“I’m afraid Dr. Portland is no longer with us,” Kevin said.
“He’s left the group?” David asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” Kevin said with a wry smile.
“I’m afraid Dr. Portland committed suicide back in May,” Kelley said.
“Right here in this room,” Kevin said. “Sitting there at that desk.” He pointed at the desk. Then Kevin formed his hand into a pistol with his index finger serving as the barrel, and pointed it at his forehead. “Bam!” he said. “Shot himself right through the forehead out the back. That’s why the walls had to be painted and the carpet changed.”
David’s mouth went bone-dry. He gazed at the blank wall behind the desk and tried not to imagine what it had looked like after the incident. “How awful,” David said. “Was he married?”
“Unfortunately,” Dr. Yansen said with a nod. “Wife and two young boys. A real tragedy. I knew something was wrong. All of a sudden he stopped playing basketball on Saturday mornings.”
“He didn’t look good the last time I saw him,” David said. “Was he ill? He’d looked as if he’d lost a lot of weight.”
“Depressed,” Kelley said.
David sighed. “Boy, you never know!”
“Let’s move on to a happier subject,” Kelley said after he’d cleared his throat. “I took you at your word, Dr. Wilson. We’ve scheduled patients for you this morning. Are you up to it?”
“Absolutely,” David said.
Kevin wished David well and headed back to one of the examining rooms. Kelley introduced David to Susan Beardslee, the nurse he’d be working with. Susan was an attractive woman in her mid-twenties, with dark hair cut short to frame her face. What David immediately liked about her was her lively, enthusiastic personality.
“Your first patient is already in the examining room,” Susan said cheerfully. She handed him the chart. “When you need me, just buzz. I’ll be getting the next patient ready.” She disappeared into the second examining room.
“I think this is where I leave,” Kelley said. “Good luck, David. If there are any questions or problems, just holler.”
David flipped open the cover of the chart and read the name: Marjorie Kleber, aged thirty-nine. The complaint was chest pain. He was about to knock on the examining room door when he read the diagnostic summary: breast cancer treated with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. The cancer had been diagnosed four years previously at age thirty-five. At the time of the discovery, the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes.
David quickly scanned the rest of the chart. He was mildly unnerved and needed a moment to prepare himself. A patient with breast cancer that had metastasized, or spread from the breast to other areas of the body, was a serious case with which to begin his medical career. Happily Marjorie had been doing well.
David knocked on the door and entered. Marjorie Kleber was sitting patiently on the examining table dressed in an examining gown. She looked up at David with large, sad, intelligent eyes. Her smile was the kind of smile that warmed his heart.
David introduced himself and was about to ask about her current complaint when she reached out and took one of his hands in hers. She squeezed it and held it to her chest at the base of her neck.
“Thank you for coming to Bartlet,” she said. “You’ll never know how much I have prayed for someone like you to come here. I’m truly overjoyed.”
“I’m happy to be here,” David stammered.
“Prior to your corning, I’ve had to wait up to four weeks to be seen,” she said as she finally released David’s hand. “That’s the way it’s been since the school’s health-care coverage was switched to CMV. And every time it’s been a different doctor. Now I’ve been told that you will be my doctor. It’s so reassuring.”
“I’m honored to be your doctor,” David said.
“Waiting four weeks to be seen was so scary,” Marjorie continued. “Last winter I had the flu so bad that I thought it was pneumonia. Luckily, by the time I was seen I was over the worst of it.”
“Maybe you should have gone to the emergency room,” David suggested.