They used to call the operating room an operating theater.
I think about that sometimes when I step inside to perform a surgery. It does, in a way, feel like a big performance. Nurses and attendings hovering over the table, nothing but eyes peering out from over their masks. Big, bright lights aimed directly at the main player. Curtains of skin and tissue peel back, and the play begins, organs and bones and blood all serving their part to tell the singular, unique story of one person’s life.
I’m the director. The man behind the scenes. God of the operating theater. As the head of surgery, I orchestrate every detail of the surgery, down to the very music we play in the background to keep us alert during five- or six-hour surgeries.
But here, in the filming studio, with bright lights blaring down on me and a thick application of stage makeup, I’m starting to feel like a piece of meat.
There’s no audience here—just me, the crew, and a one-eyed camera pointed at me. I speak directly to it, with a smile that’s ironed onto my mouth.
“Negativity, like infection, is a toxin,” I tell the camera and the millions of unseen people behind it. “It’s why we encourage people with terminal illnesses to partake in exercise, yoga, and spiritual healing. Now, do I think positive thinking is a cure for cancer? No. Absolutely not. I’m a doctor, I’ve been a surgeon for over twenty years, and I want to encourage people to trust their doctors. Get tested as often as you can. With that said—I think science and healing can go hand in hand. We know so much more about that body than we did fifty, twenty, even ten years ago. Yet there’s still so much left to discover. I think that positive thinking is more than hooey witchcraft—it’s science, it’s your brain healing your body.
“Because I’m a doctor, I’m not going to just give you a basic diagnosis and tell you to run with it.”
My stage is small—nothing but the lounge chair I’m sitting in and the coffee table next to me. I lift up my book from the table, hard copy, and it’s got a picture of me on the front.
“In my book, Cut Out Negativity, I go into step-by-step ways to realign your thinking and support healthier attitudes. Buy it for your family, stick it in a stocking—hell, buy it for yourself. Treat yourself. You deserve it.”
I wink for the camera. And in that moment, even I think:
I’m a sell-out.
“That’s a wrap!” shouts Kerrie. Kerrie is my director of photography and my agent, and with that, the scene cuts. The camera stops rolling, the lights dim, and I can relax my smile.
An assistant comes by to help me unclip the mini microphone from my shirt. Kerrie, all five foot two with bushy brown hair like a cocker spaniel, approaches me. She’s got big-eared headphones around her neck, crossed arms, and a pleased smirk.
“Good job, Jason. We’ll slap on a couple promotional graphics and blow the Christmas sales out of the water.”
I give her a grin. “Here to please.”
The truth is—this isn’t where I belong. I experienced a strange bout of “insta-fame” in my thirties. After a TV spot, I suddenly became the face of general surgery. It was a surprise but not a shock—after all, I’ve practically been bred for this. My family was well-to-do, and if there was anything they imparted on me, it was charisma.
I know how to work an audience. I have my entire life.
Dad, if nothing else, taught me how to own every room I walk into.
You’re a King. Act like one.
That was a refrain growing up. I’ve ditched ninety percent of the toxic shit my father drilled into my head, but that one stuck around.
Kerrie puts her hand on her hip and cocks her head, which I clocked long ago as her I’m about to ask you to do something stance. “Hey, what’re you doing for Christmas?”
“Ice cream.”
“Huh?”
I grin. “It’s tradition. Every Christmas, we do a family outing to the ice cream shop.”
“All three of you, right? You, Kenzi, and Donovan?”
I press a smile on. “All three of us.”
“That’s sweet. If the three of you wanted to do a little live Christmas day video…just something quick for the social, nothing huge—I think that’d really go over well.”
What she means is: people are obsessed with our family.
I can’t blame them. If you’d told the teenager version of myself that I’d have a wife, a husband, and two kids, I’d have probably punched you in the face.
Of course, back then, I was angry, frustrated, didn’t know what I wanted, and was confused about the few things I did want.
We had a private ceremony off the coast of Hannsett on our sailboat Dock Buoy. And by private, I mean private. Besides the three of us, we had our two kids (Otto, fourteen, and Joan, only two), Kenzi’s mom and stepdad, our friend Maria, and her son, Diego.
Donovan’s parents had passed and, for the sake of my sanity, I’d had to cut my parents clean out of my life. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do…and, ultimately, one of the kindest things I’ve ever done for myself.
We said vows, made promises to each other, and at the end of it, each of us got two rings. Donovan and I have a similar set—elegant stacking bands. Kenzi has two diamond-studded twin bands on her ring finger.
We had cake. We drank wine. And at the end of the night, Maria took the kids for the night, and the small wedding party went back to shore. The three of us spent the rest of the night fucking, eating cake off each other, and jumping in the phosphorescent-glowing water to wash the icing and cum from our bodies.
I remember one particular moment. I was stretched out on the bow of the boat. I was naked and air-drying, and red streaks of dawn stretched out over the sky. Kenzi fell asleep between us, curled up like a cat on Donovan’s chest. Donovan was still awake, like me, but we were sharing the silence together. I closed my eyes and listened to the water slosh rhythmically against the side of the boat. The sounds of the anchor chain clicking against the boat. Seagulls in the distance, cawing.
I thought, Remember this. Remember how happy you are in this moment. When shit gets hard, or people come at you and judge your love, just close your eyes and remember this moment when nothing felt more natural, or true, or real. Remember this, and everything will be okay.
But I should’ve known better. As a surgeon, I know the hardest-to-cure ailments are rarely the external forces—a hit-and-run, falling off a roof, that sort of thing. It’s the unseen, undiagnosed problems that develop in the shadows for years that really bite you in the ass when they finally come to light.
Donovan and I have always been opposite sides of the same coin. For years, it balanced us. Kept our trio stable. Or at least, I thought it did. Until our good friend Maria passed away in March and sent us reeling.
Thanksgiving was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Donovan asked for space. We gave it to him. I haven’t touched, held, or fucked my husband in nearly a month.
Kenzi and I overcompensate, unable to keep our hands off each other. Our sex is desperate and frenzied. And every now and then, her eyes will wander or my hands will reach for someone who isn’t there.
We’re emptier without him.
So when Kerrie gives me that wide smile, begging for a happy-holiday Christmas card from my family to the world, I don’t know how to tell her that things are complicated right now. That it’s going to be hard enough to drag Donovan kicking and screaming for our annual ice cream photo, let alone convince him to pretend everything is fine for the social media audience.
Instead, I just nod and smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The answer seems to satisfy her. “Oh,” she adds and reaches into her pocket. She tosses me my phone, and I catch it. “Your phone’s been blowing up. You might want to check it. Merry Christmas, Jason.”
“Merry Christmas.”
I glance down at my phone. Missed calls and texts. All from Donovan.
Thinking of the devil.
When I unlock my screen, however, the messages make my blood turn to ice.
[text: Donovan] Otto is in the hospital
[text: Donovan] Get here when you can
