The Anatomy of Perception

by AJ Rose

  I estimated around two hundred people in attendance, and Craig and I wove through the tables to find seats. I was grateful there wasn’t assigned seating, aside from the tables reserved for the board members and the chairs of the departments, so I’d be able to sit with Craig and his parents rather than being stuck at a table with work colleagues. In looking around, it occurred to me I was likely the only PT in attendance. We really didn’t have a lot to do with the cancer side of medicine.

  “Dane!” Isabelle Dahl exclaimed, holding her slender arms out to me, beckoning for a hug. She seemed genuinely happy to see me, and I couldn’t help the wide smile that split my face upon seeing her, being engulfed in her strength and presence, her perfume surrounding me, subtle but comforting. “It is so good to see you, dear,” she murmured in my ear, then pulled back and squeezed my biceps, giving me a stern look. “You’re okay, yes?”

  I kissed her cheek in gratitude for the warm welcome. “I’m doing much better than I was, Mrs. Dahl.”

  “Pffft.” She playfully squished my cheek. “Call me Isabelle. We have too much history to go backward, don’t you think?”

  I deferred with a nod, then turned to Craig’s dad, assuming the name familiarity applied to him, too. “Lawrence. It’s wonderful to see you, sir. Retirement agrees with you.”

  He patted his middle, which had never been paunchy, though he was a solid man. “I’m not so sure about it agreeing with all of me, but I’ll take what I can get. You look well, son. I’m glad to see it.” He companionably patted my shoulder, then turned and signaled one of the waitresses to take their drink order, a white wine spritzer for the Mrs. and a scotch for himself. “Just one, dear,” he assured Isabelle when she raised a brow at him. “It’ll help me write all the zeroes you want on this check tonight. Craig? Do you boys need something to drink?” Craig shook his head for both of us.

  “On behalf of the hospital, allow me to be the first to say thank you for your donation,” I said, bringing them back to the purpose of the entire evening. “I know the hospital administration is excited about the benefits a new cancer center can provide the city, but personally, I believe your generosity will be good for a great many people.”

  Craig leaned up to speak in my ear. “What’s with the sales pitch? You sound so formal.”

  “Nervous,” I said through the corner of my mouth.

  “It’s because of this hospital I still have my darling Isabelle, so it’s I who should be thanking you,” Lawrence said seriously, his joviality tempered just a bit. “And you in particular, Dane, given how much you helped us through Bella’s treatment.”

  They sounded so sincere I could almost believe they were the surrogate parents they’d been to me since I’d begun dating their son, but at the moment, as grateful as I was to them and their kindness, I felt like a fraud.

  “Well, we all have moments when life knocks us down. You were very brave. Both of you. I only wish I had been when it was my turn.”

  Craig pushed himself into my side, sliding his arm around my waist. “Boy, how heavy is the weight of the universe on your shoulders, Dane?” His tone was light and his smile was mild, but we all knew what he was doing. Absolving me, in front of them. Showing them if he could forgive, they could, too.

  Isabelle kissed my cheek and said in my ear, “I only wish you’d let us help you as you helped us. Maybe together we could have saved Craig some pain. Promise me if you need help again, you’ll ask us.” I could only nod, my throat too tight to speak.

  Thankfully, the waitress returned with the drinks and the conversation turned to much lighter topics, planned vacations the Dahls had, an old high school classmate of Craig’s making it big out in Hollywood, and the unexpected success of Lawrence’s clock hobby, which seemed to be doing quite well on eBay.

  “It’s the darnedest thing,” he said wondrously. “Craig dared me to put one up for sale and see how any bids would go, and you could have pushed me over with a feather when the offers went above two hundred bucks in the first hour. When that auction ended, three of the losing bidders contacted me to see if I had any more in stock.”

  “That’s because they’re works of art, Dad,” Craig said with a smile. “Fiddly little steampunk pieces of genius. And I’m still waiting for mine.” Lawrence looked abashed. “You sold it again, didn’t you?”

  “I do feel bad about that. But I can’t keep up with demand!”

  “Then I want one for Christmas. That’s the only thing I want, a little piece of you to take to California with me.” His smile faded as he said it, and his dad put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

  “I’ll have one for you before you leave.”

  At that moment, Chief Noble approached with two board members flanking him and stole Craig’s parents away for introductions and glad-handing. Craig tilted his head toward the bar.

  “Care for anything?”

  “Water would be good. I’ll find us a table.”

  Scoping the crowd, which was mostly conversing around the tables they planned to occupy for the duration of the dinner, I spotted a flash of red through a break in bodies, and the temperature of the room rose several degrees.

  Sabrina Ballard, wearing a tight red bodice above a long skirt that bore a red-to-black gradient as it descended to the floor, laughed at something one of the attending physicians said. To my utter mortification, she was hooked on the arm of Dr. Adam Dearborn, who’d been on the medical side of my head injury two years ago when it had spectacularly blown up in my face. I’d been on a few cases with him since my return to work, and he’d been nothing but a consummate professional, but there was a small part of me that remembered her conniving plans to get him to notice her two years back, and I wondered if, in the darkness or behind closed doors, they had spoken of the surgeon who’d crashed into a career in physical therapy.

