41. The Part I Didn’t Want to Tell You

“I’m coming with you,” I said. Dr. Kravitz was Mim’s family doctor, and mine, too. Bertha Kravitz. Someone who, I imagine, had fought her way to get into medical school and to stay there, and to establish a highly respected practice in a male-dominated world. If Bertha had been our doctor then, Sidney would have gotten better care instead of nearly dying of whooping cough.

So I was there, you see, on December 29, 1947, to hear Mim tell Bertha about her symptoms: bloody discharge, bloating, gen...