Issue 42 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

etween cement and concrete. I worked hard, sweated, never asked
questions. I had logged many hours of observation but still he
remained a Inystery. The psoriasis encased him like layer upon layer
of a resin that would refract light in such a way that form could be
seen but all detail lost.
None of this was on my mind when I went out to find the pants
man's son 1'd met earlier outside the CICD.
The son was still wearing the same nondescript suit, but he looked
older and more frightened.
"Can I see him?" he asked.
We walked through the CICU doors and into the cubicle that
was CICU Bed One. I recall their eyes meeting and then the
expression on the son's face. They said a few words to one
another, then the son and I left.
As we walked he asked if he could ask me a question.
"Of course," I said. My patient - his father - was now stable. I
felt ready to assuage whatever pain or concern I imagined he had. It
was like being back at Bellevue. I was beginning to feel in charge of
things again. I prepared my usual statement: "He's stable but anything
can happen; we won't know much until after at least 24 to 48
hours." (The key is to provide hope and encouragement, but as little
actual prediction as possible.)
But I couldn't have been more wrong about what I ilnagined his
concerns to be.
"Do you see those two women sitting next to one another?" he asked.
I nodded.
"The one on the right is my mother; the one on the left is my
father's mistress. Neither knows the other. What should I do?"
I wish I could recall exactly what I said or did then. I cannot even
remember what either woman looked like. Did they look alike? Was
one blonde and the other brunette? One tall, the other small? Did
they make up two halves of one whole?
This was not a problem of navigating the complicated emotional
waters of wives or mistresses, or contemplating the reasons why
men find comfort or excitement in people other than their spouses.
If those were the questions I had to answer, I would have failed miserably.
I would have failed because - despite the fact that I had felt
the ribs of elderly women crack under the pressure of my failed
resucitation efforts, watched as surgeons dug their hands into the
open chests of boys who had been shot and marveled at bodies ravaged
by drugs, alchohol and sundry forms of ectoparasite - I was
still just a pastiche of hardened experience and pudding-like naivete.
At that time in my life, I had never even known anyone who'd had
an affair.
What I did know then was that life as a doctor was all about the
extremes. And extremes, to me, defined what was most human. In
that moment I understood that my job was to safeguard an extremely
vital secret. I was there to figure out a way to protect the father, protect
the life of the man I had just spent the last five hours saving. It
was a role I knew well.
The son and I quickly devised a strategy to have his mother visit
first. Then, as they were leaving, I would go out and get the mistress,
make sure that their paths did not cross
and bring her in to see her lover. It was a
plan formed from the distillation of the
advice my father gave me: "Tell your
mother you love her, then just do what
you want."
This is where the story ends for me. I
cannot recall anything after. It is lost to
me. I know what I did not do, though; I
did not ask the son what he was thinking
or feeling. Had he known his father was
having an affair, or was he completely
shocked? Had he even wanted his father
to live? Or was this just another one of
those times when it seems like children
The son and I
qUickly devised a
strategy to have
his mother visit
first. Then I would
go out and get
the mistress.
have an infinite capacity for forgiving their parents? That same kind
of capacity that finds children protecting those who hurt them, or trying
valiantly to placate the implacable.
It is difficult for me to imagine what I would have done in that
moment, confronted by a living, breathing, someone-who-washaving-sex-with-my-father
secret. This was not the secret life I
imagined my father had. It was inconceivable to me that he could
have had an affair, inconceivable that he could touch anyone or
have anyone touch him. His psoriasis was a barrier to all contact.
My father's secret life that I spent my childhood fantasizing about,
as I waited for him outside of closed office doors or in the aisles of
electronics shops, involved clandestine meetings between agents of
Middle East governments, or corporate espionage on behalf of rival
fuel-cell technology companies. I traveled with him everywhere,
even waiting alone in a nursing home parking lot when he went to