purple windbreaker, her hair batted across her face by the wind. He was aware that he was standing on the beach, but the idea of his body seemed beside the point. The level of detailâglistening, granularâwas beyond that of memories, beyond waking sight. He saw the stippled surface of the ocean. He could count each rock of the groyne, each container ship studded along the horizon. His attention did not have to be parceled out but could instead meet the entire breadth and depth of the scene at once. Amelia stood at the tip of the groyne, the oceanâs spray whipping across her legs. She looked back at him. Her face was many ages at once. She was a little girl; she was a teenager; she was the young woman sheâd never become. Her face did not flash from one age to the next but rather accommodated all the ages, in the same space, at once. When she smiled, it was many smiles and also one.
Simon opened his eyes, and this vision of his sister remained so true, so perfect, that he was sure for a moment Amelia was there in the room with him. Or rather, that the dim hotel room was itself unreal, an illusion, and the beach was what was real, the beach and the ocean and Amelia, and he was the visitor, the apparition. As though he had died and Amelia were still alive. He struggled to sit up in bed, the force of the vision and the hot weight of sickness grinding down on his body. The fever broke a few hours later. The next day he used the last of his money to buy a plane ticket home.
It was within a month or two of his return that the idea of becoming a doctor first occurred to him. He couldnât say when he initially thought of itâmaybe during a conversation with his father or while watching some medical drama on televisionâbut once heâd taken hold of the idea, he could not let it go. It was as though heâd always been working toward this goal without knowing it. He enrolled at the SUNY campus upstate the following fall and began taking premed courses. During his four years there, he passed all his requirements, not at the top of the class, but far enough from the bottom. He studied for the MCAT and did well enough on that too, and eventually he was accepted to a middle-tier medical school on Manhattanâs Upper East Side.
He rented a one-bedroom apartment on East Ninety-Third Street, near York Avenue, not too far from where he and his father and Amelia had lived before moving to the Rockaways. Michael visited the apartment and noted the doorman, the elevator, the views onto the river, before wondering aloud at its cost. Simon lied, undershooting the monthly rent by $500. It was the summer of 2007, and the cost of things seemed malleable, practically beside the point. You only had to wait and whatever money you had now would surely multiply, like self-dividing amoebae, so why stress over such things? Simon took out $45,000 in loans for school and spent his savings from four years of part-time work at the campus bookstore on rent and prescription drugsâmostly Valium and Klonopin and Ambienâwhich were delivered to his new apartment by a baby-faced NYU freshman.
He didnât try to make friends at medical school; it happened only once and by chance, with a woman named Katherine Peel. She was black haired and pale skinned and five years older than him, a large woman who wore her largeness easily, sexily, as though it were a flattering dress sheâd chosen for herself. Simon thought they understood each other immediately. He would have said their friendship was built on the platform of a shared pessimism, and on a shared response to that pessimism, which was to work obsessively hard against it, not in the hope of changing the world, or themselves, for the better, but instead out of a perverse personality defect in which despair and industry were inextricable. They thought this attitude would serve them well in their future residencies in the public hospitals of New York City, where
Simon opened his eyes, and this vision of his sister remained so true, so perfect, that he was sure for a moment Amelia was there in the room with him. Or rather, that the dim hotel room was itself unreal, an illusion, and the beach was what was real, the beach and the ocean and Amelia, and he was the visitor, the apparition. As though he had died and Amelia were still alive. He struggled to sit up in bed, the force of the vision and the hot weight of sickness grinding down on his body. The fever broke a few hours later. The next day he used the last of his money to buy a plane ticket home.
It was within a month or two of his return that the idea of becoming a doctor first occurred to him. He couldnât say when he initially thought of itâmaybe during a conversation with his father or while watching some medical drama on televisionâbut once heâd taken hold of the idea, he could not let it go. It was as though heâd always been working toward this goal without knowing it. He enrolled at the SUNY campus upstate the following fall and began taking premed courses. During his four years there, he passed all his requirements, not at the top of the class, but far enough from the bottom. He studied for the MCAT and did well enough on that too, and eventually he was accepted to a middle-tier medical school on Manhattanâs Upper East Side.
He rented a one-bedroom apartment on East Ninety-Third Street, near York Avenue, not too far from where he and his father and Amelia had lived before moving to the Rockaways. Michael visited the apartment and noted the doorman, the elevator, the views onto the river, before wondering aloud at its cost. Simon lied, undershooting the monthly rent by $500. It was the summer of 2007, and the cost of things seemed malleable, practically beside the point. You only had to wait and whatever money you had now would surely multiply, like self-dividing amoebae, so why stress over such things? Simon took out $45,000 in loans for school and spent his savings from four years of part-time work at the campus bookstore on rent and prescription drugsâmostly Valium and Klonopin and Ambienâwhich were delivered to his new apartment by a baby-faced NYU freshman.
He didnât try to make friends at medical school; it happened only once and by chance, with a woman named Katherine Peel. She was black haired and pale skinned and five years older than him, a large woman who wore her largeness easily, sexily, as though it were a flattering dress sheâd chosen for herself. Simon thought they understood each other immediately. He would have said their friendship was built on the platform of a shared pessimism, and on a shared response to that pessimism, which was to work obsessively hard against it, not in the hope of changing the world, or themselves, for the better, but instead out of a perverse personality defect in which despair and industry were inextricable. They thought this attitude would serve them well in their future residencies in the public hospitals of New York City, where
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