“That’s the plan,” I say, oddly suspicious of his line of questioning. “What’s going on?”
“I’m thinking of finally hanging up my lab coat and retiring,” he says, offering me a sad smile. “I’ve been at it for forty years, and the wife is getting that traveling itch. She wants to go see the world, and honestly, if I don’t retire, I’m afraid she’ll hop on a jet without me.”
“Wow. To be honest, I thought you were going to be here until you dropped dead.”
Dr. McKullan laughs. “That was my plan, but apparently my hands aren’t what they used to be. I’m tired, Harper. I want to wake up and sit out on my deck while the grandkids play in the pool. And now that you’re just around the corner from being certified, I have someone to hand the reins to.”
“Me?” I ask, sucking in a breath, though who the fuck else would he be talking about?
“Exactly you,” he says. “It’s time to hand you the keys to the castle. You’ve done the work, you’ve put in the hours, and out of every doctor I have trained, you are the only one I’d feel confident to have step into my shoes.”
“That means a lot to me.”
“I know, which is why I can’t have you getting murdered in parking garages,” he says. “It would really put a bee in my wife’s bonnet if I couldn’t retire within the next six months.”
“Next six months?” I ask, my eyes widening. “But that’s right around the corner. I still have so much to learn from you.”
“No, Harper. You have learned everything I have to offer. You’re at the top of your game and ready to soar. You’re the one who has been teaching me,” he says, nudging me with his elbow to avoid having to scrub in again. “Now, why don’t we get on with it? We’ve got a lot to get through today.”
“Sure thing.”
“Alright, let me know once you’re ready to dissect the brain, and I’ll show you this new technique I’ve been working on. I’d really appreciate your thoughts.”
“Will do.”
Dr. McKullan wanders back over to his station and scoops up his scalpel before getting straight back to work, and as I get stuck into what I’m doing, I hear Dr. McKullan speak up from beside me. “Sandra, dear. Would you mind organizing some tunes? The grandkids have shown me how to do the Spotify, and I’ve put together a beautiful selection of classical hits that our young Dr. Madden here has expressed her undying interest in.”
Ahhh, fuck. I brought that one on myself.
The girls chuckle to themselves. They know damn well that I prefer to rock out with the music cranked as loud as it can go while working, and yet once the music comes on and fills the room, a strange kind of peace fills me, and I quickly get lost in my work while thinking about Dr. McKullan’s pending retirement.
I’m really going to miss him. He’s been an incredible mentor over these past few years. There’s no way I would have made it this far without his support, and now it’s my turn to offer that wealth of knowledge to the next intern who comes along.
My morning gets away from me, and before I know it, I’m taking my scalpel and making a Y incision across my patient’s chest and down through the torso before folding back skin to expose the rib cage.
“Rib shears,” I say, holding out my hand toward the intern who’s been assigned to observe me today.
Without skipping a beat, she hands me the shears, and I open them before positioning them at the lowest rib, needing to break through the bone. Just as I go to get started, a commotion across the morgue steals my attention.
“Nawww, fuck no,” Anders mutters, his face turning an ashy white.
A smile lingers on my lips, and the muted laughter that echoes through the morgue is all the amusement I’ll ever need in my life. “Oh hey, Anders,” I say over Dr. McKullan’s classical playlist, stealing his attention. “I could really use your muscles for this. These bones are a killer to get through, but you better gown up, this is going to turn into a splash zone.”
Anders looks at me as though I just asked him to give his great-grandmother a play-by-play demonstration of his first sexual experience, and as the seconds tick by, his skin grows even paler, until he’s flying to his feet and racing for the door. “Nope. Can’t do it.”
He body-slams the big double doors, barely having a second to swipe his visitor access card before bailing out into the hallway and racing to the men’s bathroom, all while a chorus of laughter fills the busy morgue.
Taking pity on the poor guy, I make quick work of getting through the ribs, and by the time he returns, he’s shaking his head and meeting my stare across the room, a stern warning in his eye that this isn’t something the rest of the boys can ever hear about. But unfortunately for him, I love sharing a good story.
“Feeling better?” I ask as he makes his way back over to his position in the massive room that gives him the best vantage point.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Good. I’m glad,” I tell him. “Now, come over here. I wanna show you how squishy this brain matter is.”
“Fuck you, Harper Madden,” Anders says, making for the door once again. “Fuck you right to hell.”
Two hours later, Anders has had eight separate, up-close-and-personal meetings with the toilet bowl, and I won’t lie, I was responsible for at least six of them. Some more intentional than the others. But I have to tip my metaphorical hat to him. That’s an average of one every fifteen minutes. If that were me, it’d be the equivalent of a full-body workout. I’d be writhing on the ground by now. He’s definitely putting in a good effort, though I don’t doubt he’ll be feeling sorry for himself come tomorrow.
