Thursday Afternoons by Tracey Richardson

Author:Tracey Richardson [Richardson, Tracey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642470550
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2019-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

A soft knock on her office door startles Ellis enough to make her jump, though she’s glad for a distraction. Staring at her computer for hours is giving her a mild headache.

“Come in.” Ellis never firmly shuts her door when she’s alone in her office because she wants to signal that she’s available to hospital staff. There’s nothing better to fuel fearful gossip and paranoia than closed office doors and no access.

It’s Amy. Looking amazing in pale green scrubs and a starched lab coat, a bit of sun having softly bleached the tips of her short, light brown hair, lending her a more carefree veneer. Ellis aches to see her smile again and to be truly carefree. She burns to see that lustful wanting in Amy’s eyes, but all she gets is a pinched look, a firm set to her jaw.

“You got a minute?”

“Of course. Have a seat. It’s…good to see you again, A— Dr. Spencer.”

Amy nods and, still standing, thumps an inch-thick report onto Ellis’s desk.

“What’s this about?” Ellis slips her glasses back on while waiting for Amy to offer an explanation. She’s happy to discuss anything with staff at anytime, but Amy’s confrontational attitude is beginning to grate. It’s as though she is set on punishing Ellis every chance she can, simply for doing her job.

“I know stats are important to you, so that’s what these are. I’ve culled all the serious emergency cases at this hospital over the last five years. You’ll see that in numerous of these, the outcome would have been extremely poor, including morbidity, if this hospital did not have a full-time emergency department as well as a surgical service.”

“I see. Aren’t you being a bit presumptuous about my conclusions?”

Amy ignores Ellis’s comment. “I like to presume the worst and work back from there. In my job, and probably yours, there’s no room for assumptions and hoping for the best. People would have died, Ellis. Will die, if you cut too deep. I can guarantee it. It’s all in there.” She points to her report.

“I understand that, I really—”

“I’m not sure that you possibly could. Not until you’ve walked in my shoes. Or any of the nurses’ or other doctors’ shoes. Or the patients’, God forbid.”

“You’re not going to give me the benefit of the doubt, are you?” Amy’s cynicism toward her—more than that, her hostility toward Ellis—is shocking. Hadn’t they sort of reached a kind of truce? How is it that Amy has such a low opinion of her? The same Amy who once told her that she was lovely? That she was a nice person? Ah, but that was in bed. Outside of the bedroom, she clearly has a different opinion. Outside of the bedroom, Ellis is nothing but an interfering interloper. Ellis can’t keep her frustration from boiling over. “Dammit, do we really have to do things this way? With acrimony? I thought we actually liked one another. What the hell happened? I’m still the same person you met two months ago, you know.

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