Bellevue

Chapter 23

Thursday, July 4, 3:25 a.m.

The cafeteria was far more crowded in the wee hours of the morning than Mitt had expected. He even had to wait in a short line just to get a tray before joining the queue moving along in front of the steam table. And the food selection was impressive, as good or better than when he’d eaten his early-evening meal more than ten hours previously. On this occasion, he selected a roast chicken breast with mashed potatoes. At the drink dispenser, he was again very careful not to fill the cup to the brim, and when he placed it on his tray, he did so with great care. He wasn’t about to suffer that ignominy again.

Thinking about the number of people required to keep a state-of-the-art, nearly thousand-bed modern hospital running 24/7 to provide general care as well as maintain sophisticated treatments, Mitt pondered the difference between the current, modern Bellevue Hospital and the old Bellevue Hospital almost two hundred years ago when his ancestor Dr. Homer Fuller had joined the staff. At that time, the hospital had just moved from its almshouse location in downtown Manhattan up to its current location on the East River and had assumed the name Bellevue, taking it from the title of the property itself. Here, in what was then countryside, it was able to expand, eventually reaching upward of two thousand beds. Still Mitt hazarded a guess that the night staff back in those days was probably minimal in sharp contrast with current day, meaning the patients most likely had had to fend for themselves.

Mitt had made it a point to read an engrossing history of the hospital during the early part of June before his residency started. He’d been particularly interested in the hundred-plus years his ancestors were on the staff. Because the field of medicine in those times, particularly when Homer was professionally active, had very few curative treatments to offer patients and much of what it did do — such as bloodletting and the use of powerful purgatives — only added to patients’ distress, the hospital served more as a kind of storage bin for the sick, injured, and mentally compromised poor than as a treatment center. Mitt had even read that during pandemics, particularly those involving yellow fever, typhus, and cholera, there had sometimes been more than one patient per bed and even people sleeping on the floors and in the hallways. Because Mitt had some appreciation for the distressing symptoms of these infectious diseases, particularly propulsive diarrhea with cholera, it was difficult for him to imagine what the conditions had been like.

Holding his tray of food and drink, Mitt paused to let his eyes roam the room, hoping to see a couple of fellow residents to join. Maybe he could engage in conversation to avoid thinking about his patient situation, or more accurately, the lack thereof. But he didn’t see a single person who fit the bill. The vast majority of diners were nurses, along with a fewer number of orderlies, janitors, and maintenance men. The level of chitchat was intense.

Abandoning the idea of finding residents, Mitt looked for a seat where he wouldn’t be intrusive, yet most tables were either full or nearly so. Sensing he would not be able to add to any of the ongoing conversations, he opted for a table with only a single person that looked promising. It wasn’t the best table in the house, as it was over near the soiled-dishes intake window, but he couldn’t have cared less. The sole occupant was an older Black woman, dressed in a long white coat over a conservative dress, making Mitt believe she might be an attending. Why an attending would be eating in the middle of the night was a mystery, but he was encouraged, thinking that it would be easy to initiate a conversation just by asking her about her specialty. As an added incentive, she was at the moment steadily and invitingly staring at him despite being in the middle of her meal.

As Mitt approached, he had a strange sensation he knew this woman, but from where or how he had no idea. His first thought was maybe he’d met her during the week of orientation before his residency officially started, but if that was the case, he couldn’t recall the circumstances. And then as he drew closer he felt his familiar tactile sensations, particularly on the back of his neck and along the inside of his arms. He sensed that this woman was sharing his thoughts and mirroring his, believing she was acquainted with him.

“Excuse me,” Mitt said as he came abreast of the table. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“I was hoping you would,” the woman said in a clear and relatively deep voice. She gestured to the seat opposite herself at the four-top table. Her expression was serious but welcoming, as if she had been expecting him.

As Mitt placed his tray down, he studied the woman, who was continuing to stare back at him after putting down her flatware. Confirming his initial impression, up close she looked to be in her sixties, which seemed moderately aged from his twenty-three-year-old point of view. She was a healthy-looking woman with a broad face and smooth light brown skin with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Her hair appeared to be naturally gray, dense, and curly. Her eyes were dark and penetrating behind rather large and stylish red-rimmed glasses.

