Chapter 71: Untitled Chapter

CHAPTER 66 — MIA

Second Year

September came back around with the particular urgency it always carried, the month that understood it was marking a boundary between the unhurried time and the part of the year that asked things of you, and this September asked considerably more than the one before it, because second year of the accelerated program was where the real work started.

First year had been language and framework, the careful construction of a foundation solid enough to hold what would be built on it. Second year was the building itself, three days a week on the oncology ward at Hamilton General and two days of seminar and the specific weight of being the person a patient addressed directly when they needed something rather than the person learning in the background, which was a different kind of weight entirely and one I had been preparing for without knowing I was preparing for it.

Thomas was still my supervising nurse and he had requested me specifically for the second year placement and mentioned it on my first morning back with the casual delivery he used for things that mattered, letting the information carry itself.

You did good work last spring, he said.

Thank you, I said.

Do not thank me, he said. Just keep doing it. He handed me a chart. Room three. New admission. She is scared. Go be useful.

The new city rotation had started in September as well, which was either remarkable coincidence or the outcome of two people who had been paying careful attention to each other's logistics for long enough that the logistics had started cooperating with them. Three days a week at a hospital two hours from Hamilton, Tuesday through Thursday, Caleb's city, and I had not moved there but the rental room near the hospital was small and adequate and had a coffee shop across the street that was not as good as the one across from his building but was good enough for seven in the morning before a ward shift.

Eleven weeks of being in the same city.

Same time tonight had become same time this afternoon and sometimes same time right now, which was not a scheduled thing and therefore the best version.

He showed me the apartment on the first Tuesday evening and I had been waiting for the tour since he moved in months earlier, and the window looked onto a street with a coffee shop across from it and he said they get it right, and I said how right, and he said every time, and we looked at each other and both understood what that meant without saying it.

After dinner we sat on the floor of the living room because the couch situation remained unresolved, which was so specifically Caleb it required no comment, and I leaned against the wall beside him and the apartment was quiet around us.

This is good, he said eventually.

I know, I said.

The eleven weeks, he said.

I know, I said.

Then he said: Walter called this morning. He and your mom had dinner last Thursday at a restaurant. He brought flowers. Small ones, he said, because he did not want to be presumptuous.

I pressed my lips together and looked at the wall.

He is falling for her, I said.

Has been for a while, he said. He described her laugh to me in some detail. He was very specific about the specific quality of it. He was thorough.

I sat with that and thought about my father leaving and the two years of careful silence that had followed and the kitchen table that had been four people and then three and then some version of three that had been managing rather than living, and then I thought about Walter at that table with his slightly too salty soup and his garden stories.

It is the best possible thing, Caleb said. For both of them.

I looked at him.

He was right.

He was completely right.

Okay, I said.

My phone buzzed.

Mom: How is the new city.

I looked at the message and then at Caleb and then at the coffee shop light visible through the window across the street.

Really good, I typed back.

She replied immediately: Good. Walter says hello.

I showed the phone to Caleb.

He smiled, the real one, eyes first then mouth.

Week one, I thought. Eleven left. We were going to use every single one.