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Still trying to distract myself from running straight to care for Davis late Wednesday afternoon, I accepted Davis’s computer keyboard from Dr. Donaldson, unloading the biochemical cabinet. I added it to the cart to take to Davis’s office. We hadn’t actually checked to make sure the office was considered habitable again, but we needed the cabinet space back.
Dr. Donaldson had not once asked how Davis had taken the news nor about his vitals. We’d checked on our other patients, and Dr. Donaldson had taken two calls down to the ER, so we weren’t just sitting around. But it was beginning to dawn on me: for the last three years that I’d worked with Dr. Donaldson, I’d wanted to be like him. Before I’d gotten the NIH job, I’d mourned the end of my fellowship, knowing that once I left Dr. Donaldson’s official orbit, my infectious disease research career could easily take a downward trajectory.
The NIH job was the perfect way to prevent that.
But maybe Davis had a point this morning. Working directly with patients made a difference in a different way.
I watched Dr. Donaldson for a moment. Working with him had inspired my love of research more than anything else. But he was also distant, clinical. Maybe there was such a thing as too far above reproach, too perfect. Because Dr. Donaldson was practically perfect as a doctor treating a pathogen-caused illness. But he was not the genius I’d believed him to be when it came to treating a patient.
No wonder I couldn’t imagine him with a houseplant.
I thought of Phil, keeping Davis company. Hopefully he—Davis, not Phil—hadn’t thought that was too weird or crossing a line. We were in murky territory already, somewhere between friends and coworkers before he’d become my patient. And now we were getting coffee when this ordeal was over. Date coffee or coworker coffee? I should have clarified.
Dr. Donaldson handed me the last of the desk clutter from Davis’s office—pens, notepads, his Beaufort statuette, not even a personal paperweight yet—and closed up the cabinet. I wheeled the cart toward the door, and Dr. Donaldson followed me out of the level two lab.
“Cassidy?” he asked as we were degowning.
I turned to him abruptly. Now he was using my first name.
Again, I reminded myself. He’d used it in a text message, too. And at the gala.
“Yes?” I finally said.
“With fellowships ending soon, I was wondering if you’d like to come celebrate at my place. Maybe next Thursday night?”
I did some quick mental math, trying to ignore Davis’s gleeful voice harping in my mind. Nothing about that invitation sounded at all like a date. It didn’t even sound like it would be the two of us—I wasn’t the only one finishing the program next week.
Dr. Donaldson might not have been the paragon I’d presumed, but that didn’t mean I wanted to sever all associations. “Sure,” I said with the calm yet friendly acceptance ofthis is not a date, my friend.
“Great. I’ll text you the apartment number.”
“Sounds like a party.” Hopefully that made my intentions perfectly clear.
Dr. Donaldson laughed as he left. “Oh.” He stopped in the doorway. “Did you hear? The CDC called. Anthrax confirmed, no other pathogens detected. Mostly white clay dust.”
“I hadn’t heard, thanks.” He didn’t think that the fact that Davis could leave isolation was worth mentioning the moment the call came in. Wow.
I shook my head. I’d certainly learned a lot from my supervising physician in the last month of my fellowship, but I didn’t think these were the lessons you were supposed to get after ten years of post-graduate medical training.
I headed directly to Davis’s isolation room with the good news and the dinner on the tray waiting outside. It was such a relief not to have to suit up in the breathing apparatus and hazmat.
Davis did not smile at me when I came in as he had for the last day. “What?” I asked. “You miss the suit?”
“Did the CDC call?” His tone was curt.
“Yeah, I just heard. Mostly clay dust, but as far as pathogens go, all and only anthrax.”
“My luck keeps improving.”
“More good news: I’m going to work on getting you discharged. But if you start having flu-like symptoms, shortness of breath, chest discomfort, anything on the list—” I nodded at the paperwork from this morning. “—then you come right back.”
Davis also nodded.
I set the tray and paperwork on his table and wheeled it to him. “I’m afraid we’re still on the prix fixe menu.”
“Hm.” Davis didn’t even look at his dinner. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
I paused. He hadn’t smiled or joked once, nor had he acknowledged my humor. Either he was spiraling alone in here—I glanced at Phil on the nightstand—or he had some other reason to be unhappy. “No?” I finally answered. “That’s everything I know.”
