AllFreeNovel
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A couple of hours later he’s at his bar, watching the Yankees, thinking he might make another run over to Palmer’s house.
Maybe the kid didn’t want to show up for work looking like hedidlose a fight, and it’s as simple as that, and Jimmy needs to stop making himself crazy. Tells himself he’ll just take one more ride over to the Springs to ease his mind, then call it a night.
He’s just walked out of the bar, fumbling for his keys, wondering once again why he doesn’t just leave them in the same pocket every time, when he gets the call.
Sixty-Nine
I AM HAVING DINNERwith Dr. Ben Kalinsky and Rip the dog. The dining room table is set for two, with candles. The candles are for Dr. Ben and me. Rip doesn’t care, one way or the other. He is parked in his usual spot, to the immediate left of my chair.
I have prepared pasta primavera with fresh vegetables purchased that afternoon from the Balsam Farms stand a couple of miles from my house. The salad includes avocados and cucumbers and tomatoes and radishes. We have made the decision to go with red wine, a Cabernet I love called Train Wreck.
I have managed to get another annoying coughing fit—my mouth is dry all the time, something Sam Wylie told me to expect—under control by the time Dr. Ben arrives, so as not to sound like the patient I’m going to be before much longer. A good thing. Ben Kalinsky may work on animals and not humans, but it has been my experience that he misses very little, medical or otherwise.
“You know,” he says, “that if you continue to feed the dog from the table he will continue to beg.”
“Veggies are good for him. Balance his diet right out.”
“Not the point, counselor.”
“And just so we’re clear,” I say, “I’ve discussed this with Rip. He doesn’t consider what he’s doing begging. He thinks of it as us sharing.”
Ben smiles. I think the only person in the entire world who smiles at me like this—who smiles at me at all these days—is him. In addition to being a world-class smile, it even makes me feel pretty at a time in my life when hardly anything does.
He does.
Before we put the sharing thing to rest, he says, “Let me ask you a question. Does the dog ever share his food with you?”
“Oh, dear God. You’re starting to sound like a lawyer.”
“Don’t be mean,” he says.
Before getting sidetracked on me feeding my own damn dog from the table and not considering it a capital crime, we are talking about the trial. His choice, not mine. He is genuinely interested in it. And me. Perhaps not in that order. Hopefully not in that order. I once again ask him if he really wants to see how the sausage is made.
It makes him laugh.
“You’re asking that of asurgeon?”
I sip some wine. My second glass.
Look at me. Living it up.
“I’m curious. Do you ever operate on an animal knowing you have no chance to save it?”
“Now, there’s an odd question.”
“Not from an odd duck like me.”
“Well, the answer to your question happens to be yes. Sometimes saving a life simply means prolonging one. Or improving its quality until you can’t.”
Now he grins. You hear about crooked grins. He actually has one. Lower on the left side than the right.
Works for me.
But then not much about him doesn’t.
“I think of myself as an optimistic fatalist,” Dr. Ben says.
“Is that really a thing?”
