Page 47

“You’re the nurse,” he says. Not a question. “How many years?”

“Thirty.”

“Thirty years of charge nursing.” He bows over her hand, and he says it the way other men say Olympic gold. “My mother was a nurse. Beth Israel, forty-one years. I became a doctor because I wanted to be half as necessary as she was. I’m still working on it. Forgive me –” he looks up “– I haven’t been in a room with this much authority since she passed.”

And my mother – my mother, Rosa Ortiz, who has never in my lifetime been charmed on purpose by anyone, including my father – laughs.

Out loud. Two full seconds, hand to her collarbone. I’ve heard that laugh maybe a dozen times, and I’m her son.

“Beth Israel,” she says, in the voice she uses for approving of things. “Good hospital.” And then she opens her bag – the bag, the snack bag – and hands him an empanada wrapped in a napkin, an honour with a shorter waiting list than a Nobel.

He eats it standing there. Closes his eyes. Chews with his whole face. “Better than my mother’s kugel,” he announces, which is blasphemy in at least one religion, “and may she forgive me, because she’s listening.”

“You’re forgiven,” Mamá says.

You’re forgiven. My mother is issuing absolutions on behalf of dead nurses now. We’ve been in the building four minutes.

Then he turns to Catherine, spreads his arms, and lets the suit do the work.

“And you made this appointment. Your assistant negotiated my scheduling office to a standstill, and my scheduling office has repelled two governments.”

“Catherine York, née Kensington.” She extends her hand at the precise angle that means you may briefly hold this – and then her eyes catch on the lapels. The sheen. The chain. Something behind her face unlocks, some door with 1979 on it.

“Is that vintage?” she asks, in a voice I have never heard her use. Warm. Nearly girlish.

“Madam, this suit has outlived three of my accountants.”

“I saw that exact burgundy at Studio 54.” She touches her hair. One touch. A strand that was already flawless. “Spring collection. I was practically a child.”

“You were never a child. Women like you are born twenty-nine and cursed to remain.”

“I danced in that era,” Mamá volunteers from behind him, unwilling to concede 1979 to a York née Kensington. “In Queens. Real dancing. Not this standing and swaying they do now.”

“I would have found you both,” Rosenthal says, taking one hand of each with terrible sincerity, “and I would have ruined myself trying to choose between the two of you.”

Catherine laughs – an actual laugh, escaping before she can convert it to a cough, so she converts the tail of it instead, badly – and writes something in the notebook. I’d give a kidney to see what.

Beside me, Preston has gone rigid. “Luke,” he whispers. “My mother is pivoting her shoulders and flirting with the doctor.”

“I see it.”

“She hasn’t pivoted anything since the divorce. Your mother gave him food. We’re witnessing a coup.”

And then he reaches Elena, who has watched this entire performance with her arms crossed like an auditor at a magic show, and he stops, and the showman thing drops about forty per cent.

“You’re the sister.”

“I’m the sister.”

“Carrying for your brother.” He nods slowly, and the gold teeth put themselves away. “You know what you are? A mitzvah in human form. I say that to maybe three people a decade, and one of them was lying, and we caught it in bloodwork.”

Elena stares at him, processes the compliment, fails to file it anywhere, and finally says, “Okay. Him I like. Lucas, we’re keeping him.”

“You don’t pick the doctor,” I say.

“I’m the client, the asset, and the facility. I pick the doctor.”

“Everyone picks the doctor,” Rosenthal says warmly, opening the consultation-room door with a small bow, “and the doctor is delighted. Come. Sit.”