The message said, Your handiwork continues to inspire confidence.

I called them both.

Thomas insisted the cabinet was suffering from a manufacturing defect, not a repair problem.

Paige threatened to send a professional carpenter for his birthday.

Their argument wandered from hardware to tomatoes to the weather in Seattle, and by the time we said goodbye, I had stopped thinking about all the patients I hadn’t yet met.

I walked home beneath the streetlights feeling tired in a satisfying way.

The difference was not that I had learned how to stop caring.