Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam

Ottawa Children’s Hospital on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Both she and Fitzgerald were there on Mondays and Tuesdays, but on Wednesdays neither of them went to the hospital. Instead, they went to the ski hill that was abandoned for the summer, where they would not encounter their classmates or Ming’s cousins, and spread a blanket in the tall grass whose blades glinted in the flat light. The sun pulled sweat out of them, and there was a humidadhesion of skin on skin. When it became too hot, they put on their clothes and walked in the shade of the woods. A ski chalet had burned to the ground during the winter, and when they walked past it Fitzgerald kicked at the charred pieces of wood.
    Ming received an acceptance letter from Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine in July, and her parents put a down payment on a small condominium north of Bloor Street that backed onto a treed ravine. Her family held a banquet and called her doctor, but Fitzgerald did not attend. In Ming’s home, he had been a faceless voice on the telephone and now was even less present. During summer holidays there was no studying, and therefore no excuse for him to call. Wednesday was their day. The Wednesday after the banquet, as they walked to find a picnic spot, Ming told Fitz that she hadn’t enjoyed it without him.
    He said, “Why do you sound so happy, then?”
    â€œDon’t you want me to be? My family is happy for me.”
    â€œYou’ve achieved what they wanted. Another family success.”
    A deer crossed the ski run, nervous in the open, sniffing up and down the hill. They stopped walking, and the deer crossed their path and then folded into the woods. Ming said, “We were having a perfectly nice day until now.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” said Fitzgerald. “You deserved a party. You did it.” He reminded himself to be only happy forher, but felt that his exclusion from the celebration entitled him to possessiveness.
    â€œGetting an acceptance seemed like such a big deal. Now I’m mostly just tired and relieved.”
    One hot, grasshopper-buzzing day at the beginning of August, Ming and Fitzgerald sat at the top of a steep ski slope, swinging in a green metal lift chair. They had once decided to have no romance, and they now referred to that as the “strange phase” of their relationship. A few months later, when they travelled to Toronto for Ming’s medical school interview, they had decided that it was dishonest to deny that they were in love. On that trip, they held each other but slept in separate hotel beds, and agreed that there should be no sex. For Ming, this would be too close to her anger at Karl. Three weeks later, after this prohibition had been put aside upon Ming’s initiative, they conceded that since they had become lovers there was no point in discontinuing a natural enjoyment between two people in love. Now, they sat facing down the hill, without the retaining bar of the ski lift chair. They ate cheese sandwiches and drank iced tea. Ming told Fitzgerald that she could not imagine loving anyone else, now that she had found someone to be honest with.
    He said, “That’s why people get married.”
    â€œYou think so?” she said, drinking from the silver flask. “Aren’t there lots of reasons, both good and bad?”
    â€œWhy don’t we get married?”
    â€œThe circumstances are not ideal,” she said.
    â€œBut are they ever, for anyone?” said Fitzgerald. Ming was moving to a different city in three weeks, and they had come together in halting lunges, preceded by a mutual denial of their deepening attraction. Instead of discouraging Fitzgerald, these events made it seem even more important to make and extract a commitment. “You just said you couldn’t imagine loving anyone else. Let’s hold on to that. We’ll get married.” He took her hand.
    â€œFitz, it’s something for