“I diagnosed a dural venous sinus thrombosis,” he said. “Two days ago, they let this girl walk out with just some Fioricet for her headache. I caught it though.”
“So…” I grinned at him. “You saved her life.”
“Well.” He lowered his eyes. One thing about Joel was that he never oversold himself. “Maybe. I’m sure someone would have figured it out eventually. And then I passed her on to neurology, so if anyone is going to save her life, it’s them.”
“Of course you did,” I insisted. Because while my boyfriend was always reluctant to tout his own achievements, I had no trouble doing it. I would tell anyone who would listen about the Great Dr. Joel Broder. I wasn’t bragging—I believed everything I said. I was so proud of everything he had achieved during the time we were together. In my eyes, there was nobody better than him. No better doctor. No better man.
No better person to spend the rest of my life with.
I still believe that. In spite of everything that happened next.
“There are lots of people I don’t save,” he said.
Without him saying the words, I know what he’s referring to. One month ago, a man dropped dead in his ER. A young man—about our age, give or take a year. He came in complaining of vague chest pain that had been triaged as “likely heartburn.” Joel hadn’t even seen him yet when a “Code Blue” was called. Joel rushed to the room, but wasn’t able to save him. Cardiac arrest, he said.
Joel took it really hard. He went into our bedroom, lay down on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling without speaking for several hours. I couldn’t get him to eat dinner, even though I made his favorite: spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce and meatballs. It takes me nearly two hours to get that recipe perfect, but it’s Joel’s favorite. How do you get the meatballs to taste so good? （The secret ingredient is buttermilk—a tip from my Italian grandma. I never told him that though.）
I woke up at two in the morning that night, and he wasn’t in bed or even in our apartment. When I frantically called him on his cell, he said he was “taking a walk.” He didn’t return until sunrise—I know because I sat up waiting. It took days for him to start acting normally again. And it was clearly still in the back of his mind at all times.
I didn’t entirely understand it. He’d seen dozens of people die during his career in medicine. Maybe even hundreds. Why did this one death shake him so badly?
“He was a doctor too,” Joel said to me now. “Did I tell you that? He worked as a hospitalist downtown. One of our ER docs went to med school with him.”
“Oh,” I said, because I wasn’t sure what else to say. I didn’t want to talk about death. Not now. It was the least romantic thing I could think of.
He took a swig from his copper-colored drink. I didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t his usual wine or beer. It looked and smelled like… bourbon. I’d never seen him drink hard liquor before. Well, that wasn’t true. But not since he graduated medical school.
It was my second clue something was amiss. Yet I ignored it and plowed forward anyway.
“So,” I said cheerfully, “you said you wanted to talk to me about something? Something important?”
When I relive that night in my memory, it’s at this point that I start to cringe.
“Yeah.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. His eyes were avoiding mine. I looked at the pocket of his scrub top, trying to make out the outline of a ring box. “So here’s the thing…”
Will you marry me?
“I…” He coughed into his hand and took another swig from his drink. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately, you know? After that guy…”
“It wasn’t your fault, Joel.”