by Penny Wylder
When I hesitate for too long, Dad clears his throat. “Inside your folder,” he starts, subtly emphasizing the words until I finally sigh and reach back to take the thing, “you’ll find a list of the patients you’ll be attending to over the next couple of days. I’ve highlighted three of them in particular. Two are children of members of our board, so they’re going to need extra close attention. The third is the son of a man I went to Yale with, so I’d also like you to give him more time than you normally would.”
“Dad, I have…” I flip through the book, my eyes widening. “Twenty five patients in here. That’s a ton. I’m going to have to make sure they all get taken care of—”
“And you will make sure that those three, in particular, are your priority. Yes.” He sets his jaw, his eyes narrowed, tone firm. It’s a face that brooks no room for disagreement.
I sink back against my seat, my stomach churning. It has nothing to do with the coffee I hastily chugged earlier, and everything to do with how badly these orders sit with me. “Dad…” There’s no way that I can agree to this. Not in good conscience.
When I went to nursing school, it was because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help people. Not just the people who have a ton of money or who have power and influence. Everyone. Including the ones who need it most.
Before I can protest further, though, Dad makes a left turn, drawing us close enough to pull within sight of the hospital. It towers over the apartment buildings to either side of it, a massive, hulking structure. I spot a cluster of doctors and nurses near the front entrance, on their way in to begin their day. Closer to hand, positioned right beside the street and lit up with at least as many spotlights as the OR itself, stands an enormous billboard with our last name emblazoned on it.
Thomas Cuthbert Owens General Hospital.
The hospital is family-owned, after all, passed down through generations from my great-great grandfather, who named the building after his father (or so he claimed, anyway—they had the same name, so I like to tell myself it was his excuse for being able to name a huge city hospital after himself). Now Dad, better known as Dr. John Owens, owns the place. Though, to judge by how it’s still run, like an antiquated old guard monolith, you’d think nothing much had improved except for surgical techniques since his great-grandpa’s day.
We pull past the drive, and we’ve barely made it to the front doors before Dad’s assistant leaps forward, the same way he does every morning.
“Dr. Owens.” He actually bows when Dad opens his door. You can’t make this shit up. “Today’s briefing,” he announces, withdrawing a tablet from his inside coat pocket while Dad passes over his keys.
I undo my seatbelt and slip out of the car, my folder full of marching orders tucked under my arm, while Dad’s assistant reads him the business of the day. A lot of meetings, from the sound of it, and some complaints from the board of directors that Dad will need to address.
I’m turning away already, heading for the large double doors, when Dad calls after me.
“One moment. We weren’t finished with our conversation, Maggie.”
I grit my teeth and stop, right beside the sliding glass doors. They whir open to admit a pair of surgeons and a nurse, all chatting happily, one laughing. I envy them. They don’t have the hospital owner breathing down their necks, demanding impossible, unethical tasks from them.
“Yes?” I ask, plastering on my best faux polite smile. Over Dad’s shoulder, I watch his assistant pull away from the curb in the car, off to go park it in Dad’s place of honor right next to the main entrance. Because Dad was too lazy to even pull the car ten more feet over to his own parking spot and then walk back to the doors.
And he calls me spoiled.
“I want to hear you say it,” Dad says, stopping beside the sliding doors, close enough that they whir open and shut in a stuttering rhythm, every time Dad shifts on his feet. Which he does, staring me down, willing me to relent.
“I’ll give those patients the attention they need,” I reply cagily.
“Maggie.”
“Dad. I know you want to keep the board happy, and I understand that you don’t want your son’s friend to be neglected. But I’m a nurse. I took this job to help people. I’m going to take care of all of my patients. Equally.”
“Do you like your position?” Dad tilts his head to one side, his eyes flashing. “Do you want to stay in this hospital? Because this is the kind of work it takes.”
“No!” I blurt out. “I don’t want to be here, I want to be halfway around the world where all my friends are, doing some actual good.”
“Margaret Owens,” he says, my full name. That means trouble.
But I’m already storming away, too furious to play pretend right now. Maybe once I calm down, take a few deep breaths, I can go back and simper and pretend to agree to his rules. But right now, I need to clear my head.
“You look after those patients,” he calls after me. “You’ll do as I say or missing out on your friends’ vacation will be the least of your worries.”
Vacation. The word rankles, along with everything else about Dad’s attitude. Like my friends are just off galivanting around the world enjoying themselves, instead of risking their lives in dangerous situations, trying their best to do some good. I ball my fists so tightly that my nails dig into my palms. Screw Dad’s oblivious attitude. And screw his marching orders. I’m not putting up with it, not today.
I slam into the locker rooms and shove my bag into my cubbyhole. My phone dings, and I check it, still trembling from my anger, assuming it will be a message from Dad demanding that I get my ass to his office right now.
It’s not. It’s a photo message from Julia, one that makes me still in my tracks, my fists unclenching. She’s in Thailand right now, I think, helping with a yellow fever outbreak. She sent the text to our group chat, since some of our friends have different placements on the other side of the globe. We’re all over the place now, scattered to the four winds, but we still do our best to keep in touch with one another whenever we can.
