As lawrence listended to the phone ring he thought back to a time when he wasn't this sick. The clock on the nightstand read 10 pm as usual. Not a second before. Not a second after. The lights in the room were all off sparing the overhead lamp on the bedside table. He was in a pair of flannel pajamas but no shirt. The temperature in the house was set at 78 degrees exactly.
Precision had become Lawrence's life. Not a bad thing for a surgeon. Afterall.....hadn't his patients depended on his precision. Couldn't just one small misstep lead to disaster? No...no Lawrence told himself you have to stop thinking that way. It's not healthy! Ironically the disaster that Lawrence was trying so hard to avoid had already happened. Both his personal and professional life were in ruins.
His wife had left him...over five years ago. He had lost most of his friends. His colleagues look at him as an oddity. And although he was still operating, his patient load had dwindled severely. Who wants a surgeon who is so caught up in their personal issues that they show up to the OR 2 hours late for the first case?
The phone continued to ring. Come on Carole.....come on....answer the damn phone. Just this last time. Lawrence felt ill. He remembered pleading with his ex wife similarly when she left him. And now he was doing it every night. Silently. In his own mind. Waiting for her to answer the phone. So he could turn off the light and go to sleep.
"Hello?" Carole's annoyed voice woke him from his reverie...
"Just...just checking," Lawrence sputtered as he could hear Carole's husband recite explatives in the background.
"Go to bed Lawrence!"
"Ok......ok"
And then Lawrence hung up the phone and as usual drifted into a sound sleep.
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