While being late isn’t ideal, scolding someone in front of passing doctors or nurses is just cruel.
Usually, I’m too busy to get involved with department drama like that, but something about the sight of Snow sitting, wilted, at the desk after Jen left just got to me.
I couldn’t shake how forlorn she looked, but we barely know each other so I had no words of comfort to offer.
She reminded me, very briefly, of my late wife who also wilted after a scolding when people weren’t looking.
She was a strong woman who spent most of her life teaching the children of ungrateful parents.
Unable to shake Snow’s sad face from my thoughts, I bought her coffee before being swept into surgery.
Sometimes, a single nice gesture is all it takes to chase away even the worst of moods.
“Xander?” Fred clicks his fingers to regain my attention and glances over his shoulder. “What’s got you distracted?”
Luckily, there’s more than just Snow around the desk so my quietly wandering eye goes unnoticed and I return to the board. “Nothing.”
“You old dog.” He smirks. “Anyway, I was saying we should go out for drinks.”
“Your shift doesn’t end for another six hours.”
“After.”
“You go. I have things to do.”
“Such as?” Fred lifts one thin, blond eyebrow. “Date?”
“No.”
“Family?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Tapping the screen, I direct Fred’s gaze to the calendar. “I’m on call, remember?”
“Oh, shit.” Fred wrinkles his nose and sighs. “Alright, well, we should still celebrate.”
“Not until our patient is fully out of the woods.”
“You’re in the wrong profession, my friend,” Fred says, pushing off the wall. “You’re a surgeon, not a family doctor.”
There’s no use replying. I could berate Fred for his lack of compassion, his desire to remain apart from his patients, and even his tendency to treat the patients and their surgeries like a competition, but it wouldn’t benefit anyone.
He’s a fantastic surgeon who distances himself so he can cope with the horrors we see here, and while I don’t agree, I don’t judge.
We all find ways to cope.
“I have notes to write up.” Closing the screen, I move away from Fred. “Have a good evening.”
“Geez, you gotta lighten up and have fun one of these days,” Fred calls after me as I walk down the corridor toward my office. “Life is too short!”
He’s right about that.
Life is too short.
Passing the desk, I glance at Snow, but her head is down with her straight brown hair cascading over one shoulder like a curtain as she scribbles hastily on something in front of her.
