of a presence than he could provide.
The practice . . . the damn practice. He'd known he was obsessive about it—a solo practitioner had to be. That was why hardly anyone was solo anymore. He was a dinosaur and he knew it. Not that he hadn't tried to take in a partner over the years. Tried three times. They were all good docs, but somehow they just didn't have quite the zeal he was looking for. Hell, they all wanted a weekday off. What was that about? When was the last time he'd had a weekend off, let alone a weekday.
Maybe he was too scrupulous. Maybe he hadn't been able to relinquish the exacting control he imposed on his practice. You couldn't delegate responsibility in a group practice, but at some point you had to delegate authority. Will had been unable to do that. He needed to keep his finger on all the buttons. My way or the highway. That was why it had taken over his life.
That was why he was divorced and still in love with his wife. He'd let her take the house and just about anything else she wanted. All he'd kept were his old vinyl records from the sixties and his collection of western videos.
Annie was now engaged to a real estate broker whose business seemed to run itself. He had lots of time for Annie.
But somehow Will and Annie had remained friends. Like the old cliché: They were closer now than when they'd been living together.
Lots of old clichés seemed to be hitting home lately. Especially the one about no man on his deathbed ever wishing he'd spent more time at the office.
Will wished he'd spent more time with his daughter Kelly. She was a second-year medical student now at NYU and Will realized that he hardly knew her. Since he'd learned about the tumor, he'd come to regret bitterly all the opportunities he'd missed to be with Kelly when she was growing up.
Remorse had become a cold anvil, chained to his neck, dragging behind him wherever he went.
If only he'd known then . . .
He realized he'd been saying if only an awful lot lately.
Annie was looking at him now with hurt in her brown eyes. “You weren't going to tell me, were you.”
“Sure I was. Eventually.”
“I can't believe you're acting this way. You—the doctor's doctor, Mr. Modern Medicine. It's just not like you to refuse treatment.”
“Did Dave tell you what they'll have to do to ‘cure’ me?”
“He said surgery and radiation.”
“Did he give you any details?”
“No.”
“I didn't think so. All right, then, I'll tell you. First they heavily radiate my oral cavity and throat for weeks to shrink the tumor. But in the process it shrivels up my esophagus as well, and so for months to come I'll only be able to swallow watery fluids, and those with difficulty, which is just as well because the radiation will kill off my taste buds and dry up my salivary glands, and I won't be able to taste anything anyway.”
He saw Annie swallow.
“Then comes the surgery: a radical neck dissection. And I do mean radical. I lose my larynx, a big chunk of my tongue, and most of my right lower jaw. And then it's back for more radiation. And maybe chemo.”
Annie's hand crept to her mouth. “Oh, God.”
“I'll wind up with three-quarters of a face; I'll speak by burping or buzzing through a voice box; I'll eat by choking fluids and gruel down a strictured esophagus past a mutilated tongue that can't taste.”
Annie turned and stumbled toward the sparsely furnished living room. She dropped into a chair.
“I had no idea!”
Will hesitated a moment, then followed and stood over her. He laid a hand on her shoulder. He knew Annie, knew her empathy. She felt for other people, shared their pain if they were hurting. Empathy could be a curse; he could imagine what she was feeling for him now. But her genuine distress warmed him—at least she still cared about him. He was sorry he'd had to dump it on her like that, but he saw no reason to pretty it up.
She looked up at him. “But at least you'll be alive.”
“You call that living, Annie? That's not life—that's existence. And an empty one to boot: I can't practice in that state. And since I won't want to inflict my appearance on anyone, I'll wind up sitting around here alone, listening to my scratchy old records and watching my westerns. How many times do you think I can listen to ‘Eight Miles High’ and watch Ride the High Country before I finally jam the muzzle of a pistol into what's left of my mouth and end it all!”
Annie was cringing in the chair, staring at him. Will realized his voice had risen almost to a shout.
He turned away. “Sorry.”
He hadn't realized how angry he was. He was reacting like every other cancer patient he had known, thinking it wasn't fair. And it wasn't! It wasn't goddamn fair!
