After pulling into a parking space at the hospital and turning off the ignition, Anil rested his forehead on the steering wheel. If he wanted to, he could scream here—scream as loud as he wanted and no one would hear him. He waited for some sound to erupt from his throat, for the release of tension that would accompany it. Nothing.
Anil sat there, his fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. He was incensed at Trey for stealing the meds and lying about it. And he was furious about the things he’d read in Leena’s letter, unable to reconcile what he knew of her with Ma’s scathing judgment. And, perhaps unjustifiably, he felt disappointed Sonia had not trusted him enough to share more about herself.
No one was who they pretended to be. Nothing was as it seemed. Sometimes, it was impossible to know which of the things he’d learned would endure and which would be proven wrong at the next turn. Anil stayed in his car for several more minutes, breathing in and out, waiting for the emotions to subside before he returned to the hospital.
ANIL WAS sitting at the break-room table with a stack of charts when Sonia entered the room. “Hey Patel, I thought you were gone for the day.” She walked past him to the kitchen counter.
“Just came back to finish some charts,” Anil said. He tried to focus on his work, debating whether to say anything.
Bubbling sounds and the aroma of fresh coffee filled the room. “Coffee?” Sonia asked.
“I heard about CMR,” Anil said. “Congratulations. You’re going to make a great chief.”
Sonia warmed her hands around her mug. “Well, thanks, but it’s not public yet, so I’d appreciate you keeping it quiet until next week. They have to notify the other candidates first. I haven’t even told my parents yet. How did you hear?”
“I didn’t know you were married.” The words slipped unchecked from Anil’s mouth.
Sonia looked at him for several moments. Anil could feel light perspiration on his nose, his spectacles slipping down its bridge. “I’m not married,” she said.
“I know it’s none of my business—”
“No, it’s not, Patel.” Sonia stared at him for several moments, then pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down. “We met in medical school, on the first day of Gross Anatomy, as clichéd as that sounds. Everything was easy. We fell in love and got married after third year. We both matched at Parkview. We were going to suffer through residency together. Romantic, huh?” Sonia looked up at him and smiled. “Yeah, we were clueless.” She paused to let out a deep breath. “On graduation day, I started having sharp pains in my abdomen. I thought it was just indigestion or reflux. I must have taken a whole roll of antacids, but the pain got worse, until I couldn’t stand up anymore. It was my right side, so we thought it might be appendicitis. He drove me to the hospital.” Sonia gave a weaker smile now. “We joked in the car about what a good story it would make one day . . . that he’d have to roll me across the stage on a gurney to get my diploma after getting my appendix out.” She stopped and looked out the window, past Anil. “Turns out it was an ovarian cyst that ruptured. When they opened me up, they found cysts all over both ovaries. They had to take them out.”
“The cysts?” Anil twisted the cap on and off his pen, unable to stop.
“My ovaries,” Sonia said. “Both of them.” She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment. Her voice was tighter when she continued. “When all our classmates were getting their diplomas, I was waking up in a recovery room to find out I no longer had any ovaries.” She shook her head. “And my husband was learning his new bride would never have children.” Sonia placed her coffee mug on the table very gently, as if it was more fragile than it was. “He was really supportive, but we never got past that. It was too much. There are some things a young love can’t survive. We’d only been married a year. He was twenty-five. He wanted his own children. And I thought he deserved that.” She reached for her mug again and raised it to her lips.
Although he’d never stopped to think of Sonia as a mother, Anil found the idea that she never would be now profoundly sad. “Sonia, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s for the best.”
“How?” Anil said. “How is it for the best?”
“Well, I love this.” She held up her hands. “All of it. I’ve wanted to be a chief medical resident from the first day I stepped into a hospital. And next I want to be an attending, and then chief of staff. How many female chiefs do you see? It’s impossible to do what I want to do and have a family. I would have had to choose at some point. And now I don’t have to. That’s the way I think of it anyway. Everything happens for a reason, and now I’m free to pursue my calling without guilt. Or without disappointing anybody—my husband, my parents. I got all that out of the way early.” She tried to smile. “Always an overachiever.”
“What happened . . . to him?” Anil asked.
