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to Dr. Fuller, to see him silently lose his faith in me. I don’t know what would have been more distressing, but I didn’t get to make a decision.
I mumbled a feeble apology, turned swiftly and ran. I had barely escaped the grisly scene before I noticed the sticky splotches on the floor that stained the pristine tile a deep, glossy red. I was going to be sick. I fell to my knees in the congealing blood and closed my eyes as the bile rose in my throat. I rocked back and forth on my knees, my vomit mixing with the blood on the tiles.
A sudden hush came from the cubicle behind me, followed by the insistent whine of the heart monitor protesting the cessation of pulse.
“All right, he’s gone. Pack him up and get him to the morgue,” I heard Dr. Fuller say. His cool, Texan confidence crept back into his voice, though it was tainted with weariness and resignation.
I scrambled to my feet and ran to the staff locker room, unable to face my failure.
I was still in the locker room an hour later. Fresh from a shower, dressed in clean scrubs from central processing, I stood before the mirror and tried to smooth my wet, blond hair into something resembling a ponytail. My mascara had run in the shower and I wiped at it with my sleeve. It only served to darken the circles under my eyes. My bone-pale skin stretched sharply over my cheekbones, my blue eyes were cold and hollow. I’d never seen myself look so defeated.
When did I become so pathetic? So cowardly? Cruelly, I taunted myself with memories I couldn’t push aside. The way I’d snickered with the other students when the skinny foreign guy had tossed his cookies on the first day of Gross Anatomy. Or the time I’d chased Amy Anderson, the queen bee of the eighth grade, from the bus stop by sticking earthworms in her hair.
It appeared that I’d become one of those people I’d despised. To the entire E.R. medical staff at St. Mary’s Hospital, I had become the squeamish nerd, the shrieking girl. It cut so deeply, I’d need emotional sutures to heal.
A knock at the door pulled me from my self-pity. “Ames, you still in there?”
The door swung open. Steady footsteps carried Dr. Fuller to the end of my narrow bench.
For a moment, he didn’t say anything at all. Without looking, I knew that he stood with his head hanging down. His hands would be in the pockets of his crisp white coat, his elbows tucked in at his sides, giving him the appearance of a tall, gray stork.
“So, hangin’ in there?” he asked suddenly.
I shrugged. Anything I said would have been a lame excuse for my poor performance, one akin to those uttered by countless med students who stopped showing up for class soon after.
“You know,” he began, “I’ve seen a lot of doctors, good physicians, crack under pressure. You get tired. You get stressed, maybe you’re having personal problems. Those things happen to all of us. But some of us leave it in here—” he pointed to the lockers behind me “—instead of taking it out there. It’s what makes us capable doctors.”
He waited for me to respond. I only nodded.
“I know you’ve gone through a lot this year, losing your parents—”
“This isn’t about my parents.” I hadn’t meant to cut him off, but the words were spoken before I had a chance to think about them. “I’m sorry. But really, I’m over that.”
He sighed deeply as he sat next to me on the bench. “Why do you want to be a doctor?”
We sat there for a long time, like a coach and a star player who had fumbled the ball, before I answered.
“Because I want to help people.” I was lying. Badly. But even I didn’t know the reason, and he didn’t want a real answer, anyway. Real doctors lose the capacity for humanity and understanding before they grab their diplomas. “And because I love it.”
“Well, I love golf, but that doesn’t make me Tiger Woods, does it?” He laughed at his own joke before he became thoughtful again. “You know, there comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to carefully examine the goals they’ve set for themselves. When they have to admit their limitations and look at their capabilities in a more realistic way.”
“You’re saying I should be a dentist?” I asked, forcing a laugh.
“I’m saying you shouldn’t be a doctor.” Fuller actually patted me on the back, as though it would take the edge off his harsh words. He stood and walked toward the door, stopping suddenly as if he’d just thought of something.
“You know,” he began, but he didn’t finish his thought. Instead he shook his head and walked out the door.
My fists balled with anger and my breath came in noisy gasps as I struggled to regain my composure. I’d failed the Great One’s test. I should have told him I liked the money. It was considerably better than a stick in the eye. Though they were both reasons people entered the field, neither financial security nor desire to help others were my true motivation for becoming a doctor.
It was the power that drew me to it. The power of holding a human life in my hands. The power of looking Death in the face and knowing I could defeat him. It was a power reserved for doctors and God.
I’d pictured myself a modern-day Merlin, a scalpel for a wand, a clipboard my book of spells. I cringed at the ridiculous thought.
I could have changed into my street clothes, slunk out of the hospital and never come back. But then I thought of my dead father and remembered one of the rare pieces of paternal advice I’d ever received from him.
“If you’re afraid of something, face it. Fear is irrational. The only way to conquer your fear is to put yourself next to it.”
Just as quickly as it had come, my self-doubt subsided. This was a test of faith in myself. I wasn’t going to fail.
I got onto my feet and made my way through the packed E.R., blind and deaf to my coworkers and the patients that crowded the cubicles around me. I left the emergency and trauma ward altogether, pushing through the doors that led into the central part of the hospital.
The offices I passed were closed, their windows dark. The main lobby was empty, with the exception of one custodian who leaned on the deserted information desk, idly reading an old newspaper while his cleaning cart sat neglected in the middle of the room. He barely glanced up as I elbowed the cart in my reckless flight and knocked a stack of paper towels to the floor.
I continued to the elevators, pressed the button impatiently and tapped my foot. After what seemed like an interminably long time, the dull metal doors slid open and I entered. I pushed the button for the basement.
An irrational determination took me down the long hallway to the morgue. I had only been through there once, during my orientation tour. It was a simple route, though, and I located the unlabeled door again without much difficulty. I ran my hospital ID through the badge reader and heard the sharp click of the releasing lock.
I grabbed the handle and stopped, wondering for the first time what I intended to prove to myself. I feared I was a bad doctor, and I had come to confront my fears and view John Doe in all his mangled glory. What if I couldn’t handle it?
Terror gripped me at the thought that his body might not be as damaged as I remembered. I recalled Amy Anderson’s horrified face as she’d held the wriggling earthworm in her palm, her fear making the harmless thing a monster. Had my panicked brain exaggerated John Doe’s wounds?
No, you weren’t hysterical. You know what you saw. I entered the cool, antiseptic room before I could change my mind.
Hospital morgues are much different from morgues in the movies. They aren’t cavernous spaces with stark lighting. In fact, the morgue at St. Mary’s was small and cluttered. The on-duty attendant had left a rumpled fast-food sack on the desk, a reassuring sign of life in a room devoted to the indignities of death.
Before I approached the task at hand, I walked the perimeter of