“My dad used to prune those every fall,” he said.

“Your dad lives in an apartment in town now,” I said.

The grueling Saturday shifts dragged on into late autumn.

The dark mornings grew bitterly cold.

I drove home from the Hastings clinic well after sunset on a Saturday in November.

The Buick’s heater blasted warm air against my frozen windshield.

My hands were locked into stiff claws on the steering wheel.

I had scaled the teeth of nine different patients that day.