’I just have one last question, humor me. After you doctors say; there’s nothing I can do. Do you go home at night, feeling the fulfillment of a successful day? Is it just part of your daily routine? Checking your watch while checking off boxes? One patient gone, check. Another one down, check. Is that how it works Doctor Renault?’

The neon light above me flickered. This would be the perfect moment for a voice behind me to interject and reason with me. Enough Bette. But there were just a few other customers, their looks telling they would have something to talk about at home.

He turned around and walked away with his head held high, as if washing his hands in innocence. Certainly he wouldn’t mention any of this to his wife. The encounter was all so insignificant to him, that he would have forgotten about it by the time he swiped his credit card at check out. I saw him take a bouquet of flowers, a cheap, generic one with too much green and little flowers, you can find them at every grocery store, one I would never choose for Tina. And yet the ring on his finger implied that he managed to keep a wife.