“We split up at the end of our internship year, and Casey transferred out to a program in San Antonio.” She traced her finger around the rim of the coffee mug. “Married his high school sweetheart, a preschool teacher. Baby on the way. See, all for the best.” She looked up at him. “I didn’t tell you because . . . well, I didn’t get a lot of support from the Indian community. Turns out it’s quite a black mark to be divorced by twenty-five.” She raised an eyebrow.
Anil nodded. “Yes, not a lot of tolerance for imperfection in our culture.”
They shared a warm smile, then Sonia stood up, walked over to the sink, and poured the rest of her coffee into it. “So how’s your fellowship application coming? Did you get Tanaka on board with your research project?”
“No,” Anil said. “He’s already overseeing another project for Trey Crandall.”
“Trey? Oh, he’s sharp.” Sonia returned with a fresh cup of coffee. “Very sharp. I remember him from the ICU. You should see if you can team up with him.”
Anil snorted and shook his head. “No way. He’s the last person I’d work with.”
“You know, you’re just like him.” Sonia smiled. “Cherished son. Important father. Trey’s been a prince his whole life, but he’s still trying to prove it to himself. The only difference is you left home, Anil. You’re a fish out of water here, and Trey’s still a big fish in his home pond. Other than that, you’re not so different.”
Anil looked at her with disbelief that quickly swelled into anger. “You’re wrong.” He pushed his chair away from the table. “I’m nothing like him.” He stood up and walked out of the break room.
26
ANIL ENTERED THE HOSPITAL CAFETERIA SHORTLY BEFORE NOON and surveyed the specials posted on the board; as usual, there were no vegetarian choices. He contemplated yet another cheese sandwich and checked his watch, annoyed at Trey for making him wait. It was maddening, this feeling of powerlessness that lately had crept into every part of his life. Yesterday, he’d led a code that lasted forty minutes, certain he’d be able to revive the patient, but in the end he’d lost the sixteen-year-old girl. Despite his independent research project showing promise, he still hadn’t been able to secure a sponsor within the Cardiology Department. And he’d been avoiding his mother’s phone calls, her messages about disputes that needed his attention. He could not bear talking to her about anything since receiving Leena’s letter. In all the areas that mattered most, Anil was utterly powerless, and it was a feeling he loathed.
Since the incident with Trey at the drug trolley, Anil had turned the quandary over and over in his mind, recalling what he’d seen and how Trey had responded, weighing the options before him. He’d pulled out the hospital handbook from orientation and reviewed the pharmaceutical checkout protocols. He’d even made an appointment with Human Resources, then canceled it. Parkview had a zero-tolerance policy for substance abuse, and the penalties were severe. Trey could be suspended from the residency program and lose his medical license, and Anil was simply too uncertain about what had happened. Could Trey have taken the drugs for a patient? Was it sim
ply carelessness or poor record-keeping, or was it theft? Was it addiction?
Anil reconsidered everything he knew about Trey: the habitual gum chewing might be due to the dry mouth caused by amphetamines. He often paced the corridors, and always walked quickly. And there was Trey’s formidable performance, both in regular duties and his extracurricular research. He seemed to operate at a superhuman level. The looming fellowship applications complicated things further: Trey’s qualifications alone made him a strong candidate; his father’s position on the hospital board made him unassailable. If Anil reported Trey, he couldn’t be sure anyone would believe him. With those decisions on the horizon, he certainly didn’t need to create waves at the hospital. Or to have Trey looking over his shoulder to catch a mistake, as he’d threatened.
Even as he tried to push all this aside, Anil knew, in some quiet corner of his mind, that he might stand to benefit without Trey in the race. He had spun himself into a knot to find the right answer before realizing he needed to know more. Resisting his tendency to work things out for himself, Anil had taken Charlie’s advice and asked Trey to have lunch today. Glancing at his watch again, Anil was now ready to condemn Trey for tardiness on top of his other shortcomings when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Trey was dressed impeccably, as always, in a blue shirt that fit his shoulders squarely and a designer silk tie uncharacteristic of a resident’s salary. He smiled and leaned toward Anil. “You don’t want to eat here, do you? Let’s go get some real food.”
Anil hesitated.
“You like Mexican food? I know a great spot,” Trey said. “Come on, I’m parked right outside.”
Anil’s salivary glands betrayed him, and he followed Trey to the exit doors.