I open the photo and have to suppress a smile at the sight. It’s Julia with her arms wrapped around a couple of her colleagues out there, all of them beaming. A few patients stand with them too, and one holds a sign. All Better. Julia added a caption beneath it.
Hope you’re all having as good a day as I am. Had a few tough cases here who pulled through this morning. She adds a series of kissy emojis.
I quickly type a few back, along with some hearts. A couple more messages ding in from other friends, congratulating and celebrating with her. I breathe in deep, smiling, even despite the pang in my heart. That should be me. I should be out there with her, doing real good. Helping. It’s what I was trained for, what I did all those extra late night hours of studying for. It’s what kept me going through all the years of school. The knowledge that one day, I’d do my part to make the world healthier.
Instead, I’m stuck here, catering to rich patients and their spoiled kids.
With a groan, I slam my locker shut, my folder tucked under one arm. At least Dad didn’t follow me here to continue our argument. I wouldn’t put that kind of behavior past him—he’s done the same and worse in the past. But the locker room is fairly quiet today, just me and Heather and Lionel over at their lockers on the far wall. I wave to them both and scurry from the room, not up for Heather’s bright and bubbly conversation or Lionel’s morose summary of every contagious disease within the hospital today. It’s forever shocking to me that a hypochondriac like him ever went into nursing as a career.
Luckily, he seems distracted, deep in a conversation with Heather. I catch the words cholera in the air and scurry out before I can be drawn in deeper. Out in the main hallways, the fluorescent lighting makes my eyes sting, and the rooms smell like disinfectant and antiseptics. I flip open my folder and spot the first name on the stack, the ones Dad highlighted as a child of the board members. I skim their case file. Nothing serious ailing the
m, just a flu most likely. Their IV drips will need changed, but not for another half an hour, which gives me time to check on another patient first.
I skim to the back of the file, to a man who was found on the street frozen near to death last night. He didn’t have any ID on him, and nobody could find an insurance card or anything. He’s warming up in one of the communal rooms in the back of the hospital, near the stairwell, where we stick the patients we aren’t sure have insurance or even Medicaid.
Squaring my shoulders, I snap the file shut and make my way there first. Screw Dad’s orders. I’ll do what I think is proper, as a nurse. It’s my job, after all.
If he wants to fight me, well, then I’ll put up a fight. I might not be able to help away from home, not yet anyway, not until I’ve paid off my school debt to my father. But in the meantime, I can sure as hell do what I can here.
2
I’m still angry by the time I finish making my morning rounds. Angry enough that when the buzzer overhead beeps and my name is read out: “Margaret Owens, please report to the directorial office, Margaret Owens,” it’s enough to make my blood boil.
“He has got to be kidding me.” I slam my file folder onto the top of the tray I’ve been pushing around all morning. The whole thing rattles, but I don’t care. I storm away from it, fists balled.
I did what he told me to. Yes, okay, I visited a couple other patients before his precious “priority” ones. But I visited the board members’ kids’ rooms, one after the next, making sure to triple-check everything going on. I went to the Yale friend’s son too, and lingered for extra minutes, even though the guy kept checking me out and making less than appropriate comments about how well my scrubs suited my figure.
What more could my father possibly want now?
I’m tempted to ignore the summons, but I know he’ll just keep buzzing for me. I storm down the length of the hall toward the distant double doors that lead to the wing where Dad’s office is located. By the time I reach it, sure enough, someone has already paged me a second time overhead, and my stomach clenches. I hope my direct supervisor doesn’t hear this and judge me for not sprinting to Dad’s attention.
I hope I don’t get into trouble for missing my next set of rounds, if Dad keeps me here for ages to lecture me.
I hope a lot of things, really.
I reach his office door just as it’s swinging open, and when it does, I freeze on the threshold, my breath catching in my throat.
“Maggie!” Russ looks, if possible, even more handsome than usual. Unlike my dad, whose face has aged into permanent frown lines and a furrowed, disapproving brow, Russ’s only wrinkles are the faint laugh lines around the corners of his eyes. He smiles at me now, his salt-and-pepper hair still full and trimmed into a neat cut, his beard just long enough to show the same smattering of gray throughout it. It only adds to the sharp edge of his jawline, the high angles of his cheekbones.
His face softens when he sees me, his dark eyes flashing with something like warning. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You’re looking more gorgeous by the day, you know.”
Something curls in my belly, a warmth that spreads throughout my veins. Gorgeous. My teenage crush just called me gorgeous. But he means it in that way adults do, right? Like “oh you’re so cute, child of my best friend.” Surely he doesn’t mean anything more than that, does he?
He doesn’t mean what I want him to mean.
Still, I can’t help but notice the way his gaze drops, almost like he’s checking me out for a split second, before he recovers and steps aside, to allow me access into my father’s office.
