Chapter 32

Tonight Ben and I have special plans. We’re going to a peanut butter tasting. Don’t laugh.

This is part of our marriage counselor’s directive that we spend more nights out as a couple. Ben is obscenely excited about the whole thing. He discovered it about two weeks ago, and it’s practically all he can talk about. He’s been texting me about it all day. They’re promising several dozen varieties of peanut butter and unlimited milk to go with them.

It’s an event for adults. I swear.

We have a babysitter booked. Ben has agreed to pick Leah up at preschool so that I can make one final stop after my clinic ends and still get home in plenty of time to taste twenty-seven different varieties of peanut butter. After I conclude the note on my final patient, my phone buzzes with a text message. It’s Ben.

Do you think they’ll have samples we can take home?

I smile at the phone. I imagine the two of us leaving the tasting with a dozen little containers of peanut butter samples. I don’t think he was this excited when we got married. And he wasn’t exactly casual about us getting married. He was shaking so much during the ceremony that he dropped the ring while trying to get it on my finger. Twice. One of his buddies posted a video of it to Facebook under the title, “Ben’s epic wedding fail.”

Don’t you have enough peanut butter? I write back.

Ben replies: No such thing.

I glance at my watch. I have just enough time to pay a quick visit to Mr. Katz’s hospital room before I have to take off.

Mr. Katz has been transferred to the Medicine service, as his medical needs have now superseded his neurological needs. On top of the pneumonia, he developed a blood clot in his leg that traveled up to his lungs, so they’ve put him on a heparin (a blood thinner) drip. Mr. Katz seems to be one of those patients who is destined to have every complication there is.

I take the stairs to the Medicine floor, deciding I don’t want to deal with another encounter with George. Even with all the sick patients on the Medicine service, the floor is quiet right now. The way my shoes create loud echoes when they touch the ground makes it feel more like it’s midnight rather than barely five o’clock.

When I reach Mr. Katz’s door, I see a young man in scrubs leaving the room. I read the ID tag clipped to his shirt pocket: “Deepak Singh, MD.” And underneath, “Vascular Surgery.”

When the surgeon sees me approaching the room, he smiles apologetically, “Mr. Katz is asleep.”

“Oh,” I murmur.

Dr. Singh raises his bushy black eyebrows, verging on a unibrow. But at least he doesn’t have eyebangs. “Are you… his daughter?”

“Me?” I look at him in surprise, then I realize that I’ve pulled off my own ID badge and am now wearing my jacket. I’m surprised I didn’t get stopped sooner. “Actually, I’m Dr. McGill. He was… is… my patient. Outpatient. In primary care.”

“Oh!” Dr. Singh nods. “Sorry, you just looked… I mean, you seemed so concerned… not that you wouldn’t be as his doctor, but…”

I raise my hand. “No, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” I look over the young surgeon. He doesn’t remind me much of Ryan or most of the surgeons I’ve met—he’s too nice. “Are you Dr. Reilly’s resident?”

For his sake, I hope not.

Dr. Singh smiles. “Yikes, do I look that young to you? No, I’m an attending surgeon. Finished my fellowship and everything.”

I frown at him. “Yes, but…” Where the hell is Ryan then? Too good to see the patient he screwed up on? “I thought Mr. Katz was Dr. Reilly’s patient? ”

He hesitates, and I get this awful, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. For a moment, I’m sure I’m going to lean forward and vomit all over this nice, young surgeon. But I keep it in at the last second.

“Dr. Reilly isn’t seeing any patients anymore,” Dr. Singh says quietly. “For… medical reasons.”

I stare at him. “But he still works here?”

He nods. “Yes. But he’s not involved in patient care.”

I glance down at my watch. Ben is going to go crazy if I’m late, but there are some things more important than peanut butter. I can’t leave here while still wondering what happened with Ryan.

I mutter a quick goodbye to Dr. Singh, then sprint down the hallway. I take the stairs two at a time to get to Ryan’s office. Although whatever time I saved by racing up the stairs is lost when I spend a good sixty seconds doubled over in the stairwell, gasping for breath. I probably should get in shape again one of these days.

I nearly miss him. When I get out of the stairwell, I see Ryan locking the door to his office and race the rest of the way as fast as I can.

He’s not wearing scrubs. He’s in fact wearing a nice pair of gray dress pants with a pressed white dress shirt and a blue tie that makes his eyes look that much bluer when he turns to face me. Ryan in scrubs is handsome—Ryan dressed up is almost painfully handsome. I feel like I should shield my eyes .

“Jane.” He scrunches up his forehead. “Are you okay? You look like you just ran a marathon.”

I didn’t run a marathon, but I did go up three whole flights of stairs. “Are you not seeing patients anymore?” I manage.

He doesn’t answer me right away. He glances around to make sure we’re alone in the hallway, which we obviously are, since it’s OMG five o’clock . Finally, he says, “Who told you?”

“Dr. Singh.”

Ryan sighs and his shoulders sag. “Yeah. That’s pretty much the situation.”

“What happened?”

He sinks against the wall, shaking his head. “I was doing a surgery last week and… I don’t know what the hell happened because it’s never happened before. My hand just would not stop jerking. I had to scrub out and get Singh to finish the surgery for me.” He shuts his eyes. “About five minutes later, the department chair called me into his office. I had to tell him everything.”

My phone buzzes inside my purse. It’s almost certainly Ben. “I’m sorry,” I murmur.

“So that’s it,” he mutters. “No more operating for me. Ever again. I get to do paperwork for the rest of my goddamn life.”

“You could still see post-op patients, couldn’t you?” I ask .

“Yeah, big thrill.” He rolls his eyes. “I could, but they don’t want me to. No patient care. They don’t trust me. They think the Huntington’s might affect my judgement too.”

“Well, there are usually cognitive deficits associated with Huntington’s,” I point out. “Don’t most people with it get demented?”

Ryan stares at me. “Really, Jane?”

“Sorry,” I mumble. Although it’s true.

My phone buzzes again inside my bag. Ben’s going to kill me if I don’t get home soon. He’s not that understanding when it comes to peanut butter.

“Is that Pip trying to reach you?” Ryan asks me.

“It’s okay,” I say.

“No.” He shakes his head. “You should go. You’ve obviously got somewhere to be.”

“It can wait.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “What—are you worried about me? Well, don’t worry. I’m fine.”

My phone buzzes again. “Are you sure?”

He raises his eyebrows at me. “Don’t I look fine?”

Actually, he does look fine. More than fine, if I’m being honest.

“The truth is…” He glances down at his watch and winks at me. “I’ve got to get out of here too. I’ve got a date.”

I manage a smile. “Hooking up? ”

“She wishes.”

I laugh at that because he’s probably right. It always seemed sick the way girls used to fall over themselves for Ryan. And whatever else he’s lost, he definitely still has the quality that drew women to him so reliably.

The truth is, he’s taking this a whole lot better than I thought he would.