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Max came home to find Helen hunched over at the kitchen table, alternating between staring at her laptop and pouring through a large stack of paper files. She was exactly where he’d left her an hour ago when he’d went out for a run.
“Hey,” Max said.
“Good run?” Helen asked, never taking her eyes off her work.
“Great run. And still the best way to discover fun things in neighborhood. I spotted a new Indian restaurant that we need to try.”
“That’d be nice.”
“Still at it?”
“Yes. I know there is a new protocol that is in trials that would be perfect for my patient. But I can’t remember where I saw it. I remember the gist of it, but I need to check some numbers and it’s driving me absolutely mad that I can’t find it.”
Max walked over and kissed the top of her head and rested his hands on her shoulders, being careful not to rain sweat down on her. “I’m sure you’ll find it. But either way, you’re gonna take a break with me after I get out of the shower. Unless…I can convince you to take a break with me while I shower?”
Max stepped to her side. He caught her eyes, his eyebrows raised in a hopeful look.
“Sorry, Max. I really need to find this. I can’t focus on anything else until I do.”
--
Twenty minutes later, Max was back downstairs and Helen was sprawled out on the couch, seemingly lost in thought.
“Success?” Max asked.
“Yes. It was in the very last journal that I looked in. Of course.”
Max plopped down next to her. He pulled her legs into his lap and started massaging her calves. Helen could easily get lost in her own thoughts when she was working on something, sometimes even forgetting to eat or come up for air. Max considered it his job to make sure she didn’t stay alone in her head for too long.
“I’m so glad. Does this mean you’ll take the rest of the afternoon off to play with me? It is Saturday, and we still have a couple of hours before we need to get Luna from Charlie’s house.”
Helen ignored his offer, still thinking other thoughts. “How come I never see you pouring over medical files and journals trying to find information?”
“I do from time to time,” Max replied.
“Not often,” she pressed.
“I was an administrator for a long time. Saw more board rooms than patients unfortunately.”
“We both know you saw patients all the time…You’re deflecting.”
“A few patients. But you’re an oncologist, Helen. Protocols and drugs change constantly.”
“Max, you’re an infectious disease doctor. Things change all the time! And right before we left for London, there was that outbreak at New Amsterdam. I talked to the CDC guy afterward. He said that you had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of antibiotics that are not even in circulation anymore.”
“I read a lot at work…”
“I’ve rarely seen it.”
“There was a large portion of my day you weren’t around for.”
“Max!”
“I’ve got a good memory, Helen.”
“How good?”
Max paused for a moment, not wanting to say the next part. “Photographic.”
Helen sat straight up. “What? No you don’t. I would know.”
“You don’t know everything, Helen. I’m full of surprises,” he said playfully with a wink.
“I don’t believe you. Prove it.”
Helen walked to the kitchen and grabbed a box of cereal from the cupboard and brought it back to the couch. “Here. Read this list of ingredients and then give me the box back so I can test you.”
“I don’t need to read the box. I’ve read it before.”
Helen looked at him incredulously. “Okay, smarty pants, go ahe—“
Max cut her off. “Milled corn. Sugar. Malt flavoring. High fructose corn syrup. Salt. Sodium ascorbate and ascorbic acid. Niacinamide. Iron. Pyridoxine hydrochloride. Riboflavin. Thiamin hydrochloride. Vitamin A palmitate. Folic acid. BHT. Vitamin B12. And Vitamin D.”
Helen eyes widened and she looked up from the box back at Max. “Okay, well first of all, we are never buying this again. None of these ingredients are actual food.”
“Not happening. You may be able to keep this sugary goodness away from Luna, but I’m a growing boy and I need my sustenance.”
“Second, what the hell, Max?”
“What? It’s not that big a deal.”
“If your memory is this good, how come you could never remember anything in most of the board reports back when we were at New Amsterdam?”
“Oh, that’s easy. I didn’t read them.”
“Max…”
“I read every report that had to do with actual patient care—number of beds, frontline staffing, etc. The bureaucratic nonsense wasn’t worth my time. And a good administrator prioritizes,” he said waggling his eyebrows, hoping to keep the mood light. But he could tell from Helen’s expression that she wasn’t amused.
“The bureaucratic nonsense was literally half of your job.”
“No. Saving patients’ lives and helping staff do their jobs well was my whole job. I read anything important related to that.”
He smirked and Helen didn’t know quite what to do with him. Sometimes the very thing you love most about someone is the exact same thing that can drive you completely mad.
