years, the junk, and the bills piled up, the knack of repairing discarded leftovers started to lose some of its luster. For years, Diane had convinced herself that she still loved him, mainly because he was the father of her children and they shared common religious values. And then, of course, he smiled a lot. But lately, even his smile, which was once so attractive, was becoming irritating and made him seem like an aging clown.
Diane was depressed. She was in her early forties with her kids pretty much raised, and her good looks fading as fast as a hot oven with the gas turned off. More than once she had asked herself if this was all there was? Was life just an endless series of meaningless cycles? Going to work, coming home and cooking dinner, doing housework, paying bills while watching mind-crippling TV with Dan, then going to bed fatigued, only to have her rest interrupted by him constantly pawing at her in the dark bedroom and rolling his seedy, hairy, Simian body on top of her. Then to have this same sequence repeated day after unfulfilling day, it was almost more than she could take.
To make her life complete, Dan was also of the old Mormon school, a dedicated chauvinist. Even with the twenty-first century here, he continued to believe that there was men’s work and women’s work, and never seemed to realize, or perhaps didn’t care, that the division of labor was far from equal. Dan accepted the Bible literally, including the Old Testament’s patriarchal order and he constantly reminded Diane that God had given man the Priesthood and made him master of the house. More than once Dan had taken out his Bible and read from Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians: “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church.”
In Dan’s mind, and without question in his own home, he was sovereign. His crude words constituted a binding decree from which there was no appeal. A couple of years ago, when Moe had come to the house to talk to her about working one Saturday morning a month at Urology Associates, which she definitely did not want to do, she was horrified, but not surprised, when Dan had declared, “She’s my wife, and she’ll do what I say.”
Early on in their marriage Dan and Diane got into financial trouble. At best, Dan’s work was spotty. Occasionally, they could almost live on what he made, but that was before children were born. After the kids, they had to borrow money, more and more frequently, usually from her family. It was during this period of time Diane realized she would have to return to work. There simply was not enough money. Years ago, she had worked as an operating room scrub nurse and perhaps she could go back to that. But there was the problem with taking call. As a scrub nurse, there would be her nights on call, away from her kids and Dan. And Dan just could not put up with a wife who was not home every evening to make his dinner.
With a fair amount of trepidation, she applied at the office of a young, new doctor in town, Dr. Moses A. Mathis, specializing in adult and pediatric urology. She had very little knowledge of what a urologist did, but within a week she was hired.
At first, there were just the two of them in the office, as the practice was new and small. Diane was the receptionist, nurse, bookkeeper and accounts manager, and Moe was still a young idealistic, enthusiastic physician. He was kind and empathetic with the patients, and actually took time to explain medical and surgical options to the patients, as well as potential side-effects. In those early days, he would literally tell the patients that he was not in this business to get rich, but to take care of patients. And what was surprising, Diane had the feeling that he meant it. What a novel idea. One day she overheard him telling a patient who had no money or health insurance that the most important thing was removing his kidney stone and relieving his pain, the issue of payment was unimportant. God, how Diane missed those days.
In retrospect, it was during those early years that she started to fall in love with him. Diane had thought Moe was the most handsome, sensitive, intelligent man she had ever met, and consequently, love germinated in the fertile soil of working closely with Moe, who needed her, and a growing disgust with Dan, who dominated her.
Also, Moe was a good teacher, and Diane learned the discipline of urology on the job. Under Moe’s tutelage, she had mastered most office urological diseases, including treatment. Eventually, when Moe was in surgery or out of town, Diane basically functioned independently as a physician assistant. She diagnosed and treated most simple urological problems almost as well as Moe. The patients began to trust her, and she built her own sub-practice within Urology Associates, managing most of the urinary tract infections, the urethral dilations and the chemotherapy patients on her own. Inevitably they began to share confidences. During slack times, they would talk to each other about life’s disappointments, about their expectations and their dreams and eventually about the frustrations of their personal life. Diane would tell Moe of her feelings of futility with Dan, and he would reciprocate by describing the heartache of his first marriage and how frustrating the dating scene was now. In short, they became very close friends and confidants, but Diane yearned for more.
Then came that humiliating day when Diane could not contain her feelings any longer, and with tears in her eyes, had told Moe she loved him. His reaction was totally unexpected and slammed her like a body blow. Instead of telling her he had the same feelings, Moe firmly reminded her she was a married woman and if their relationship were to progress any further, it would be disastrous.
At first she thought she could handle it. After all, she told herself, Moe was right and he was just being sensible. Adulterous, office relationships were almost always destructive. But in spite of the logic, after that day things were never the same. The bacterium of resentment grew, colonized then started spreading. Slowly at first, then steadily building, bubbling and fermenting like unsealed, under-cooked, home canned corn. Insidiously, resentment changed to rancor and rancor turned to botulism and once again, Moe became Dr. Mathis.
“Diane!” Sally hollered down the hall. “You coming to lunch?”
Diane flinched, startled by Sally’s voice. “No, I still haven’t cleaned the procedure room from the morning biopsies.” For Sally’s benefit she emphasized the “sies.” “And we’ve got a cysto to start the afternoon. Anyway, I’m on a diet.”
“Okay,” Sally shouted back, still oblivious to her scheduling faux pas. “You want me to pick up something for you?”
“No.”
Diane glanced at her watch. It was after one o’clock. They had patients starting at two and the first patient was a cysto for follow-up of a bladder cancer. She’d better quit day dreaming and get the damn procedure room cleaned and the cysto set up.
Ten minutes later, as she was washing the counter, she noticed the prostate biopsy specimen containers. Thinking that she should get them ready to send to pathology, Diane picked up the vials, then involuntarily winced. “Damn it!” She had forgotten to label the specimen containers. That’s what happens when your mind is not on your work. Oh well, too late to worry about it now. Anyway, she was almost a hundred percent positive that Mr. Swensen’s was the one on the right.
Just briefly, it occurred to Diane that she could cause Moe immeasurable problems by labeling the vials incorrectly. The ramifications were almost staggering. Mentally, she tried to follow a couple of possible scenarios to their conclusions. This thought made her smile. It would certainly put that condescending son-of-a-bitch with a fetish for blondes in his place. Should she?
“Diane!”
This time Diane’s feet did leave the floor. Hurriedly, she stuffed the specimen vials in the pocket of her nurses’ uniform, Swensen’s in the right pocket, Robinson’s in the left. Calming herself with a deep breath, she tried to put on her usual dour face, although she was afraid she still looked guilty as hell as she turned to face Moe.
“My, aren’t we jumpy today. Are you coming to lunch with Sally and me?” Moe asked, as he eyed her closely.
