This Is Where We Stop novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Next Flight

Mara's POV

My chief of surgery kept a framed photograph of a ship in a bottle behind his desk.

I had stared at it through eight years of budget meetings, and at seven the next morning I stared at it again.

He did not ask me to sit.

"The video," he said.

"Yes."

"I've watched it four times. My wife made me. She wants to know if you're single."

"Almost," I said. "The papers are final on Friday."

"Good. She likes you better than me." He folded his hands. "The board wants to know whether a staff surgeon can stand on a stage and read a county dispatch log at a public gala."

"And?"

"I told them yes, if the log is real and she's right."

My shoulders loosened.

"I also told them you've been the best trauma surgeon in this building for six years, and you've been carrying the night shifts of two people."

He picked up a letter from the blotter.

"Then you applied to go to the mountains and I signed your leave without reading it. I want to apologize for that."

I stared.

"I'd been taking you for granted too," he said. "You were so reliable that I never asked what it was costing. You've done more overtime than anyone in my department, and you walked out of a restaurant with a free vest because nobody in your life paid attention."

"Who told you about the vest?"

"The anesthesiologist. She was at the table."

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