I knew how to walk into a room where two people were not speaking to each other and get a decision out of it.

I knew how to be the person who remembers that Mrs.

Ferrante’s daughter is the one who calls, and that Dr.

Ahn will not do telephone consults on a Friday, and that the machine in room four has to be restarted before eight.

I had been doing exactly that, at a higher level of complexity, for fifteen years, for a man who described me at dinners as somebody who stayed at home.

In May, Rennie Castellanos, who ran the practice, called me in and offered me the office manager job.