Chapter 37
Isabelle
I walked onto the post-op floor, running through the exhaustive list of discharges for the day.
At the end of a grueling week—one that consisted of two nights on call and two days when I didn’t see the sun because I was
in the hospital for over eighteen hours—it was finally Friday. I had the weekend off.
My phone buzzed as I turned the direction of my next patient to see.
Austin: I’ll see you at dinner tonight.
Austin: Right?
I sighed and a smile uncurled on my face on its own. After this week, I wanted to lay in his bed all weekend.
It had been a couple days since the Voulez article released and not much came of it.
A couple interns happened to see the magazine in one of the waiting rooms. They were doing the same thing I used to do when I was the intern assigned to patiently wait at the OR door to be the runner for any urgent needs—paging through waiting-room magazines during the hours of overnight cases when I wasn’t needed but had to be vigilant.
The interns saw it and thought it was cool. A couple other residents did, too. Everyone in my vicinity was suddenly interested
in my personal life or the Premier League. Or both.
That was about it, and it didn’t really bother me.
Me: Yes, I’ll meet you there.
Me: I might be a little late.
I sent the texts back and tucked the phone in my pocket.
“Good morning, Mr. Anderson.” I greeted him brightly. “I’m one of the surgeons on your team and your nurse told me that you
haven’t been able to get up and out of bed with the physical therapist?” I asked, standing in front of my workstation on wheels,
where I signed off on all the juniors’ notes before evening rounds. I scanned through the note Ami left; Mr. Anderson hadn’t
tried PT yet and that always slowed down recovery.
“Hmm?” He looked up and smiled, then pointed to the magazine in his hands. The picture of Austin and me at the wedding in
the bottom corner. “Is this you?”
“Excuse me?” I looked up from my screen.
“The doctor who was in here before left this.” He handed me the magazine, folded open on itself to the first page.
I scanned over it and couldn’t help but feel tilted.
Like I was knocked off my axis. “I told Dr. Reinhold that I wanted to get back to playing soccer with my grandkids on the weekends and we got on the topic.”
It pushed me another degree in the wrong direction. Topsy-turvy, I tried to remain logical. None of it mattered. None of it
changed anything about me or my life. This was a known outcome, one that didn’t surprise me so I shouldn’t have had a reaction.
“Yup. That’s me.” I smiled, rolled up the magazine, and stuck it in my back pocket.
It was a cute picture.
But truth bubbled in my gut.
Being taken seriously as a female surgeon was tough. I didn’t let people see anything other than one side of me for a reason.
Everyone needed to see me as a static figure, because how else would they trust me with something as serious as surgery if
I dared be human?
That was a courtesy given only to men.
“My son played soccer,” Mr. Anderson said brightly. “Wait till I tell him that I met Austin Cade’s girlfriend.”
I blinked a couple times. Frustration tightened my jaw.
Hundreds of hours of operating experience. Walls of degrees. Stacks of research with my name as first author. And the person
whose knee I just repaired, referred to me by the least-exceptional part of myself—the man I happened to be seeing.
After years of avoiding it, preparing myself so I’d never have to deal with what she did, I was my mom in the most unexpected
way.
It was another push, a jostle that knocked my world further to the side. I was practically upside down.
“Yeah.” I typed a few last things into his chart and stood. “Pretty cool. Have you been able to get up with PT today?”
“Oh.” He looked at me with a sheepish smile. “No, it was a little too painful. Can you ask the doctor for something for that?”
My muscles tightened.
“I am the doctor, Mr. Anderson,” I reminded him gently even though I had introduced myself as his surgeon. “I performed your surgery
alongside Dr. Reinhold.” I tried to muster all the politeness I could because he didn’t mean anything by it. And even though
I always made sure to introduce myself a couple times when seeing a patient, he was post-op and in pain. Maybe he didn’t hear.
I checked his chart. He hadn’t taken most of the meds prescribed because he was nervous to take them. “And I’ll write something
that won’t make you too sleepy.”
This conversation stole all the joy from the fact that I did a phenomenal job on Mr. Anderson’s case. He had a complicated
athletic injury that was difficult the entire time, but I handled it like a pro. He was going to be fine. Great even, if he
started his PT soon.
It wasn’t a big deal, a little bruised pride.
“Oh.” His eyes squinted a bit to read my hospital badge for the confirmation he needed. It wasn’t the first or last time I’d
walked into a room and the patient saw me as anything but the doctor. “Right. Thank you.”