  Turning away before either could spot me, I found a place to sit in the middle of the sea of tables. I hoped it was unlikely we would be near any of the surgeons, who were usually prominently displayed at the front of any room, but just in case, I displaced four of the cloth napkins to reserve the seats, and then invited two couples standing nearby in a cheerful conversation to take up residence on the other side. I couldn’t do anything about nearby tables, but the room was filling up fast, so chances were increasing I’d be able to stay lost in the crowd and off Ballard’s radar.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her since falling from grace, but I made a point to avoid her at all costs. Craig found me and said nothing about the location of our table, only sat down and put a beer and a water in front of his and my respective place settings.

  “You okay?” he asked once he got a good look at my face. “You’re all sweaty and frowny.”

  I nodded and pulled on my tie, trying to get a little room without undoing it altogether.

  “Seriously,” he said, concerned, handing me the ice water from my place setting. “You were less of a spaz talking to my parents after two years than you are right now. What’s going on?”

  Taking a gulp of the water, which did help, gave me a second to think. “Old colleagues. I knew they’d be here, but lots of warm bodies, hospital administration and VPs, and a lot of money rolling around this room, it all has my anxiety spiking. It’s nothing I can’t handle; I just needed to find a seat.” Somewhere people wouldn’t be invading my personal space. Or watching me from around the room.

  I could feel it, the vigilance tugging at the edges of my awareness. No. Please, no, don’t let me have a flashback or HVS in the middle of a fundraiser. Using a technique Dr. Rodriguez had taught me, I looked at each person nearby and began to invent things about their lives.

  She’s a schoolteacher, and her kindergarteners are a cute but unruly bunch. That’s not her first glass of wine today. Her husband is… that guy over there, leaning over the cell phone of another man with the avid expression of sports fans. I bet… yep, cell phone guy’s wife is coming back to the teacher with her own glass of wine. The
y’re being college basketball widows together tonight.

  And so on, until most of the people in my immediate vicinity had innocent goings on for background noise, and I had no need to watch to see if any of them were armed. I also didn’t feel quite the pull of distorted reality ready to transport me to a dark alleyway, a frightened kid pressed to my back as he stole from me for the benefit of his injured brother. Unfortunately, having gone inward in order to deal with my need to relax, I was no longer fooling Craig that I was fine.

  “What is it?” he demanded, albeit at a lower volume so no one nearby would hear. The firm hand he laid on my forearm helped keep me in the present, in the moment, and not in some altered state where I could end up making a real public ass of myself.

  “Okay, my former neurologist and his very happy girlfriend are at my three o’clock, and if at all possible, I’d like to avoid an encounter with either of them tonight, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Craig knew Dr. Dearborn from Isabelle’s case, since he was the one who’d removed her brain mets. When he sucked in a hiss of breath, I knew he’d spotted Sabrina and I didn’t have to say another word.

  “I’d like to avoid them too,” he agreed, ever the master of understatement. “So it shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll eat, stay as long as is necessary to appease my parents and the chief, since he’s the one who invited you, and then we can leave before she even notices us.”

  “Plan,” I agreed, wishing the call to be seated would be given so the wait staff who’d lined up along the wall could begin distributing hundred-dollar plates of food and the speeches could commence.

  Miraculously, one of the board members stepped to the podium and spoke into the mic, asking us to take our seats so the evening’s itinerary could begin. Craig and I made small talk with those at our table, the basketball fans and their wives, while the food was served. It was catered, so it was better than hospital food, but only marginally. I sat picking at my dry chicken breast, eyeing the wilted asparagus spears with trepidation while next to me, Craig played with his cheese tortellini more than ate it. Yeah, these plates were pricey for fundraising purposes, but a good steak or, hell, even fried chicken would have been tastier.

  A couple different speakers got up and made speeches about the exciting future of cancer research and health care in general. We were on dessert, cheesecake with raspberry sauce, which thankfully made the price per plate worth it, when Isabelle unexpectedly stood and walked to the podium after the previous speaker introduced her.

  Craig and I eyed each other in surprise, and Lawrence actually put his chin in his hands and sighed, prepared to love every word out of his wife’s mouth.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you all for adding an extra zero to the check you’ll write tonight,” Isabelle began, to the appreciative laughter of those still paying attention. “My name is Isabelle Dahl, and I’m in remission.” She went on to describe her illness, the experience of learning her seizures were due to brain mets, her surgeries, and lastly, being declared cancer-free only to learn the seizures were a permanent fixture in her life. She was poignant, engaging, witty, and reverent about her ordeal, and people were smiling, some nodding, some likely reliving their own experiences with cancer.

