Discomfort stabbed at my chest, but I breathed it away. "Thank you, Ivy. I'm happy to help. I'll touch base with you on the day of your procedure. Take care."
I left the exam room, sliding her file into the file holder outside the door for the nurses, and then I made my way to my office. I only had five minutes to look over the next patient's chart before the next appointment, and I'd already moved well into my lunch hour to see as many patients as possible.
It seemed like every year, I'd had a bigger caseload of patients while fewer residents were coming out of the hospitals to help with the burden. One of my colleagues retired at the age of forty-five after getting burned out after the COVID-19 pandemic, and I couldn't blame him. I'd been a fourth-year resident when the pandemic hit, and I'd barely escaped with my sanity intact. I knew it was the same for everyone in our field.
I grabbed a protein bar from the drawer of my cluttered desk, glancing over the piles to make sure I hadn't forgotten something I needed to do. A quick look over each stack confirmed that today, Tuesday, was a practice day, I had no surgeries scheduled, and there were no consultations elsewhere. One of the stacks of paper listed off to the side, sliding out of place. Ignoring it, I turned and left my office to get the file for the next patient.
People seemed to assume that I might be some kind of neat freak because I had a quiet personality and exacting standards. I found organization to be a tedious waste of my time when I could just memorize things quickly and move on with my life.
As I walked through the white and cream hallway, which had been decorated with portraits of nature, I rounded the corner to the walled-off nurses’ station. Many OB/GYN practices displayed pictures of babies and pregnant mothers, but I served clients who had a wide range of conditions, including infertility. I kept things neutral to ensure that every woman in my practice felt safe.
Madison looked up as I entered the tidy space, her eyes landing on me briefly before returning to a file she had open on the desk. A small clip kept her pixie-cut hair out of her eyes, which was usually a sign that she had become harried over the course of the morning. "You taking lunch?"
I was pretty sure Madison would strangle me if I left her with a queue of patients so I could eat a quinoa bowl. She had a stocky, strong frame bolstered by her daily weight-lifting routine, and I didn't want to test if my routine was better than hers. She had spunk. It was scary. I held up my dark chocolate health bar. "I'm good."
She nodded like that was the right answer and looked back down. "You'll need to sign the pre-op paperwork for Ramirez. And you have another new patient for a yearly exam next." She handed me the file. "She looks kind of nervous."
The intercom crackled on, and our receptionist, Gabriel, spoke with some hesitancy in his voice. "Is Dr. Rook there with you, Madison?"
"I'm here," I said, absently flipping through the new patient's file. It was sparse, but that was because she was barely eighteen and coming in for her first exam. These kids who had started high school at the height of COVID were somethingelse. Sometimes they found my unruffled exterior soothing, and sometimes they took offense to me right off the bat. It really depended on how their social skills had been handled once they'd returned to school.
"Your mom is here," Gabriel said simply.
I lowered the file, closing my eyes in resignation. "Oh."
"Should I tell her to come back?" Gabriel asked it like a question, but we all knew the answer was a given.
"Yes. I'll meet her in my office." I handed the file to Madison. "Put Chloe in exam room one and I'll be there shortly." Exam room one was what we called our "comfort room," with soothing lighting, comfortable chairs, phone chargers, and a mini fridge stocked with water bottles. The number of patients who needed an extra safe space was a mile long—an expecting mother whose pregnancy wasn't viable, a biopsy patient who received devastating news, a hopeful couple who had discovered their road to pregnancy would be next to impossible. I couldn't take credit for it, but I had hired the best team available in our area. They had made my practice desirable and safe, and we'd even won an award for it last year.
I left the glass-encased nurses’ station, heading back through the hallway to my office. When I got there, I looked around with a critical eye. Mom was going to say something about the piles of papers. I just knew it. Not that I could be bothered to do anything about it, but my parents and their impossible standards had been a thorn in my side my entire life. It didn't matter how successful I'd become—valedictorian, top of my undergrad class, graduated with honors from the OHSU medical school, opened my own practice—they would find something lacking.
My mother entered, followed by a cloud of designer perfume, her light red hair swirled into a chignon and her trim, black coat buttoned right up to the strand of pearls around her neck.It wasn't even October yet, but she pulled off a dainty pair of leather gloves as she entered my office. She was always cold. It was like the icy blue of her eyes had injected her veins with the chilly detachment she was so quick to exude. It wasn't that my mother wasn't capable of being caring or kind—it was just that she preferred not to be. "Knox."
"Mother," I replied, sliding my hands into the pockets of my white coat.
Her gaze traveled over stacks of paper, scattered manila folders, partially opened packages that had come in the mail, and the growing collection of books I kept on every available surface. Her forehead folded like an accordion. "What happened to you?"
I didn't even bother to look around the room. "I'm quite busy and I have a patient waiting. What is the reason for your visit?"
"Well, I assumed you would be taking lunch," she sniffed.
I took the protein bar out of my pocket and unwrapped it. "I am. How can I help you?"
Censure boiled to the brim beneath her surface, and clearly, she was at war with herself over whether to say something about my degenerate lifestyle or not. But she knew me as well as I knew her. Cutting words did nothing to dissuade my actions. Yelling did even less. "Have you made an appointment with Kiss-Met, yet?"
Ah. The matchmaking agency. I debated telling her that I had spoken with a matchmaker this morning. Only, it had been about her bra, and it was for my own amusement more than anything romantic. Needling Gemma Daise was quickly leaving the "rare treat" territory and approaching "new hobby" status.
"I have not." I took a bite of the date-based, nut-filled bar and chewed slowly as I watched my mother's reaction to that.
Her tight, thin lips made a puckered line, and her anger crested and then rapidly fell as she appeared to control herself.Control. It should have been engraved over our family crest for all to see because it was control that my parents valued above all else. Who needed affection when they could simplywilltheir emotions to be baseline? That had been their parenting philosophy, anyway.
"Knox, I thought we agreed that you would do everything in your power to settle down. Just look at Jayla's boy. Callum found a match with anactualmatchmaker at that agency." She clutched her leather gloves in her thin hands, eyes fervent. "They have an eighty-two percent success rate!"
I swallowed the mouthful of dark chocolate-flavored nutrients. "Eighty-six, actually."
Testing the bounds of Silvia Rook's patience never ceased to amuse me. She pulled in a breath through her nose, flaring her nostrils like a prim dragon. "Eighty-six, then."
"I'm well aware, but as I've told you, I have no interest in being romantically attached to anyone. I appreciate your concern, but you might have an easier time convincing Arabella to find a partner." I knew very well that there wasnochance of my sister finding a partner. Like me, she had grown up with a sour taste of the word "relationship" left in her mouth.
