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“What?”
“Do you know her name?” the receptionist asked again.
“Well… no, but—”
“Best to sit down and wait then,” she said. “We’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as we can.”
Twenty minutes passed. An hour. After ninety minutes it was dark outside, and the emergency room only grew thicker with new arrivals. Not far to our left, a woman with grey hair and bloodshot eyes coughed for the sixteenth time.
“I don’t like this,” I growled.
“None of us do,” sighed Julius. He sat as far from the other patients as possible, his arms wrapped protectively around a very drowsy Jace. “But it is what it is.”
“Go ask at the desk again,” I pleaded. “Maybe they—”
“I’ve asked three times already,” he complained. “Duncan twice. They’re getting sick of us. Maybe it’s your turn.”
Duncan nodded his agreement, then put his arms out for Courtney. The little blonde angel had fallen asleep on my shoulder almost immediately after we got here.
I passed our daughter off and approached the desk. This time there was a different person behind it; a man about half the age of the other receptionist.
“Look, I know who you’re waiting for and we just got word. The woman from the aquarium is okay. She’s stable but the doctors aren’t through examining her yet. Right now she’s being moved to a room, so she’s staying the night.”
I frowned miserably. “Can we at least see her? Maybe just for a minute or—”
“I’m afraid not. I’ve been told she’s resting.”
The man paused, looking me up and down. When he spoke again his voice was softer, more pitying.
“Look, there’s really nothing you can do tonight. Why don’t you come back in the morning when everyone’s rested? You can see her then.”
I turned around, and almost on cue the old woman coughed again. This time around the man sitting beside her coughed also... without covering his mouth.
Shit.
Duncan and Julius looked tired, and the kids were exhausted at best. At worst, we were all catching a bunch of gnarly new germs. The guy behind the counter was right, there was nothing more we could do tonight. As much as we wanted to see and thank our quick-acting heroine, staying here any longer would just make things worse.
“Alright, we’ll head home,” I agreed, reaching for one of the pens sticking out of a cup on his desk. “One more thing, though. Can you give me her name?”
The man behind the counter’s expression went abruptly awkward. “I’m… afraid we can’t do that either.”
I scowled. “Why not?”
“HIPAA regulations. Patient privacy rules, and—”
“Fine,” I snarled, more angry at the rules than at the receptionist himself. “What time are visiting hours tomorrow?”
“They start at eight O’clock.”
I shoved the writing implement back into the receptionist’s cup so hard it fell over, spilling pens everywhere.
“See ya then.”
