people. I never had many friends, and I avoided crowded situations like bars and parties. I chose to live in student housing among people who didn’t like me because I was left alone. But still, I never consciously thought about the idea that I might be a misanthrope. It’s not the kind of personality trait one wants to attribute to oneself. And I had never come face-to-face with that possibility until forty hours after my fight with Gracie, when I had spent two straight days in the hospital without ever having one moment alone.
I am on my way to the bathroom, mostly so I can lock the door to the stall and sit down on the toilet and close my eyes. But someone follows me. It is a woman I have just spent twenty minutes calming down, whose son suffered a concussion and broke his leg skateboarding.
“Miss,” the mother says. “He doesn’t recognize me. He’s not talking. Are you sure he’s going to be okay?”
“Your son is asleep,” I say. “He doesn’t recognize you and he’s not talking because he’s asleep. We gave him pain medication and it made him drowsy, as I told you before. Can you understand that?” I speak slowly, because I want her to hear me this time. She seems a little slow.
“He just doesn’t seem right,” she says.
I am at the door to the bathroom. I have to get rid of this woman.
I say, “Your son was drunk when he fell off his skateboard onto his head. He wasn’t wearing a helmet. It was an idiotic thing to do. So you’re correct. He’s not right.”
The woman puts her hand over her mouth. I put my hand on the door to the bathroom, but something stops me from walking in. I glance around and see my attending, Dr. Lewis, on the opposite side of the hall. He is staring at me as if I’ve just admitted to snorting cocaine during my lunch break.
He rushes over, puts his arm around the woman’s shoulders, and leads her away. I go into the bathroom. When I come out, he is waiting. He is a bald man, my height. He has deep lines across his forehead.
He comes right out with it. “You don’t want to be a doctor, do you, Miss Leary?”
“I was tired,” I say. “I had already spent an adequate amount of time with the woman and her son’s injuries aren’t serious. . . .”
“Serious,” he repeats.
I wonder if there is something in the drinking water at the hospital this afternoon that has knocked a few digits off everyone’s IQ. “Yes,” I say, “serious.”
“I wonder if you are serious, Miss Leary.”
I remain silent, because he is clearly going somewhere with this and there’s no point in my getting in his way.
“I’ve been watching you.” He nods for emphasis. “You have plenty of promise, as you obviously know. You have a sharp mind. But there’s no kindness in you, and that’s a problem. You’re doing well enough now because you’ve been able to coast on the reputation you earned during your class work. But it takes more than intelligence to make it from this day forward. You’ll do well to remember that.” He thumps his fist against his chest and then walks away.
DR. LEWIS’S reprimand sticks with me. I play it over and over in my head. Am I the person he described? Do I not want to be a doctor?
He was definitely right about one thing. At the hospital, in my work, I am on very thin ice. Every time I meet a new doctor, he or she is excited to work with me, having heard about my accomplishments, my grades, my memory. But that excitement lasts only so long, as I inevitably lose my patience in front of them. I know Dr. Lewis, for one, has requested not to work with me. There may be others who have done the same. This is a worrying situation that seems to have little chance of improving. Even with my stellar reputation, I am using up any second chances.
When I leave the hospital at the end of the day, I call the Realtor from my cell phone and tell him I will meet him the next morning. I would do almost anything for Gram, but not this. I need to be able to seal myself off more effectively. I need my own bathtub to soak in, my own answering machine to leave on at all times, my own curtains to