“And what about now?”
Ben looked out the window, where the stately apartments of the Upper East Side blended together against the darkening sky.
“Now I want to make something permanent. Something that will keep on standing even after . . .”
Hank let out a knowing sigh, and the two were quiet for a minute, unsure if the conversation would continue. But Ben was curious. “So, if it wasn’t about the shooting, why did you quit?”
“I think I was tired,” Hank said. “Tired of seeing people come into the hospital crying, scared, completely desperate, and begging me for answers that I couldn’t give them.”
“That sounds awful.”
Hank screwed his mouth to the side, thinking.
“You know, that actually wasn’t the only reason. That’s what I told my boss and my colleagues, but the truth is that I just didn’t want to be a doctor anymore. There I was, thinking that I had brought hundreds of people back from the edge of death. That I had confronted death and won. And then I found out that maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I had only saved the ones who weren’t going to die anyway, the ones who still had more time on their strings. And, as for the other ones who I tried to save and failed, maybe they couldn’t have been saved. No doctor could have helped them.”
“That sounds like it might almost be comforting?” Ben asked.
“Except it’s hard to keep fighting against something once you realize it’s not a fair fight,” Hank said. “And I guess everyone else could shift their focus better than I could. Even if we can’t affect someone’s longevity, at least we can still impact their quality of life. And I know they’re right, but I can’t get past it. I worked in an ER. I’ve spent my whole career fending off death. But it’s the one thing we can’t defeat.”
“Well, wasn’t that true even before the strings?” Ben asked.
“Yes,” Hank said. “But before the strings, I could still delude myself into thinking that I actually stood a chance.”
Ben nodded somberly. “I’m sorry about that.”
“I’m sorry I won’t get to see your skyscraper.”
Ben pretended to be insulted. “Hey! I’ve still got some time left to build it.”
Hank looked down at his feet. “I’m not like the rest of you,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m much closer to the end of mine,” Hank said. “But I didn’t really want to attend the group for short-stringers with just a year left. Too damn depressing. So I came here instead.”
“I’m so sorry.” Ben’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Well, some days can get pretty dark,” Hank said, “but other days, I just try to remember that I’ve lived a good life. I did my best to help people. I fell in love a few times. I tried to be a good son.” Hank leaned back slowly in his chair. “You know, I watched a lot of people come to the end, and everyone around them kept begging them to fight. It takes real strength to keep on fighting, and yes, usually that’s the right answer. Keep fighting, keep holding on, no matter what. But sometimes I think we forget that it also takes strength to be able to let go.”
Dear B,
Dear B, Don’t worry, I’ll still be around. I’m teaching summer school and tutoring.
But even if I weren’t, I’ve found that I look forward to your letters enough that I might even risk my job and break into the school after hours—I should hate to miss even one week.
As long as you’d like to keep writing, I promise I’m not going anywhere.
—A
Hank
On June 9, Maura asked if their support group could meet an hour earlier, so the session would end in enough time to watch the first primary debate of the season.
Hank didn’t particularly care for politics. He cared, of course, in a broad sense about matters that immediately impacted him and his work—health insurance, crime rates, taxes—though he didn’t have the time to spend hours debating the minutiae of policies or reading long political think pieces. But Hank had heard the rumors that the candidate from Virginia, Anthony Rollins, was planning to make a big announcement during the debate. To Hank, he was just another suave millionaire, detached from the realities of most Americans’ lives, the realities that Hank had borne witness to every day in the emergency room. But he was still curious enough to tune in.
He was sipping a beer on his brown leather couch when the moderator asked the question that Hank hadn’t realized he was waiting to hear.