A White Coat Is My Closet (49 page)

Diane wiped away some of the tears that had pooled in her lower lids and gave Dr. Wilber as confident a smile as possible. “Got it covered. I’m used to it. I’m the one who’s had to carry his sorry ass through the last three years of training, anyway.” She gave my arm a squeeze to confirm that she was joking, and I gave her a small, brief smile. Though my worry still brought me to the edge of panic, seeing my colleagues rally to my support and recognizing their genuine concern for Sergio kept me from becoming completely unglued.

The silence was broken by Patty giving an authoritative command. “Let’s roll.”

I released Sergio’s hand as the entire team of caregivers gave each other consenting nods. I heard a sharp clank as the wheel lock on the bed was released, and then they began to glide Sergio toward the exit. Watching a patient’s bed being wheeled out of the emergency room and toward the uncertainty of surgery was a scene I had observed hundreds of times before. Indeed, in countless instances, I had been one of the participants. The situation was not unfamiliar. So when I watched Sergio’s pale almost lifeless profile pass in front of me on the gurney, I was surprised the loud gasp I heard had escaped from my own mouth. I was totally unprepared to deal with the sudden feelings of helplessness and worry that in that instant threatened to swallow me. Had I not been sitting on a stool, I was sure my knees would have again buckled underneath me.

Diane was quick to throw her arms around my shoulders and pull me into a tight embrace. The sensation was surreal. Though I was sitting and held securely in Diane’s arms, I still felt like I was falling, as if the very earth had been pulled out from beneath me and I was catapulting through space, incapable of even partially navigating my fall. I wasn’t even confident my body even existed, and yet I was somehow aware the soft sobs I heard in the now quiet room were my own.

Dr. Wilber was the last to leave. He walked over to stand in front of me. My head was down, and he gently lifted my chin until I was looking straight into his eyes. “I can’t make any promises, Zack. I know you understand Sergio’s condition is critical. But I promise you I’ll do everything within my power to ensure the best possible outcome. That, I guarantee you.” He released his grip on my chin and gave my shoulder a reassuring pat. “And, Zack, for what it’s worth, it’s a privilege to take care of someone so precious to you. Thank you for trusting me.”

He was almost out the door before I found my voice. “Thank you, Dr. Wilber. I know Sergio is in the best hands.”

The next few hours were excruciating. Without knowing exactly how I had gotten there, I found myself in the surgical waiting room. It occurred to me the last time I was there was when I had come in to report to Christopher’s parents his surgery had gone well and Dr. Alfredo had successfully resected the majority of his tumor. A chill ran down my spine. Though Christopher’s death still weighed heavily upon my heart, it now seemed like it had occurred a lifetime ago. I still remembered the deep lines of concern etched on his parents’ faces when I first appeared to talk to them. His mom had been sitting in the very chair I now occupied, and she had leapt to her feet when she saw me approach. As I stared at the dreary beige walls, I realized I now wore the same deeply etched lines.

Diane sat next to me and kept a viselike grip on my arm. She occasionally got paged and would get up and use the phone mounted on the wall on the far side of the room to return the calls. I didn’t give much consideration to who she was speaking to and only later realized she had been calling our colleagues to ensure that all the pediatric patients were taken care of in our absence. In my catatonic state, I hadn’t even realized she had taken my beeper from my belt at some point and turned it off. It was only when our chief resident, Matteo, arrived and pulled me briefly into his arms that I realized the alert had gone out. He said he was sorry to hear about my friend and told me not to worry. He also told me all my shifts had been covered for the next week. In fact, despite none of my fellow residents being on call, when they got word that Sergio had been shot, four of them had left their beds in the middle of the night to come in to cover for me and Diane. They said they realized it wouldn’t actually take four people to do the work of two, but when they heard who Sergio was and what he meant to me, they said they wanted to come in and do whatever they could to help.

Even in my grief-stricken state, I recognized the significance of the gesture. For years I had agonized whether I would lose their respect were they to learn the truth about me. I’d feared I would be ostracized by them and categorically shamed. Instead, they rallied behind me. They showed up in the wee hours of the morning, threw their arms around me, and insisted on staying to help maintain vigil.

