As I glanced toward the time clock the announcer called my score. I won.
After collecting my prize, I headed back to the stable where my truck and trailer were parked. Jake was sitting on the tailgate, laughing as I approached.
“You got something good there, honey?” he asked.
I held up my trophy and shook it in the air. “I won three hundred dollars!”
“Are you telling me you’re gonna take me out for a beer to celebrate?”
I swallowed hard as I looked down at him from atop Dancer. I shook my head slightly and then tried desperately to peel my eyes away from him. He had changed into a clean pair of Wranglers and a white button-down shirt. Still wearing a confident grin, he swung his legs back and forth playfully on the edge of the tailgate.
When I jumped down to remove the saddle and bridle, he came around and put his hand over mine. “I was kidding. Not about the beer but about buying. I’d like to take you out for a proper dinner. Can I do that?”
He squeezed my hand, gazing into my eyes, waiting for my answer.
“My mom is at our motel. I’m . . . only eighteen.” My voice shook embarrassingly.
“Oh, well, I only just turned twenty-one.” He smiled again. “I’m far away from my home in Montana, doing the rodeo circuit through California. It’s just me and my roping partner, so it gets kind of lonely.” I could tell he meant lonely in the genuine sense, not in a sexual way. “Maybe you can bring her along? You both need to eat, right?”
“Okay,” I said to Jake McCrea just three short months before I married him.
CHAPTER 2
Regimented Exercise
Nathanial
SPRING 2005
Flying up and down the rows of a crowded parking lot while my mother screamed in the backseat was not how I pictured the day I would officially become a doctor. My dad, in his token Hawaiian-print dress shirt, sat in the passenger seat, calm as ever, while I anxiously sped up and slowed down, periodically glancing at the clock on the dash. I had ten minutes to be in my seat before the ceremony started. There were no open parking spaces—the lot was littered with graduates hurrying along in their green and black gowns while my dad sat there humming “Yesterday” by the Beatles.
“I’m gonna be late. Shit! I’m gonna be late.”
“Christ, Nathanial, you’re going to kill somebody. Calm down!” my mother shouted.
“Mom, please, you’re not helping. And Dad, quit with the fucking humming.”
“Nathanial, are you really going to call yourself a doctor and use that kind of language?” I looked into the rearview mirror to see my peeved mother with her arms crossed, smirking at me.
“Oh that doesn’t matter, Elaine.” My dad finally awoke from his nostalgic daze. “Our boy here needs to choose his battles. First he needs to find a parking space in this godforsaken hellhole they call a university.”
I zipped through a group of pedestrians and spotted an open space on the other side. When I hit the gas, I could hear my mother whining under her breath.
“Dad, how can you say that about your alma mater and the very hospital you practice in?”
“Times have changed, Nate. That’s all I’m saying.” He stared out the window and went back to humming “Yesterday.”
Graduation day is a turning point for so many, but for me it was just the next box to check off as I followed obediently in my father’s footsteps. The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA is a challenge for most, even if your dad is the head of cardiothoracic surgery, but for me medical school was a breeze. It was a party. Half of my courses consisted of a professor spewing information that had been planted in me and nurtured from the time I was able to speak. Courses in anatomy were like reciting the alphabet. The brachiocephalic veins are connected to the superior vena cava. The superior vena cava is connected to the right atrium. The right atrium is separated from the left ventricle by the atrioventricular septum. I knew these things not because my dad was a doctor but because my dad was the most passionate and revered cardiothoracic surgeon in all of Los Angeles. Even with his offbeat and sometimes risky methods, my dad was considered, within the large community of surgeons throughout the country, as the very best in his field.
The three of us jumped out of my beat-up Nissan Altima and started booking it toward the sound of the MC already beginning his speech. I scurried along, carrying my cap in one hand and car keys and cell phone in the other.
“Wait!” my mother yelled. I turned to find her standing at the edge of the parking lot with her hand on the hip of her black pantsuit.
“What is it, Mom?”
“Come on, Elaine,” my father barked.
“Wait, just wait, goddammit!” My mother never cursed. “Come here, Nathanial.” She was a petite woman with childlike features, a black pixie hairdo, and the tiniest elfin nose. Most of the time her timorous posture and gentle smile made her seem soft. I had towered over her five-foot-three frame since I was twelve years old but all she had to do was jerk her head up at me and her glare alone was as powerful as any weapon. My mother was a fearless force to be reckoned with. You know how they say behind every great man there’s a great woman? My mother would say, No, the woman is three steps ahead.
Even though she stood behind my father and me that day, she was three steps ahead of us, and by all accounts, in charge of the situation. I looked down at my feet and back to her face and saw her expression change from anger to pride.