Go home before you do or say something you’ll regret.
Mindy sighed and headed toward the attendings’ lounge to change into her street clothes. It had been her first major rotation since starting at West Manhattan Saints. She was exhausted, but she also didn’t want to go home. Her apartment was empty, lonely and memories of Sam were everywhere.
Don’t chicken out. Go home.
Mindy groaned and tried not to think about what had taken place at her apartment last night, in her bed, because those thoughts, though pleasant, were very unwelcome and for a moment she was terrified she wasn’t going to be able to succeed in keeping her distance from him.
She was pretty darned sure that she was going to fail miserably, but what a way to fail.
SAM HAD BEEN off Mindy’s rotation for two weeks and he found he missed it, but she had to give a fair shake to other residents applying for the fellowship. His first week back on the peds round he happened upon Dr. Snow, who was currently on rotation with Mindy, and all she was doing was whining about how nasty and how hard it was.
How the patients whined and complained constantly.
As if kids didn’t whine?
Sam laughed to himself as he thought of that. When he’d worked his full week with Mindy he’d learned so much. She’d kept her distance since she’d accidentally called him Sam after Ms. Bayberry’s surgery, but that was fine by him.
He didn’t want rumors starting.
It was bad enough having a famous mother, one who had slept with the current chief of surgery, albeit twenty years ago. He’d told Enzo about it when they’d got to know each other, but he was the only other person who knew, besides Dr. Chang, who knew his mother as well from medical school. And Sam didn’t have to worry about anyone accusing him of favoritism when it came to his mother and Dr. Amelia Chang.
It was no secret that his mother and Dr. Chang did not see eye to eye. Sam had actually been concerned when he’d first been accepted into the surgical residency program. He’d known that he’d always wanted to be a pediatric surgeon. He loved working with kids, but when he’d heard the head of Pediatrics was his mother’s “nemesis” of sorts, he had been worried that he wouldn’t have a shot in heck of getting into the program, but he’d applied anyway.
And had been accepted.
Dr. Chang had known exactly who he was. She had told him as much on the first day he’d become a resident and had started clocking hours on the peds floor.
He’d been charting when she’d come up beside him.
“You have your mother’s eyes.”
“Pardon me?”
She stared at him, those thoughtful obsidian eyes boring right through him. “You have your father’s soul. Let’s hope you have your mother’s talent. If you do, you’ll be brilliant.”
That was all she’d said. She would request him at odd intervals and always with the most delicate situations or the toughest cases.
Dr. Chang would observe him.
It’s why he and Enzo had become more than just competition in their first year of residency. They’d moved beyond the macho chest-thrusting and territory-marking in the game of surgery and had become friends, because Sam had been there when Enzo’s niece Maya had been born.
Dr. Chang had put Maya, a fragile preemie with a low expectation to survive, in his charge. And Maya had thrived because Sam had known that a way to help regulate a heartbeat was to place the baby against a bare chest. It was called kangaroo care. Maya hadn’t been able to feed and Enzo’s sister had been unable at that point to provide skin to skin contact, so during a long shift at night Sam had sat down in a rocking chair in the NICU and had done just that for little Maya. Wrapping her up against his chest, upright and prone, cradled on the inside of his scrubs, a blanket over them while he’d charted, very poorly.
Enzo had caught him, pausing slightly in the doorway of the NICU. He hadn’t teased him, hadn’t said anything. A look had been all that was needed to understand what was happening.
It was because of that he’d had a permanent spot at Enzo’s family home for dinner and when he hadn’t shown up, plates of food had been sent to him.
Sam chuckled and leaned over his chart. He missed Enzo. Missed seeing him in the halls of West Manhattan Saints. He missed the food. Darn him for falling in love with Kimberlyn and them moving away.
It had gotten him through some lonely patches when he’d first moved to New York. His mother didn’t have much to do with him and the rest of his close family was in Scotland. His dad, his brothers and stepmother, as well as various aunts, uncles, cousins and one venerable grandmother.
Even though he’d been born in New York and had spent some time on this side of the pond, he was alone. When he’d been with his mother, he’d been alone. She had always been working and he’d spent a lot of his childhood, when he’d been with her, in the hallways of the hospital or in the observation room while she’d been in surgery.
He glanced up from his charting and saw Mindy in the NICU, bending over a tiny micro-preemie in an incubator. Mindy was in her scrubs and updating the neonatologist so it appeared that the baby had just been born.
She’s alone.
Mindy had said she’d grown up on the west coast, a native to California. Though she hadn’t moved an ocean away from her family, she’d moved clear across the country to start a new life. It must’ve been something drastic that had chased her away. To isolate herself.
He didn’t know about isolating oneself on purpose, but he did get loneliness. Even living in a house full of other surgeons. Tessa had moved out and was starting a family, Kimberlyn and Enzo were together and gone, even Holly had moved on with Dr. Alexander and she had family around. Sure, there was the new roommate, Rebecca, but he didn’t really know her yet and wasn’t sure he wanted to. She was too chatty.
He had no one. Just like Mindy didn’t have anyone and he felt sorry for her. She deserved better and though he shouldn’t approach her, he should just keep his distance from her, he closed his chart and headed toward the NICU.
Mindy was standing next to the incubator, staring down at the small preemie inside, but he could tell by her expression that she really wasn’t watching the preemie. She had a far-off expression on her face.
“Boy or girl?” Sam asked, as he came up beside her and peered down at the bundle, hooked up to wires but alive.
“Boy,” Mindy said offhandedly. She set down the chart she was holding. “I delivered him about an hour ago after I repaired his CPAM.”
“Congenital pulmonary airway malformation?”
“Yes. I usually try to keep the fetus inside after I do the repair, but Mom had the beginning stages of pre-eclampsia. With the extra stressors of surgery, I
