EMERGENCY CONTACT

When I left my husband of 20 years, I had no idea I’d also be leaving my dentist. After a temporary separation, I finally moved permanently to a new neighborhood and into an apartment building with a dentist office on the first floor.

I noticed the office on moving day, but didn’t consider for a second switching dentists. I adored “Doc,” my old neighborhood dentist. He exuded a passion for living and clearly his entire office staff loved him—one of the criteria I use for choosing a doctor. I once had a dentist who snapped so disrespectfully at his assistant that I never went back.

Shortly after I moved into my new place, I needed a root canal and a crown. I made the journey, which required a subway ride, followed by a long walk up a steep hill, to see Doc three times for the crown. For the root canal, I had had to go to a specialist Doc sent me to. That trip required driving and then, the dreaded hunt for a parking spot upon returning. Leaving my building each time, I began to stare at the dentist’s office door, pondering…should I? Oh…how could I?

It took me another six months to build up the courage, but I finally made an appointment with the downstairs dentist for my routine check-up and cleaning. Could I do this without Doc finding out? Should I not add the new dentist’s number to my contacts in case I bumped into Doc and he absent-mindedly swiped through my phone?

On the day of my appointment, the chatty receptionist handed me a new patient form to fill out. Marital status caused my heart to twinge. I contemplated each small box. Checking only one box would never explain us. Married? Yes. Separated? Yes. Divorced? Yes. Widowed? Not yet. By the time I got to the In Case of Emergency question, I felt torn wide open. All those years of automatically filling in my husband’s name came to a jarring halt. I glanced at the top of the receptionist’s head behind the counter, praying she didn’t notice me completely losing it.

Who would have my back? My barely adult sons? The building super who had my spare keys? Marriage, I now knew, occurred solely for the ease of filling in emergency contact info. Were there rules against writing “former husband” on the relationship line after listing his name as emergency contact? We regularly went on Costco runs together, and drove each other home from medical procedures. We still went to movies together and out for the occasional dinner. We would always be family, just not husband and wife.

Forced to confront the ambiguities of my life felt like punishment for changing dentists. I finally filled in the name of a friend who’d probably be good in emergencies, but it shook me to the core. Could I depend on a friend in the same way I depended on family? I hoped I’d never know.

When I met my new dentist, he could not have been more different from Doc. He was the science teacher from The Wonder Years, delivering his care with a flatness of speech that belied his passion for cutting edge dentistry. He did all the procedures himself, too: from root canals to making the crown. One stop shopping has always thrilled me. And I didn’t have to change out of my pajamas! I knew then, that I could never go back to Doc. I had found somebody new who met my needs in a gloriously uncomplicated way.

Many months later, my phone rang. It was Doc. I considered letting it go to voicemail, but he didn’t deserve that. I pressed “Accept.”

“Hi Corinne, it’s Deena,” Doc’s office manager said pertly. “Doc would like to speak to you. Can you hold?”

“Sure,” I said, panicking. How would I explain my defection?

I held. And held. After a few minutes, I lost my nerve and hung up.

He never called back.

Corinne O’Shaughnessy is a retired New York City public school teacher. Her essays have been published in HerStryblog.com and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. She has also been a resident of The Millay Colony.