Calmer now, he sighed and said, “When I hear myself talk like that, I think it sounds like it's all about vanity. But it's not vanity, Annie. It's dignity. Through my entire career I struggled to preserve my patients’ dignity. I fought for their self-determination. I want the same for myself. I don't believe in life at any cost—not for me, anyway. I want to choose the manner of my leaving, and do not care to be sliced and diced, fried, and poisoned as I head for the exit.”
He sensed movement behind him, then felt Annie's arms go around him. God, that felt good.
She sobbed into his back. “Oh, Will, oh, Will! I'm so sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”
Suddenly he wanted to cry too, to turn and cling to her and bawl like a baby, to release all the screaming fear and remorse dammed up inside him. Instead, he covered her hands where they clasped over his abdomen and forced a laugh.
“Y
eah. Me too. Got any magic?”
The phone rang.
It was in easy reach so he lifted the receiver.
“Dr. Burleigh?” said a woman's voice.
He recognized the accent. The woman from the place in Katonah. What was her name?
“Speaking.”
“This is Maya. Can you see me tomorrow morning?”
He hesitated, wanting to say thanks but no thanks, but a part of him, a part that desperately wanted to live and figured he couldn't possibly make matters worse, wouldn't allow it.
“Sure,” he said. “Ten o'clock okay?”
“Yes. I will see you then.”
He hung up, wondering why he was wasting what little time he had left on a nutcase like Maya.
That wasn't fair. Enigmatic, magnetic, and certainly misguided, but Will had sensed that she was quite sane. And ethical as well— she'd wanted him to see a surgeon immediately.
But that didn't answer the question of why he was consulting a psychic healer.
Perhaps because she was a mysterious stone he'd encountered on this final stretch of his road. And though he was perfectly sure he'd find nothing under it, he didn't want to leave it unturned.
“Who was that?” Annie said from behind.
He didn't turn to look at her. “No one. No one who's going to make any difference, that is.”
3
Katonah, NY
Will noticed a CLOSED sign in the window, but Maya opened the door immediately when he knocked.
She was wearing tan slacks and a dark blue polo shirt that lay snug around her small, high breasts.
“Closed?” he said.
“I did not want anyone else disturbing us.”
He wondered what sort of traffic she got in such an understated, fringe locale.
“What are we going to be doing?”
“I want to finish what I began the other day.”
“The thing with the tines and—what were they called?”
“Chakras. Yes. I never got to the last two, and one of them is very important.”
Something was different in the way she was looking at him. Will couldn't put his finger on it, but she seemed somehow . . . closer. Odd, but that was the only way he could express it.
“But—”
“Please. Just let me finish. Then we can talk.”
Will repressed a sigh as he followed her back down to the basement. He'd wanted this to be quick and clean: Can you help me and what's the first step? But he supposed he had to let her run through her rituals.
As before, he removed his shoes and socks and lay prone on the sand. Maya took up the greenish tine again, the one she'd used over his throat before, and rotated it in circles over the crown of his head. Her expression was grim as she switched to a bluish tine, plucked it, and moved that over the bridge of his nose. She leaned back a moment, closing her eyes, then she plucked the tine again, this time actually pressing it against the bridge of his nose.
Finally she rose and moved away. “Very well. I am through.”
Will sat up and stared at her. She looked troubled.
“Something else wrong?”
She was rearranging her tines. She shook her head without looking up. “Nothing I did not already suspect.”
He moved to the chair and began slipping back into his socks and shoes.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
She pulled the other chair around, seated herself, and faced him. She fixed him with her jade eyes.
“Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“About yourself.”
“Not much to talk about. I lead a pretty dull life.”
“I called Savanna and asked her about you.”
“And?”
“She says you are a wonderful doctor.”
“Always liked Savanna,” he said dryly. “A very perceptive woman.”
Maya's lips twisted into a brief, wry smile, accenting her dimples. “Why did you not tell me you were a doctor?”
“I didn't think it was relevant to the diagnosis.”
“But it is relevant to the mindset you bring.”
“Is that so important?”
“It is everything. But back to Savanna: She went on so much about you that I asked if she could introduce me to a few of your other patients.”
“Really.” Will wasn't sure he liked the idea of this woman investigating him. If anything, he should be investigating her. “Why?”
“To see if you are a healer, or merely a doctor.”
Healer . . . the word on the window.
“So what am I?”
“You are loved.”
