Chapter 8 The Inspection
The Inspection
Jax
Blood is hard to get out of cuticles.
I learned this in Kandahar, and I am relearning it today in the elevator ride up to the ground floor. I’ve scrubbed my hands three times, but there is still a faint, rusty crescent under my thumbnail.
It was a messy one. A construction worker fell onto a rebar spike. We saved him—barely—but I look like I just wrestled a shark in a ketchup factory. My scrubs are soaked. My hair is matted with sweat. I smell like iodine and adrenaline.
All I want is five minutes in the office to eat a stale bagel and stare at the wall before I have to write the report.
I kick the door to Office 104 open with my foot, balancing a stack of charts and a bag of chips.
"Honey, I’m home," I call out, stepping inside. "Don't panic, but I think I have a piece of liver on my shoe."
I stop.
Maxwell isn't at his desk.
Sitting in Maxwell’s ergonomic, three-thousand-dollar chair is a woman who looks like she just walked off a runway in Milan to fire someone.
She is terrifying.
She’s wearing a cream-colored Chanel suit that probably costs more than my entire medical school debt.
Her hair is a helmet of perfectly coiffed blonde-grey, not a strand moving in the drafty ventilation.
She is staring at my side of the room—specifically at the pyramid of Red Bull cans—with an expression of profound, anthropological disgust.
She looks at me. Her eyes are blue. Not the warm, hidden ocean blue of Maxwell’s eyes, but the cold, dead blue of a glacier.
"I assume," she says, her voice crisp and chilly, "that the janitorial staff is on strike?"
I blink. I slowly lower the bag of chips to my desk.
"Nope," I say, leaning against the doorframe and wiping a smudge of blood off my forehead with my forearm. "Just a busy day at the office, ma'am. If you’re looking for the gift shop, it’s in the lobby. If you’re looking for the complaint department, I’m afraid he’s currently in surgery."
The woman stands up. She doesn't smooth her skirt because her skirt wouldn't dare wrinkle.
"I am looking for Dr. York," she says. "I am Catherine York. His mother."
Oh.
The pieces click into place instantly. The posture. The chill. The absolute, unshakeable belief that she owns the room she is standing in.
This is the Matriarch. This is the woman who built the Ice King.
"Right," I say, straightening up. I try to look less like a blood-spattered savage. It doesn't work. "Jax O’Connell. Trauma. I share the office with Maxwell."
She looks me up and down. Her gaze lingers on the bloodstain on my chest, then the tattoos peeking out of my sleeve, and finally my muddy boots.
"He told me he was sharing space," she says. It sounds like an accusation. "He did not mention he was sharing it with... this."
"This?" I gesture to myself. "By 'this,' do you mean a highly decorated trauma surgeon, or just the general vibe of chaos?"
She ignores the question. She walks over to the blue tape line on the floor. She stops at the edge of it, as if crossing into my side of the room would infect her with tetanus.
"Maxwell requires order," she says. "He requires a sterile environment to function at his peak. How do you expect him to maintain his standards when he is forced to work in a... frat house?"
"He manages," I say, my voice hardening slightly. "He’s tougher than he looks, Mrs. York."
"Is he?" She turns to look at the succulent on Maxwell’s desk. She adjusts a leaf by a millimeter. "Maxwell has always been delicate. He feels things too deeply. It is why we have to curate his environment. To protect the asset."
The asset. Not her son. The asset.
I feel a flash of genuine anger. It’s the same feeling I get when I see a neglected kid come into the ER.
Before I can respond, the door opens again.
Maxwell walks in.
He stops dead.
For a second, the mask slips. The confident, arrogant Chief of Cardio vanishes. In his place is a twelve-year-old boy who just realized he forgot to do his homework. He pales. His posture goes rigid.
"Mother," he says. His voice is tight. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see why you haven't returned my calls about the Gala," Catherine says, turning her laser focus on him. "And to see if you needed help... fumigating."
She waves a hand vaguely in my direction.
Maxwell looks at me. He sees the blood, the mess, the chips. Then he looks at his mother. He swallows.
"I have been busy," Maxwell says. "The merged office has increased my caseload as I’ve benefited from exposure to the Trauma ward.”
