Dr. Evelyn DeLilo had settled in quite nicely at Shulman and Associates over the past several months. She had a nice rapport with her patients, and the other doctors at the office looked to her for advice because of her years of experience. Every time Danny walked by her office he found himself reflexively peering at the person sitting at Mindy's desk. She had tried repeatedly to draw Danny into conversation, but he always responded with a polite nod and a single word response.
It wasn't that Danny was a closed off person exactly. He had friends, most of whom he'd known since childhood, and he chatted with other people at the office. It wasn't that he didn't like Evelyn. She was an attractive woman in her late fifties and an experienced OBGYN to boot, but there was something keeping Danny from trying to get to know her.
This morning Danny found himself once again pausing in the corridor in front of her office, looking in on her. Every time it happened there was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach or a little catch in his breathing. Most of the time the pause was only a fraction of a section, and Evelyn didn't even have the chance to look up and see him, but she did this morning. "Hello Danny, how are you today?"
She took off her red framed glasses and let them dangle on the end of the chain around her neck. She had a big smile on her face and her soft blue eyes were sparkling. "Fine, Dr. DeLilo, and how are you?"
She laughed. Her straight silvery blonde bob swished along her jaw line. "Danny, I've been telling you from day one, just call me Lynn, ok?" She picked up the coffee that was sitting on her desk and took a sip of it. "And I'm doing fine."
Danny gave a little smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Good to hear." He nodded his head and started towards his office.
"Danny, could you come in here a moment?" She called out just before he left her line of vision.
Danny went to her office door. "Would you sit down for a bit?" He looked at the chair as if it were some sort of medieval device. "I'm not going to torture you." She smiled.
He gave up on trying to remain where he was and took the seat. "Did you need help with something? A consultation or something?"
"No, Danny. I think you're the one that needs help, Danny." Her tone was so motherly it took Danny by surprise.
"Help? With what?" He searched his memory. Had he asked her to look at one of his charts or something? He honestly couldn't remember. The patient load he had right now wasn't too bad, busy for sure, but manageable.
"Something's bother you, and that hangdog expression on your face every morning as you briefly pause in front of my office has had me puzzled for months, but it just dawned on me that I wasn't always the person sitting at this desk." Her tone was gentle and encouraging. She really wanted him to tell her what was bothering him.
Danny sighed. He felt pathetic. He was being so obvious about this thing that a total stranger who had never even met Mindy could tell he missed her. "You two must have been really good friends." She leaned back in her desk chair and continued to sip her coffee. Danny suddenly felt like he was talking to a shrink.
"Irritated the hell out of each other is more like it." He let out a sigh and relaxed back in the chair. "I don't get it. There aren't two people with more opposite world views than me and Dr. Lahiri. We spent most of the time arguing."
Lynn smiled. "You remind me of my son. He doesn't like chatting about his feelings either. I may have to revise my earlier statement. This may, in fact, be torturous, because it looks like getting you to talk about yourself is going to be like pulling teeth."
He reminded her of her son? Well she kind of reminded him of his mother. There was no physical resemblance there, but she was so warm and inherently happy. It actually didn't sound like a terrible idea to have a confidante.
"Maybe not like pulling teeth. I do miss her. I didn't expect this, and I don't know how to deal with it. I mean, we barely tolerated each other most of the time and now I look in here expecting to see her every morning…." He looked down, too embarrassed to continue.
"Well doesn't she send everyone updates? I know I've gotten a few group emails since I've been here."
"I haven't opened any of them." He said it quietly without looking up. It was really the most embarrassing thing he'd said so far and the most telling. "The truth is we had a weird moment the night she decided she was going to leave." Oh, why did he think talking to someone about this was a good idea? He wished a hold would open up in the floor and engulf him.
Danny told her about the schmutz.
He remembered looking up and seeing Mindy standing there with her new short hair. He remembered feeling like he was drowning and someone had just taken away the last life preserve. The haircut only meant one thing. She was leaving. He remembered the conversation in the car. It had irked him listening to Casey suggest yet another way in which Mindy should change.
"What did you do to your hair?!" His initial shock was genuine. He did not like that she had cut her hair. He pretended not to understand the implications though, and quickly changed his tone. "I think it could grow on me."
When she had sat down in front of him, a dozen panicky thoughts were flying around his head. He was desperately pumping the breaks in a runaway car. At the time he didn't even know why he felt that way, and he was left speechlessly staring into her eyes through the panes of her glasses. He had stared for too long though so he made up the lame "schmutz" thing so she wouldn't notice his gazing. Only that had completely backfired. The little, almost inaudible catch in her throat when he took off the frames nearly undid him.
