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By Root 118 0

he completed a fellowship in cranial-facial surgery and moved the family to Raleigh, where he joined a practice with another surgeon just as the population was beginning to boom. As the only specialists in that field in the community, their practice grew. By thirty-four, he’d paid off his debts from medical school. By thirty-six, he was associated with every major hospital in the area and did the bulk of his work at the University of North Carolina Medical Center. There, he participated in a joint clinical study with physicians from the Mayo Clinic on neurofibromas. A year later, he had an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine concerning cleft palates. Another article on hemangiomas followed four months later and helped to redefine surgical procedures for infants in that field. His reputation grew, and after operating successfully on Senator Norton’s daughter, who’d been disfigured in a car accident, he made the front page of The Wall Street Journal.

In addition to reconstructive work, he was one of the first physicians in North Carolina to expand his practice to include plastic surgery, and he caught the wave just as it started to swell. His practice boomed, his income multiplied, and he started to accumulate things. He purchased a BMW, then a Mercedes, then a Porsche, then another Mercedes. He and Martha built the home of their dreams. He bought stocks and bonds and shares in a dozen different mutual funds. When he realized he couldn’t keep up with the intricacies of the market, he hired a money manager. After that, his money began doubling every four years. Then, when he had more than he’d ever need for the rest of his life, it began to triple.

And still he worked. He scheduled surgeries not only during the week, but on Saturday as well. He spent Sunday afternoons in the office. By the time he was forty-five, the pace he kept eventually burned out his partner, who left to work with another group of doctors.

In the first few years after Mark was born, Martha often talked about having another child. In time, she stopped bringing it up. Though she forced him to take vacations, he did so reluctantly, and in the end, she took to visiting her parents with Mark and leaving Paul at home. Paul found time to go to some of the major events in his son’s life, those things that happened once or twice a year, but he missed most everything else.

He convinced himself that he was working for the family. Or for Martha, who’d struggled with him in the early years. Or for the memory of his father. Or for Mark’s future. But deep down, he knew he was doing it for himself.

If he could list his major regret about those years now, it would be about his son; yet despite Paul’s absence from his life, Mark surprised him by deciding to become a doctor. After Mark had been accepted to medical school, Paul spread the word around the hospital corridors, pleased by the thought that his son would join him in the profession. Now, he thought, they would have more time together, and he remembered taking Mark to lunch in the hopes of convincing him to become a surgeon. Mark simply shook his head.

“That’s your life,” Mark told him, “and it’s not a life that interests me at all. To be honest, I feel sorry for you.”

The words stung. They had an argument. Mark made bitter accusations, Paul grew furious, and Mark ended up storming out of the restaurant. Paul refused to talk to him for the next couple of weeks, and Mark made no attempt to make amends. Weeks turned into months, then into years. Though Mark continued the warm relationship he had with his mother, he avoided coming home when he knew his father was around.

Paul handled the estrangement with his son in the only way he knew. His workload stayed the same, he ran his usual five miles a day; in the mornings, he studied the financial pages in the newspaper. But he could see the sadness in Martha’s eyes, and there were moments, usually late at night, when he wondered how to repair the rift with his son. Part of him wanted to pick up the phone and call, but he never found the will