Pamela looks left and right as if to check that we are the only ones in the lab, then whispers, “Well, Brandon was on. And Friday, we had this case, young guy, diagnostic. And he…”
The lab suddenly fills with light; someone has entered behind us. Pamela’s mouth clamps shut, and I turn to face the newcomers. There are two large, bald men in matching black polo shirts and a smaller gray-haired man in a suit who leans against the table in front of my preferred computer with crossed arms. He looks up at me and gives me a small, tight smile.
It’s the chair of medicine, Dr. Alan Agarwhal. Our boss’s boss’s boss. He’s an endocrinologist by trade and I’ve never seen him outside of a conference room. I can’t conceive of a reason why he’s made his way to the catheterization lab.
“Hi, Alan,” I say hesitantly. “What brings you here?”
Alan shoves a hand through his hair. He’s a delicate man, fine featured in a patrician way, and he wears his worry with the melodramatic flair of a Shakespearean actor.
“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” he says.
Just then, the door opens again, and Brandon walks in, and I have to fight to keep my jaw from dropping.
It’s only been a week or so since I last saw him, but he looks like he’s aged ten years. The skin I thought looked weathered at Sophie’srecital is outright slack now, his eyes weighted by two sets of layered bags and mouth bracketed by new jowls. His movements are shuffling, Parkinsonian. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was looking at his eighty-year-old father.
Brandon doesn’t seem to notice us as he hobbles into the room, even though all eyes have swiveled to him. He nods to Pamela, then makes a show of adjusting his surgeon’s cap. He turns to the screen above his head and frowns.
“Where are all my cases?” he says, lifting a shaking finger to his empty schedule. “Pamela, what is the meaning of this—”
“Brandon,” Alan says.
Brandon jerks toward Alan like he’s just noticed he’s there. His eyes dart to the two men flanking him, to me, to Pamela, before finally settling back on his boss.
“Alan,” he says. A gray tongue flicks out to lick lips that somehow remain dry.
“Did you receive my email?” Alan asks. When Brandon doesn’t answer, Alan sighs. “Come on, Brandon. You know we don’t want to have to do this. This is for you as much as it is us.”
“Bullshit,” Brandon sputters. Alan doesn’t flinch. “Bullshit. You guys are trying to drag me out. That’s why you’ve got security here with you. That’s why you’re—”
Alan huffs, a sound that comes from deep within.
“You’re not being dragged out, you’re being put on leave during the course of the investigation. The security is just protocol.” His mouth twists with something between sympathy and disgust. “It’s done, Brandon. I’m sorry. Go home.”
I have never known what it meant to watch a person wilt before my eyes, and the part of me that once had affection for Brandon wants to comfort him. Our friendship may have fallen apart in the last fewyears, but this was an area where we shared an understanding. Taking away Brandon’s access to the catheterization lab is like stripping him of his identity. Of who he has wanted to be for the last thirty years, what he has worked tirelessly toward for over twenty. And not just that. It’s that Brandon is clearly unwell, and Alan either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
The door to the lab bursts open again. This time it’s Haoran, looking a bit frazzled with his scrubs half tucked into his waistband.
“Sorry I’m late, I was on drop-off duty today,” he announces. Then he notices Brandon. I watch in real time as he takes in our colleague’s appearance. “Oh. Hey. I thought you wouldn’t be in today…”
Brandon’s face crumples and he pushes past Haoran and out the door. I take a quick glance into my room—no patient on the table, no expectant trainee waiting for me—then go after him.
It’s easy to catch up. Despite having several inches of height on me, he’s slow. I step around him, cut him off.
“Brandon,” I say.
The look he gives me is vicious, and I wince.
“Come to laugh at me, have you?” he spits.
“No, of course not.” I approach him like he’s a wounded animal—slowly, shoulders hunched, hands up. “I just want to know if you’re okay. You look like you’ve been…struggling.”
I don’t realize how much of an understatement it is until I say it out loud. And not just physically—although his appearance now is alarming—but mentally too. The Brandon Pendersen I know is a cocky asshole, sure, but what interventionist isn’t? He’s also kind, charismatic, and occasionally sweet. All that is gone now. The man in front of me is his husk.
Brandon seems to realize this too. He looks down at his hands,stares at the thin skin, the liver spots, the blue veins like he’s seeing them for the first time.
“I don’t know what happened,” he croaks. “It was a routine diagnostic angiogram. Big artery. Easy target. It’s like I was locked in place, but my needle just kept going.” He drops his face into his hands, and I don’t realize he’s sobbing until fat tears begin to leak between his fingers. “I almost killed him, Sean. And I don’t understand how it happened.”
My stomach drops with horror, and I clap a hand over my mouth as I put two and two together. Why Brandon is on leave. Why Alan Agarwhal showed up in person to enforce it.