in class. And one other thing: Two fourth-year students have been foisted on me for a month of elective by the damn dean. So I want you to give some thought to what they can do while they’re here. It’s not going to be easy. I’m sure they’ll be worthless.”
“Where are they and how can I meet them?”
“They are supposed to start tomorrow. Dr. Yamamoto will introduce you. The main thing is that I don’t want them tying up a lot of Junichi’s time as he seems to enjoy that kind of crap. I need him to concentrate on our work.”
“I can’t do anything with that maintenance man in my office.”
“My understanding is that he’ll be done sometime today. So, tomorrow then.” Rothman was never much interested in the details of running his massive lab. Suddenly he was again absorbed in the
Ignoring Rothman’s dismissal, Pia said, “There is something I want to tell you. The residency matching results came in. I’m going to be here at Columbia doing a combined program getting a Ph.D. in cellular biology with you, as you so generously offered, and completing a residency in internal medicine. I hope you’re pleased.”
“Well, I’m not!” Rothman said with emotion, his infamous ire rising. “I’m disappointed. If I told you once I told you a dozen times that for you, doing an internal medicine residency would be a complete waste of time, just like it was for me. I think it is totally apparent that you, like me, are cut out for research, not clinical medicine. You should be here in the lab full-time! I said as much in my letter of recommendation for the Ph.D. program.”
A level of tension hung in the air. For a few beats neither spoke, nor did they so much as exchange a glance.
“But I have the sisters to think of,” Pia said. Pia’s education had been partly underwritten by the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, an international religious order situated in Westchester County. Pia had fled to the order for emotional safety after aging out of foster care at age eighteen. Although initially Pia had thought briefly of joining the order as a nun, after finishing her high school equivalency and a portion of college at New York University, she had changed her mind. Consequently the relationship with the sisters, particularly the mother superior, had become more transactional. Although Pia would complete her medical training and still go to Africa to help with the organization’s missionary work, she would not become a novitiate.
Although Pia had received full scholarships from New York University and Columbia Medical School, the Sisters’ contribution had been considerable. She felt justifiably obligated. “I don’t think I can renege on a plan I made ten years ago. Although I’ve come to agree with you that my personality is more suited to research, I think I have to go through with the original plan to become a doctor and, at least for a time, serve the order’s needs.”
A rush of mumbled profanity escaped from Rothman’s lips. He shook his head in disbelief. “Here I am offering you a part in making medical history with my stem cell research, and I have to be concerned about a bunch of nuns in Westchester.” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. “What kind of money are we talking about?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come on. Don’t be obtuse. What do you think you owe them in dollars?”
“I’m not sure I can think of it in those terms.”
“Let’s not be difficult. Give me a figure however you want to create it.”
Pia thought for a moment. It was not an easy task. She’d never put a figure on how the sisters had nurtured her and given her a sense of protection from the evils of her foster care experience. She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe fifty thousand. Something like that.”
“Done,” Rothman said. “You’ll get a loan from my bank to the tune of fifty thousand, and I’ll cosign for it.”
Pia found herself momentarily speechless. Never in her life had someone stood up for her financially, especially to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. She didn’t know how to react. “I don’t know what to say,” she mumbled.
“Then don’t say anything! We’ll revisit this issue, but for today I want you to jump on this paper for
Rothman got up from behind his desk. With his attention buried in the piece of paper he’d been intermittently studying, he walked out of his office. Pia was stunned. Rothman had just essentially lent her a large sum of money and asked for her help on a vitally important paper.
“Okay,” Pia said to herself, “I’ve got work to do. Now I just have to get that man out of my work space.” Following Rothman out through the door, she headed back to the lab bench where she had set up her temporary work space.
2.
CONVENT OF THE SISTERS OF THE SACRED HEART WESTCHESTER, NEW YORK FEBRUARY 28, 2011, 7:20 P.M.
Armed with Dr. Rothman’s pledge of financial support, Pia made an appointment with the mother superior of the convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart for that same evening. It wasn’t a meeting she looked forward to. Pia recalled how years before the mother superior had found her as a teenager sitting on the convent wall after getting into a fight with her foster family at the time, who lived a couple of miles away. She had brought Pia inside, and they had talked. The result was that Pia returned the very next weekend, with her family’s permission, to help out in an unstructured fashion. The rest was history, culminating in Pia’s decision, when she aged out of foster care, to join the convent with the idea of possibly becoming a novitiate.
Pia would be forever grateful for what the mother superior had done for her in the years following her moving in, especially as it was an enormous improvement on what she had experienced in the foster care system. Although it was, in reality, another institution, Pia had finally been at peace. She had found the mother superior to be sympathetic not only in helping her adjust to the convent’s community living but also in helping her navigate the tempestuous waters in the real world beyond the tranquillity of the convent. It had been at the mother superior’s insistence that Pia turned to academia and became a superior student rather than an adequate one. But obtaining her high school equivalency and attending college had allowed Pia to learn about herself to the extent of realizing that a nun’s life was not for her. Instead she decided on a career in medicine, where she sensed she could excel and find equivalent peace. After all, during her entire tumultuous foster care experience, she had always viewed the doctor as the sine qua non of power and control of one’s personal destiny. But the decision had had consequences, especially with regard to the mother superior.
About five years earlier Pia had made a similar appointment with the woman. It was then that Pia admitted that she was not going to become a sister but rather a doctor. It had been a difficult meeting as the mother superior had been obviously disappointed and made her feelings known. At the same time she had been encouraging about Pia’s new career track and voiced how desperately doctors were needed at their missionary locations in East Africa. Now, as Pia walked into the mother superior’s stark office, she knew she faced as difficult a situation as-and maybe even worse than-when she had decided against becoming a nun. The more she thought about her goals, the more she thought Rothman was right about her being uniquely qualified for medical research.
“Pia, my dear, it’s a blessing to see you. We have all missed you. All the sisters ask about you day after day.”
“And you, Reverend Mother.”
Pia kept her eyes glued to her hands as they worked at each other in her lap. Her anxiety had peaked. She hoped it was not reflected in her voice. She had dressed simply in a black dress that broke at the knees and plain pumps. At first glance, the mother superior had looked the same as when she first met her ten years before. The uniform of the order helped with that. But Pia could tell that age was taking its toll. The mother superior had moved slowly when she walked around her desk to greet Pia. From Pia’s perspective her hand had felt bonier and more delicate when she placed it on Pia’s shoulder than on Pia’s previous visit a month or so previously.
On the short train ride out of Manhattan, Pia had rehearsed what she was going to say. She wanted to be
