Thomas Stone spread his feet and put his hands behind his back. He appeared willing to stand there all day. He raised his eyebrows. Waiting. The students sitting to my left were too scared to blink.
Stone looked over to me, surprised to see a response from the row of dark suits. I felt his eyes bore into mine. It was only the second time he registered my being in this world; the first was when I was born. This time, I only had to raise my hand.
“Yes?” he said. “Tell us, please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?”
All eyes were on me. I was in no hurry. None at all.
Then my sight turned misty as I thought of Ghosh and the sacrifice he'd made for us. Though he died of leukemia, it now felt to me as if he'd given up his life from the time we were infants so that Shiva and I should have ours. When he died, it was as if a second umbilical cord had been severed. I thought of Hema, widowed, now laboring alone with Shiva at Missing, writing to me to say that her heart was breaking not to have me there, and would I forgive her for not giving me the attention and love I deserved? And all through those years, Thomas Stone probably never missed an M&M conference, never had a day of discomfort over Shiva, or over me. I thought of Matron, holding Missing together, an active and loving godmother to two boys, an anchor in our lives, and I thought of Gebrew, Almaz, and Rosina, who had stepped in to fill the void of this man's absence.
How unjust it was that Thomas Stone's reward for his failings, for his selfishness, should be to preside in that chair and command the respect, the awe, and the admiration of the likes of Constance and others in this room. Surely you couldn't be a good doctor
I met his gaze and I did not blink. “Words of comfort,” I said to my father.
The intervening years lay compressed between us as if by bookends. The others in the room looked from my face to his, distressed, uncertain if mine was the right answer. But no one else existed for me or for him.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice altered. “Words of comfort.”
He left the room, but looked back at me once when he reached the door.
I FOUND WHERE HE LIVED by accident. An elegant condominium complex across the river would have been my guess. But at the base of Tower A, I saw a glass door leading to the outside. Across the street was the lobby to another building. I saw Thomas Stone enter and a doorman greet him. I waited. A few minutes later he emerged, without his white coat and with a yellow-and-black box in his hand—a slide carousel. He was on his way to the transplant conference. I gave him half an hour, and then I went up to the doorman. I flashed my badge. “I'm Marion Stone. Dr. Stone forgot some slides he needed for a talk he is giving. He sent me to pick them up.”
He was about to quiz me, deny me, but then he cocked his head. “You a relative?”
“I'm his son.”
“By God you are!” he said, coming closer to look into my eyes, as if that was where the similarity resided. He beamed as if the news vindicated him. As if it gave Thomas Stone a human dimension, a redeeming quality.
“By God you are!” He slapped his thigh in delight. “And not a word to us all this time.”
“He never knew till this year,” I said, winking.
“Joseph and Mary! Get out of here!”
I smiled and looked at my watch.
“You know where it is?” he said.
“Fourth floor?”
“Four-oh-nine.”
I ENTERED HIS HOUSE using my penknife and the sort of ancillary surgical skills only a B. C. Gandhi can teach you.
It was a one-bedroom apartment.
The living-dining room had nothing to justify that label. A large worktable like a draftsman's desk occupied most of that area, with two side tables at its ends to form a
The coffeepot in the kitchen was collecting dust. The stove appeared never to have been used. A toaster on the counter had a trace of crumbs on the top. The refrigerator held only a carton of orange juice, a stick of butter, and a half loaf of bread.
His bedroom was dark, the curtains drawn. There were no books or papers here. Only an army cot, a blanket folded neatly at its foot, as if he were camping for one night.
A single framed snapshot sat on the mantelpiece above the electric fireplace. The airbrush technique of the 1920S gave mother and son alabaster skin. They were posed like Madonna and Child. The boy was perhaps three, ensconced in the lap of the woman who must have been my grandmother—a presence in the world I realized I'd never once thought about.
Next to the picture was a glass cylinder, filled with murky fluid. Closer inspection revealed a human finger floating in the liquid.
I had come there wanting to … to do damage.
That picture made me change my mind.
Instead, I opened all the kitchen cabinets and left the doors ajar. I pulled down the oven door. I opened both sides of the fridge. I took the top off the juice container. I opened the bathroom cabinets. I unscrewed toothpaste, shampoo, and conditioner, setting the tops carefully alongside the bottles. I opened anything that had a lid or a cover. I left open wardrobe, chest of drawers, filing cabinet, ink bottle, medicine bottles. I opened the windows.
In the center of his desk I placed the bookmark with Sister Mary Joseph Praise's writing on it.
I felt certain he had the letter my mother referred to. Now, in his home, I asked myself again: Where was it … and what did it say? I was tempted to ransack the place to find it but that would have spoiled what I had created.
I twisted open the formalin bottle, fished out his finger, shook it free of fluid, and put it next to the bookmark. I studied what Id done. I changed my mind about the finger. I put it back in the formalin bottle, capped it, and took it with me. It was only fair. After all, Id left him something of mine.
I propped the door open on my way out.
44. Begin at the Beginning
IT WAS TWO WEEKS LATER on a Sunday that I heard the knock on my door. We had beaten our archrivals from Coney Island at a limited overs match on their turf, coming away with the interhospi-tal cricket trophy Nestor had taken six wickets for twenty-five runs in a torrid spell of pace bowling, and four of those were by catches I took standing well behind the wicket. I had slipped away from the festivities in B. C. Gandhi's room, my fingers sore despite the keeper's gloves and my knees aching. I planned an early night.
“Come in,” I said.
He scanned the dark room, getting his bearings. If he saw the shadow of my bed, he didn't see me because he looked away, to the light leaking from under the bathroom door. Then to the curtained window. When he looked back I was sitting up. It gave him a start.
He shut the door and stood there, a man who had walked into his past.
I waited. I hadn't invited him here. The seconds ticked away and he showed no inclination to speak. I had to give him this: he tracked me down, he figured it out. Perhaps he did register my presence in the opera ting room the day he peeked over my shoulder. Perhaps in the auditorium when I answered his question he saw in my face features of my mother or of himself. How strange to spot a son you've never seen or thought of till the day he appears at morbidity and mortality conference and gives new meaning to that activity.
“You might as well sit,” I said. I didn't offer to turn on the light.
