James Hynes - Next

“Someone died during an operation, and now a lawsuit has been filed.”

Kevin the professional editor can’t help but notice the mistakes-were-made form of her disclosure, the lack of a pronoun, first-person or otherwise. He also notices that his heart has begun to race. This isn’t at all what he thought he was going to hear.

“Against me,” adds Dr. Barrientos.

Kevin plucks a napkin off the stack and wipes his lips and fingertips. She picks up her taco and sets it down again without taking a bite.

“And you haven’t told anybody this?” he says. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh no, everyone knows,” she says. “It’s a matter of public record.”

“Ah.” He’s not sure if he should continue eating, but as the silence stretches again he picks up his taco and takes another bite just for something to do.

“When I said no one else knows,” she says, “that’s not what I meant.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to get into what happened.” She pushes her unfinished taco away from her. “That’s not really a mealtime conversation.”

“Mmph,” says Kevin.

By now their gazes are sort of feinting at each other, not really making eye contact, but just checking to see if the other is watching.

“What it is,” she’s saying, “it’s about my family. My father, specifically. He never finished high school, but he’s worked like a bull his whole life, taught himself everything he knows. Never put himself first, but never gave an inch.” She pauses, nodding slightly as if at something only she can see or hear. “He put everything he had into making sure his kids had the chances he never did. Pretty typical story, where I come from.”

“The Valley,” offers Kevin.

“The Valley.” She rewards him with a quick smile, to show that she appreciates that he’s been paying attention. “But the thing about my father is,” she continues, looking away, “the thing you need to know is, he wanted me to be a nurse.”

Their eyes meet for a moment.

“Ah,” says Kevin.

“You see what I mean.”

“I think so.” Though he doesn’t, really.

“Don’t get me wrong,” says Dr. Barrientos. “It’s not that he’s not proud of me. He is. And he’s not shy about saying it. He loves to introduce me as his daughter, la cirujana. ” Adding, “The surgeon.”

“Of course.”

“It’s just that…” She lifts her hand, her fingers parted as if she means to pluck the right words out of the air. “Where I come from, or maybe I should say, where my father comes from, a man has to be, well, tough is what people usually say, but a better word is, decisive. ” She glances at Kevin. “You have to judge how things really are, how people really are, take their measure very quickly, and then act accordingly. A man like that, once he decides what you are, and what you can and cannot do, he doesn’t change his mind very easily.”

Which is a trait, Kevin suspects, that Dr. Barrientos shares with her father.

“On top of that, a man like my father, coming from that place and time, he saw people defeated more often than he saw them succeed. You see what I’m saying?”

Kevin does, surprisingly. What he sees, in fact, just for an instant, is his own father at the dinner table, looking older than his age, his face sagging in a mask of fatigue and resignation. What his sister Kathleen has called, in retrospect, long after their father died, “one of his Willie Loman moments.”

“What he decided about me, was that I was good enough to be a nurse, but no more than that. So when I told him I was studying pre-med at A&M, we had some… difficulties. They went away somewhat when I got into med school, and I really thought he’d come around by time I graduated and finished my internship and residency.”

Claudia shifts in her chair as if she’s uncomfortable, and Kevin is struck by how vulnerable this makes her seem. He’s never met a woman as physically self-possessed as Dr. Barrientos — not comfortable in her own body, exactly, but in complete command of every inch of it at all times — and there’s something about this restless movement that seems as shocking as if she’d burst into tears.

“It’s just that even now,” she’s saying, “after all this time, after twelve years of being a surgeon, I can still detect a… hesitation in him. Like he doesn’t really believe it. Like he thinks it’s some sort of clerical error. Like I’m not telling him the whole truth.”

“We all think that sometimes,” Kevin says. “About ourselves, anyway.” In fact, he thinks, it’s the story of my life.

“Not me,” says Dr. Barrientos definitively. “I’ve earned everything I have. I’ve worked damn hard for everything I’ve got.”

Just like her father, Kevin thinks, and this time he almost says it out loud. But Claudia has lifted her hand again, and caught her breath.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t mean to…”

“It’s okay.” Kevin’s mouth is dry suddenly, and he wonders if he should reach for his tea.

“It’s just that when I told him,” she says, and stops. “About the lawsuit,” and stops. Her gaze is fixed in his direction, but she isn’t really looking at him. It’s an uncanny look, creepy, even, like meeting the inward gaze of a sleepwalker. It’s what he sees sometimes when he looks at Stella, even when she’s awake. He feels a rush of pity and tenderness for Dr. Barrientos, because he realizes she’d rather die than show vulnerability, and yet she’s showing it to him, a man she hardly knows.

“He didn’t say anything for a long time.” Her voice is taut as a wire. “Not a word. Just looked at me, drilled me with his eyes all the way down to my spine.” She breathes slowly in and out. “Then all he said was, ‘If you’d only gone to nursing school…’ ”

She’s nodding slightly, her gaze directed entirely within. Over the muffled rumble of traffic beyond the fence and the faint beat of Mexican pop through the courtyard door, Kevin can hear her breath hissing through her nose. Then, like a sleeper waking, she shudders, her gaze softens, and she looks at Kevin, sad but utterly dry-eyed.

“That look he gave me,” she says evenly, “that was my father making up his mind. He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I knew what he meant. If I’d only gone to nursing school, I wouldn’t be in this situation.” She breathes in, out. “If I’d only gone to nursing school, that woman would still be alive.”

Kevin says nothing. What can he say? He can hardly bear to look at her, but he can hardly look away. He can feel his heart pounding. What’s more, he’s flooded again with a strong feeling of déjà vu, which only adds to his anxiety, because he has no idea why this moment should feel so familiar. This place, this woman, this situation — she killed somebody, if inadvertently, and an admission like that, only an hour after he’s met her, is sort of new in Kevin’s experience.

She manages a rueful smile. “Have I freaked you out?”

Kevin blows out a sigh. “That’s serious stuff.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” She leans back in her seat. “I’m sorry to burden you with it.”

“And of course I said just the wrong thing, didn’t I,” Kevin continues, just to be saying something, “back by the river.”

“Oh, no no no.” Claudia lifts her hand from the table. “That’s not it. That’s not why I…”

“I know, I just meant…”

“Oh, no no no. It’s fine.”

“But what I said made you think of it.”

Claudia laughs sharply and looks away. “Trust me, I was thinking of it anyway. It’s pretty much all I think about lately.”

Kevin sits back and says nothing. A little of his anger comes back, just an echo. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume she was a nurse. Can I help it, he thinks, if her father’s a judgmental SOB? But now the déjà vu is stronger than ever, and mainly Kevin’s still puzzled. Why does this moment feel so familiar?