  “Now, my story is unique, in that my son’s partner was a doctor at this hospital at the time.” I felt my face heat. Oh shit, please don’t mention me by name. Craig’s hand landed on my knee and I immediately gripped it, not wanting to be the center of attention without being prepared, not wanting to be pointed out to everyone in the room and particularly not to Sabrina Ballard. “Dr. Perry couldn’t take off months of work to sit beside my hospital bed and help me with my worries and fears, but he stopped by several times a day between patients of his own, answered questions I hadn’t even realized I needed to ask, and was basically the glue that kept our family together.” I was equally stricken and humbled by her words, and when Lawrence turned to me with a wide smile and a confirming nod, I could only smile back. “Dr. Perry wasn’t even an oncologist, or a neurologist, or an internist. Dr. Perry was a surgical resident, because this is a teaching hospital, and he was still learning whatever specialty he intended to practice. But you see, he didn’t get the chance.”

  “Oh my god, what is she doing?” I whispered to Craig, trying not to let my panic rise. He could only shrug and shake his head, scooting closer to me to put his arm around my shoulders and let me lean on him.

  It doesn’t matter if you’re the center of attention, I echoed one of the catchphrases Dr. Rodriguez had given me. You’re safe and in a room full of people; no one will hurt you. My heart slowed marginally, but my stomach still shuddered and shimmied, unsure if it was going to hold on to my chicken breast.

  “Dr. Perry had to leave the program, and in the last month of my treatment before I was declared well, I had a tumor recur on my right kidney and had to have the entire kidney removed. I had another resident on my case who came by to answer my questions and help me prep for another scary surgery, but one they assured me was my last. I had no more mets, and while my kidney had to come out, my prognosis was great.

  “Dr. Getty was just as kind, just as interested in my condition, and short of the affectionate hugs and calling me Mom sometimes, he was just as engaged as the man I thought of as a son-in-law. And that’s when it hit me. I didn’t get special treatment because a doctor on staff is part of my family. I got a standard of care practiced by all the doctors at Elijah Hope. I know this because the residents are taught this standard of care from the beginning. I know this because, when new residents were assigned to me in each of my hospital stays, they were all as engaged as my son’s partner. They were all as knowledgeable and compassionate as Dr. Perry. So tonight, when my husband writes the check for our contribution to the new cancer wing, I’ll know the money will be well spent equipping this hospital with the best of the best. Whether that best consists of world-renowned doctors who bring cutting edge techniques and research to the hospital, whether it’s state-of-the-art equipment to assist those doctors, or whether it’s the most compassionate staff possible, it will still be the norm around here. Even though I felt like I got special treatment because I have a doctor in my family, I was treated like everyone else, because I was treated by the best.”

  Her speech was moving, and she received the biggest applause of the night. When she returned to our table, she came to my chair before hers, and she hiked me up by my arms to wrap her strong, tiny frame around me in a fierce hug. Craig and Lawrence waited their turn, and I knew, in that moment, she’d not intended to make me the center of attention, only part of her family.

  I’d truly been forgiven for what I did to Craig.

  That it made the entire room aware of me didn’t seem as big a deal anymore, as the next speaker stood up to regale us with their own tale of experience at Elijah Hope. I tuned the rest of it out, though thankfully, the speaker after Isabelle was the last. Chief Noble concluded the formalities with an impassioned plea for generosity, and announced the bar was open for a few more hours and they’d brought in a string quartet for live entertainment, should anyone feel the need to take to the dance floor.

  “You ready to go?” I murmured to Craig, once we’d spent enough time talking to some of the board members who stopped by to speak to Isabelle. A few of them asked if I’d be returning to the surgical residency program—they were too polite to ask why I’d left in the first place—and seemed disappointed when I told them that no, it wasn’t in my future.

  “Ready when you are,” he answered, then turned to his parents, attempting to get their attention from the oncologist who’d been working with Isabelle throughout her treatment. Finally, we’d given our goodbyes, had shaken a few more hands, and were almost home free when an unmistakable voice stopped us in our tracks.

  “Wonder how they’d feel about the great Dr. Dane Perry if they knew all of his notable cases,” Sabrina Ballard said with just enough hint of a sneer to make me awar
e she meant the surgery for Glenn Morgan, the one where she’d covered for me.

  I stiffened, but turned. Since my return to the hospital, I’d known some sort of confrontation was inevitable, though I’d have preferred not to have it at so public a function. Then again, Chief Noble had promised me she would be professional during work hours, and this was after work hours. If she was going to say anything, now was her only shot.

  “Wonder how people would feel about the level of care some of this hospital’s doctors give those in psychiatric care?” I shot back.

  She approached me and put her hands out as if to hug me, though she stopped short of actually doing more than resting her palms on my shoulders, then air-kissed my cheek.

  “Must keep up the pretenses, musn’t we?” she said, smiling. If it had reached her eyes, maybe I’d have believed she intended to be well mannered, but no, her gaze was cold and calculated.

  “Mmm,” was all I said.

  “Like the pretense you were ever my friend?” she went on, and her voice caught. That’s when I knew she was drunk.

  “Or how about the pretense that you were ever after friendship rather than someone you could fantasize about?” Craig chimed in. Oh, boy. The gloves were coming off.