She laughed at the unexpectedness of his statement.
“I was mediocre at math,” he said.
“I strongly doubt that you were mediocre at anything. Ben tells me that you’re a medical genius.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Harvard Medical School,” she said. “A fellowship at Duke University. Another fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. Then a job at Beckett Memorial here in Atlanta.”
“You’ve studied me?” he asked.
“I didn’t become a math genius by shirking homework.”
He chuckled. “So you admit that you’re a math genius.”
“That’s debatable.”
“You graduated from the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted at Clemmons. Received a PhD offer to Princeton. Achieved a master’s degree.”
“I assume you know that I declined the offer to Princeton?”
“I do, but I’m not sure I understand why. Didn’t they offer you a stipend?”
Her lips curved with amusement. “Some people might find that question to be nosy.”
“Do you find it to be nosy?”
“As it happens, no. The elaborate dance of social niceties is confusing to me. Not to mention, a waste of time. I appreciate it when people speak to me very directly.”
“So do I.”
“To answer your question, I was offered a stipend. But even if I could have supported my brother and myself on that amount and figured out a way to squeeze my studies around the priority of raising Dylan, I couldn’t have ripped him away from his home, his therapist, his school, and his friends in order to drag him halfway across the country. He was traumatized enough as it was after my mom left.”
“Do you still plan to get your PhD?”
“Yes. I’ve dreamed of becoming a university professor since I was seven years old.”
“Have you started coursework?”
“Not yet. Years ago, I decided to postpone additional graduate work until after Dylan goes to college.” She inclined her head toward Sebastian. “You certainly didn’t postpone any of your graduate work. You became a full-fledged surgeon a year ago at the age of thirty-one.”
“Yes.”
“Even though most doctors don’t become pediatric heart surgeons until thirty-five or thirty-six.”
“Yes.”
“How many surgeries have you performed in the past year?”
“Three hundred and thirteen. I don’t receive as many referrals as the others, but I’m on call more than they are. I take all the patients that come in during my on-call hours.”
“How many of those three hundred and thirteen survived?”
“All but five.”
She couldn’t fathom carrying five deceased children around on her conscience. Yet he’d saved three hundred and eight. “That equals a mortality rate of approximately one and a half percent.” She made a mental note to research the topic further, but she guessed that a one and a half percent mortality rate for a first-year congenital heart surgeon who operated on very sick, very young patients was excellent. “How many of those didn’t make it because of a physiological problem beyond your control?”
“Three. The other two had postoperative issues, potentially related to how long they were on the pump. Still, I take responsibility for those two because there may have been a technical issue with my work.”
