“I’d rather deal with Drew, and in person. Ethan’s not scheduled to operate again until Monday, so there’s no reason I can’t wait until Drew’s back.”
“That makes sense.”
“Not really,” Luke says, with a bitter laugh. “I’m just looking for reasons not to report him. He swears last night was a wake-up call, and that he’s given up drinking.” Luke glances at his phone. “His last text was to tell me he’d been to an AA meeting, which he wasn’t willing to do before.”
“So maybe he’ll stop.”
Luke nods. “Hopefully, yeah. But if I don’t report it, and Ethan keeps drinking, and someone gets hurt . . .”
“You’ll feel responsible.”
He nods bleakly. “Yeah.”
There’s no easy answer here, but I think there’s only one right one, and Luke knows it. “So you have to talk to Drew.”
“Yeah. But there’s something else, Milly. ” Luke hesitates for a beat before continuing. “Ethan threatened to tell Drew about my relationship with you, and report it to theMedical Board. They might think it’s inappropriate, so soon after I treated Claire.”
It takes me a minute to process what he’s saying, and when I do, my heart sinks down to my toes. “But I thought . . . you said we’d waited long enough? That the Medical Board wouldn’t care?”
“They probably won’t,” he says, trying to reassure me. “But if Ethan reports it, they’ll probably have to investigate, so they may contact you. You know, to make sure I wasn’t taking advantage.”
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “No problem. Of course I’ll talk to them.”
“I’m really sorry, Melissa,” he says. “I hate to drag you into this?—”
“It’s not your fault, Luke,” I interrupt. “Do you want to stay tonight?”
He shakes his head. “I’m really tired. I’m gonna head back to my place.”
“Sure. The kids are going to Toronto again this weekend, so if you wanted to do something?—”
“I’m on call this weekend,” he interrupts. “Friday to Sunday, and it’s a bit unpredictable.”
“Okay. I don’t have other plans, so if you get out at a decent hour . . .”
“Yeah. I’ll text,” Luke says distractedly. I walk him to the door, where he gives me a cursory kiss goodbye. His mind is somewhere else, and I can’t blame him.
After he leaves, I open my laptop and find the website for the provincial Medical Board. It’s clear that doctors are forbidden from having sexual relationships with patients, but I was never Luke’s patient, so things are murky. I’m only ‘closely associated with a patient’, so a sexual relationshipmightbe professional misconduct.
I spend a long time staring at the computer screen,thinking about what this might mean for Luke and me. The idea that he’s taking advantage of me is ridiculous. Next to having my kids, Luke’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And although I was determined not to rush into anything, I’d already started to fantasize about a shared future. A Hallmark-worthy second chance love story.
But the Medical Board might not see things that way. I manage to convince myself Luke won’t lose his license permanently—I’m a consenting adult, after all—but he might face discipline. It could be permanently on his record, which could affect his position at the hospital, and make it hard for him to get a job elsewhere.
And maybe the Medical Board will want him to stop seeing me.
I close my computer and walk to the freezer, where I find an emergency carton of cookie dough ice cream. But although ice cream therapy has always worked in the past, it doesn’t help me tonight.
The next morning, I’m in no mood to tolerate snotty teenagers, but luckily no one gives me snark during my first class. Even Vanessa Abernathy behaves beautifully, and I’m foolish enough to hope she won’t rat me out for last week’s little rant.
The delusion lasts until Carole Chan appears in my classroom during the ten-minute break between classes. She waits until the last straggler leaves, then locks the classroom door so the incoming students won’t interrupt us.
“Good morning, Melissa,” she says, as she walks toward me, wearing an impeccably tailored dove gray skirt suit. Her lips are curved into a neutral smile, but I’m notreassured; Carole’s too professional to wear her thoughts on her face. One of the students must have complained, and she’s probably here to discipline me. Maybe even to fire me.
I stiffen my spine and meet her eye. “Hi, Carole.”
To my surprise, she takes a seat in one of the students’ chairs and gestures for me to do the same. I find it odd that she didn’t ask me to come to her office for this meeting, but maybe she didn’t want to wait.
“I wanted to talk about the video, Melissa,” Carole says.
