Do No Harm

SHIFTING the stack of files in his lap, David lay back on the exam table he'd adjusted like a chaise longue, propping his feet on one of the gynecologic stirrups. He continued with his paperwork, enjoying the quiet serenity of Exam One.

Diane barged in, startling him. "Oh sorry. Didn't realize you were

… What are you still doing here?"

David checked his watch: 21:25. He hadn't realized he'd been there for an hour and a half after his shift ended. He was accustomed to working late, preferring the excitement of the ER to the solitude of his too-large house, but it alarmed him how quickly the habit had grown. Arriving a few hours early, leaving later and later, shouldering extra days on call-anything to avoid reconstructing a personal life without Elisabeth. His house was quickly becoming a million-dollar stopping place between shifts.

He looked at the paperwork before him. Nothing important, nothing pressing. Exhaustion pooled through him all at once, jumbling his thoughts. He squeezed the bridge of his nose. When he released it, he was touched by the concern in Diane's eyes.

"I don't know," he said. His stomach grumbled so loudly both he and Diane glanced at it.

"Come on," Diane said. "Let me buy you dinner."

A hospital cafeteria is a depressing place at night. Spouses with vacant, grief-haunted eyes, children pulling IV poles, parents slurping inconsolably on tepid coffee, the sleepless hours gathering in half-moons beneath their eyes. Their lethargy draws a sharp contrast with the bustle of the interns and nurses in scrubs. But even the grieving and the dying have to eat.

David stared at the food on his tray-a Milky Way, a half-eaten chicken sandwich, a small container of apple juice. Diane bit into an apple and shrugged. "What did you expect on a resident's salary?"

"This is perfect," David said. "I wouldn't have made it any farther afield without falling on my face." He studied his reflection in the back of a spoon. "Jesus, maybe I should check myself in."

"You don't look that bad. Mrs. Peters still swooned when you checked her eyes this afternoon."

"She's ninety years old. With glaucoma."

"She told me she thinks you look like George Clooney."

David pursed his lips to keep from smiling. "And what did you say?"

Diane twirled her straw in her Coke. "I told her no one looks like George Clooney."

"True," David said. "True."

Diane cocked her head slightly, amused. "I'd bet you were a great womanizer before you got married."

He shook his head.

"No? Why not?"

He shrugged. "I guess I liked women too much." He fished a crumb of some sort from his apple juice and wiped it on the tray. "And I married young."

"What did your wife look like?"

A web of images entangled him. A white snowball smudge on her winter sweater. The first movement of her face in the morning, sleep-heavy and gentle. His hands lifting her wedding veil. He imagined her the night of their fifteenth anniversary. The twin strokes of her hips beneath a sleek black dress. They'd gone to a gallery opening in Venice where Elisabeth, as the LA Times art critic, had been fawned over by dealers and struggling artists alike. After a few hours, David had snuck her off to Shutters in Santa Monica, where they'd sat out on the balcony of their hotel room, holding hands, listening to the waves rush the shore in the darkness.

"Her smile made me weak," he said.

"David… " -Diane looked away- "… am I delusional in thinking there's something going on between us?"

"Positively schizophrenic. It must be your Yale education."

"It's a tough question to ask. Why don't you answer it seriously?"

"You're right," he said. "I'm sorry." He pried at the hard bun of his chicken sandwich as if he'd developed a sudden intense interest in baked goods.

"The few times we've been out… " Diane squeezed one hand with the other. "For the life of me, I can't figure out if they're dates or just an attending and a resident talking shop outside work. I mean, we're alone… we're at dinner… but we're talking about lesions and contusion fractures."

"An attending and a resident," he repeated.

"Well?"

"We've worked side by side, hands in the mud, for-what?"

"Almost three years."

"Three years now. You're one of the best residents I've ever had the pleasure to train. I consider you a colleague. Not a resident."

The glimmer of a smile cut through the discomfort on Diane's face, just for a moment. "I didn't know that," she said. "But it still doesn't answer my question."

"Look… " David realized his voice was shaking ever so slightly. "I've definitely thought about… but we can't… I can't… "

"Why not?"

He leaned back in his chair, trying to find what he wanted to say. "Diane, I'm almost twice your age."

"I'm thirty-one and you're forty-three. That's nothing. Elizabeth Taylor has married men twenty years younger."

"She doesn't have the same performance anxieties, I'd imagine."