She was lying and I could tell but it was kind of her to try. "I'd like to believe that."
"I'm sure everyone gets a note in their file at one point or another," she went on. "Trust me, it won't matter in a year. You'll forget about this and it will drop from the collective memory soon enough. I went through some hell when I was a resident. I had a relationship with another surgeon, it went bad, I was branded with the scarlet letter. Everyone said all the worst things about me. All in the past and I hardly ever think about it, but believe me when I say I've ridden that roller coaster and puked when I got off. It's going to be okay. We're getting through this, babe."
Since I had nothing left to lose today, I said, "The Chief knows my father. Same intern class, or something."
"Oh,shit."
Alex knew enough about my father to understand the significance. Nearly everyone in surgery knew of him but Alex was one of the few who knew it was an emotional sinkhole for me. "Thought I'd cleared all the possible connections here but I missed that one."
She packed up the used gauze, shooting me a concerned glance. "How did this come up for the first timetoday? That sounds like some first-rate horseshit to not mention it until now and—"
"Doesn't matter," I said with a resigned shrug. "He expected me to be a carbon copy of my father and was disappointed to discover I am nothing of the sort and, well"—I sucked in a breath because I wasnotgoing to cry or break things—"he doesn't want me making a habit of destructive tantrums."
Alex whipped off her gloves. "What thefuck?"
"It was so wonderful to be lectured about my conduct and sentenced to eight weeks of counselingandreminded to be a good little girl all in one afternoon. It's really fun to get the disappointed daddy treatment when you're thirty-nine years old. And it's coming from your boss, who thinks it's okay to invoke your father in conversation. Kinda thought I'd passed that phase of my life but nope. Here the fuck I am."
She stared at me, nodding slowly. "That really sucks. I'm sorry."
"Thanks."
"What did you say? Please tell me you told him where to shove that."
"I didn't. I just kind of shut down." That was the most mortifying part. The shame of failing to stand up for myself when it was most essential slapped hard. I'd love to say this was unusual for me, yet this messy little pattern was uncomfortably familiar.
"I'm sorry that happened," Alex said. "But eight weeks isn't that long. And it's with Stremmel. You'll have fun."
I stared at her, unamused. "Hardly. He's theworst. He's the most arrogant surgeon in the hospital. No, wait. He's one of the most arrogant surgeons I've ever met, and that is an accomplishment considering my dad's ego needs its own area code."
Alex gave an impatient sniff that said she very much disagreed with me. I allowed her to sniff at me because she was the absolute best at letting people vent and then giving top-notch advice. She didn't take any of her own advice but that was an issue for a different day. "He isn't that bad. He likes to pretend he is but he's not."
I was treated to this man-sized cloud of arrogance at least twice a day as our schedules often aligned to guarantee we'd leave both the Beacon Hill brownstone we called home and the attending surgeons' lounge at the same times.
It would be tolerable if he wasn't so busy being drunk on his own exaggerated sense of self-importance that he fully ignored my attempts at polite conversation. I didn't understand why everyone liked him so much and willingly spent time with him outside work. I had to constantly remind myself that figuring him out wasn't worth my energy or attention, and I didn't have to keep going out of my way to connect with him as a colleague or neighbor when he couldn't manage complete sentences for me.
I reminded myself, but I hadn't broken the habit of doing it yet.
"Alex, the guygrowlsat people. We see each other almost every day and the only form of greeting he can manage is an irritable-looking jerk of his chin or a grumble of word-shaped sounds."
"Yeah, he's a little rough around the edges," she conceded. "But it's all bark, no bite."
"Maybe he shouldn't bark! Why can't we ask that of people? Don't bark. Don't treat female staff like children. Don't slut-shame anyone." I sent her an apologetic frown. "I'm not calling you a slut."
"Yeah, I know, I know," she muttered. "You psychotic bitch."
We shared a bitter laugh, the kind that cleansed wounds and taught scars how to stretch beyond their limits. We had it good but that didn't mean the good was easy.
"I should've ignored the whole thing," I said, mostly to myself. "Should've let it go and spared myself all of"—I gestured to the barely there cuts on my arm—"these brand-new problems."
"Would you have actually let it go?" Alex shrugged. "Or would you have resented the decision to make your professional expertise less important than avoiding a difficult conversation?"
"I would've moved on," I said, and that was at least forty percent true. "Eventually."
"But what does that really mean?" she asked. "Would you have written off the stapling issue as 'trauma surgeons gonna trauma surgeon'? Or would you have planted that seed in your field of fucks and let it grow?"
"Field of fucks. For sure. I'd bring up that issue to Stremmel every time I saw him and I'd drive him insane with it, nice and slow. Only way to farm a field of fucks, Alex. You gotta long-game that shit."
Alex hummed as she pushed to her feet. "Eight weeks of counseling will be fun for you two," she drawled.