"Excuses are for interns, Maxwell," she snaps. "And look at you. You look tired. Are you sleeping? Or is the noise from... that keeping you awake?"
She points at my desk again.
"Dr. O'Connell is very quiet," Maxwell lies.
"Please," she scoffs. "Look at him, Maxwell. He is unpolished. He is cluttered. He is exactly the kind of distraction you cannot afford right now. I will speak to Anthony. We will get you moved to a private suite on the Neuro floor. You shouldn't be down here in the mud."
I stay silent. I want to see what he does.
In the Sim Lab, he took control. In the supply closet, he lost control. But here? In front of the architect of his neuroses?
Maxwell looks at his mother. Then he looks at me.
I’m standing there, covered in another man’s blood, holding a bag of spicy chips, looking like the antithesis of everything the York family stands for.
Maxwell straightens his tie. He takes a step toward me. Not away. toward.
"I am not moving," Maxwell says.
Catherine freezes. "Excuse me?"
"I am staying in this office," Maxwell says. His voice is gaining strength. It’s the voice he uses in the OR. "And Dr. O'Connell is not a distraction."
"Maxwell, be serious. He is—"
"He is the finest Trauma surgeon in this state," Maxwell interrupts.
The silence that follows is deafening. Even the vent seems to stop rattling.
Maxwell looks his mother dead in the eye.
"The mess you see is a byproduct of saving lives that no one else could save," Maxwell says. "Dr. O'Connell does the work that keeps this hospital running. I am lucky to work with him. And I would appreciate it if you showed him the respect he has earned."
I stare at him. My heart does a slow, heavy thud against my ribs.
He defended me. He stood up to the Ice Queen and defended the messy, broken soldier.
Catherine looks like she just swallowed a lemon. Her mouth opens, then closes. She realizes, perhaps for the first time, that her control is slipping.
"I see," she says coldly. She picks up her purse. "Well. If you are determined to wallow, I suppose I cannot stop you. But don't expect me to visit this... kennel... again."
She walks to the door. She pauses, looking at me one last time.
"Do try to wash, Dr. O'Connell," she says. "You smell like a butcher shop."
And then she is gone.
The door clicks shut.
The silence stretches out.
Maxwell sags. The steel leaves his spine, and he drops his head into his hands. He looks exhausted.
"I need a drink," he muffles into his palms.
I put the chips down. I walk over to my desk. I open the bottom drawer—the "Exclusion Zone" drawer. I pull out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. One is a chipped mug that says World’s Okayest Doctor. The other is a clean, crystal tumbler I stole from the Admin lounge.
I pour.
I walk over to the tape line.
"Here," I say, holding out the crystal glass.
Maxwell looks up. He takes the glass. His fingers brush mine. They are trembling slightly.
"She is..." Maxwell starts, then stops. He takes a long swallow of the whiskey. He grimaces, then sighs. "She is a monster."
"She’s a piece of work," I agree, leaning against the edge of his desk. I take a swig from the mug. "But you handled her."
"I have never spoken to her like that," Maxwell admits. He looks at me, his eyes searching my face. "I apologize for her behavior. She has very specific expectations."
"I don't care what she thinks, Max," I say. "I’ve been called worse by better people."
"I care," he says fiercely.
I pause. The whiskey burns pleasantly in my throat.
"Why?"
"Because," Maxwell says, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "You are not clutter. And you are not a distraction."
"No?" I grin, trying to lighten the mood. "I thought I was annoying, chaotic, and loud."
Maxwell looks at the blood on my scrubs. He looks at the tattoo on my arm.
"You are," he says softly. "But you are also the only real thing in this entire building."
He finishes his drink in one gulp. He sets the glass down on his pristine desk, not caring about the condensation ring.
"I have to go," he says. "I have rounds."
"Max," I say.
He stops at the door.
"Thanks," I say. "For the backup."
He nods once. He looks like he wants to say something else. He looks like he wants to cross the room and finish what we started in the Sim Lab. But the ghost of his mother is still lingering in the air.
"Wash up, Jax," he says gently. "She was right about the smell."
He leaves.
I stand there alone in the Fishbowl. I look at the empty glass on his desk.
The Ice King has cracks. And I think I’m the one holding the hammer.