Work Text:
******************************************
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife"
– Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime
Countdown to a hot mess, five, four, three, two, one
It's time to live my life like it's never been done
Shoot me like a magnet up to the sun, yeah
Better late than never
– Metric, Victim of Luck
******************************************
The first thing he’s aware of is a woman’s voice. She calls for a Jack and cracks his eye open so she can shine a light in it. He knows she’s checking for his pupillary response which will give her important information about his neurological health. He’s not sure how he knows this, but he does. He also knows they are going to ask him what today’s date is and where he is and he has no idea. More troubling – it occurs to him that he doesn’t know his name. He thinks maybe it’s Jack because she keeps saying it. She looks into the other eye and the light is uncomfortable and he waves her hand away.
A new voice calls out vitals and they are pretty good.
He opens his eyes and tries to sit up, but there are multiple hands on him to keep him lying down. Several voices call out at once.
“Woah.”
“Hold on there.”
“Stay still for us.”
“We have to check for spinal injuries first,” The lead voice, the one with the penlight says, it belongs to a curly-haired woman, maybe 40, and probably a doctor, he thinks. She says, “Can you push against my hand?”
Her hand is at his left foot and he pushes against it like a gas pedal. “Great,” she says, but doesn’t move to his right foot, which is both good and disconcerting. His right leg is sore. There’s a sort of dull ache below the knee and he can’t feel his foot.
“There’s something weird on the right side. Don’t you want to check that leg?”
And that’s when all the people who had been hovering around him stop and exchange worried looks. He can almost hear the record scratch.
He notices the prosthetic leg at the edge of the bed. ”Oh shit. Is that mine?”
******************************************
There’s a lot more commotion and fuss. Curly hair asks two other women – he thinks maybe they are nurses since their scrubs are a different color – if they saw him hit his head or have a seizure and her penlight is back, checking his pupils again. He knows the most likely cause of his amnesia (retrograde he hopes and not also anterograde) is a brain injury which would be a bummer on top of having lost some portion of his right leg. He wants to check out his residual limb and scars; he can probably use them to figure out when it happened; it was obviously not today.
“I’m fine, really,” he says, trying to make light of the whole thing. “Just pulling all your good legs.” He’s not totally sure why, but he just wants to go home (surely his address is on his driver’s license) and deal with this himself. Being on a bed with all these people around him is weird and distressing.
“Do you know what your name is?” The woman asks. She is pretty; her face is stern, but warm. It occurs to him that she knows him. She is wearing black scrubs and he notices he is too. Oh, he thinks, I’m a doctor. That actually makes a lot of sense.
“You’ve been calling me Jack, so I’m gonna go with that.” Everyone laughs.
“Ok,” she says smiling. “Can you tell me what day it is?”
“A shitty one, apparently.” More laughter. The crowd is relaxing.
“Jack, you know I need you to take this seriously. Do you know where you are?”
That one is at least obvious. “The hospital.”
“Which one?” She presses him; her eyes getting suspicious.
He can see which one it is on the badge clipped to her scrub pocket. He catches her name as well. “PTMC,” he says.
She notices him looking at her badge and covers it with her hand. “Do you know my name?”
He saw it before she hid it. “Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi.”
“What about him,” she asks, pointing with her chin at the man on the other side of the bed, he’s maybe 30, Black. He’s wearing black scrubs like she is, so he guesses he’s a doctor. He reaches for the guy’s name and can’t get it. He knows he should know, but it’s just not there.
“Sorry brother,” he says. “I have no idea.”
******************************************
Dr. Al-Hashimi orders a whole bunch of blood tests. The part of his memory that is oddly still intact tells him it’s to check for thiamine deficiency among other things, even though he thinks it’s pretty obvious that he’s not malnourished, better to check and he appreciates the thoroughness.
There’s some discussion between her, two other doctors, and a red-headed nurse as to whether he can get an MRI – it’s unclear if he has shrapnel still in his body and that’s how he learns he lost the leg serving in the Army – and gets a CT scan instead. They debate calling someone named Robby (another name he doesn’t recognize) and the nurse is sent to get ahold of him.
He plays with the ring on his third finger, the fourth digit of his left hand. He knows what it means. It makes sense. It’s not so much that he feels married, but more than anything since he woke up he knows this one thing about himself: loves someone.
There is so much love inside him for this woman. Something in his chest aches with it – a deep and endless warmth, a sharp edged attraction, a sense of awe and wonder at her. It settles him just a little; keeps him from being scared or worried, sets his mind at ease. There is someone out there who he loves. Everything else will fall into place as it needs to. He has this. He has her.
“Do you think someone could call my wife?” He asks Al-Hashimi
“Sure,” she says, a teasing glint in her eye. “Don’t suppose you remember her number, your phone got destroyed in the accident and it’s not in your file.”
He reaches for it in his brain, but it’s not there. Just another thing his mind has scrambled. He snaps his fingers, playing along. “Nope, I sure don’t.” he tells her.
They share a laugh. “Robby is on his way, I’m sure he knows.” She squeezes his shoulder and walks away.
He thinks he can guess his wife’s reaction to all this even if he can’t picture her. She’ll be worried, then mad, then they will laugh about it. He has the strongest feeling that she will tease him – do things like trying to get him to eat boring food and telling him it’s his favorite. Do her best to convince him folding laundry is his preferred way to relax. He looks forward to meeting her again.
It’s not Al-Hashimi who walks back into his room, some long time later, but a man; white, tall and bearded.
“Hey Jack,” the tall man says. “Do you know who I am?”
He tries like he has been with each new person who has come into his little room, but all there is is the sensation that he should know this guy. There’s nothing there but white noise. Jack shakes his head.
“That ok, I heard you got quite the knock on your head.”
“So they tell me, I don’t remember that either.”
“You might never remember the accident.”
“I know that, which is weird, I don’t even know my own last name.”
The bearded man smiles. “It’s Abbot; two b’s; one t.”
