SECOND CHANCE

I am a retired medical specialist, and my wife Jay is a child psychologist who runs her own clinic to correct children with problems like autism, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia and the like. We have a son John who is a polymath: He is a writer, talk show host, and has penned, acted in and produced plays. He has his own team and they are now on a tour of England displaying their talent there.

It was Sunday morning, when Jay and I had finished our breakfast. I was lounging on a canvas backed easy-chair on the sit-out facing the garden. The ixora plants were in full bloom, their pink  almost totally obscuring the greenery underneath, and were a treat to watch. Jay was seated facing me browsing a magazine. I said “Jay, Reedsy has announced a short story contest with the prompt to write about someone looking to make amends for a mistake. Will you let me use our experience?”

“Go ahead and write. You like-------“

Our conversation was cut short as she got a phone call which took a few minutes since it was gossip based! Once the call was over she turned to me and said “Fred, these youngsters are spiteful. Kate’s daughter----“  I allowed her to have her say. As usual I merely agreed with her- in between- in whatever she was saying!

She finished what she had started about Kate’s daughter, and brought me back to Reedsy’s prompt. She said “What is great about amends towards a mistake? Of course you’ve a way of gainsaying me as you’re crafty!” I laughed. Continuing she said “Reedsy will perhaps expect something like a legal case. But we don’t have something that complicated. The delivery boy brought me 10 kgs of sugar once whereas I had ordered only 2 kg. It was a mistake. The 10 kg was meant to be delivered to a restaurant on the next road.”

I said “The prompt doesn’t mean stupid mistakes like that. Reedsy will expect resolution of honest mistakes. I think you’ve forgotten John’s case.”

“I can never forget it as long as I live! However I try to forget the painful details though some other points of the case obfuscate. Tell me again.”

I said “I’ll explain. Honest mistakes are those which happen due to reasons beyond our knowledge confines, or circumstances. To make our discussion more interesting on honest mistakes, I’ll tell you a story by the French writer Guy de Maupassant. A man proposes to a woman of means and she wants to study him before she accepts. The suitor moves into a portion of the mansion owned by the one he loves. There he comes into contact with the woman’s maid and questions her about her mistress’s form. She merely says her mistress and she are almost identically built. The man assumes he could take liberties with the maid. He sees the woman going alone to an upper storey of the mansion and follows her. As she stands stooping, looking out through a window, the man rushes forward and hoisting up her skirt kisses her ischial tuberosities only to find he has actually done it to the mistress! Due to his ’honest’ mistake he is thrown out!”

“French guys are incorrigible! If it had been me on the upper storey----------“

I said “I know what you’re capable of!  Coming back to mistakes, a doctor may make a wrong diagnosis or perhaps delay specific actions in treatment. That is wrong if he or she knew better. Fortunately doctors have all been trained to perform to ethical standards and have all sworn the Hippocratic oath and are expected to treat without malice.” I paused and said “Let us compile our story for Reedsy prompts. We’ve taken up the case of John who as a kid vomits. You took him to a GP first. After routine medication over a period the vomiting didn’t stop, and you were asked to go to a specialist. That was how you came to me.”

She said “You had a reputation as somebody who empathises with patients and deals kindly with them.”

“OK, you had told me about it. I investigated John’s abdomen by X-raying him and so on but couldn’t find anything wrong. However I started medication considering it as the case of a faulty liver.”

Jay nodded.

I continued “The treatment showed promise initially but the vomiting persisted. I was puzzled. Then, on my advice, you took John to oncologist Hussein who scanned John’s brain. Only then we got to know John had a tumour in his brain. Next you came to me asking if it would be the end of John”

She said “I went to you among others, but you were the only one who gave me hope. I can never forget your kind words.” She sighed and said “Please don’t remind me of those scary days! Only you know what a frightful time I had! As a doctor you had advised me not to give up optimism. Then came the time when Hussein operated on John’s brain. I was then at the end of my tether. Hussein removed the growth and perhaps for 2 more or so days while the biopsy was being done, I didn’t eat or sleep.”

I said “I was there when Hussein explained the biopsy results to you.  Both Hussein and I had thought it was definitely a case of cancer but two independent reputed labs gave identical verdicts that it was a benign growth. The vomiting had stopped. Was Fred incompetent? It was Hussein who cured John!  Fred had routinely treated John looking for the cause of a stomach ailment instead of looking into his brain. People would’ve probably concluded that I had erred in the treatment though it was I who had suggested your consulting Hussein.  It can only be said that my treatment was an ‘honest mistake’ and my amends were due to patient John and you.”

“I understand.”

“Medical marvels in the form of new diagnostic machines and procedures are coming up every day to combat the ills affecting us humans. New causes and remedies are being discovered.  Anyway I was glad that whatever I did, either right or wrong, had brought you and me very close. You were then a young widow with your son John. I was far senior in age. I was then single at 40 determined to die a bachelor, whereas you were 25. Something about you made me change my determination. I fell for you, proposed to you, and you accepted. I got a very beautiful wife and a gifted son at once, despite my having made an ‘honest mistake’! I consider the diamond ring I gave you on our engagement as amends.”

Jay said “I thank you for it. I’m grateful to God that I’ve a loving husband who has accepted John as his own son. However it was His will that John shouldn’t have siblings. You stood by me with your comforting words at a time when I would’ve committed suicide if it weren’t for John. You gave me a second chance in life by marrying me. I’m ever grateful for it.”

I said “I’m also happy we came together.  Discussing Reedsy’s prompt took me back to the time when John was a spritely little kid, and nostalgia of those happy times flooded the mind. We’ve talked enough about mistakes and amends to write on Reedsy’s prompt. Will Reedsy approve our story?!”

END