Page 80 of The Devil You Know
Now he looks a hundred.
I see him lying in the hospital bed, the oxygen nasal cannula prongs stuck up his nostrils. He seems tiny and shrunken. Tufts of white hair stick up off his pale, fragile scalp in every direction. He’s asleep in his bed, but his mouth is hanging open, revealing his dry tongue. He’s got the “O sign”—a mouth that hangs open in your sleep is not a good prognostic sign.
See, Mr. Katz? There are worse things than cancer.
“Mr. Katz?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer. For a moment, I’m scared he’s dead, although the monitors attached to his chest are recording a normal heart rate and rhythm. After a minute, his eyes flutter open. They’re brown and watery and bloodshot.
I’d been scared that Mr. Katz would have absolutely no clue who I was. But I can see the recognition in his eyes, even if he can’t manage to say my name. He opens his mouth to speak but no sounds come out. He’s profoundly aphasic. His stroke knocked out all his language centers. They’ve destroyed one of the very things that makes him human.
His right arm is propped up on a pillow, swollen and immobile. I walk closer to the bed and Mr. Katz holds out his left arm to me. I grasp his hand in my own—his feels cold and shriveled. I sit down at the side of his bed and watch as his eyes fill with tears.
“You’re going to get better,” I promise. Even though I can’t really promise that. It doesn’t matter anyway—I don’t think he understands a word I’m saying.
I hate this. I hate that this is my fault.
Well, not only my fault.
“Jane!”
I turn my head and see Ryan standing at the door to Mr. Katz’s room, dressed in his green scrubs. He looks more rumpled than usual—instead of being clean-shaved, he has golden stubble on his chin and his hair is disheveled. I wonder if he’s been here all night. I haven’t pulled an all-nighter since residency.
“What are you doing here?” he hisses at me.
I apologize to Mr. Katz and stand up to face Ryan. “This is my patient.”
“No, he’smypatient.” Ryan glares at me. “How did you find out he was here? Wiseman told you, didn’t he?”
I don’t say anything.
“I knew it!” he growls. “I’m going tokillthat arrogant prick. He should never have—”
“Adam isn’t an arrogant prick,” I interrupt him. I can see that not only does Mr. Katz seem startled, but we’ve drawn the attention of several nurses, who probably overheard Ryan angrily badmouthing their attending physician. “Could we talk about this somewhere else? Please?”
“Fine.” Ryan stalks away from me, and I rush after him down the hallway. Good to see that his temperament hasn’t changed at all.
I follow him until we reach the call room just outside the ICU. The door to the tiny room is open, revealing a single bed and small wooden desk. The two of us have been in a lot of call rooms together in the past, but never to fight. But we’re not going to do that other thing again. That part of our relationship is over.
“So why are you so angry that Adam told me about Mr. Katz?” I say to Ryan, once we’re in the privacy of the call room.
“It’s not your concern,” he says. “He and I are managing the patient. No offense, Jane, but you’re just his primary care doctor.”
Gee, thanks.
“But I knew him really well,” I say. I consider sitting on the bed, but I can tell Ryan wants to stand. He never sits—it’s a surgeon thing. “I had a right to know. Don’t you think so?”
Ryan runs a hand through his already messy hair. His hair is so light in color that I somehow hadn’t realized quite how much gray was threaded through it until this very moment. “When Wiseman told you about it, did you ask him if I screwed up?”
“What?”
He inspects my face. “You did, didn’t you? That’s the first thing you asked him. You said, ‘Did Dr. Reilly fuck up the surgery?’ Admit it.”
I bite my lip. “Well, it’s only natural to wonder…”
“Stroke is a known complication of carotid endarterectomy,” he practically spits at me. “It’s a risky surgery and your patient knew the risks. It went fine—perfectly. Then he stroked out. You think I know why?”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t blaming you…”
