“A physician,” she imagined him saying at breakfast, because this is what all male doctors said when they didn’t want you to think they were academics, to whom, Dottie had come to understand, physicians seemed to feel very superior. Dottie didn’t care one way or another, anymore, whom anyone felt superior to, but in this business you did notice things; even if you kept your eyes squeezed shut, you would still notice things in this business. And the time of Dr. Small, Dottie thought, his own personal history in time, his own career, had passed, and he couldn’t stand it. She was sure he made
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