Chapter 13 13
Harmony's POV
A few days had passed since the Mrs Foster incident, and I had kept my distance from the clinic on purpose. I needed the space and to be honest, I suspected Foster needed it too. Not to mention the fact that after those calls from my landlord and my brother, I just needed some time alone.
When I finally walked back in, Dr Sherman was coming out of his office just as I turned the corner toward my workspace. He saw me and stopped walking. The look on his face was not a good one.
"Miss Sinclair," he said. "I was hoping to catch you."
I slowed down. "Dr Sherman. Is everything okay?"
"No, frankly, it isn't." He clasped his hands in front of him. "I received a very unhappy phone call from Mrs Foster two days ago."
Ah, I should have guessed. I opened my mouth but he held up a hand to silence me.
"Let me finish, Sinclair. I understand you had what you felt were good intentions," he continued, "but exchanging words with a patient's family member, especially one of Mrs Foster's standing, is not something we can afford to do here. It puts the clinic in a very difficult position."
"Dr Sherman, with respect, what she was saying to him was out of order," I replied. "I was standing right there, and...."
"Harmony!" His voice was firm. "The personal relationships between our patients and their families are none of our business. Our job is to treat the patient medically. That is where our jurisdiction begins and ends. Do you understand me?"
I pressed my lips together and said nothing.
"Mrs Foster has decided to pull our patient out of the clinic," he said. "She wants him cared for privately going forward."
"She's pulling him out?!" I exclaimed. "But he's not ready to be discharged!"
"I am aware of that."
"He needs at least seven, ten days of supervised physiotherapy before we can even think about—"
"I am aware, Miss Sinclair." He looked tired. "Mr Foster himself is not in agreement with the decision. But his mother has put her foot down and at this stage, there is very little we can do about it."
I stood there trying to make sense of that. Foster was twenty years old. He was a grown man, a university student living independently for that matter, captain of his hockey team and whatnot. And yet, here was his mother overriding his own medical care.
But I did not say any of this to Dr Sherman, because I knew it was useless.
"I'll arrange his discharge papers," I said instead.
"Thank you." He gave me a kind smile. "Harmony, I want you to know that I think you are going to be one of the finest assets this clinic has seen in a long time. I genuinely believe that. But you have a very hot head, and you cannot let it get in the way of your work. You have to learn to pull back and subdue yourself sometimes."
Even though I didn't believe I needed to do that, I nodded and smiled at him. After all, he was my supervisor and he meant well.
But I hated that advice with everything in me.
Subdue yourself. As if staying quiet while a patient's health got destroyed by his own mother was the professional thing to do. As if swallowing it down, smiling and moving on was the same thing as being good at your job.
Roman Foster was not ready to leave this clinic. Anyone who had worked with him this past week and a half could see that clearly. Two more weeks minimum, that was what his recovery needed, and now he was being yanked out because his mother had taken offence at the one person who said something true to her face.
I turned and headed toward room 94, still thinking to myself. If I was being completely honest with myself, which I rarely was about things like this, the idea of Foster leaving the clinic was mildly unpleasant. I had spent the better part of one week fighting with that man, dreading every session, counting down to when I could walk out of his room and be done with him for the day.
But somewhere in the middle of all that, the clinic was where I knew where to find him. It was where our dynamic, as infuriating as it was, made sense. Out there, he was Roman Foster the hockey captain, and I was just a sophomore intern. In here, I had the upper hand, at least professionally. If he left, the chances of me running into him again were almost zero, unless I went to watch him play at the ice rink, which I absolutely was not going to do.
I was not going to do that.
I pushed open the door to room 94.
Foster was up on his feet, walking slowly around the perimeter of the room with no crutches and no support. One hand was occasionally grazing the wall beside him... and he was putting a lot of pressure on his injured knee.
"ROMAN FOSTER, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I roared, and my hands flew up on either side of me like I was trying to direct traffic. "GET BACK IN THAT BED RIGHT NOW!"
He flinched. "Jesus....!"
"Are you insane?" I yelled. "You do not have crutches! You do not have support! If that knee gives way you will undo every single thing we have worked on, do you understand me? GET IN THE BED!"
Foster stopped walking and turned to look at me, and the expression on his face was one of entertainment.
"Are you competing with a fog horn for who can be the loudest, Sinclair?" He joked. "Good morning to you."
"Do not good morning me!" I was still waving my hands. "I am not joking with you! Do you have any idea what could happen to your knee right now?"
"I've been doing this for twenty minutes," he said, cocking his scarred eyebrow. "Relax, I'm fine."
"You are not fine, you are a liability!" I moved across the room, wrapped my hand around his bicep and started steering him back toward the bed. "Twenty minutes of unsupported weight bearing on a patellar fracture that has not fully healed, Foster, are you listening to yourself?"
He let me lead him, walking where I directed him and lowered himself back onto the bed with a careful exhale.
"The leg actually feels a lot better," he pointed out.
"The leg feeling better and the leg being better are two completely different things," I told him, and pulled the chair over to check his knee. "If you feel better, it just means that the inflammation is reducing. It does not mean the bone has finished healing, or that you can walk around a room without assistance."
Foster watched me work, quiet for once.
I did not look up at him. I focused on his knee, and thought about his discharge papers. I focused on anything except the ugly fact that after today, this was probably the last time I would be in this room with him.