“Ok,” he says. It feels right, but he also feels like his gut is not exactly stellar at the moment, so who knows. He feels like this guy is primed to give him shit.
“My name is Michael Robinavitch, but pretty much everyone, including you, calls me Robby.”
“And we’re friends?”
“Do you remember that?”
“No, everyone was talking about you – they thought you might know more of my medical history than is in MyChart.”
“Yeah, we’ve been friends for close to 20 years. See if this helps.” Robby brings over a tin of tiger balm and holds it out to him.
“I’m not that sore, it’s ok.”
“Just smell it, see if it brings anything back.” Jack takes the tin and opens it.
It’s smart. Smell is often the most powerful memory trigger. He brings the tin to his nose and inhales. The smell itself is familiar, like Christmas and a nursing home all at once and before long the memories rush in. Dragging Robby to the gym and then sitting on the couch, watching whatever is in season, complaining about being old. It’s so clear that it’s almost off-putting like the memory is forced into his brain through his nose.
There’s more, but it’s just flashes really, things that don’t make much sense. Laughing at a bar, Jack can almost feel the shape of a beer bottle in his hand; Robby in a trauma gown working on a patient, but not in a room, out in the middle of the floor; him crying desperately, struggling to breathe against Robby’s shoulder, tie like a noose around his own neck.
He can’t place any of these memories. He tries to pin one or the other down, and play it forward or wind it back longer to get more context, see more of the image like a watching movie, but he can’t; the film has run out.
“Well, that’s fucking weird,” he says and puts the top back on the tin
“Did it work?” Robby sounds surprised even though it was his idea.
“Sort of,” he thinks a little longer, trying to push through the TV snow in his brain. “I’m worried about you.”
Robby closes his eyes, nods. When he speaks his voice sounds tight. “I’ve been struggling a bit. But I’m doing better. You helped me a lot.”
“Good,” he says. Something loosens in his chest. He wonders if it’s that easy – he just needs to smell things and get his memories back, or at least some of them. “Were you able to help Al-Hashimi get ahold of my wife? Maybe you can tell me her name so I don’t embarrass myself?”
“Samantha. Sam.” Robby says gently. He takes a deep breath. Lets it out. Looks at him right in the eye. “Do you know what Coronavirus is?”
“A family of viruses known for causing respiratory infections.” He’s not sure where this is going, but he continues to be amazed at the medical knowledge he has while he can’t remember basic other things like what kind of car he drives.
“That’s right. What about COVID-19? Or the pandemic?”
“Sort of, I know there was one, but I don’t remember working during it; I imagine I did.”
Robby nods. “Wow, I’m kind of jealous. It was very hard. I wish I could forget it.”
“Ok,” Jack says, wanting Robby to get to the point.
“Sam got COVID pretty early in the pandemic and she died.” Jack looks around and it’s as though the room is closing in on him. It’s not so much that the walls are coming in to crush him, but all of the sudden there is so much detail and he has no choice to take it all in at once. The lights are too bright, the crack in the wall near ceiling too sharp, he can hear the hum of the oxygen lines even though he knows he shouldn’t be able to.
“I’m so sorry,” Robby continues. “It’s been six years now. She wasn’t here, she was in Virginia with her family. She got excellent care, but there was nothing anyone could do.”
He feels himself nodding like it makes sense when it absolutely doesn’t. He feels all this love still, though, and it feels like it’s been growing, like it’s deep and new. How can she be gone?
Maybe that’s why he still wears the ring.
******************************************
He gets a repeat CT. Same as the first: no abnormalities. Someone from neuro comes down and gives him a battery of tests to gauge his coordination, balance, and reflexes. He draws some shapes like the best kindergartener ever. He remembers the words car, bird, and clock for twenty minutes; proving that his earlier self diagnosis was right: his amnesia isn’t anterograde. The guy from neuro knows him and thinks the whole thing is hilarious. Jack wishes he could agree. He just wants to go home and he tells Robby so.
Robby isn’t so thrilled with the idea and leaves him alone again to go do…something.
The day shift must be starting because new people come by, popping their heads into the room so check on him, but it feels to Jack like they are gawking. They obviously all know him and he hasn’t the first clue who they are. A nurse with white-blonde hair comes in and sits near him. She calls him “hon” and asks if he wants something to eat or maybe some coffee. She rubs his arm and looks at him like he’s not fooling her when he tells her he’s fine. She’s the first person to make him feel comfortable and he feels terrible that he doesn’t know her name.
Robby comes back finally and Jack can feel the anxiety rolling off him in waves. There’s an unhinged quality to him, Jack thinks Robby is normally a pretty controlled guy, but the person in front of him is expansive with chaos coming out of his pores.
“Al-Hashimi is going to stay and cover for a while. I’m gonna take you home.”
“Great. That’s great. Thank you,” he says as he gets his prosthetic leg and liner and puts them on. He doesn’t even think about it until it hits him that it’s also weird that he knows how to do this.
He gets up and starts to follow Robby out of the room.
“I have to go up to admin first and assure them you’re not going to drop dead or file a lawsuit tonight or try and go practice medicine somewhere.”
“Seriously?” Robby nods. “All I want to do is eat something and go to sleep and hopefully wake up with all my memories.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Robby hands him a piece of paper. It has the number 6 on it and below that is a 10-digit number. Neither has much significance.
As if reading his mind, Robby tells him, “Six is your locker number. The longer number is the code that will reset the combination. Just enter that into your locker and it will open. Get your shit and wait for me at the Hub –” Before he can tell Robby he has no idea what the ‘Hub’ is, Robby continues “-- where the board is and all the computers. You can’t miss it. I’ll try not to be long.”
He steps out of the room into the controlled chaos of the ED. It soothes something in him, the movement and noise give him a warm, homey feeling.
He turns left and walks past Robby, who gives him a raised eyebrow. “You know where you’re going?”
