Page 3 of Doctor Frost

“What questions did she have?”

Amelia huffed and looked over toward me as she stood up. “If you wanted to know, you should have gone to see her,” she barked.

“Well, if you needed help, you should have called me.”

Ignoring me, she grabbed the rest of the files and put them in a messy pile as she muttered something under her breath.

“What was that?” I questioned, my voice taking on a stern tone.

She let out a sigh and shook her head.

“What did you say, Amelia?”

She stood up and turned toward me. “I said, lots of good that would do. You couldn’t even take five minutes to come in and see her, as if I was going to call you.”

“Amelia, you’ve worked with me for what, a year? You should know I don’t hold the hands of my patients. Now, if they have a concern, of course, it’s my job to answer them, but…”

“That’s just it. It is your job, not mine. You should have been there to listen to her. Instead, you couldn’t or wouldn’t. I’m not sure which it was because you claimed you had work to do. So, why on earth would I call you and bother you? I took the time, answering questions I’m not even sure I gave the correct answers to, even though I had work to do as well, which is why I am still here.”

“Amelia, that’s enough. I don’t like your tone.”

“You know, last I checked, you are a doctor, and you are supposed to have some sort of bedside manner. Instead, all I’ve seen is a cold-hearted man who treats patients as objects insteadof showing compassion to the emotional, scared people they become when they are ill. It’s disgusting.”

If ever I’d felt irritated, it was now, right at this moment. She’d overstepped. I had a fucking heart, and I showed compassion, and I had a fucking great bedside manner. All she needed to do was look at the awards I’d gotten in the last year. I was about to speak, but she held out her hand, stopping me.

“Dalton, I don’t want to hear it. All you do is stomp around, yell out orders as if we are some sort of waitstaff instead of colleagues. We can’t laugh, we can’t have fun. You know the other day Mrs. Linton even commented how different this office had become, and she’d only been in here to pick up her prescription. I don’t know who the hell ever pissed you off that bad, to make you into this sort of person. Life in this office is a living hell sometimes, but I can’t imagine what home must be like for you. Honestly, I feel sorry for your significant other, if this is what she has to deal with day in and day out.”

Amelia, red-faced and out of breath slammed the stack of files down on the desk. She bent over, grabbed her purse from the drawer, and then went for her coat, but the phone rang. Not thinking, she grabbed the receiver and in an almost unrecognizable voice from the last few moments sang, “Hello…”

She didn’t look at me. Instead, she shoved the phone out in front of her.

“We don’t answer calls after the office is closed. Now, take a message and I’ll call them back in the morning,” I barked.

“It’s your daughter. Do you want to take it, or would you like me to tell her what a grump you are?” she questioned, looking me directly in the eye.

I was seething with anger as I ripped the phone from her hand. “Hello.”

“Dad…sorry to call you at work. Mrs. Jenkins wanted to know what to prepare for supper tonight. You left nothing on the sheet.”

I looked up to see Amelia staring at me with hateful eyes. I’d definitely have to deal with her, but right now, I needed to get home to the kids. Her words, which were way out of line, had struck a chord, one I didn’t even remember having. Had I really become that bad?

Okay, perhaps I’d grown a little cold here at work, but she had no right to attack my personal life the way she had. That was far over the bounds of a professional relationship.

“Tell Mrs. Jenkins I’ll be bringing home dinner. I should be there in…oh, thirty minutes,” I said, glancing at my watch and then back at Amelia. “See you soon,” I said, and then held the receiver out in front of me for Amelia to take.

She hesitantly grabbed the receiver from my hand, hanging it up. I was going to say something to her, reprimand her for answering the phone, but decided against it. Instead, I turned and made my way to my office and stopped at the door. I didn’t need to look back, I knew she was staring at me. I could feel her eyes boring into the back of my head.

“Oh, Amelia. Take tomorrow off. I’ll see you back here on Wednesday. Then I will figure out what the punishment shall be for talking back to your boss.”

I didn’t give her time to respond; I pushed the door open and walked out of the office, doing my best to calm down before heading home to my kids.

Amelia

I satinside The Cooling Rack, waiting for Charlotte to meet me after her shift. It was probably a good thing he’d forced me to take the day off today, to give me time to cool down. If only it had worked. I was still angry over everything that had happened yesterday but was now starting to feel sick.

To top it off, I woke up with a horrible headache, teetering on the edge of a migraine and probably would have either called in or went home sick anyway. Or it could have ended up way worse. Perhaps, I would have told him off again and would have found myself jobless, or maybe he’d already decided my fate, and I didn’t know I was jobless. I already knew that option wasn’t off the table. I’d been pretty horrible to him, and even though I regretted some of the things I’d said, I knew in my mind he’d deserved it.

I’d worked for Doctor Frost, or Dalton as most co-workers referred to him, for almost a year, and he’d been an asshole since day one. I’d hoped that over time there would have been something, some sort of gentler, softer side to him, but there was nothing. He was nothing but short, snippy, and rude to everyone who crossed his path, but it seemed he was worse with me. I swore the only reason he kept his job was because his patientsloved him. Even when I’d sat with Mrs. Jackson, she couldn’t say a bad thing about him, which blew my mind.

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