RAY ♠️
I should not have come.
I had known this before I arrived, known it in the car on the way over, known it while Maya adjusted her earrings in the mirror of the hotel lobby bathroom and said you look handsome with the easy warmth of a woman who had no idea what she was walking into. I had known it and I had come anyway because declining would have required an explanation and I had run out of clean explanations several weeks ago.
The clinic’s sponsorship of the Benson gala’s health initiative was three years old. My name was on the program. My clinic’s logo was on the banner above the silent auction table.
There was no professional justification for absence that would not have required me to either lie to my office manager who handled these arrangements or tell the truth to my wif