Jack points, “Past the trauma rooms, right?” Robby nods and extends his arm like, go ahead.
A few heads turn as he walks across the floor, but it’s not as bad as all the visitors earlier. Everyone has a job to do out here and a place to be. The man he knows now is Crus Henderson is running a trauma in Trauma 2 and a small part of him aches to join.
He sees her as soon as he turns the corner and he stops in his tracks. She’s got her locker open and she’s putting her hair up using a rubber band or something from her wrist. She stretches, lifting her arms above her head, she turns a little to deepen the stretch on one side and she sees him then. Acknowledges him with a tight smile and a soft, “Hey” before she turns the other way.
He knows two things right away: 1) even in this terrible lighting, even looking tired and stressed in what is obviously her morning, she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and 2) the love that has been bubbling under his skin since he woke up belongs to her. He has never felt more relieved in his entire life. The love he feels for her hits him like a mac truck. This is his person. His wife. His world. His everything.
He’s not sure why Robby would’ve thought it would be a funny joke to tell him she was dead. He feels like maybe he’s the kind of person who likes pranks, but making him think she was gone was beyond cruel. This must be why Robby was so weird earlier, sending him to the lockers, jittery and strange. He doesn’t think she has any idea what’s going on, because he knows she would’ve come to him.
“It’s so good to see you,” he nearly sobs, walking to her, pulling her into his arms and holding on for dear life. “I’ve had such a day. You wouldn’t believe it. Robby said you were dead. Is he usually that big of an asshole?"
He pulls back so he can lean in again to kiss her, but she moves away, out of his arms, and stops him with a firm hand on his chest when he tries to follow her, “Dr. Abbot,” she says, “What the hell are you doing?”
******************************************
He learns her name is Samira Mohan and she is not his wife. She never met his wife, but confirms that, as far as she knows, she is dead.
He is mortified. He tells her about the accident, his amnesia; she brushes off his inappropriateness with compassionate distance -- very doctor-like. She takes out her penlight to check his pupils for about the 1000th time today.
“Maybe you were confused because our names are similar,” she says gently. Samantha and Samira. They don’t really sound alike to him, but maybe? Maybe his stupid guy brain just imprinted his feelings onto the first pretty woman he saw.
He apologies for the third time and she waves it away with her hand. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Our little secret.” His shoulder itches and he scratches absently as she walks away.
He thinks about her the whole way home, grateful that Robby lets him stew in silence. Only interrupting when they stop at a gas station to pick up a pre-pay phone to tide him over until he can get a new one.
He whistles and makes kissing noises when he opens the door to his house. Robby gives him an odd look.
Jack shrugs. “I was kinda hoping I had a dog.”
“Sorry no,” Robby says, walking past him deeper into his small house. Jack takes in the space. Crutches and a wheelchair near the door, a bench, pegs on the wall holding up a collection of sockets and feet – some at wheelchair height: a running blade for long distances, one he knows is an older foot and socket he uses for back up, an empty space that must be for what he’s using now; higher on the wall are a beach foot, a blade for sprinting, a tiny foot for rock climbing, and a few others. He doesn’t feel like he’s anal, but maybe he is?
He follows Robby. “And no kids, right?”
“Right.” Robby is looking through a bookshelf in Jack’s living room; totally absorbed. He has no idea what the other man is looking for.
“Good.”
Robby turns and looks at him askance.
Jack shrugs. “I hope I would’ve remembered that, or kids would’ve been what you lead with.” He looks around some more without moving from where he’s standing. He snaps his fingers and then claps his hand on his fist. “No kids, no dog, no wife. Am I pathetic?”
Robby turns back to the bookshelf. “If you are, so am I.”
Jack wanders into the kitchen. “I hate to break it to you, buddy, but I think we’re pathetic,” he calls back to Robby. “That resident, Mohan. Tell me about her.”
“Why?”
He opens the fridge and is happy to see food in it. Leftovers, vegetables, fruits, a carton of eggs, paper packages he assumes are meat, condiments, beer, juice, water; some wine. “When I saw her, I just got this intense feeling.”
Robby comes into the kitchen with a small book and vaguely disgusted expression. Jack asks him: “Do you want something to eat?” Robby shakes his head. “Drink?”
“Sure, I’ll take some water.” Robby puts his hands on the kitchen island and leans over it. “You’re not fucking her, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says as Jack looks for glasses. “They’re in the –”
Jack stops him, telling him, “-- Let me find them.”
Robby shrugs and continues. “Or if you are, you haven’t told me about it, which is wise.”
He finally finds the glasses, fills them from the Britta in the fridge. “No, I know, it’s not that.” That much was very clear by her reaction by the lockers. “But something?” he presses. He gets the sense that he and Robby aren’t ‘talk about our feelings’ kind of friends, but still he wonders. Maybe he told the other man something, or maybe he picked up on something.
“I don’t know,” Robby says, sounding uncomfortable and Jack isn’t sure why - because she’s a resident? Because they are not that kind of friend? Because he’s dating her? “You wrote a paper together – something, something treating intracardiac air embolism, something pigtail catheter.”
“Cool. So, she’s a good doctor.” It makes him smile. That sounds right. Maybe what he feels is just mixed up admiration for a talented young doctor.
Robby snorts, takes a drink of his water. “You and I have agreed to disagree on that.”
“You don’t like her?”
“She’s slow, she thinks her way of doing things is better than my way, she’s disrespectful. She doesn’t listen.”
This makes him laugh. “Let me guess, these are all the reasons I like her.” He sees yellow socks in his mind's eye, thick like leg warmers and a stupid frowny face etched into the label of a wine bottle.
Robby doesn’t answer. He opens the little book he took from the bookshelf and pushes it towards Jack. He can see it’s got names and phone numbers. “You’re lucky part of you is still deeply analog.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he says looking at the book, flipping through it. He recognizes his own handwriting.