TREY DROVE an early-model BMW with unblemished navy-blue paint and a convertible top. As they roared out of the parking lot, Trey shouted over the chugging diesel engine, “Have you been to Oak Cliff?” Without waiting for an answer, he drove several miles on the highway with the top down, negating any possibility of conversation, before taking an exit unfamiliar to Anil.
They followed a winding road into a valley and up a hill, until the scenery changed to something Anil had never seen before in Dallas. All he’d observed in his three years here was flat terrain with large building complexes like Parkview or strip malls with the same branded stores. Baldev once told him Dallas repeated itself every five miles, and after seeing a CVS, Tom Thumb, and Wells Fargo at each major intersection, Anil agreed. And yet, they were now driving along a hilly crest with a view of the entire downtown skyline in the distance, a vantage point he’d never seen in this city that had become his home.
Less than fifteen minutes after leaving the hospital cafeteria, Trey pulled into a large dirt lot across from a gas station and parked the car. The centerpiece of the lot was a white truck with a hand-painted sign hanging on its one open side. A handful of beat-up cars and pickup trucks were clustered around the truck at odd angles, and a dozen men, all Hispanic, sat on scattered wooden stumps and overturned milk crates, eating and talking. Soda bottles and cans littered the ground around their feet.
“Ditch the coat, Patel,” Trey said as he climbed out of the car. Anil slipped off his white coat and tossed it onto the backseat along with Trey’s. As they approached the white truck, apprehension rose within him. Trey was the only fair-skinned person in the vicinity, even more conspicuous with his blond hair, but he showed no hesitancy as he strode toward the truck, rolling up his dress-shirt sleeves. “Jorge,” he bellowed into the window of the truck, reaching inside to slap hands with a man whose round terracotta face glistened with sweat. They bantered in fluent Spanish for a few moments before Trey motioned toward Anil. “Okay, Patel, what’s your pleasure? Carnitas? Al pastor?”
Anil looked over the menu, which listed two kinds of beef, plus pork and chicken, and realized this had been a bad idea. He shook his head. “I don’t eat meat.”
Trey stared at him for a second, then turned back to Jorge and spoke in rapid-fire Spanish. Anil stepped closer to the truck to peer inside the window at the kitchen operations, then thought better of it and stepped back again.
“Hot or mild?” Trey asked.
“Hot,” Anil said. “Extra hot.”
When Trey turned back around after ordering, he was holding two glass soda bottles. “Coca-Cola Light.” He handed one of the heavily scuffed bottles to Anil. “Ever tried it? It’s only sold in Mexico. I think these guys smuggle it over the border. Tastes different from the American version, sweeter. Reminds me of the family beach trips we used to take to the Gulf when I was a kid.” He gestured to a couple of sun-bleached rickety lawn chairs sitting in the shade of the truck.
Anil sat down, discreetly wiping the top of the bottle with his shirt cuff before taking a sip. The soda bubbled into his mouth and slid easily down his throat, making him smile.
“Good, huh?” Trey held up his bottle for affirmation.
Anil held up the bottle and inspected the contents in the sunlight. “Yeah. Tastes like Thums Up—that’s the only cola we had in India years ago before Coke and Pepsi came in.”
From the window of the truck, Jorge leaned out and shouted to Trey, who went to retrieve their order. He returned with two flimsy paper plates bowing under the weight of the food, and handed one to Anil. “Three beans and cheese with hot salsa. Extra chilies on the side. I didn’t know you were a vegetarian.”
“I didn’t know you were Mexican,” Anil retorted.
Trey grinned before he sank his teeth into a taco dripping with meat juices. Anil picked up one of his tacos, its inner contents shrouded by the mound of chopped lettuce on top.
The first bite reminded Anil of the chaat stalls on the streets of Ahmadabad he used to frequent until one of his friends contracted an infection that put him down for a week. A single mouthful brought together creamy pinto beans, tangy crumbles of cheese, crunchy lettuce, and salsa so spicy it left his tongue burning. Anil didn’t dare ask if the beans were prepared with lard, as Mahesh always did when at Mexican restaurants.
“So what do you think?” Trey asked.
“Mmm.” Anil followed Trey in topping his second taco with extra jalapeños. “You don’t find this spicy?”
“Nah. I love it,” Trey said, wiping at his nose.