I heard no malice, no disparaging remarks. In fact, all conversation centered around their support and their absolute conviction that Sergio would fully recover. Beth, who had returned from maternity leave just a few months earlier, even commented that Sergio had to get better so she’d have the opportunity to meet the guy responsible for making me so happy.

If my extreme worry hadn’t resulted in me already being teary-eyed, their unconditional acceptance of me would certainly have caused me to cry.

Two and a half hours into the ordeal, I was becoming increasingly restless. I couldn’t sit still anymore and began to pace back and forth. Diane watched me for as long as she could endure, then began to circle the waiting room with me.

“Zack?” she asked cautiously. “Is there anyone else you’d like me to call? Does Sergio have family? Would you like your parents here?”

If possible, even more color drained from my face. I cleared my throat and answered half her question truthfully. “Sergio’s entire family is in Italy. Only one of his sisters actually lives here, but she left for Italy last week to visit their mother. I don’t have any idea how to get ahold of her and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to call her until Sergio’s out of surgery. It would make no sense to worry her until we know more.”

Diane stopped my pacing by grabbing my arm and searched my expression earnestly. We couldn’t be overheard by the rest of our friends, but she nevertheless asked in little more than a whisper, “How about your parents?” Her lips quivered ever so slightly. “In the unlikely event we get less than good news, wouldn’t you want them here to support you?”

Hours before, I thought I was incapable of crying any more tears. The whole experience had been so emotionally draining I was relatively certain I had already exhausted a lifetime’s worth of tears. The sincerity of her question, however, proved me wrong. Tears again began to cascade down my cheeks like an untapped reservoir had been opened.

“They don’t know about Sergio. They don’t even know I’m gay.” My response came out as a soft sob.

Diane looked momentarily confused, and though it seemed she was about to comment, in that moment, she decided not to. Instead, she again wrapped her arms around me and gave me another strong hug. “It’s going to be okay, Zack. Your world is going to be a little upside down for a while, but it’s all going to be okay. I can just feel it. When we’re sure Sergio is out of the woods, we’ll deal with everything else.” She rubbed my back gently, and my quiet crying slowly began to subside. “In fact, when Sergio is up and around again, I suspect the burden you’ve been carrying around this whole time is going to seem monumentally lighter. All these secrets you’ve kept hidden away must have weighed a ton.”

She was rewarded with a soft chuckle that, when I tried to steady my breathing, morphed into a hiccup. “We’ll see if the burden ends up being any lighter. Dr. Klein told me he’d make it his mission to get me kicked out of the residency program. He carries a lot of clout here. What will I do then? Other training programs don’t look too favorably at applicants who have been previously suspended.”

Diane pushed me away from her far enough to be able to look me in the eyes. “We won’t let that happen, Zack. The man might be a talented surgeon, but everyone knows he’s an insufferable asshole. If there’s even a suggestion of disciplinary action being brought against you, then the rest of us will walk out in protest. Let them try to run a pediatric program without any residents. It will be impossible.” She drew me back into her embrace, then laughed softly. “Actually, they’ll probably be left with at least one resident. Peggy will undoubtedly stay, but she and Dr. Klein deserve each other. In fact, the two of them can establish their own society. ‘Dipshits Against Social Evolution.’” She drew away from me again but now was smiling. “Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

I could do little more than to laugh at her joke, mostly because I was speechless. The prospect of my colleagues coming so fiercely to my defense was a scenario I would never have dreamed possible. Not only had they given me every indication of accepting me, they seemed determined to support me, and if need be, even to fight for me.

I had to return to my chair to sit down. The culmination of all the thoughts going through my brain was again making me feel light-headed.

Diane sat down next to me and resumed her tight grip on my arm. “Listen, Zack. I’m here for the duration, and I doubt anyone will be going home until we hear how Sergio does in surgery, but the rest of the team is going to have to report to rounds in a few hours. Isn’t there someone else who you’d like to be here?”

My mind was too numb to appreciate the magnitude of the realization but, just like breaking the surface of the water to breathe, it dawned on me I wanted Declan there. As my best friend, he knew me better than anyone. He understood the complexities of my life, and for the past five years he’d been there for me through every tumultuous event, even if the vast majority of them had been self-imposed.

