The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [80]
Ben startled at the strange association, then he smiled. “A woman?”
David nodded. “Ginny. Her car and mine smacked together at an intersection. The sign her way was missing. The irony is still really painful. I met her through an auto accident, then …” For the first time, words became difficult.
Ben raised a hand. “David, if this is too hard for you right now, we can do it another time. Sooner or later, though, they are things I have to know.”
David toyed with his glass, then said, “Nope, I’m okay. Just stop me if it gets too maudlin—or too boring.” Ben grinned and waved him on. “We got married six months later. She was an interior decorator. A rare and gentle person. My whole life changed just by having her there. Over the next four years there was magic in everything I did. The head of the surgical department at White Memorial asked me to stay on an extra year as chief resident. That job is about the only way a surgeon can get a staff appointment at WMH. So it was all there. For a little while at least.
“We had a little girl, Becky; I finished the residency and started in practice. Then there was the accident. I was driving. I … well, I guess the details aren’t important. Becky and Ginny were dead. Just like that. I had scrapes and cuts, but really nothing. Except that in my own way I died too. I never really got back to work. I went from being a social drinker—almost a teetotaler—to being a drunk. One long bender. Thank God, I had enough sense to stay away from the operating room.
“I tried seeing minor cases at the office, though. That’s when the pill cycle started. My version of changing seats on the Titanic. Ups to get started, downs to sleep. You know the story. At first my associates were tolerant. Helpful, even. One at a time, though, I managed to work over their faith brutally enough to drive them away. It went on like that for almost a year. In the end, I was removed from the staff. I didn’t even know it had happened because I was lost in another bender.”
“It’s a bitch of a cycle to break out of,” Ben said.
“Alone it is. That’s for sure. Well, one morning I woke up in a cage. My last friend couldn’t stand it anymore. Actually, it was a hospital he brought me to. Briggs Institute?” Ben nodded that he knew the place. “It turned out to be a great place for me, but not those first few weeks. No handle on the door. Bars on the windows. The whole scene … Are you still awake?”
Ben managed a short laugh. “I got snatches of your story from Lauren and Dockerty,” he said, shaking his head, “but not like this. Getting locked up last night like you did …”
David shuddered. “I don’t have classic claustrophobia. At least, I don’t think I do. It’s just that ever since those early weeks at Briggs the thought of being locked up or trapped in a small place gives me this awful, gnawing sensation in my gut, and sometimes a chill that …” He stopped and managed a smile. “It really does sound like claustrophobia, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t like labels,” Ben said.
“Well, no matter.” David swallowed against the dusty dryness in his mouth, then drank half a glass of water. “Let’s see.… There’s not much left to tell. Several months at the institute and I was ready to go back to medicine. But not to surgery. I spent almost three years as a G.P. in one of the inner-city clinics, then went back and repeated the last two years of my surgical residency. I made the staff at Boston Doctors nearly two years ago. It hasn’t been easy, but things have been picking up. At least until a week ago they were.”
“David, this is much more than I ever hoped you would be able to tell me at this point,