“Your sisters are Lisa and Joanna. I’m sorry I can never remember which one is older and which one is younger. One lives in Maryland and one lives in…” Robby pauses. “Chicago? Denver? I think she moves around a lot.”
He sees something that catches his eye. “Lisa,” he points at it. “With a 410 area code. That’s Maryland. That’s where I’m from, right?” He can picture the white license plates with the flag in the middle. The flag is complicated, but he thinks he could draw it from memory if he had to.
Robby nods. “Good. Call her. You guys are close. You should also probably call your therapist, his name is Paul… Becker, I think.” Robby pulls the book back towards him and takes a pen from his scrub top pocket. He writes his number on the page. “Talk to your sisters. Call your therapist. Eat something. Look around. Take it easy. Get some sleep. There’s my number if you need it, but I’m gonna call you later. We’ll figure all this out.”
“You’re taking off?” he asks in disbelief.
“I gotta get back. You said yourself you were ok. Rest. You know that’s the best thing for your brain. Go easy on the screens.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” he says honestly. He doesn’t know why, but he just doesn’t want to be alone.
“Call your sister,” Robby says. “If she doesn’t pick up, I don’t know. I bet you have some Old Bay somewhere. Snort it and maybe you’ll remember your childhood.”
******************************************
He sees her sitting in the cafeteria, laptop, notebook, coffee, and sandwich in front of her.
“Dr. Mohan, do you mind if I join you?”
“What did you call me?” she asks, bewildered.
He doesn’t think he’d fucked her name up. He repeats himself, “Dr. Mohan? That is your name right?”
“It is, you’ve just never pronounced it right.”
“Really? I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok. I never corrected you.” She closes the laptop and smiles at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I was supposed to meet Dr. Ellis, but she got pulled into something.” He looks around the cafeteria and realizes it’s odd she’s here. “Don’t you ever go home?”
“It’s easier to work here sometimes and we get an employee discount; it’s cheaper than take out.”
He decides to attack it head on. “I’m really sorry about the way I acted the other day, I just felt so sure that I knew you. I’ve heard you work a lot of doubles, but it’s more than that.”
She looks at him very carefully. “We wrote a paper together: Successful treatment of intracardiac air embolism –
“-- using intracardiac pigtail catheter aspiration”
“Do you remember?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “Robby mentioned it; I looked it up.”
“Oh, what else did he say?”
He considers her for a moment and decides to be honest. She seems like she can take it. “That we disagree about how talented you are.”
“Wow,” she says, but sounds surprised. Not upset though, it comes off as more darkly amused. She takes a deep breath and blows it out.
“You didn’t know?”
“No,” she laughs. “I did, but no one has ever said it out loud before. It’s actually a relief to know I’m not crazy. Thank you.”
He gets it then. A flash of a moment. Her: terrified, hair in her face – hair his superior officer in the Army would've cut off with his trauma shears, but that he only itched to tuck behind her ears. “I made you do it.” She looks at him a little wary, but not really confused. He clarifies anyway. “The stunt with the pigtail catheter. I made you do it.”
She gives him a soft look, like she’s proud of him. “You did.”
“You were sweaty and terrified.”
That makes her laugh. “I really was.”
“But I was so sure you could do it; do it better than I could. I wanted you to know it.”
She puts her head in her hand and looks up at him, a hint of adoration making her skin glow. It’s not fair how pretty she is; how much he likes her eyes. “Thank you. It’s still one of the high points of my residency.”
“So, that night, some doubles, the paper, that’s it?” As he says it he gets some more memory flashes: her throwing wadded up paper at him in this cafeteria; sitting alone on his couch, computer in his lap reading something for her while, phone pressed against his ear with his shoulder, she waited on the other end of the line, her breathing over the phone at once calming and undeniably hot. He shifts on the bench remembering it.
“You wrote me a few very nice letters of recommendation, but, yeah. That’s it.”
He loves her. It makes him feel sad and ridiculous – that he could develop feelings this strong for someone he barely knows. For someone who doesn’t hate him, but who has obviously put him so firmly in the mentor box. Because why should she have considered him? He’s just an old, pathetic loser who doesn’t even have a dog.
She doesn’t seem uncomfortable around him and he holds onto that. At least he hasn’t creeped her out with mooning over her or anything. Good lord.
She breaks up his pity party. “When do you think you’ll come back?”
“Unclear,” he answers, grateful to talk about work, a safe and reasonable topic. “They are threatening to make me re-take my boards or something.”
“Ouch, well, you can borrow my flash cards.” He sees those yellow socks again, the sad face etched into the label. Were they her socks? Her wine? He can’t tilt the camera up, or pull back the shot to see whose feet are in the socks, whose hand is holding the wine.
******************************************
He bets his sisters they can’t speed run the story of his life in 10 minutes and it’s the right thing to do. Apparently betting is a family tradition.
They laugh and feed off each other as they talk about how he worshipped Lisa, following her everywhere until Jo was born. That he got upset when anyone else held her, tried to convince everyone she was his baby.
That he and Jo were basically inseparable until she started to date his friends.
They tell him he didn’t really want to go to college, had thought about coaching soccer or something near home when their father bet him he wouldn’t get into Hopkins, so he applied and got in off the waitlist. Then medical school and the Army scholarship which seemed like a good idea at the time.
“You never talk about it, so I don’t know what to tell you about that time.”
He frowns.
“Sam did say once that you talked to her about it. Not the –” and Lisa gestures at his right leg, “But everything else. I actually don’t think you ever remembered the explosion.”
“It was an IED, right? I was in a Humvee?”
“You remember?” Jo is incredulous.
There had been a sound; he’d turned toward it. Then the world exploded and turned upside down. He remembers regaining consciousness and trying to get up to help the other soldiers near him, remembers that’s when he noticed the leg – not because of the pain, but because he couldn’t stand up. He shrugs; shakes his head. “Bits and pieces. It’s kind of like watching it on the news.”