Feeling mildly uneasy under the woman’s intense scrutiny, Mitt made a point of looking down at the chair as he pulled it out from the table and sat down. He then moved himself and the chair closer to the table in a hopping and rather noisy fashion. Only then did he again raise his eyes to look up at the woman. He was mildly unnerved to see that she was continuing to stare at him rather than returning to her meal. He noticed that she, too, had chosen the roast chicken and had only just begun to eat. He also noticed that she did not have a stethoscope in the pockets of her long white coat, making him wonder what her specialty was. Yet now that he was close to her, he sensed she was not a doctor, without knowing why.

“I don’t mean to interrupt your meal,” Mitt said. He gestured toward her plate. “Please! Continue.”

“I will in a moment,” she said. “I’m glad to meet you, Dr. Fuller. I was wondering how I was going to arrange it. I was very surprised to see you here at the cafeteria in the middle of the night shift but also happy. It makes my task of getting to talk with you so much easier.”

Mildly shocked that she knew his name, he suddenly realized that he knew hers as well — Lashonda Scott — but without knowing how. “Did we meet last week during my orientation?”

“No,” Lashonda said simply. “I’m never invited to meet the new residents, medical or surgical or any other specialty for that matter. Myself and my team work behind the scenes throughout the hospital. The staff, including you residents, are only aware of our contribution when we slip up and don’t do our job or we’re busy elsewhere and you have to wait for us.”

“What is your job?” Mitt asked. He was confused by knowing her name and yet not knowing her hospital function or why she felt the need to talk with him.

“I’m the night-shift housekeeping supervisor,” Lashonda said. “My team cleans and prepares patient rooms throughout the medical center. It’s a vitally important role that’s underappreciated. You helped add to our workload very early Tuesday morning on the fifteenth floor. I saw you then, and I recognized exactly who you are when our eyes met. And knowing who you are meant that I very much needed to talk with you to ask you a particular question, which you might find shocking or bizarre or both.”

“What do you mean, you recognized who I am?” Mitt questioned, totally confused. He had absolutely no idea what Lashonda was talking about. At the same time, he had to admit that as a doctor-in-training, he’d never given the role of housekeeping much thought or appreciation. Remembering the dramatic burst aneurysm and the god-awful mess it created, he had to give credit where credit was due.

“I recognized that your name is Michael Fuller and that you are directly related to all the Fullers who have been members of the Bellevue Hospital staff going back more than a hundred years. You, like me, Dr. Fuller, bear a special burden being here, and yours is more worrisome than mine because your relatives were doctors and not support staff.”

For several disbelieving beats, Mitt stared at Lashonda with his mouth slightly ajar. She sounded more like a mental health professional than who she was. It seemed extraordinary and difficult to believe that the night-shift housekeeping supervisor not only knew him but was also aware of his legacy and on top of that wanted to talk with him. Thinking there was only one reasonable explanation, he asked: “Let me guess: Have you been talking with Dr. Harington about me, by any chance?”

“No, I haven’t been talking with Dr. Harington,” Lashonda said. “She knows a lot about Bellevue history, that is certainly true, and she and I have talked on multiple occasions about Bellevue’s past. But her source of information, other than myself, are books and articles written by medical historians. As good as such sources can be, I have a better one.”

“Oh?” Mitt questioned when Lashonda paused. “Like what exactly?”

“Family,” Lashonda said. “Similar to you, I am a direct relative of Bellevue Hospital employees who were either in housekeeping like I am, and my mother was, or in maintenance, like my father and most of my previous relatives going back seven generations. My family has been very committed to Bellevue’s cause over several hundred years, and I have to say, the relationship has been mutually supportive. My great-great-great-grandfather joined the Bellevue staff just about the same time as your relative Dr. Homer Fuller, but I know for a fact that they never got to know each other.”

My God, Mitt thought. He couldn’t believe that not only did Lashonda know he had Bellevue Hospital physician relatives, but she also knew their names. But how and why?

“I felt the need to ask you a strange question,” Lashonda continued when Mitt didn’t immediately respond about her family’s close ties to Bellevue Hospital. “But I’m afraid there has to be a ground rule. If you answer my question in the negative, you can’t then ask me why I felt obligated to ask it. If you answer yes, we will very much need to discuss the issue in more detail, particularly for your benefit. Do I have your agreement?”

“I suppose,” Mitt said without enthusiasm. With his curiosity aroused, he didn’t like having restrictions on this conversation. At the same time, he was keenly interested in hearing her question as he assumed it had something to do with his forebearers. Little did he know it was going to be much more shocking than that.