On Friday afternoon, after my mother said her leg hurt, I sat with her as she had a video visit with a doctor. She had fallen the previous weekend, while scaling a pair of steps in a friend’s house, and had then sat on the top step and claimed that she was fine. For the following days she seemed to be fine. But it turns out there was a bad bruise and it wasn’t getting better. It was painful. Now, as she pulled up her pants for the doctor to reveal her calf, I saw a swelling and discoloration. I felt a swirl of emotions that resolved as annoyance—why hadn’t she mentioned this sooner?

The doctor sat at a desk, a woman with a blond bun, and behind her was a window through which you could see leaves, tree branches. Whenever you schedule a video visit with a doctor they want to know where you are, in what state, and it occurred to me that this doctor could be anywhere in New York State—the Bronx or Staten Island or the Finger Lakes up by the Canadian border.…