Page 15 of One for the Road
“I’d rather a brisk bedside manner than your five-minute monologues about vitamins. You’re creeping dangerously close to alternative medicines.”
“Some of us believe in preventative care, rather than tossing out antibiotics like Tic Tacs.” She flipped on several light switches in the waiting room where I’d spent countlesshours as a kid. It looked pretty much the same. Worn brown carpet and yellow strip lights, faded white walls lined with corkboards displaying medical pamphlets. It even had the same ancient computer that started whirring behind the desk as Amy powered it to life.
When I was seven years old, I’d broken my arm while perfecting a wrestling move from the top rope, AKA our garden wall. Thirty years later, I could still picture the pure dread on Callum’s face as I was airborne. A horrified mix ofWhat the hell have I talked him into?andSomehow, I’m going to get the blame for this.
He did get the blame.
My dad managed to make everything Callum’s fault back then.You’re the oldest, Callum.The responsible one. The man of the family when I’m not around. He’d lectured him from behind his surgery desk, stethoscope still draped around his neck, while I was laid out on the examination bed, freshly set arm in a sling, a strawberry lollipop poking from between my lips.
That was the exact moment I decided to become a doctor. I’d get a little plaque with my name on it, one of those cool stethoscopes. And maybe then, my dad would start paying attention to me for once.
I wasn’t a competitive child, but I was ambitious. Seeking approval at every turn. All I’d ever wanted was to make my dad proud, and that hadn’t changed. If anything, now he was gone, I felt it more aggressively than I ever had before.
Desperately trying to prove to a ghost that I didn’t need him or his job.
“I heard about Mr Ackley.”
Amy spun on me, hair almost flicking me in the face. She stared at me distrustfully. Lips thin. Expression shrewd.Like I was about to pull a lighter from my pocket and start a bin fire with the sterilising agents. For the first time, I noticed her eyes were a little puffy. “I wondered when the gloating would start. Try not to look so happy, Mr Ackley is a wonderful man.”
“I’m not happy.” Mr Ackley was a regular patient of Amy’s, a little lonely, liked to talk. Came in weekly to diagnose every ailment under the sun – other than the one that nearly killed him. “But I can’t say I’m surprised; the man is on high cholesterol meds and eats a full fry-up every morning, his heart was a ticking time bomb.”
“That empathetic erosion really got to you, huh?”
You can be a cold bastard, Callum said to me the day after I skipped out on Dad’s funeral.
I straightened my shoulders, the back of my neck crawling. “It isn’t lack of empathy; it’s self-care. Too much empathy is the quickest route to burnout.” I knew all about burnout. Been there and bought the T-shirt. “You can’t save everyone. Now–” I ran a shaky hand down the length of my tie – “if you’ll excuse me—”
“Woah, woah, woah.” She held up her hands. “Did you make a decision about my offer?”
“About selling you the surgery?”
She nodded, wide-eyed and hopeful.
“I thought about it; answer’s no.”
“What? Why?”
“There’s no way you can afford it, for a start.”
She crossed her arms. “Are you my accountant as well as my boss now? When did you become an expert on what I can afford?”
Fair enough. She had me there.
Trying to think of a way to word it that wouldn’t earn me a syringe in my eyeball, my gaze dropped to her feet.She wore a pair of lavender Crocs. A Barbie Jibbitz pinned on one and a lavender plaster on the other that read “ouchie”.
They looked utterly ridiculous.
I’d never dressed that casually in my entire life.
At school, the other kids used to bully me for wearing shirts and ties on the weekend. But I’d always felt more comfortable when I was put together. In control. As a doctor should be.
Not dressed for a beach holiday.
I scrubbed a hand over my tight jaw. It wasn’t the way she dressed that was the problem here. “Because you aren’t the right fit.”
I’d be a bastard to say yes. I still cared about this place, even if I couldn’t stay. I wanted it in safe hands.
Not in the hands of a salaried GP barely out of medical school.