That sits with all of them. He changes the subject. “Wait, when did I meet Samantha?”
Jo takes a sip of her beer. “Med school.”
“You got married before you went to Afghanistan for your residency,” Lisa fills in.
“That was pretty shitty of me.”
Joanna looks through the pictures in the pile and slides some over to him. “I don’t know. You guys were, like, really in love. It was gross. I don’t like seeing you that happy.”
He gives her a sarcastic laugh and looks at the pictures. There are some of Samantha around the house, but he’s sort of avoided them. Not sure he wants to remember the wife who is dead; not sure he wants to feel that loss on top of everything else, but he looks now.
She was insanely beautiful. Model beautiful with blonde hair that was darker at the roots. Her eyes were blue and in each picture there’s a wicked humor evident in them. She had a mole between her eyes; it made her look interesting and not merely pretty. She was taller than him. He remembers that first: How perfectly his arm went around her waist; how his hand settled well on her hip. She didn’t care, but more she loved that he didn’t care she was taller. She had enormous feet and perfect breasts. Once when he was finally home and recuperating, learning to walk again he had been being defeatist and she asked if he wanted her to carry him. He’d thrown a crutch at her and she had picked him up in a fireman’s carry, dropped him on their bed. She was afraid of cicadas. He had loved her a tremendous amount.
Unexpectedly, the memories don’t hurt. They are like watching a favorite movie. What a cool person she was. How remarkable. How lucky that man was to get to love her; there’s a distance there, it’s only a few inches, but it’s enough to keep the pain out of his heart. He can feel it like the heat from a stove; warm, but it doesn’t come close enough to burn.
“No one since?” he asks, even though he’s pretty sure he knows the answer.
His sisters look at each other. “There were two women I met,” Jo says. “But I don’t think anyone has made it to Lees.”
“That means nobody serious,” Lisa confirms.
“What about Samira Mohan?” he asks, again he thinks he knows what they’ll say, but he can’t help himself.
“Is she the resident?” Jo asks, excited.
“I don’t know. She is a resident.” The girls both immediately take out their phones.
“You take social, I’m googling,” Lisa says to Jo.
“Locked Insta,” Jo answers almost right away.
“What is going on?” Their flurry of activity is both hilarious and terrifying. He’s beginning to regret saying anything.
“You mentioned that there’s a resident who is quote special.”
“No, he said VERY special.”
“Right, but you refuse to share anything else about her. Got her I think.”
Lisa holds her phone under his nose. “Is this her?”
He has to push the phone back a little so he can see without his glasses and it is. “That’s her,” he tells them.
Jo motions for Lisa to hand over her phone and she does. “Oh!” she coos. “She’s pretty!”
“Young, though.” Lisa eyes him warily. “She can’t be too much older than JD,” she says referring to her oldest son.
“Be nice,” Jo says. “He’s allowed to have a mid-life crisis if he wants.”
“Mid-life? At his age? How long do you think he’s going to live?”
“Oh you’re an expert all of the –”
He tries to put a stop to the bickering. “-- You’re right. It would probably never work.”
“Don’t do that,” Lisa tells him. Firm. “I need you to understand that all we do, and I mean all we do, is just give each other shit. I’m gonna need you to man up if you’re gonna hang, ok?”
He gives her a disbelieving look and she holds his eyes until she loses it and starts to laugh. Soon they are all cracking up. For the first time since he woke up in the ED, he feels completely relaxed. He knows everything is going to be ok. Even if he never regains another memory, he is loved. He will be loved forever.
******************************************
Lisa stays for a week. Joanna stays for two. It’s great to have them and he feels lucky, but he’s also glad when they leave. He’s heard a million stories about himself and his family and even if he can’t remember the things they tell him he knows the stories now.
Other things come back too. Things about Sam and the pandemic. PittFest. Moving into this place. Giving Robby shit for dating a resident (ironic), a crazy woman he dated not long after Samantha died. Some tv shows he liked. A diner he went to all the time in college and med school. There had been a mannequin in the bathroom and hundreds of pez dispensers on the walls.
The hospital and state decide that he can practice medicine again, providing he takes and passes his boards. Meanwhile he’s welcome to work under the supervision of an attending, basically redoing his residency. He’s not sure what he wants to do.
After the marathon meeting where he learns of this decision he looks for Samira. He knows she’s barely even a friend, but he’s weak and he thinks seeing her face might make him feel better. He can’t find her.
He goes home and feels dejected. He doesn’t want to cook and he craves Thai, but when he opens the delivery app he has no idea what he likes. Pad Thai with shrimp is the most popular, so that’s what he gets.
When it comes, the smell is achingly familiar. He takes a bite in the kitchen and it rushes back, instant and undeniable, like Proust’s madeleine.
She fucking lied to him.
******************************************
They’re in her kitchen. He’s hovering while she cooks. Peanut noodles with snow peas and peppers. She said it was one of the three things she can make (with at least one of the others being toast) and he doesn’t think that bodes well, but in for a penny and all that. She looks cute when she cooks.
“Is there any more wine?” She asks as finishes her glass.
“I think we killed it,” he tells her but checks anyway. There’s a small splash left and he pours it into her empty glass. “That’s it.”
She makes the most over-exaggerated sad face he’s even seen and it cracks him up. “We could open another bottle.” His suggestion hangs in the air between them. It’s not completely ridiculous - the bottle wasn’t full to begin with. They had opened it two nights ago when he was here before. The study session four nights before that hadn’t included wine or food at all. Opening another bottle now feels like an escalation; like admitting they are not going to do anymore studying tonight
She goes back to her vegetables. “Probably not a great idea.”
The air is thick between them. He’s not sure if she wants him to push -- give her permission to be irresponsible or to sort of confirm that helping her study is a pretense for him too.
He watches her watch the vegetables in the pan. He can’t do it. Instead he tries to cut the tension. He takes out his keys and etches a sad face into the label on the wine bottle with his Swiss Army knife. “This is you,” he says and shows her.
