But here I should correct myself. My father could not reasonably have been described as “old-aged.” When we met that day, he could not have been more than fifty.

We sat down across the little table, each of us doing his best not to look too closely at the other. We exchanged a few pleasantries then, about what exactly I can’t remember, but the whole thing was fits and false starts until he said, with ill-concealed relief, “So, the disciplinary committee meets when?”

“This week,” I said, a little stung. “Thursday.”

“Okay,” he said. “And what do you think will happen?”

It was surreal to discuss these things with him, he who was, by every measure save a genetic one, a stranger. I found myself affronted by his blunt questioning. It was remarkably easy to dislike your own parent, I thought, as I watched him staring at me with a comically serious expression on his face; it was just as easy as it was with other people.

“Well,” I said. “It seems likely that they will vote to expel me.”

And that was true. The committee—made up of three students and three faculty—would have no choice, really. It was not really, I am sad to say, an ambiguous case.

“Okay,” said my father again, nodding. Americans, I thought unkindly, always okay. “What then?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What will you do,” said my father, “after that?”

I nodded to show I’d understood the question, then, showily, so he could not mistake it, let my eyes roam lazily about the room, as if I were only just considering all the things I might do. You couldn’t just bludgeon someone into intimacy, I thought peevishly; we hadn’t even ordered yet.

“I haven’t really thought about it, to tell you the truth.”

I saw it hit the mark. My father’s mouth twitched slightly at the corner—and I had a little flare of memory, then, of having seen that twitch before, many years ago, as a child.

But I was not telling the truth. I had thought about what would happen next, of course, like anyone whose life is about to change completely. The truth was that I had an attachment in that dreary town. It was, I would be the first to admit, not without its flaws: it was furtive, it was marred by the presence of my love-object’s spouse, but in spite of its shortcomings, it had given me no small happiness. There was no universe in which I could communicate any of this to my father, but there it was nevertheless. When I thought of life after the demise of my medical career, it was of this connection that I thought.

“Let me ask you this,” said my father. By now he had recovered himself. He was determined to be patient at all costs. He said, clearly and slowly, “Do you want to practice medicine?”