I pulled the curtain aside and walked straight there. Through the open doorway I saw a man in his mid-forties in scrubs and a white coat, leaning casually against the counter, laughing with another physician while reviewing a chart. It struck me immediately how relaxed he looked. Not busy. Not burdened. Relaxed. The other physician glanced up as I approached, saw my expression, and stepped back without a word.
“Dr. Vance.”
He turned toward me with the lazy professional smile doctors reserve for impatient family members. “Yes? Are you a relative of one of the patients?”
“I’m Dr. Garrison Mills,” I said, “chief of surgery at St. Catherine’s Hospital. I am also the father of Ethan Mills, the twenty-two-year-old male you have been refusing to treat for the past five hours despite clear symptoms of acute appendicitis.”
The change in his face was almost surgical in its stages. First the smile vanished. Then confusion. Then recognition, as my name and title landed. Then something very close to fear. Color drained out of him. “Chief of surgery,” he said, almost under his breath. “I didn’t realize he was your son.”