Do you need money? he asked, and I said I didn’t, but still he pushed a crisp, brand-new one-hundred-dollar bill into my hand. Next time you’ll tell me all about it, he said. The it could be whatever—your day, your work, your life. Just as when I was in college and would get a two-minute phone call from him, from a train or airplane gate where he was about to board—next time you’ll tell me all about college, and I’ll tell you all about my trip.
Not much about college to tell. Harvard was intense but some parts were fun. Each spring there were outdoor concerts and barbecues. A large banquet table ran down the entire length of the yard and was filled with hot dogs and every kind of condiment. Each fall there were football games, one in particular against a rival school in not-so-far-from-Greenwich, Connecticut, with which we had a history. My brother had gone to Yale, and for months prior to the big game, each year, he would ask if I wanted to come. He and his alumni finance friends had bought out two rows of VIP seats and all-new school gear.
Did I go?
No, never. As neither team was good, the tailgate started at 7:00 a.m., and I could study more or less around the clock. I went from library to classroom and only returned to the dorm to sleep. I wasn’t close with any of my roommates, and once the rest of them decided to be in a suite, I became a floater.
Studying so much had its consequences. It caused me to wonder, for instance, if I might be a genius. Prior to medicine, I’d entertained the idea of going into higher math, which was math above the boring numbers and calculations. Higher math did away with all that, was purely symbols and proofs and style. Proofs were like puzzles. But a simple one-page proof took me nearly a week to understand. I wasn’t a genius in the end, but a girl could still hope.
Better not to be one, said my brother, who was much more gifted in math and could’ve gone into higher math had he not so badly wanted to be rich. Sure, some geniuses solve the unsolvable problems and win unwinnable prizes, but they still forage for mushrooms for the rest of their days.
My brother had a point. It was much nicer and safer to buy mushrooms from a store.
Fang was what future employers would call a “diamond in the rough,” possessing true grit but also someone whom they knew they could groom.
I was what some would call properly “lopsided,” or the opposite of well rounded, and being a girl lopsided in science and math was supposedly good.
My childhood dreams consisted of stone castles made only out of turrets and colorful fluttering flags, me flying high above them, over moats and green pastures filled with white specks of sheep. Once I finished college and the yearlong marches through physics, chemistry, biology, and math, these dreams stopped. Then, as new doctors, we were warned that medical training would flatten us. The learning curve was relentless, akin to drinking from a fire hydrant or the fattening of ducks to make foie gras. I’d never tasted foie gras before nor did I want to be a duck, so the open fire hydrant analogy it was. A person sits eye level with the barrel and grapples it. She is pounded in the face by knowledge while her facial features are erased.
* * *
—
AT THE END OF my shift, I went back to my apartment to shower and then left immediately, hair still wet, for the Harlem–125th Street Metro-North station. I boarded the train to Stamford by 9:15 a.m. and, within the hour, was in Greenwich, Connecticut. Even without the sign, I knew I’d arrived. The ground was free of litter. The air felt clean against my skin. Trash bins were painted hunter green. I was hungry, but outside the station, instead of hot dog stands and halal carts, there were only car dealerships. I could buy a new BMW or Lexus. I could visit a billion-dollar hedge fund.
Weekday afternoons, Fang worked inside one of these funds, the boys were each in private school, and Tami was out. My sister-in-law no longer worked but had become actively involved in school events and weekly appointments for self-care. Fang and Tami also enjoyed hosting and had three big holiday parties a year, the first of which set around Thanksgiving.
I’d told neither of them that I was coming that morning because I didn’t want my brother to take the rest of his day off so he could pick me up, then drive me around Greenwich for what would become an hour-long tour. Belle Haven. The waterfront. The new Tesla store. Can’t you see yourself thriving here? he would ask. Can’t you see yourself in a Tesla? He was on a waiting list for the next model, and because of that, we had test-driven one together during my last Greenwich tour. I found it too quiet, so quiet that I wondered the entire time if the engine had dropped out the vehicle and effectively its bottom. So, was driving a Tesla like hitting rock bottom?