Kissing My Dad's Friend

My adrenaline runs high all day, throughout the chaos. It helps keep me focused, working through everyone in my roster in a steady rotation. It feels like my on call beeper buzzes every other second, though, as patients request everything from more painkillers or medical attention to waters and toothbrushes. By the time the early evening rolls around, the balls of my feet actually throb with every step I take. I’m pretty sure if I checked my phone, it would tell me I’d run the equivalent steps to a marathon around these halls today.

I’m swinging back through the central nurses’ hub to pick up a chart for a doctor visiting a young couple when I run smack dab into my father. He looks grim, but then again, we all do today. It’s one of those days.

“I need you with me up on the top floor,” he says.

My face blanches. The top floor is where the private rooms are, an area that people have to pay a huge chunk of change to be treated in. “Is it bad?” I ask, reaching around him for the clipboard I’d been after in the first place.

“Just some scrapes and bruises. But it’s one of our board members herself. I need you to make sure she’s comfortable. I talked to your supervisor already. They’ll let you go early from here to handle her.”

I scowl and cross my arms. “You can’t be serious. Dad, we need all hands on deck down here.”

“I need someone I can trust to watch over her.”

My chest tightens. He trusts me? But that’s not enough. It can’t be. “If you trust me, Dad, then listen to me right now. I am needed right where I am.”

Dad takes another step closer to me, and leans in to whisper something where the rest of the nurses flooding around us won’t be able to overhear. “Maggie, most of these people don’t even have healthcare. You need to focus on the people who matter, the ones who can further your place in the world. How else are you going to get your name out there? I’m trying to help you here, to ensure that the right people notice the hard work you’re doing.”

I take a step back from him, anger rising inside me. Russ is right. I can’t let my father dictate my life for me anymore. I need to stand up for what I believe in.

I need to stop making excuses.

“Everyone is important, Dad. There are no right people, there are just people. Some we can save, and others we may not be able to, but we can try. Right now, the ones I can do the most good helping are right here on this floor.”

“You’re being naive if you think any of this matters in the grand scheme of things,” my father snaps.

“Of course it matters!” I yell, not caring who hears me. “People’s lives matter. Not just money or status.” Other nurses have stopped to stare. Lionel straight up gapes at me.

My father glances around at them all, his face going red. “Keep your voice down. It’s unseemly to behave this way in public.”

“Screw behaving,” I reply. “Get out of my way. I’m going to do my job. Unless you’d care to fire me?” I crook an eyebrow at him.

Someone, I can’t tell who, actually cheers. My father looks around again, his expression shifting into worry. But I know him. He’s not actually worried about what any of these people think about him. He’s just worried that our fight might somehow impact his bottom line here. Wealth and status, that’s all he cares about.

I realize it wasn’t just Russ hiding his homelessness from my father in med school. My father had to have willfully ignored how much his friend was suffering. You don’t just not notice something like that. Not unless you’re completely self-absorbed and oblivious to the reality of life for everyone around you.

But when I storm off, he doesn’t intercept me or try to stop me. Maybe he really will fire me later, who knows. I’m beyond caring at this point. If he lets me go, fine. In the meantime, I’m going to help as many people as I can.

Before I even leave the wing, though, someone claps me on my shoulder. Lionel, I realize with a start when I look up. He’s grinning. “Good to know the whole family isn’t completely heartless,” he comments.

“Guess it’s not a genetic thing,” I reply, a smile forming on my face too. Then we part ways, both of us back to our own jobs.

I think Dad will finally give up. That this will be the end of him trying to control me. But a few minutes later, I emerge from another call room to find him crossing the hall toward me once more, a furious look on his face.