She gives him a tight smile. “I think I have much better hair.”
She’s right and he tries to capture her loose curls. He fails. “I think I made it worse.”
She turns back to him to look and that’s what does it. She laughs and he thinks he knows what it’s like to slay a dragon; he is so proud.
“Don’t let it go to your head, but this may be the most accurate portrait of me ever.” She picks up her phone from where it rests on the counter and takes a picture.
He realizes she’s not kidding. She really does like his stupid etching. He wonders how she sees herself. He knows she has some ego - she’ll go against Robby or anyone when she thinks she’s right; she refuses to kiss ass even when it will help her - but at the same time she seems desperate for approval. He doesn’t understand it and he wishes he did.
They eat her peanut noodles on her couch and they are quite tasty. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but this is great.”
“You thought I’d make some tika masala? Maybe some butter chicken?” The disdain is obvious and dripping from every word.
“Am I that much of an asshole?” he asks, hoping he sounds earnest and not defensive.
She considers him and looks like she’s about to say something and thinks better of it. “You’re fine,” she looks at him fondly and he thinks it's genuine, but also thinks he’s done something stupid or said something racist that she deserves an apology for and he makes a note in his mind to try and figure it out later.
“We didn’t actually eat a ton of Indian food when I was growing up,” She pauses to chew a little and starts again. “Both my parents worked and my mom was around even less after my dad died. She refused to get take out that she thought could cook better, but she never did cook, so…” She gestures at her noodles. “I ate a lot of Thai and Italian. It’s what I like. Take out is expensive; I taught myself how to make a version of Pad Thai exactly how I like it.”
“I may be the only man in America who hates his mother’s cooking, but she did teach me to make a mean crab cake.” He looks at her, gives her a little nod. “Next time.”
She smiles, but then her face fails. “Oh god, you think I need even more studying.”
He’s not sure if she’s joking or serious, so he chooses to take her at face value. “I didn’t say that. Or that’s not what I meant. You have nothing to worry about.”
She puts her finished bowl on the coffee table and then leans back. “I’m not so worried about the written; it’s the oral that scares me.”
He can feel the shock on his face. “Really? You’re great with patients, it'll be fine.” He picks up her bowl and his brings them back to the kitchen.
“It’s the time limit. I’m slow,” she calls out to him; dejected.
He rinses out the bowls, puts them in her dishwasher. “You’re not that slow.”
She’s got a bit of a pout going on when he rejoins her on the couch. Or perhaps that’s not fair. It’s not performative like with the wine, he knows she is genuinely sad, but he thinks it’s all ridiculous. “They still call me slow-mo.”
“Who?” He asks, shocked again. He thought that stupidness got put to bed after PittFest.
She gives him a look like it should be obvious. It’s not.
“I’m serious,” he tells her.
“The day he left, Robby commented on my pace.” She makes air quotes around pace.
He rolls his eyes, not at her, but at Robby. “Ok. I think you have every right to be hurt by that because it was a dick thing to say, but wasn’t it also clear that the man is in need of truly massive amounts of therapy before he's allowed around other humans again?”
She gives him another look, like she’s not buying it and he supposes that’s fair.
“I think you’re great, John thinks you’re great, Al-Hashimi thinks you’re great.”
She snorts. “She thinks I should go into geriatrics,” she says and clutches a pillow to her chest.
“Stop.”
“No,” she tosses the pillow aside and leans in towards him. “She really said it.”
He puts his arm on the back of the couch. His fingers play with the tops of the cushions. He doesn’t touch her, but he almost could. “I love how you heard it like a slight when you told me yourself you were desperate for something with openings. That’s probably what she was focusing on.”
“It felt like an insult,” she says and slumps back into her corner.
“Geriatric emergency medicine is hard,” he points out, trying to give Al-Hashimi some credit.
She looks at him like she’s waiting for him to laugh, admit he’s joking; he’s not. “If it’s so great why didn’t you specialize in it?” she asks.
“I think it should be obvious by now that you’re a lot smarter than me.” That doesn’t sound right. He tries again. “Than I.. am. Than me.”
She laughs at him and brings her legs up onto the sofa, stretches out so her feet brush up against his thigh. “I think you’re in need of massive amounts of therapy.”
He wants to touch her. Hold her. Something. Anything to make her understand that advice that she hates only comes to her because she hasn’t let anyone know her, see her. Absent an understanding of who she is, everyone is just projecting, giving her advice they wish they had gotten. He doesn’t know much more clearly than anyone else what the best thing is for her, what will make her happy, but he knows she’s smart enough, tenacious enough to figure it out on her own.
He plays with the edge of her very yellow, very chunky sock. “I’m working on it.”
He’s been getting to know her smiles and the one she’s giving him now is favorite – amused, maybe even charmed by him. It’s how he’s sure they’re flirting now; it’s how he knows he needs to leave, but instead he doubles down.
He takes a foot “What’s with these? Are leg warmers back?”
“What?” she says confused then sort of annoyed, but still amused. “No! They're just socks.” She tries to take her foot back, but he won’t let her. She laughs and pulls harder and he holds on, he’s tempted to tickle her, but instead he goes the other way and starts to massage her arch. She makes a lovely little sound of approval. “Is this your weird way of making a pass at me?”
“A pass?” he asks. It’s such an old fashioned way to put it. It distracts him from the question itself. He keeps rubbing her foot undaunted, but not looking at her.
“Isn’t that what old people say?” She asks, poking him with her other foot.
“What? Does the urban dictionary have a section for talking to people over 40?” He still can’t really look at her, so he concentrates on her foot, her funny socks.
“I’ve seen some movies.” She’s relaxed now and things have gone past just some light flirting. They are in it deep, but it’s so warm and fun and easygoing that he can almost believe it’s fine; that there’s no danger here. It doesn’t feel new, which is the weirdest part. It feels like they’ve been doing this forever and could keep going for longer.
