3. Clean Slate
CLEAN SLATE
“Hi, I’m Gabriela Mills, you must be Luca Brewer.”
The woman in front of him was the pediatrician he’d be following around for his first sixteen-hour shift? Instead of five days on, ten off, he had six this week. One spent just getting the lay of the land.
More like the lay of the island.
Where he’d spent the past several days trying to unpack when the rest of his stuff finally made it.
Talk about a nightmare.
But hell, nothing could be worse than the one he’d lived two years ago.
“What gave it away?” he asked, pointing to the nametag on his lab coat.
She laughed, then did the same to hers. “Definitely that. But it’s more like on an island this small, I know most of the doctors at the very least.”
“Because your brother, father and cousins all work here and in Boston?”
He’d done enough homework on the place he was going to call home now. Not before he got the job.
Why bother if he didn’t know how it’d pan out?
But once the call came in, he read everything he could about the island that was his new home. How it was founded and that the woman standing in front of him came from that line of ancestors.
Most of which were doctors on her side of the family tree.
“We do make up a lot,” she said, laughing. “But not all. Most of the doctors here come over from Boston and do their time, then head back. That is what Dr. Raines does. You’ll meet her on your last day, I believe.”
He’d gotten an email a few days ago saying his first extra day would be with Dr. Mills, and on his last day, Dr. Raines would come for a few hours to walk around with him also.
He’d be on his own after that.
“So she doesn’t live on the island, but you do?” he asked.
“I am now,” she said. “I’ve been filling in here for years.
” She covered a yawn quickly. “Sorry. By the fifth day the long hours get to me, then I’ll crash tonight.
” Her eyes were still laughing when she finished.
“Anyway.” The word dragged out like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be funny.
“I live here now mostly but still have my condo in Boston.”
Guess when you came from that kind of money, you could do those things.
Not that it was any of his business that the woman in front of him looked too young to be a doctor, but he knew she’d been practicing for four years. He’d read her profile on the home page. She didn’t specialize in anything, so did her residency in pediatrics and off she went to practice.
Unlike him who thought he wanted to do one thing and ended up with the other.
“I’m living here also,” he said. “I guess it took more time than they thought for my IMLC to go through.”
“I would have thought they’d push as fast as they could,” she said. “We are pretty desperate here on the island. It’s hard to get people to move. Not so hard to go to Boston though.”
“I thought it’d be a nice change of pace,” he said.
Her eyes dropped to his hand.
His left hand.
He’d just taken his ring off yesterday. He should have done it so long ago, but he couldn’t. It felt like the final stage of his grief.
He didn’t know and shouldn’t profess to.
But here, no one knew him and it was better to not let assumptions fly. He was coming with a clean slate in his eyes.
A fresh start that he desperately needed.
“It’s a great place to live. Nothing like it was when I was a kid.”
“Did you grow up here?”
“You know what?” she said. “We can chat while I show you around. Or do you know where everything is?”
“I was here two days ago finishing up some paperwork and they walked me around the building briefly.”
It was small and he remembered most of what he saw but knew it’d take some time.
They hadn’t brought him to where his new office was though. They’d get there soon.
For now, it was four hours doing rounds in the hospital.
“That’s good then. We’ll start here on the pediatric ward.” She grabbed her laptop that was sitting on the desk where he’d gone in to meet her. “And no I didn’t live on the island full time as a kid. I lived and went to school in Boston, but we spent breaks, weekends and summers here.”
“From what I can see it’s a great place for a vacation, but I could see where kids might get a little bored.”
“Back then, we did, but there is so much more here now.” They stopped at the nurse’s station. “Everyone, this is Dr. Luca Brewer. The other full-time pediatrician on the island. Like me, he’s living here, but that doesn’t mean he gets called in more.”
There was some laughter to that comment while the nurses went around introducing themselves. Or at least the three in front of him.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” he said.
They walked away to head to the first patient’s room and he heard it again: “He’s cute.” Like he hadn’t been hearing it most of his life at work, at parties, when someone learned he was a doctor.