“It’s really good.” Anil was grateful to have avoided another tasteless meal at the Parkview cafeteria but hadn’t forgotten the reason for their meeting. “Listen, Trey.” He balanced his plate on his lap. “We need to talk about what happened that night, at the med trolley—”
Trey held up a hand and wiped his mouth with a napkin. He nodded a few times while he finished chewing. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Patel. That was totally decent of you to keep it between us. You could’ve really screwed me.”
“I haven’t said anything yet, but it doesn’t mean I won’t,” Anil said. “I-I-I have an obligation, you know. This isn’t just about you.” Anil looked around the lot, but no one was paying them any attention.He lowered his voice. “Trey, I need to know whether you took the drugs.”
“Yeah, Patel, you know I did. But it was an honest mistake. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“No, I mean, did you take them?” Anil said. “Did you take the Adderall, yourself?”
Trey dropped his gaze and tapped on the gravel with his shoe.
“Trey, did you?” Anil pressed.
Trey kept his eyes on the ground as he spoke. “I just needed something to get me through the night.”
Anil closed his eyes. Without realizing it, he’d been hoping for a different answer.
“I needed a little boost, like an espresso shot without the jitters. You know what it’s like, Patel. You’ve got a dozen patients who all need something, your pager keeps going off, the nurses are too busy to help. Sometimes you need a little . . . edge, that’s all.” Trey was rubbing his palms back and forth along his pant legs, getting more animated as he spoke. The sun had shifted overhead; it was beginning to creep into the periphery of
their space.
“How long?” Anil asked.
“It’s not a habit, if that’s what you’re asking,” Trey said, meeting his eyes. “Just once in a while, when I need a little boost. And it’s not just me. A lot of residents do it.”
“Trey”—Anil lowered his voice—“you could lose your license.”
“Look, I haven’t done it since that night, and I’m not going to do it again. You scared the shit out of me, man.”
“Yeah, well, you were a little scary yourself.” Anil recalled the curl of Trey’s lip, his overbearing physical presence.
“Sorry,” Trey said. “I was worried you were going to report me.” He stared at the remaining tacos on his plate but made no move toward them. “Are you?”
“I don’t know.” Anil shrugged. “We’re all under a lot of pressure, Trey. And it’s not going to get any better. How do I know you’re really going to stop?”
Trey nodded. “I have already, man. It’s just been rough for me lately. I can’t sleep on my days off because of my research project with Tanaka. My dad expects me to have an article ready to publish by the end of residency. ‘You have to make a name for yourself, Trey. You can’t rely on my reputation to build your career.’ Which is ironic, because I don’t even have my own damn name.” A wry smile came across his face. “You know that, right? Trey means the third. It’s not even a real name.” He took a swig from his Coke bottle and leaned back in the lawn chair. “William Adam Crandall the third. My grandfather’s William, my dad goes by Bill, and all I get is a little footnote, number three. Trey.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then continued speaking. “I used to like that when I was a kid: being part of this great tradition, the family lineage. That was before I understood the price it came with.”
The sunlight now engulfed the lower halves of their bodies; it wouldn’t be long before it reached their arms and faces and became unbearable. Trey continued talking, almost oblivious to Anil’s presence. “First, it was SMU for undergrad, where I had to double major in biology and chemistry, then off to Baylor for medical school.” He turned his head sideways toward Anil. “Because the Crandalls are Baylor men. And then residency at Parkview, of course. But we’re not done yet.” Trey held up his forefinger. “Oh no, I still have to publish this article, score a cardiology fellowship at Parkview. Then a few more years to chief medical resident and full-steam ahead to head of Cardiology. And after all that, I’ll be perfectly positioned to rake in the big bucks at my old man’s private practice, if he thinks I’m worthy. But more likely, it’ll be because he needs more time for all his board work—Parkview, MedTherapy, Children’s Cancer House, the university. Everybody wants a piece of the Crandall magic.” Trey tossed his empty bottle on the ground. “Everyone thinks it’s so great to have my father on the hospital board, but the pressure.” Trey shook his head. “Man, the pressure is intense—from him, from everyone who knows him—and it never lets up. They know who I am before I open my mouth, before I do a single damn thing.” He nudged the Coke bottle with the toe of his leather loafer, now coated with dust. “What I would give to be totally anonymous at Parkview.”