“Why wouldn’t you ever mention it?” She asked.
“It didn’t come up.”
“Max.”
Max let out a sigh. “I don’t like to draw attention to it, Helen. Most of the time, it wasn’t a good thing in my life. When I was younger, I got accused of cheating a few times in school because I aced too many tests, but didn’t fit the profile of a book worm. And it made my dad angry. I’d quote something random that I’d read, and he’d just stare at me and say, You think you’re so smart, don’t you? And then he’d just walk away. He was never proud of anything I did.” Max looked down and started fidgeting with the hem of Helen’s trousers. “So I tried to play it down and hide it as much as possible. I’d purposefully miss an answer or two on tests to draw less attention to myself.”
Helen reached over and took Max’s hand in hers. Every detail she learned about his father made her heart break more and more for him. She thought of Max with Luna—so loving, so encouraging—and she couldn’t imagine Max ever doing anything to make their daughter feel small. She wondered where all his goodness had come from.
“It was super helpful in medical school though,” Max continued. “I still had to put the time into reading everything, but not over and over. So, I could spend extra time in lab, and then with patients during residency. But even then, when med school professors found out, they always tried to push me toward a career in research. And all I ever wanted was to get out of the library and be with patients. I guess I keep it close to the vest because I still feel like it keeps people from seeing me the way that I see myself. And I worry that if they know, they will try to pull me away from doing the things I love.” He smiled at her. “Or, you know, expect me to read all the board reports.”
“I wish I had that skill,” Helen said. “I’m whip smart, of course.” She winked at Max, and he pulled her hand to his mouth to place a kiss on her knuckles.
“The smartest,” he replied.
“And obviously talented,” she added.
Max playfully kissed her forearm. “The most. And the coolest doctor I know.”
“But I still had to spend endless hours studying. And today—I could have saved myself several hours if I could have just remembered what I’d read and where.”
“But my memory is just a memorization thing. It doesn’t help with applying the knowledge or caring about people or anything else that makes someone a good doctor. And besides, your educational career was a lot more impressive than mine.”
“How do you know that?”
“I read your personnel file when I first got to New Amsterdam. I read all the department chairs’ files. I also may have Googled you and read a bunch of news stories about you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And what did you learn?”
“Oh, all the expected stuff. Top of your class. Top tier residency. Chief resident. Impressive research fellowship. Youngest-ever chair of oncology. Massive fundraiser. All incredibly impressive, but not what distinguished you from your colleagues.”
“Oh yeah? And what was that?”
“When you were out raising big dollars for cancer research or for the hospital, you always required that 10 percent of all funds raised go into a fund to cover cancer treatment for uninsured patients. It was a condition of your going. And you always did it quietly.”
Helen blushed. “How could you possibly know that?”
“You’re also the only doctor I’ve ever seen thank patients—with their permission—in the notes of their medical journal articles, quote, wanting history to know the names of the people who really helped save the next person with cancer.”
Helen shook her head. “Now I know that wasn’t in my personnel file.”
“No. I may also have read everything you ever published before I started at New Amsterdam. That last little tidbit was why I was absolutely sure you’d come back and be a real doctor again when I gave you an ultimatum the first day we met.”
Helen flashed on the moment they’d met in the hospital atrium and the feeling that Max had seen through her carefully crafted facade faster and better than anyone she’d ever met. She’d come back because of him, because of the hope he had filled both New Amsterdam and her with. But she had very nearly left New Amsterdam forever that day for exactly the same reason. Because she knew, almost immediately after meeting him, that Max had the capacity to crack her wide open. It scared her at the time, but not anymore. Today, Helen sat next to Max on their couch, exposed and fully seen, but it only left her feeling safe and warm and home.
“You know, you’re a pretty good student,” she said, tracing circles on the back of his hand with her thumb.
“I am when the topic interests me,” he said, looking at her with a level of intensity that she’d only ever seen in his eyes. “I’ll usually even go for extra credit.”
“Still…I feel like there should be some serious atoning for all the boring board reports and hospital bylaws that you pawned off onto me to read as your deputy. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but I see paperwork in your future, mister.”
Max’s shoulders slumped, and he looked like a wounded puppy. “See Helen, I told you no good ever comes from sharing this with people.”
“But…” Helen cut him off, a twinkle in her eye. “For now, I’ll settle for Indian food and play time.”
Max perked right up, everything immediately made better. “Maybe my luck is changing.”