Kissing My Dad's Friend

“If you think you can just talk to me like that,” he starts. But he doesn’t finish. Because a moment later, a familiar voice interrupts from a nearby room.

“John? That you?” Russ emerges from a patient’s room. He must have taken a break from the OR to come visit one of this post-operative patients up here on our floor. It happens every now and then.

One glance at Russ and my heart squeezes in sympathy. His face is drawn, lines forming around his mouth and across his forehead from the stress. His forehead shines with sweat, and his hair is a mess, sticking almost all the way into his eyes. I resist a crazy urge to reach up and brush it back from his face. That would be the last thing I need right now, for Dad to suddenly realize what’s going on between Russ and me, when he’s already in a furious mood.

I avert my gaze, and force my breathing to calm, my heart rate to steady. I can’t afford to give away anything I’m feeling. Like the way my body is already tilting toward Russ, drawn into his gravitational pull almost against my will.

“Russ. Perhaps you can help me talk some sense into this girl.” My father crosses his arms and continues to glare in my direction.

I shoot Russ a guilty glance and look away again quickly. Shit. The last thing I want is to get into it right now. Or to mess up Russ’s life, if he defends me. “Just let it go, Dad,” I try, but Dad’s already talking over me, clearly not content to let sleeping dogs lie.

“I was just telling Maggie that she needs to get her priorities straight. Jane Showman is up on the top floor in her usual private suite, and she has some scrapes that need tended to. It’s something a nurse can handle on their own. That nurse ought to be my own daughter, to demonstrate how seriously this hospital takes it when one of our own board members is injured. But Maggie is insisting she can’t be bothered—”

“That is not what I meant, Dad, and you know it. I’m needed here. With the people who have actual emergencies right now.”

“We have a huge staff who are more than capable of treating a few wounded poor people on their own—”

“Let me stop you right there, John,” Russ says, before I can get another word in edgewise. I stop bothering to try and avert my gaze. I straight up shoot pointed stares at Russ now, all but waving my hands at him.

Stop, I want to yell, but I don’t dare. Don’t do this. Not now, not here. The last thing I want is to get Russ into trouble. Especially over me. Especially when Russ is the one who told me I need to stand up to my father for myself. It should be me arguing this point right now. Me getting into trouble potentially.

But it’s too late. One look at Russ’s face tells me I’m not going to be able to stop him now. He looks angrier than I’ve ever seen him. Like he could punch my father right now.

I’ve never even seen the two of them fight before.

My father looks equally shocked at Russ’s expression, and that’s before Russ even gets a word in.

“Your priorities have been out of line for far too long. You’re better than this, John.” Russ takes a step toward him, and my dad actually flinches, before he gets himself back under control, his emotions under wraps. “Do you remember why we both went to medical school in the first place? Our first year, the year we met, you told me why you were there. What did you say?”

My father’s jaw creaks, he’s gritting his teeth so hard. But he gets the words out. “To make a difference in the world.”

My eyebrows shoot upward. Almost exactly the same reason I went. But I’m nothing like my father.

Am I?

Dad’s already talking, explaining. “But don’t you see, Russ? The way we make the most difference, the most change, is by treating the important people first. The ones who can create a real difference in the world, the ones who can make bigger, more expansive changes than we ever could on our own. We have to play the game in order to win it, I always tell you that.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe I should have disagreed with you sooner,” Russ says, his own expression hard. “This isn’t the way, John. Letting innocent people die to cater to some rich woman with a papercut is not changing the world, and deep down, I think you know that too. Let Maggie do the job she came to this hospital to do.”

My jaw drops.

So does Dad’s. Neither of us have ever heard Russ disagree with him this vehemently. Normally Russ is all polite talk-arounds. But I guess both of us are changing, these days.