“Ok.” He tells her, picks up her other foot.
“Are you?”
She walked right into it, one of his Dad’s favorite flavor of joke. “Over 40?” She rolls her eyes, so he takes pity on her. “Do you want me to?” he asks as though he wasn’t massaging her foot. As though they haven’t been flirting on and off all night. All week. For the past who knows how long.
“I’ve thought about it.”
He cuts his eyes to her. She was honest with him, the least he can do is be honest with her. “Yeah, me too,” he tells her.
“What do you think about it?”
He knows what she wants to hear. What he’d want to hear, but he also thinks she deserves honesty and not comfortable, easy lies. “I think it's a really bad idea.”
It has the exact effect he expects. She pulls her foot away and this time he lets it go. She sits up, takes her legs off the couch, pushes her hair back, puts it up using the elastic on her wrist. He watches her as she tucks some vulnerable piece of herself back inside. “You’re a resident,” he says as though she doesn’t already know. “I’m an attending. There’s a weird power imbalance, not to mention I’m a million years older than you.”
“No, it’s ok.”
“Obviously I want something more, but if it’s real it’ll keep.” He tries not to sound condescending, but based on her face he’s failed.
“It hasn’t stopped anyone else at work. It’s such a stupid old fashioned idea.”
He tries to make a joke: “Like I said, I’m a million years older.”
She’s not having it. “No one has time for the apps and work is the only place we ever are. Of course we’re going to meet someone there. It’s not 1989.”
He resists the urge to tell her that, yes, he was alive in ‘89, but he wasn’t even shaving then, let alone meeting women.
He doesn’t know what to say, but she keeps pushing against him. “How did you meet your wife?”
“It wasn’t at work,” he tells her, not sure he likes where this is going. She urges him on with her eyes. “At a wedding.”
“And I bet it was love at first sight.” The edge is mostly gone from her voice, she sounds resigned.
He doesn’t know how to explain that she’s not Samantha and he’s glad; that he’s not that person either. “For me. Yeah. It took her a little longer.” She’s still looking at him genuinely curious, so he goes on. “I wanted to impress her and I was a real dick. She hated me.”
That makes her smile. He’s sure she thinks he’s a dick right now too. “And you convinced her otherwise?”
“We met again at another wedding and I calmed down a bit and…” he shrugs. “Yeah. I convinced her I was ok.”
She tilts her head a little. There’s menace in her eyes when she asks, “Did you love me at first sight?”
“I think I should go.” He gets up. Grabs his coat from the arm chair near the door.
She watches him. “That’s it?”
He faces her; not quite at the door yet, almost the whole length of the room between them. It makes him brave. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
“I’m not.” She says it so plainly that he almost thinks she believes it.
“Sure you are. You’re gonna be upset with either answer, right?” By the look on her face he knows he’s right and he knows she knows it too. “Oh the mortifying ordeal of being known.”
“Fine you can leave.” She waves him away and takes out her phone.
“I’m going. I’m going,” he heads for the door.
“Wait,” she says and when he turns, she’s off the couch and walking towards him. He’s not sure what he expects. Maybe she’ll slap him.
Instead she puts a hand on his chest and one on the back of his neck. She pulls him just a bit and he lets her; he wants it to happen. He licks his lips without even thinking about it. Their mouths slant together. It’s sweet at first, friendly even, well, how do you do, Dr. Mohan? Her tongue pushes gently at the seam of his mouth and he lets her in. That’s when everything changes. He can't get her close enough, he goes to put his hands on her face, but her arms are coming up to go around his neck, so instead he wraps his arms around her waist; he’s never realized how small she actually is, his hands span her back. He brings a hand up her side and barely touches the edge of a breast.
She breaks the kiss and presses her forehead to his. “Stay,” she smiles a little smile. “I know you want to,” she says, like it’s a decision he’s already made and maybe he has, but she’s wrong about the answer.
“Not tonight” he tells her, hands going to her forearms and removing them from around his neck. He tries to let her down gently. “I was serious before. Let’s try this again in July.”
“I’m tired of waiting for the things I want.”
“Oh? It’s that easy?”
“I don’t expect any part of this to be easy,” she kisses him again, gently. “But I don’t think anything I’ve ever wanted has come easy.”
He knows what she means. He likes this new flavor of her; going after what she thinks is right like she does with patients only it’s with him, but it feels like bravado. He wants it to be real so he decides it’s not; it makes him feel like less of an asshole for wanting to wait. He’s not sure he deserves to get what he wants. “Good night,” he says firmly and blunts it by giving her a soft kiss just at the corner of her mouth.
He heads for the door.
“I guess that’s my answer then.” She says just as he’s in her doorway. She’s annoyed and looking to piss him off. It works just a little. “Not love at first sight.”
“Whatever you say, kiddo. Whatever you want.” He means it to sound condescending, but going by the look on her face, he doesn’t quite get there. He closes the door behind him; feels heat behind his eyes, but he knows how not to cry, so he doesn’t.
.
******************************************
He wants to see her. It’s almost a physical thing; he craves her like she’s something his body needs. He wants to know why she played dumb, why she lied, but also just wants to see her, make her laugh or roll her eyes.
He texts her and asks her to meet him in the park across from the hospital after her shift. She responds with a thumbs up.
It is a nice night, early spring, the days finally getting longer. He sits on a bench and waits for her.
He sees her see him as she crosses the street, she walks over, smiles, and sits down. “Did you remember that this is where we sat after the PittFest MCI, or is this just luck?”
“I remember.”
He thinks she’s wary of him; of what’s come back and what hasn't. “You’re remembering more?” She asks.
“The stuff with the strongest emotions mostly,” he looks at his hands to avoid looking at her face. He wanted to see her, but now he’s not sure it was a good idea.
“Oh,” she says, sounding sad.
“What?”
“It’s just I know you’ve had a lot of loss.”