As if being a doctor automatically meant he should be some old man with wrinkles and a potbelly. Maybe a face lined with decades of stress.
And then, when they found out he was a pediatrician? Suddenly, he was an even bigger catch. Loving kids made him desirable, like it added some invisible stamp of worth.
Maybe that was why he’d kept his ring on for years. He wasn’t ready for anyone to approach, not when most at his old hospital knew the situation and gave him a wide berth. A ring was a warning: don’t try it. Drama ahead.
Still, it didn’t stop people from glancing at the indentation on his left finger today.
Just like he’d done to Gabriela of the expressive hazel eyes and long light brown hair. It was almost straight but had some waves in the bottom lying across her back.
Not a lot of makeup on. Not that she needed it either.
Fresh faced always did it for him.
But he wasn’t looking. Not even thinking of looking.
Yet he couldn’t help noticing. Or having the memory of Zoe in his head that she’d be pissed off he hadn’t moved on.
He didn’t need his parents to remind him of that daily. Not even Zoe’s parents, who he still kept in contact with and were shocked he was moving.
It didn’t feel as if he had a choice if he wanted to do more than just survive.
“Ignore them,” she said, leaning in close, almost whispering in his ear.
“Who?”
“The nurses. I’m sure you know what it’s like with gossip. Bring someone new in, someone young, someone who might be... good looking, and it’s a recipe for more talk than if someone was being fed shots to get information.”
“Fed shots?” he asked, grinning.
“Tequila. That might be me,” she said. “Or not.”
Something said it might be a bit true. “As long as you’re not drinking on the job.”
“Never,” she said seriously. The humor in her eyes vanished. “I tend to be pretty laid back. It’s my personality. I say it like it is, but I add a dose of humor. You know, dealing with kids all the time, half of them are scared. They don’t want to see us any more than we want to cause them pain.”
“But sometimes pain has to be caused to make someone feel better,” he said.
“Exactly. Not the best part of the job. I’ve found that if the kids see me happy while walking into the room, laughing with everyone around me, it makes me more presentable. Or calms them.” She leaned in again. “Doesn’t mean they have to know what I’m talking about.”
He laughed. “Is Dr. Raines the same?”
“Oh God, no,” she said, shaking her head, her hair shifting around and smacking him in the face with a hint of something floral.
“She’s in her late forties. She’s got teenagers and they live in Boston.
For her, she wanted the ten days off. I’m not sure what her husband does.
Some office job I think. She stays here in the hospital for her five days. ”
He knew that was an option. The hospital owned apartments for medical professionals to stay at while filling shifts or in a case like only having eight hours off to sleep and still being on call, they might want to stay right on the grounds.
Thankfully, his apartment was only a mile away, so he’d rather go home.
“Do you get called in often in the middle of the night?”
“No,” she said. “It’s rare. And the four hours before the office is open and after it’s closed, it’s not really all that busy.
Depends on the number of kids admitted. Right now, there are only three.
After hours, it’s when parents are here more, or between eight and nine.
So I try to make it a point to get my visits done by then, then come back around to talk, get the nurses set up for the night.
Obviously, emergencies can and do happen in the middle of the night and they will call. ”
“I’ll make note of the same,” he said.
“You can do things the way it works for you. Just like if there aren’t a lot of cases, they like you to go to the ER and help with any pediatric cases there.”
“I didn’t see where you had an ER fellowship,” he said.
“I don’t,” she said. “But you do. I’m sure that made you very desirable here. My cousin Hudson is one of the ER doctors. There isn’t a full-time pediatric one here, but while we are in the hospital during the week, we go down and ease any cases there that are started with kids.”
“And on the weekends?” he asked. “Sixteen hours here.”
“On the weekends, that is a lot of what we do. Patching in after they are assessed, then treating what we can. It lightens the load, but there is only so much I can do. You, on the other hand, you’re going to come in handy and be a second doctor for those days while rotating to this ward.”
He knew that coming here and he was fine with it. It’s not like it was going to be as crazy as his last job.
And if it was, then he’d be okay with that too. Because what he needed more than starting over was something to distract him from his memories.