Page 47 of A Doctor for Daisy

Rose snorted. “Please. He put me in this condition.”

“You’re not upset over it though,” Ivy said. “Everyone is just so happy. One day Daisy and I will get there too. Right, Daisy?”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “One day. Now it’s time for work though.”

She put the piece of paper in her hand on her desk and then waited for Rose to get ready and they’d get to work. Poppy and Ivy left together and she felt she managed to cover her ass this morning well.

17

Career Choices

While Daisy was dealing with inquiring minds at her job, Theo was moving on to his second surgery of the day.

He was packed solid and wouldn’t be able to talk to Daisy until he was home later tonight. If he even got out on time, which he didn’t normally plan on when it was a surgical day.

He would have loved it if Daisy stayed last night, but she wanted to get home. She’d said she had things to do and, in his mind, maybe they weren’t ready for an overnight just yet either.

He was closing up his second patient of the day while his mind was wandering to his girlfriend.

“All set, Dr. James?” the OR nurse asked him when the last stitch was in place. These stitches would dissolve internally in time. He glued the incision closed on the outside where he’d replaced the hip of his sixty-year-old patient.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to finish my notes, then go talk to my next patient.”

He was on time and knew another OR was being set up for him to go in for the MCL repair of the thirty-year-old male he was doing next.

He went over to the doctor’s lounge, took care of his notes as quickly as possible, typing out enough for him to finish them up in more detail later tonight.

He worked out of Lawrence and Memorial where he’d transferred two years ago. But he had rights to all the Yale New Haven facilities and was an hour away at Yale New Haven Hospital today. He operated out of this facility multiple times a month. He was locking his laptop up when Dr. Dale Morris came in. Another orthopedist at this hospital. Someone with a few more years of experience than him, but probably ten years older. Dr. Morris’s office was based out of this hospital where Theo had been recruited but decided to go an hour away instead.

“There is the boy wonder,” Dale said.

He hated when he was called shit like that. “Busy day,” he said.

“What brings you here today?”

“Surgery,” he said. “Probably the same as you in this wing.”

“Yeah, but you normally stick to your little slice of country living,” Dale said. “I’m still not sure why you moved there. All the talk was you were going to work your way up to department head fast. Guess the best way to do that is to go to a smaller hospital rather than stick it out with the big wigs here.”

He did have plans to run the department at some point in his life. And he’d do it here if he wanted. Or a lot of places.

But having been told what to do most of his life, when he was ready to start practicing, he decided he needed to make sure his personal life was quiet. That meant away from his mother, and since he had a place to stay in the Mystic area and there was an opening at that location, it all fell into place nicely.

“You have your career choices and I’ve got mine,” he said.

Dale snorted at him. “You’re wasting your talents there.”

“Everyone needs good healthcare,” he said. “It’s an hour away, and I hate to break it to you, but plenty drive to see me in my office there and then I come here to operate if they don’t want to make the commute. It’s called being flexible.”

“A waste of your time,” Dale said. “But you’re too young to realize that. Make them come to you.”

Didn’t he just say many did? Guess Dale had an agenda of insults and wasn’t listening.

“If you say so,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a patient to see.”

He walked out and wouldn’t let it get to him. He’d heard versions of that shit his whole life.

That he was too young to know better.

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