I left the room, finished my notes, and tried to focus on everything I had left to do for the day before I could leave. But every few seconds my mind kept reminding me this was probably what my mom had dealt with. Or that I hadn’t logged those cases yet because I’d been distracted. Then I’d hear
Austin’s voice teasing me about them since I didn’t need them for the Winthrop fellowship. So why was it so important I finished
logging them?
Maybe I was off-balance because I wasn’t focused.
I stepped into my apartment exhausted. I needed to shower, change, and head out quickly because I was already late. Hanging
the keys on my little doorway key rack, I took off my shoes and stepped into my place with a long sigh.
A figure on my couch shot fear through my veins and I stopped abruptly. A millisecond later, it all clicked and I was only
more confused. “Dad?”
Sitting leisurely on my couch, paging through a magazine as if he were in his own home, my dad was quietly unexpected. The
dim living room lights and the fading sunset bathed the entire room in an almost-ominous orange glow.
He didn’t say anything, so I went on. “How did you get in?”
“How did I get into the apartment I pay for?” he scoffed, still reading the page it was open to. I took a step closer and
realized he had an issue of Voulez in his hands. “If you’d have gotten into Harvard as an undergrad, too, maybe that question wouldn’t have popped into your
silly little head.”
I saved the snappy retort back because he was right. My salary as a resident didn’t come close to covering this place.
“Any interesting news you’d like to share, young lady?” He stood, but his attention stayed locked on the magazine.
Suddenly, I was fifteen again, having to explain why I wasn’t the top of my class at Sydney-Wells when the rankings came out.
I had been second but that may as well have been last.
A jitter ran through my fingers.
It had been because that was the year I got sick with a nasty stomach bug, and I had to miss a week of school. I fell behind
and he never let me forget it. Second place was for other people.
“How did you—”
“The chief of medicine showed it to me. He asked if you planned to go abroad with him if he takes up a position coaching.”
My dad let out a bitter laugh. “I was about to give a lecture to incoming surgical residents and I saw this nonsense. And
got that inane question.” He threw the magazine on the table and, finally, looked at me. I was in the eye of the storm. Calm for now,
but tranquil water hid the rip current. One that would drag me to hell if I didn’t comply. “You didn’t even make a half decent
attempt to hide anything.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide anything.”
His eyebrows jumped and his mocking smile taunted me. “So, you planned to one day bring this athlete home to meet your parents? Have you decided to become a cheerleader?” Sarcasm dripped off every word as he took a step forward.
“How exciting.”
He did this with everyone. Selena wasn’t smart enough to be my friend. Old boyfriends weren’t motivated enough. I always saw it as protectiveness over me. But now I could see it clearly for what it was: he was protecting his legacy.
“That’s not—”
“Can the man even read?” He rolled his eyes the same way he used to when I asked if I could spend the summer at camp instead
of in all those enrichment lessons with my tutor.
I knew better than to answer the actual question. “Dad, my Winthrop interview is in two days.”
“Is it?” He took another two steps forward and shifted his head to the side mockingly. “Because based on this behavior, I
thought you needed a reminder. Traipsing through Paris like some dilettante and . . .” His upper lip curled at the magazine
on the table. “Then making sure everyone knows how unserious you are.”
My heart hammered in my chest, and I tried to stay grounded even when the beats sent waves through my muscles. “I have always taken my career seriously.”
I had a long list of regular-person milestones that bit the dust in service to it.
“If that were true, I wouldn’t have had to call Charles Winthrop himself to personally request you have the opportunity to
interview.”
A ringing filled my ears. “What?”
“Imagine. Me having to debase myself and ask that man—a man who isn’t nearly as accomplished as I am—to accept my daughter.”
My mind reeled. “That’s not possible . . .” I swallowed against an impossibly dry throat. “I wasn’t a first choice, maybe,
but—”
“Maybe?” His voice turned in a sardonic upswing. “With all the weight of my reputation behind you, you still weren’t considered. Is that acceptable to you?”
“No.” I looked at floor, kept a tight jaw, and didn’t bother defending myself. How could I? I was so sure it was in the bag
that I hadn’t thought about it. And then . . . everything went foggy.
“You won’t always have my coattails to ride on,” he warned. “You need to make the correct choices moving forward, and I can
tell you that traipsing around Europe during one of your most important residency years is not the right one.”
A few heavy steps, a slammed door, and I was left in the darkness that filled the room with a reminder that I didn’t want
to fail, but also, it wasn’t a choice either.
My body ached with the truth that I hadn’t tried hard enough. What stung more was how much all of this new information highlighted
something I wasn’t expecting. After being the only thing I’d chased, the fellowship I’d given up everything for had been an
afterthought the last few weeks.