Something about Dr. Raskin stuck in Kathleen’s mind the second she first saw him in the hall, even before he excused himself to the restroom and then met her at the bedside of her Aunt Rhetta, who had surfaced from unconsciousness only once in the two days since she had been admitted, and that time was to stare penetratingly into middle distance and cry out the name of her long-dead husband Arthur as if she was seeing him right there next to the chair, and who’s to say she wasn’t, and Raskin didn’t flinch at the scream, didn’t lose his cool at the alarming expression on Aunt Rhetta’s face, just reached into his pocket for a small notebook, jotted something down, then turned to her, and said — and this was what stuck in her mind — “have lunch with me?” The extraordinary calm in his tone infused her with certainty that one day they would marry.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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