Loved? Will snorted to hide a rush of embarrassment. “I hardly think—”
“No, it is true. The patients I spoke to love you. They say you are kind and caring, and give them all the time they need. They say when they are with you they feel they are your only patient. More than one told me they had called you in the night and you sent them to the emergency room. They figured you were passing them off to the emergency room staff, but when they arrived, they found you there waiting for them. I have not heard of many doctors who do that.”
“Just part of doing the job.”
“Then why are not all doctors loved?”
“I don't know about other doctors. And to tell you the truth, I don't really care. Managing my own practice was about all I could handle. I created my own little microcosm where I practiced my own style of medicine. And that involved listening. Listen well, and many times a patient will tell you exactly what's wrong with them—lay the diagnosis right out in front of you. Other times that's all people need—time to vocalize and someone to listen. All too often I think the prescription they carry away is nothing more than a Dumbo feather.”
“I am sorry? A dumb . . . ?”
“You know . . . Dumbo. The Disney elephant.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, of course.”
“Well, Dumbo could fly just fine on his own, but he didn't believe that. He thought he needed that crow feather to do it.”
She clapped her hands and laughed, and he found the sound delightful.
“A Dumbo feather. Yes, that is so true. I will have to remember that. And the fact that you see it is wonderful. It means you do not view yourself as some sort of deity dispensing cures. You know that sometimes you are only a facilitator.”
“Whoa,” he said. “Let's not get carried away here. I assure you all those years of med school and residency are worth something.”
But what are they worth now? he wondered. NYU pre-med, Harvard medical, three years as an internal medicine resident at Beth Israel, almost two decades of clinical practice—all that training and experience vanishing into smoke.
Will shook it off. “You've got to know how the body functions and how its processes break down, and how pharmaceuticals work to mend it. If you haven't mastered that, you're going to kill people.”
“But you need more than competence to be loved.”
“Please—”
“Does that make you uncomfortable . . . being loved by your patients?”
“Well, love is such a strong word. I don't love them. I mean, I like them, I care about them, I want to do right by them. But love them . . . ?”
“Do you love anyone?”
“I love my daughter Kelly.”
“Anyone else?”
“Annie . . . my ex.”
“You love her? Then why is she ‘ex’?”
“She feels she's better off without me.”
“She left you.”
Will nodded. “Yeah.”
“Did you abuse her?”
He hesitated, wondering where this woman thought she got the right to ask that, then shrugged it off.
“How could I? I was never around.”
“And that was the problem?”
“I think it all boils down to that. Staying with me and leaving me . . . I don't think she saw much difference, except that leaving offered her a chance to
find what she needed, while staying with me . . .”
“You wouldn't change to keep her?”
“‘Couldn't’ is more like it. After Kelly went off to college and it was just the two of us in that house, she started wanting more from me and I didn't have it. I was up to my lower lip in my practice and she was bouncing off the walls of an empty house. And many times, even when I was with her, I wasn't really with her . . . I was thinking about some patient slipping away in the hospital . . . some puzzling set of symptoms I'd seen in the office that day. I wasn't there for her. I was physically present but I wasn't . . . there. And she knew it. The long and the short is, I didn't deliver.”
Why am I telling her this? he wondered. Then figured, what did it matter? He wasn't going to be around long enough for anything he said to anyone to matter.
“Did you try—?”
“We tried everything, trust me: we went round and round for years, counseling, the whole bit. Let's just say we wore it out.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Like crazy.”
“Does she know that?”
“If you mean have I told her, no. A little late for that anyway. She found a new guy, they're going to marry.”
“And you approve?”
“Yeah. He's a nice guy. He'll be good for her.”
“And you're happy for her.”
“Annie is a good person. She deserves to be happy.”
She gave him a long stare. “I think you are a good person too, Dr. Burleigh.”
What's this all about? he wondered. All this stroking made him uncomfortable.
“I try. I'm okay, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I'm not one for much introspection. Haven't got time for it.”
Still she stared at him. “What is that quote about the life which is unexamined . . . ?”
“Being not worth living? Who was that? Socrates?”
“Plato.”
“Right. Well, I've got a message for Mr. Plato: Bull. Besides, in my business, I spend my time examining other people's lives, not the other way around.”
“Do you blame your practice for the failure of your marriage?”
“Me . . . my practice . . . we were one and the same. Somehow my patients always drew me away.”