The Administrator Placed My Badge Beside His Perfectly Square Blotter

Bennett Cross put my badge on his desk and turned it until its edges lined up with his blotter.

Then he fired me.

"Your services are no longer needed at Alder Run Surgical Center," he said. "Effective now."

I was a short, brown-skinned Filipino American woman of fifty-seven, with silver hair in a blunt bob and wide hands marked by small age spots.

Those hands had earned my living for thirty years. I was an ASL medical interpreter. I carried a spare pen, asked people to speak one at a time, and made sure a patient could see both me and the person treating them.

I did not give consent. I interpreted it.

Bennett had never cared for that difference.

He was a tall white American man of fifty, with pale blue eyes, a narrow mouth, and sandy hair combed into a sharp side part.

Even his stapler had a proper place. Behind him, the window showed an Akron parking lot gray with March salt.

"What happened?" I asked.

He slid over one sheet.

It said COMMUNICATION FAILURE in thick letters. Under that, someone had typed that I had caused confusion about a patient's consent to an added procedure.

Greta Lawson.

I knew that name before I reached it.

"Greta refused the elbow procedure," I said.

"Dr. Voss documented otherwise."

"Then his note is wrong."

Bennett touched the edge of the paper.

"Be careful. You're a contracted interpreter. He's the operating surgeon."

On the guest chair sat my canvas bag. A half-folded crane poked out of its side pocket. I folded paper birds during breaks to rest my hands from signing. The slow folds used a different sort of effort. No one needed an answer from a crane.

I left it unfinished.

"I need a copy of this," I said.

"It's an internal review."

"You handed it to me as the reason for ending my assignment."

He considered that. Then he gave me a copy with INTERNAL across the top.

I wrote the date and time on my own pad. Thursday, March 12. 2:18 p.m.

"You're making this larger than it is," he said.

"I'm writing down when it happened."

Through the glass wall, I saw Greta in the waiting area. She wore a green work coat. Her left arm rested against her stomach.

She was a forty-six-year-old Black American woman, Deaf, and a cabinetmaker. Two weeks earlier, she had come here for surgery at her wrist. The surgeon had also operated near her elbow.

Her complaint had brought her back.

Bennett opened his door and beckoned to her.

She came in with her own interpreter, a man named Luis. That eased one worry. I would not be asked to interpret my own firing.

Bennett spoke to Greta while Luis signed.

"We've identified the issue. Your original interpreter did not accurately convey the discussion. We have removed her."

Greta looked at me. Then at him.

Her hands moved, sharp and clear.

Luis voiced, "Which discussion?"

"The consent discussion."

"What time?"

Bennett glanced at the page in front of him.

"Ten forty-two that morning."

I stopped breathing for a moment.

At ten forty-two, I had been in Cuyahoga Falls.

"I wasn't here," I said.

Bennett smiled without showing his teeth.

"The chart lists your name."

Greta leaned forward.

"A name isn't a person," Luis voiced for her.

Bennett's fingers closed around his pen.

That was the first thing on his desk he moved without putting it straight again.

"Please direct further concerns through patient relations," he said.

"You're patient relations," Greta answered through Luis.

I almost smiled. She noticed.

On my first assignment there, Bennett had asked me to sign a discharge page before the patient finished asking questions. I had left the pen on his desk until we were done. After that, he called me difficult whenever I asked for a pause.

Outside, she stopped me near the coat hooks. Luis stayed with us.

"Did you change what I said?" she asked.

"No. You said wrist only. You asked whether the elbow could wait. He said yes."

She nodded once.

"That's what I remember."

I wanted to tell her everything would be all right. My job had taught me to avoid promises I could not carry.

"Ask for your complete record," I said. "Keep what you already have."

At my car, I called the agency number printed on my badge.

"Stillwater Language Services," Nina answered.

"Save the February twenty-six dispatch file. Preserve the original export and the vendor receipt. No changes, even spelling."

"Under whose authority?"

"Mine."

She paused, then said, "Of course, Teresita."

Bennett had always sent complaints to our general inbox. He had never asked who held the company seal or paid Nina's wages.

I put the unfinished crane beside my gearshift.

My phone lit up before I could start the car.

Greta's message held six words.

I still have the preoperative video.