“Mr. and Mrs. Russ? I’m Dr. Lowenstein.” I shook their hands and addressed Mrs. Russ. “Heard you had a fall.”
“I was walking our dog, and he spied a darn squirrel.” She grimaced again and held her hip. “And please call me Cynthia.”
“Okay, Cynthia. You fell on your right side?” I already knew in my heart with ninety-nine percent certainty what thediagnosis was: a hip fracture. I hoped for the best kind, a non-displaced, clean break that would give her the best prognosis.
“That dog is a menace,” Mr. Russ said. “He has no restraint. I told you he’s too big for you to walk him on a leash.”
“Hush, John.” She tipped her head toward him. “He was just being a dog.” Then she turned to me. “We love our Newfoundland. But I think I did it this time, Doc. Better sign me up for the nursing home.”
John looked crestfallen. A shadow fell over his face. He bit down on his lip.
“Hey, I don’t think you’re ready forGreen Acresyet.” I used the nickname of the local assisted living community, Pleasant Acres. I spied a Kindle sticking out of her purse, which was on the floor near John’s chair. “Although I hear they have a fantastic book club there.”
I learned that Mrs. R walked five miles every day. That she gardened and read and got around for both of them, as John had bad arthritis.
“I’m worried about John if I’m going to need surgery,” she said with blunt honesty. “He hates driving anymore, and he’s a terrible cook. And poor Jaxson won’t get any exercise.” Jaxson, the Newfie, I reckoned. Why did everyone in this town give their dogs people names?
“Don’t worry about me,” John said. “I know how to do DoorDash.” He directed his next comment at me. “She loves that dog more than me.”
“Jaxson’s a lot easier to live with than you are sometimes,” Cynthia said. “He doesn’t talk back.”
John made a face.
“I know it’s broken,” Cynthia said, pointing to her hip. “I heard a crunch. John’s right. He can do DoorDash. But I’m going to have to go to rehab and our poor dog is going to suffer.”
“Where do you live?” I asked.
Don’t do it, Adam. Don’t be a savior this time. Haven’t you got enough problems already?
“On Hawthorne,” John answered. “For the past fifty years.”
Old neighborhood, one street away from our—I meanAni’s—house. I absolutely was not thinking about helping with their dog. One giant dog was more than enough—except I realized that I wasn’t a part of Ani’s household any longer, and so I didn’t technically have a dog. After my shift, it was back to my sad, gray house. “If you did break your hip, the rehab hospital is close by. Let’s do an X-ray and see what we’re dealing with. Don’t put yourself out to pasture yet.”
We gave Mrs. R some pain medicine. Things in the ER were slow, so while she was at X-ray, I checked in on Mr. R, bringing him a cappuccino from the back room, made by the expensive machine my staff had asked for and the hospital board had magically provided.Thanks, Julia.
“You married?” Mr. Russ asked after thanking me for the “fancy coffee.”
“No.” I decided to spare him the sob story.
But maybe my pathetic, depressed expression gave me away. “You love someone?”
I sighed heavily. “Yes.” Two someones, actually. And neither of them had been far from my mind for, oh, about fifty-seven minutes out of every hour. And yes, of course I loved them. But I hadn’t even said it to them yet.
“We’ve been married for fifty-seven years,” he said. “Even with all the ups and downs, I wouldn’t trade even one of them for the world. Best decision I ever made was to marry that woman.”
“H-how did you know?” I blurted.
Mr. Russ looked at me with a puzzled expression. No doubt wondering why the ER doctor was asking for a therapy session in the midst of a busy day. “Say that again, son?”
“How did you know that it was a great decision?” What I really meant was that there are no guarantees in life. How do you commit for the long run, knowing you could get your heart ripped out?
“She’s the best thing in the world for me. Sometimes she knows what I’m thinking before I think it. She makes me laugh. Of course, she calls me out when I do something stupid. She’s real good at that too.”
I wanted to know something else. But it would have been inappropriate to ask. What if something happened? Something you couldn’t control? What if you weren’t lucky enough to share a whole lifetime together?
That would have been callous and unprofessional. It reminded me that I needed to do my job, not ask patients for advice.
I looked up to find John laughing.
