“That’s good advice,” I say, then a thought pops into my head. “Wait a minute. Is this how you met my brother? As his doctor?”
Noah nods his head. “Sort of. I wasn’t a doctor yet. But I did a sports medicine rotation when I was in med school and spent two weeks in Harvest Hollow shadowing the team’s doctors. I met most of the players, but Alec was going through something with his knee, so I saw more of him than any of the others.”
“Stupid knee,” I say. “He struggled his whole career with that knee.”
“He’s a nice guy,” Noah says, and my heart warms.
“Yeah. He’s pretty great.”
Noah’s eyes shift back to the fire, and I take full advantage of the opportunity to study his profile, his perfectly straight nose, the scar in front of his ear that disappears into his beard.
“Do you really like it here?” I ask, and his gaze shifts to mine, his expression telling me I’ve surprised him with the subject change.
“It feels like home,” Noah says. “But it’s temporary. Another few weeks, and I’ll have to figure out somewhere else to go.”
“You don’t want to—” I cut off my question, not wanting to push.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Go ahead and ask.”
“I was just wondering if you would gohomehome. Are you close with your parents? I remember you mentioning they live up in Asheville.”
He takes another sip of his wine. “My parents are amazing. But…” He sets down his glass and runs a hand across his beard. “It’s complicated right now. My father is also a doctor. A trauma surgeon.”
There’s a weight to Noah’s words that makes me realize he’s telling me a lot more than what his father does for a living.
“Is he upset that you’re no longer practicing medicine?” I ask.
It takes Noah a long time to answer, but I’m sensing this is just how conversations are with him. That if you want him to talk, you have to be comfortable with a little bit of silence.
“He hasn’t said as much,” he says, “but he doesn’t need to. I can see it in his eyes. He looks at me like I’m broken.”
We sit for another long moment. I am in no position to offer Noah any advice, but I do want to understand. “Acknowledging my own lack of experience here,” I finally say, “it isn’t hard for me to imagine someone needing a break from the intensity of the ER. I don’t think that makes you broken. Then again, maybe you walked away because you just didn’t like what you were doing?”
This time, Noah responds almost immediately. “I love being a doctor.”
I pause, wondering if he noticed thepresent tenseof his words. It’s different than what he said earlier, when he very distinctly told me hewasn’ta doctor anymore.
I lean back in my chair, wrapping my arms around my knees. “Then why did you leave?”
It takes a minute, but eventually Noah begins to talk.
About a patient—an older man who was constantly in the ER due to his bad heart. He was in and out of halfway homes and shelters, but despite his many struggles, he was always affable and friendly, a lot like Noah’s grandfather, so Noah took a liking to him. It was clear he needed a pacemaker, but a lack of insurance and family support created huge stumbling blocks in getting him the care he needed. Despite Noah’s efforts to wade through the bureaucratic red tape required to set up the man’s access to Medicare and other community-based programs, he kept falling short.
“It wasn’t enough,” Noah says after walking me through the challenges of the man’s care. “And no one in hospital administration seemed all that concerned. He was dying, and I knew he was dying, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was just a matter of time before he collapsed from a heart attack, and I hated that everyone seemed okay with that.”
“It’s a frustrating system,” I say. “That there’s always so much bureaucracy attached to peoples’ lives.”
“Eventually, he did collapse from a heart attack,” Noah says, his voice soft, a little distant. “At the end of a really long shift when I was already worn thin. Too many losses, not enough wins and then…there he was. Unresponsive in the trauma bay.” He sniffs and rubs a hand across his face. “At that point, I’d developed some pretty destructive work habits. I lived alone, in a new city, and I hadn’t made many friends.” He glancesup, meeting my eye like this is one part I might particularly understand, and offers me the tiniest of smirks. “It might be hard for you to believe, but I’m not the greatest at first impressions.”
I chuckle and shake my head. “You’re better than you think.”
“At any rate, I was working too much, sleeping too little. Spending too little time doing things outside the hospital. So when I saw him in the middle of the trauma bay, I just…cracked. Yelled. Turned over an instrument tray. Demanded they keep performing CPR even after another doctor had already called time of death. I lost it.”
“Which is totally understandable, considering the circumstances,” I say gently.
“It isn’t,” Noah says, clearly unconvinced. “In the ER, you aren’t supposed to lose your cool. That’s why I chose it. Because that’s always been one of my strengths. I don’t let things get personal. But then I did. I cared too much, and I let it impact my judgment. My steadiness.”
“You’re human,” I say. “And you’re supposed to be human. And if anyone expects something different, they’re wrong.” I hesitate before adding, “Even your father.”