“John, I’ll talk to you later tonight,” Russ calls over his shoulder, and my father grumbles something inaudible in response. “Careful,” Russ adds to me, sotto-voice. “He’s in a mood.”
“Believe me, I know,” I mumble, though I pause for long enough to trade conspiratorial grins with Russ before I slip past him into Dad’s office. As I pass, my hip brushes against his, my bicep skimming his forearm for a second. The heat of his skin is almost enough to make me stumble in my tracks.
Get it together, Maggie. I need to deal with my father right now, not get swept under by the crush I’ve nursed since my senior year of high school, when Russ came over for my family’s semi-regular pool parties, stripped off his shirt and dove straight into the deep end. Watching him toss his head back, running a hand through that salt-and-pepper hair, a huge smile on his handsome, angular face…
Fuck. It’s enough to distract me all over again, even now. I try not to think about how cute he still looked without a shirt, how his muscles haven’t faded with time. If anything, he looks in even better shape now. The man must have a serious workout routine. Then again, working in surgery here has got to be grueling, not to mention all the overtime I know Russ pulls.
He, unlike my dad, is an idealist. He believes he can save every single person who walks through the OR doors, regardless of how hopeless others might pronounce the case. It’s always mystified me that he and my dad could get along so well, but I guess opposites can be friends sometimes.
“Good luck,” I think I hear Russ murmur behind me, just before I pull the door shut after myself.
Behind the desk, Dad clears his throat and reshuffles a stack of folders at his elbow. “So. I gave you one very simple instruction this morning.”
“And I followed it,” I reply, before he can get his rant going.
“You didn’t visit those three patients first.”
“What, do you have people tailing me?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He points to his left, to a pair of large monitors on the side wall. Of course. He had the security cameras patched through to the spare monitors he has attached to his desktop.
I roll my eyes. “Good to know you trust me to do my job, Dad.”
“I was merely interested to see how you would do, following our chat this morning.”
“You mean following your half hour long lecture,” I mumble.
“You should have gone to the priority patients’ rooms first. You should always treat the priority patients first. We are a private hospital, Maggie. How do you think we stay funded? How do you think we’re able to treat anyone? Because we play the game, we treat the people who keep us funded and supplied very, very well.”
I cross my arms. “That’s hardly ethical.”
“It’s how business works. And until you understand that, I don’t know that I can continue to give you your own rounds. Or at least not as many as you’ve had before now.” He places his palms flat on his desk. “I’ve told your supervisor to switch you off the rest of your patients. The three priority patients will be your only three patients now.”
My eyes widen. I had so many other people to check up on today. “But who will cover the rest?”
“Heather and Lionel will step in, along with Martha.”
Martha. The old woman who forgets where she put her own glasses half the time, let alone what medicine her stacks of patients need. “Will they have enough time?” I ask, panic rising in my gut. “There are so many people checked in today, and they all have their own patients to look in on already…”
“Something you should have kept in mind before you made it necessary for me to pass all of this extra work along to them.” My father turns back to his computer, clearly a dismissal.
“You are unbelievable sometimes, you know that?” I growl. But I can tell any more talking isn’t going to get through to him. And even if I try to continue working my rounds like I should, he’ll probably spy on me over the computers, report me to my supervisor—or make my supervisor squeal on me for ignoring his orders. Either way, I’m screwed.
Why did he even pay for me to go to school if he was just going to treat me like an incompetent child the second I graduated?
I storm out of his office and slam the door behind me, hard enough for it to echo all the way down the hallway. I’m stomping off down said hallway, when a famili
ar head pops out of a neighboring room.
“That went well, I take it?” Russ again. I glare in response, which only makes him chuckle. “Sorry. I heard the slam and just guessed.”
With a sigh, I lean against the wall beside the exam room Russ was just talking to a patient in. I wait for him to finish up and draw the door shut before I speak again. “Was he always like this?”
“If you mean completely oblivious to the needs or desires of most everyone around him?” Russ grins, and I press my lips together, nodding. “Yeah, a little bit. He’s got a good heart deep down, he just tends to focus on the really big picture. When he’s in that mood, he forgets about how all the cogs in that big picture are human beings with feelings of their own.”
I sigh and push off the wall to walk beside Russ as he strides down the long hallway, presumably back toward the surgery wing where he spends his time when he’s not following up on patients in recovery. “Sorry for being grumpy. I know I shouldn’t take my frustrations with him out on you.”
“Don’t worry, I can take it.” Russ’s eyes sparkle when they catch mine, and not for the first time since it happened, I think about the way he startled when he saw me in Dad’s office, the way his gaze dripped over me. I can’t remember the last time I saw him—maybe about a month ago when I first started here?
Has something changed since then? Or maybe just today?
I side-eye Russ as we stroll, not bothering to disguise the fact that I’m checking him out. “I’ll bet you can,” I say, before I can think better of it.
He laughs softly, just once, and it’s enough to draw my gaze back to his face. When I look up, I find his eyes boring into mine. Curious, searching. “When did you get so grown up, Maggie?”