He had willed her to say it. Say you've went back to him. Say you're leaving. Say you're changing who you are for him. Just say it so I can let go of this thing that has just crept up on me. But she was silent, gazing right back at him, and when he gently placed the arms of her glasses back on her delicate ears she still said nothing.
It was all he could do not to gently cup the back of her neck and draw her in for a kiss. He briefly glanced at her lips. They were parted ever so slightly waiting for the next breath. When he looked back to her eyes the questions in his own were mirrored there. He almost leaned in again, but then she did say the words he'd been waiting for, and it was like someone had knocked the breath out of him. So, he started talking about Christina, and eventually trailed off and they were just left their sitting awkwardly on the sofa.
He had went home, and she, presumably, had went to Casey's.
In the time before her departure for Haiti he did his best to completely avoid her, and it hadn't been hard. It was like she was avoiding him as well.
Lynn had a small frown on her face. "Danny, ignoring each other is hardly the way to deal with this kind of thing. If she was avoiding you as well, maybe she was affected too."
Danny perked up a little. "I know there was something, just a little spark, but it wasn't developed. I didn't even realize that I needed her to stay until she was already gone. It didn't dawn on me until she had been gone for six months. Christina actually saw it before I did. That was fun." A sad smile flitted across his face. "And she has been gone for six months. Shouldn't I just take the hint and get that she's happy with him and with how she's changing?"
"How would you know she's happy if you never open her emails? Obligation is a terrible thing sometimes. I think you understand that at least. For all she knows, you're living your life with Christina and you're happy, when clearly you're working yourself to the bone and you're alone and miserable." She got up from her desk and stepped in front of Danny's chair. She smiled at Danny's bemused expression.
"I don't think you're supposed to wish your misery on other people." But the thought of a miserable Mindy made him want to smile.
"Listen, there's always a chance she's just as miserable as you." She smiled and patted Danny on the shoulder. "Communication is the key. Go check your emails. If she is genuinely happy, then at least you can put this to rest. It's the uncertainty that's getting to you."
When Danny got back to his office he sat in front of the computer willing the cursor hovering over the email to just click it already. He felt the perspiration dampen his forehead. He felt he already knew what was in the emails. Peppy cheerful descriptions of all the people she was helping. Dramatic descriptions of the people she couldn't. Admiration for the work Casey was doing. The love in her words for the man she'd spent six months in a tent with. He decided to skip all the ones from months ago and just open the most two most recent ones.
He opened the one from last week first. There was no subject line, which was odd because Mindy gave everything she wrote some punny/clever title. The message was brief. There were no flowing descriptions of the work she was doing, Casey wasn't mentioned at all. Mindy wrote about the mothers in Haiti that she had been helping and the children she'd been looking after. She wished there were more doctors in Haiti. I came here as an OBGYN but quickly realized that any doctor at all becomes whatever kind of doctor is needed at the moment. The next line concerned him though. I think I'm coming down with something. I've been nauseated all day and have had some other problems that a lady does not wish to discuss in an email. She had started feeling unwell that night and hoped she wasn't coming down with anything. There were so many gastrointestinal viruses that could really lay a person out for a while, and also the ever present buzzing threat of malaria.
Danny was stunned. He had never thought of Mindy being in any sort of peril herself. He scanned the rest of the letter. Not much else about herself. He went back to his inbox and looked at the email that had come in early this morning. He could feel the muscles in his back tense in trepidation. He clicked on it.
I'm writing to tell you guys that I think I'll have to cut this trip short. I initially did have reservations about taking a year out of my life to do this, but once I was here I saw what a need there was for people like myself. I did have a weak moment when Casey and I parted ways, but I think it was for the best, and I could really concentrate on doing good here. As I suspected last week, I did catch one of the viruses that are so often going around in these camps, and I've been spending this week trying to stay hydrated, but I feel like I'm becoming a burden. The last thing needed here is yet another person to take care of. I haven't been able to keep much down the past week and I've been tired. My immune system is weakened from working so much and worrying so much, and I'm afraid that even when I recover from this I'll be more susceptible to other diseases. I've booked a flight home and should be back in New York within a couple weeks. It's hard to say exactly when, things here aren't always on a tight schedule. But I'll be sure to let all of you know when I make it back in.
I love you guys,
Mindy.
She was coming back.