He does look at her then, just for a moment and goes back to staring at his hands. “Yeah. It’s weird though - my family and my therapist agree - I remember more about being overseas and losing the leg than I ever did before.”
“I’m so sorry,” the way she says it gives him a little hope. She sounds so incredibly sad for him.
“No, it’s ok,” he tries to reassure her. Anything to erase that tone from her voice. “I remember it more like a movie. Like, ‘Jesus that’s terrible; that poor guy, I feel so bad for him.’ It hurts. But it’s not like it’s happening to me over and over. I’m not reliving it anymore.
“Oh,” he looks at her again because he thinks she might be smiling and she is. “That’s weirdly wonderful.”
“Right? My guy wants to prescribe amnesia to all his patients.” They smile at each other. “The good stuff feels closer.” He turns towards her a little. “I was there when my first nephew was born. Not in the room for the big event, but that whole day. We were all so stoked. They named him after me.”
They sit for a minute. The crickets are chirping. He waits to see if she’ll say something and feels compelled to fill the silence when she doesn’t. “I remember other good things. I remember that night. Studying in your apartment.” She swallows hard, but doesn’t look away. He loves her so much. “Why did you tell me there was nothing going on between us?”
“You were pretty clear that work was all it was ever going to be.” She doesn’t sound petulant; she just sounds resigned.
“Really? That’s not how I remember it at all.”
“Do you remember how awkward it was after? For weeks we could barely look at each other. People noticed. Ellis and Cassie asked me what was going on. I was mortified, not just because of what happened, but the fall out. We had finally gotten to an ok place; I didn’t want to start the whole thing over again.”
He doesn’t remember any of what she's talking about, but he can imagine and he feels terrible.
“I wanted to save myself the embarrassment. Sue me.”
“I don’t remember that part. Lucky me. I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
“It wasn’t just your fault. I was making it awkward too.” Now it’s her turn to look at her hands. “When your memory went…” she makes a little gesture, like poof. “It was like I got a do over. And you were right that night. It’s a bad idea.”
“It’s a bad idea for a resident and an attending to get involved.” She nods. “But I’m not an attending anymore.”
“What? Did they FIRE you?” She is so angry on his behalf, for the first time that he can remember he really thinks she must care about him too.
“No, but I can’t practice medicine unsupervised or supervise others until I pass the written and oral boards again.”
She looks absolutely stunned.
“They’re gonna slot me later this month and in August, so we’ll be taking them at the same time.”
The conversation about their relationship is forgotten while she processes this. “What are you going to do?”
“Technically I can stay on medical leave until then.” He shrugs. “I don’t know. My therapist says I’ve had trouble with downtime in the past. Maybe I will get antsy, but I’m feeling like maybe I should take some time to relax, recover, do nothing.”
“It sounds wonderful. I would hate that, but for you, it sounds wonderful.”
“You could keep me company,” he leans into her, nudges her shoulder with his own, “when you’re not working. We could try studying again.”
“This makes no sense,” she says, but she’s smiling. “You don’t know me. And let’s be real: I don’t really know you either.”
It makes him laugh. If it all wasn’t so ridiculous, it would be sad. “I don’t know me.” She rolls her eyes at him. “I just mean who cares. We can start over.”
“What if I don’t love this new version of you?” She’s serious again and he can tell she’s thought about this. It’s a real concern.
“That doesn’t scare me.” And it doesn’t.
“Oh great.” She throws her hands up; stands up, she walks away a little and circles right back. “The way I feel doesn’t matter?”
“Sure it does, but you do like me, right? at least a little.” He stands up too. Stands in front of her, looks her in the eyes. “It was quite a kiss that night in your apartment.”
She gives him a look.
He steps closer to her. “And if I recall correctly, you are a fan of evidence-based inquiry. So, let’s gather some data,” his hands find her hips and she lets him hold her like that. “And we’ll go from there.”
She walks deeper into his arms. Wraps hers around his neck. “How can you be so sure?” She asks into his chest.
“I don’t know how not to love you.” He tells her. Honestly, plainly, and for all he’s worth. “It was the first thing that came back.”
She laughs, face still pressed against his chest. “God, this is how you got your wife to stop hating you, isn’t it?” She looks up at him; her face perfect in the early spring evening. He could look at it forever.
“I don’t really remember. Your guess is as good as mine.”
She shakes her head at him.
“Come home with me.” He hopes he sounds charming and not too forward, too much, too soon.
She looks at him; her gaze is piercing. He feels a little flattened, like a butterfly with its wings pinned. She leans in, though, and he meets her. He holds her face while they kiss in dwindling light. He licks onto her mouth and for just a moment things tip sideways a little; both of them hungry and lost in it. Something is revealed to him then, it’s not like with the Pad Thai — a remembrance of things past — instead it’s the future he sees; at once hazy and clear. It’s wonderful and warm; a place they can only find if they navigate there together. He’d like to visit it. He’d like to stay forever.
“Is that a yes?” he asks when they break apart.
She smacks his chest lightly with the back of her hand, but starts walking towards the park’s exit. “I suppose so.”
“I’m thinking about getting a dog.” He tells her as they turn the corner and head to his place. “What do you think?”
“Dogs are good.” She says, nodding carefully, leaving room for the skepticism he can sense coming. “What are you going to do when you go back to work though? That’s a lot of time to leave a dog alone.”
He brushes away her concern. “We’ll figure it out.”
“We?” She sounds shocked and scandalized. “This is my dog now too?”
“Yeah, obviously.”
“Oh my god,” she says, bumping his hip and moving just a bit away. He grabs her hand and pulls her back to his side. Puts his arm over her shoulders.
“Maybe a lab,” he says. “Oh, what if we find a little guy missing a leg? Everyone will think you have a type.”
“This is such a bad idea,” she groans, but there’s no heat in it.
“I know,” he tells her. “But we’re going to do it anyway.”