Page 21 of Yours to Keep

I bit my lip to keep from smiling. Sullivan might not have wanted to hear it from me, but I’d told him there would be backlash from the patients about his decision. “Yeah. That checks out.”

She arched an eyebrow. “So it’s not just me. This isn’t some kind of mistake? I really thought that perhaps they were readying me for a procedure I didn’t know I was having.”

“Oh, no,” I said, setting my chart down and rushing over to squeeze her arm. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Oyama. There’s no procedure and no mistake has been made. I promise we’re not about to take you to an operating room for something you don’t need. Your antibiotics are working beautifully, your infection is subsiding, and your IV should be coming out within the next day.”

Her other eyebrow joined the first, both now steeped so severely that for the first time, I could totally see her as the strict teacher she claimed to have been before she’d retired. “If it’s not a mistake, then why am I wearing it?”

“The hospital has made the switch from cloth to paper,” I explained. “It’s really not just you. Everyone hates those gowns. We’ve got universal, cross-departmental agreement on that front. I’m so sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The old ones are being removed from the premises, so I can’t even try to sneak you one.”

“I see,” she said coolly, nodding as she swung her legs back onto the bed, cringing with obvious discomfort. “Am I being discharged soon? I don’t think I can take much more of this. It’s torture to have to wear this thing.”

I sighed. “I know, ma’am. If it helps, I vehemently opposed the implementation of this decision. We all did.”

“If none of you wanted it, why would they have made the switch?”

I hesitated for a few seconds, but when she cocked her head at me, I finally just told her the truth. “The only person who thinks it’s a good idea is the guy in charge, but since he is the guy in charge, his opinion was the only one that mattered.”

Her mouth flattened into a thin line. “Ah.”

“I think the key flaw in his logic is that he doesn’t have to wear one,” I said sympathetically. “It’ll be at least another couple days before we can discharge you, unfortunately. Here, let me see if I can help make you more comfortable.”

Mrs. Oyama huffed out a disappointed sigh. “Well, that figures. Thank you, honey.”

I helped her adjust the gown as best I could, but it was like trying to make a napkin dignified. She winced when I adjusted it over her shoulder. “It’s so scratchy.”

“I know. I can’t apologize enough.”

When she looked up at me, her gaze lingered on my face like she was studying me. “You sound genuinely sorry.”

“I am,” I said. “If there was anything I could do to change it, I would, but there isn’t. You might be able to, though. I know it wouldn’t help make you much more comfortable right now, but it could help other patients in the future if you spoke to him.”

Mrs. Oyama snorted. “I’d very much like to speak to him, actually.”

“Really?” I blinked hard. I hadn’t expected encouraging her to take it up with him directly would actually work. “You would?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, straightening. “I have opinions that I’d like to share.”

A slow smile spread on my face. Seeing her as desperately uncomfortable as she was while already having numerous IVs stuck into her eased any guilt I might’ve felt. “Funny you should say that.”

I pulled a pen from my pocket, glanced at the door, then leaned in and wrote a number on a scrap of paper, speaking quietly just in case. “This is his direct office line. Please don’t tell anyone where you got it.”

She took the paper from me with her eyes sparkling. “I won’t, but I will tell him exactly what I think about the decision he made. These are truly awful.”

“Bless you,” I said, and I really meant it.

She was taking up the good fight despite knowing that any reversal in this new policy probably wouldn’t benefit her, but she was doing it anyway. Sullivan Crowne could ignore me, but I’d warned him patients would complain and I wasn’t falling on a sword he’d readied for our execution.

Fuck him. If the patients had an issue with a decision he was responsible for, then he was the one who should face them.

“Alright,” I said, lifting my stethoscope over my head. “Let me check your vitals before you make that call. I still have a job to do and I know you want to get out of here sooner rather than later, so let’s see how you’re doing. On that note, how’s Caroline? Is she adjusting to her new school?”

As I went through my routine check, we chatted a bit about her granddaughter, and once I was done, I adjusted her pillows before I headed for the door. I wasn’t even fully in the hall yet when I heard her voice filtering out of the room behind me.

Jeez. She really doesn’t waste any time, this lady.

“Mr. Crowne?” she said, her voice not restrained or polite anymore, but as cutting as a knife and as cold as ice. “This is Mrs. Oyama in room 412. I would like to discuss this paper gown I’m wearing.”

I smiled to myself and kept walking. Good. This is what he gets. If he thought we were going to take the punches for him, he has a whole other thing coming.