Page 209 of Burn Bright
“Dr. Fisher is in surgery,” she explains. “But if you can wait twenty minutes?—”
“I can,” I say fast.
“Okay, you can come on back and wait in the staff lounge.”
My mouth nearly drops. She’s letting me back into the staff lounge?Me. I thought she’d point to one of the waiting room chairs and tell me to park my butt. Though—most are taken by sniffling kids and worried parents.
I don’t question it. I just follow her through the double doors and down the sterile hallway. Doctors, nurses, and technicians meander around, and I don’t bother searching for my dad. If he’s in surgery, he won’t be strolling down the hall. She leads me into a small room with couches and chairs and a long table that has the basics. Microwave, mini fridge, and a pile of plastic takeout utensils.
A woman in scrubs pours herself a cup of coffee. I read her medical badge:Twila Vandersloot, M.D.“Who’s this?” she asks the receptionist, but her eyes are on me.
“Dr. Fisher’s kid.” The receptionist motions to the chair for me to sit. I slowly sink down. Careful not to make any noise. Break anything. Be too much of a problem. I don’t wantanythingto get me kicked out.
Twila’s brows furrow. “Siggy?”
“No, from his first marriage.”
Her eyes bug. “Ohhhh.”
Great,great.That sound totally means they’ve discussed my dad’s first marriage, or maybe there’s some horrible rumor about how my dad knocked up his young receptionist in Pittsburgh and married her a year later.
Twila’s phone beeps and she leaves hastily without any formal introductions or even a quick goodbye. The receptionist exits the room right behind her in just as abrupt fashion.
For a moment, I felt like I belonged. Thatquicklyvanished.
But my dad wants to talk. He didn’t immediately dismiss my request to speak to him, so that’s the positive spot I land on.
Twenty minutes pass with doctors dipping in and out of the lounge. Some ask who I am. Most just grab a coffee or an energydrink and scroll on their phone for ten minutes before returning to work.
The thirty-minute mark nears when the door bangs open again. No one else is in the room, so I’m preparing to either blend into the chair like an invisible dust bunny or explain my name and relation to the trauma surgeon on duty.
I have to do neither because I’m face to face with the trauma surgeon. It dawns on me that I haven’t seen him in person since I was eight years old, and I doubt he could find me on social media when Fanaticon internet sleuths still haven’t.
His stunned expression mirrors mine as I rapidly soak in his features. His deep brown hair is void of gray except for a few patches on his chin. The mustache and full scruff along his jaw is neatly groomed. So unlike his clean-shaven appearance I remember as a kid. Even in his fifties, his charming demeanor resembles television doctors. Like the ones onGrey’s.
I wobble to my feet, grateful that I chose to wear my khakis and a white blouse tonight and not my leather jacket.
“You’re blonde,” is the first thing he says. His eyes narrow. He shakes his head like it’s hard to put the pieces together. “You’re eighteen now?”
“Nineteen. Last month.”
“Right…right…” He nods slowly. “Sit, sit.” He gestures me to the chair while he scrapes over one from the wall. Just so it can face me. He keeps perusing my features as if he’s documenting each change. “You look so much like your mother.”
My gut drops. I don’t take it as a compliment, and I’m not sure he’s giving it as one.
I swallow hard, words trapping in my esophagus, but I manage to say, “I haven’t seen her in three years. I wouldn’t know.”
It takes him aback. “Three years?” He shakes his head, confused.
That hurts. Because the worst day of my life didn’t even register enough to form a memory for him. “The last time I called you. My sixteenth birthday. I told you she was kicking me out.”
He rubs a palm along his jaw, processing. “Right…right…” He drops his hand, his brows knitted together. “So I’m guessing the child support I was paying her never made it to you.”
I nod once. I never thought about the child support—but I guess he’s right.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me. “You and your Aunt Helena, did you get by?”
My throat nearly closes. “Yeah,” I squeak out the lie.