I turned to Diane and answered affirmatively. “Yeah, would you please call Declan? It will help if he’s here.”

When she saw me nod, Diane had already gotten up to again use the phone, but when she heard his name, she came to a sudden standstill and looked at me blankly. “Who’s Declan?”

A slight blush crept across my face, and I let me head drop back against the top of my chair. Once the house of cards began to fall, it collapsed in a heap. Though Diane and I had become significantly closer since the momentous day of Sergio’s reveal, I still exerted a lot of energy keeping my professional and private lives separate. I would sometimes tell her about some of the experiences Sergio and I shared but only made vague reference to any of my other friends. Now, even through my exhaustion, I realized how ridiculous the façade I was trying to live behind had become.

“Declan’s my best friend. We were friends way before Sergio and I even met. He’ll come. He’ll help hold me up.”

When I looked back at Diane, it was evident that though she was trying her best not to be judgmental, she was hurt. “You’ve had a best friend for years that I’ve never heard about?”

Shit. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt her. No, worse; she probably felt betrayed. I fixed my unfocused gaze at the ceiling. Regardless of how long I stared, however, the acoustic tiles failed to provide me with the words I needed to explain myself.

“Diane, I know I’ve told you this no less than fifty times, and I know it sounds clichéd, but it isn’t you, it’s me. Or, more accurately, it’s my fucked-up self-esteem and my deeply rooted conviction that I’m seriously defective.” A deep sigh escaped my lips. I knew Diane was looking at me intently, but I knew if I faced her, it would be impossible to keep talking, so I continued to direct my explanation to the ceiling. “Look, I’ve been hiding who I am for so long that it comes to me naturally even when I don’t intend it to. Since the day you found out I was gay, I have been totally open with you. I’ve told you things about me and Sergio that no one else knows. It’s just that you and my other friends have been separate entities for so long, it honestly didn’t occur to me to try mix the groups. I didn’t think my comfort zone could tolerate the two groups existing in the same space. It made me feel too vulnerable. Declan knows about my friendship with you, but only because he’s been aware of my struggles for a long time. He knew about me wanting to be honest with you months before you discovered the truth. But he also understood how conflicted I was about coming out. Maybe he thought I exaggerated the risk it represented, but he nonetheless encouraged me to take the process at my own pace. He understood that I felt my professional life could be pushed onto thin ice if everyone in the hospital knew the details of my personal life.”

Finally I found the courage to look at her. “I trust you, Diane. I probably always have. You’ve already helped me way more than you’ll ever know. It’s just that we met during a time in my life when I was incapable of taking more than baby steps, and introducing you to all my other friends felt like a huge leap. I just wasn’t ready for it.” I gave another labored sigh. “It seems especially ridiculous now, given where I’m currently sitting, but at the time, it wasn’t so obvious.”

I reached over and laced my fingers through hers. “I promise you can be mad at me later, but for now please just forgive me.”

Diane leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Consider yourself fortunate that I’ve recently been nominated for sainthood. Now, what’s Declan’s number?” Rather than crossing the room to use the wall-mounted phone, Diane reached for the receiver on the phone sitting on the table next to us.

I again leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and recited Declan’s number from memory. It was four thirty in the morning. After she punched the numbers, from where I was sitting, I could hear Declan’s phone ringing through the receiver in Diane’s hand. On the fourth ring, I heard him say a very disoriented, “Hello.”

“Hey, Declan, this is Diane, Zack’s friend from the hospital. Sorry to be calling you at this early hour.”

There was about a three-second delay before I heard Declan’s voice again. He still didn’t sound fully awake, but his voice already registered alarm. “Hi, Diane. What’s wrong? Is Zack okay? Did something happen to him?”

Diane’s voice, though restrained, started to quiver, and her eyes again welled up with tears. “Zack’s fine. In fact, he’s sitting here right next to me.” She paused for a few seconds to try to control her emotions. She was accustomed to keeping a cool head in emergencies, but in this situation, she wasn’t speaking as a doctor, she was speaking as someone trying desperately to keep the world from coming crashing down on her good friend’s head.