The Don's Doctor

By Speech or Scalpel

Chiara's POV

Three…Two…One.

My papa is being wheeled down to surgery at this very moment, and instead of being with him, I’m searching under his bed for his black medical bag. Scraping the golden studs over the wooden flooring, I retrieve it from the hiding place. My father’s initials are engraved on the golden plaque, and I rub my thumb across the letters. Was this what he used when he first qualified? I wonder if it was a gift from my mother. He was a young man when he had emigrated from Italy to America, and qualified as a general practitioner. He married three years before he qualified. Gabriella was her name, and he always described my mother as the love of his life. She died of a virus that she picked up on holiday with him the year after I was born. Despite all this sorrow, he raised his precocious young daughter alone, until he opened his General Practice and sent me to boarding school. Although I was lonely, we tried to make it so that the distance didn’t matter, we wrote frequently, often spoke, and loved each other sincerely-he was and remains my role model.

Intrigued, I open the bag, surprised to find all the surgical overalls inside. Deeper in the bag are the tools of my craft, the extension of my hands in the operating room. A myriad of equipment: clamps, forceps, scalpels, saws. They all seemed alien to me now, out of place, and offensive like a torturer’s tool kit. Noticing the dressing, bandages and silk thread make my stomach churn. My father had initially trained as a surgical intern. His intention was to be a general surgeon, but he soon realised that his passion lay in diagnosing the illnesses rather than cutting the flesh, so he switched to a GP elective. It is one of the few differences between my father and me. I prefer the silence and methodical approach to taking out the problem swiftly and my father likes to ponder over the many solutions. Currently, I am finalising the last two months of my fellowship, before I qualify as an attending. I already know what I wanted my specialism to be: trauma surgery. Thinking fast in order to make the best possible choices for my patients sings to my nature. To be good you have to be decisive in your judgment, and I have honed this skill to perfection. I rest my hand on a saline bag and a high concentrate of morphine. There is nothing better designed to fluster your unshakable stoicism than when you find a secret bag of stolen hospital property crammed into a leather bag, belonging to the person you thought you knew best in the world.

Despite my disturbance, I park at the hospital, leave the medical bag in the trunk of my car with a coat draped over it, and walk back to my father’s ward in a daze. Earlier in the day, I hadn’t paid much attention to the old flip phone that I had retrieved from my father’s pocket, but now it seems to be an enormous weight in my pocket. Details I had missed before are coming into focus. The old, untraceable model, the pay as you go sim card, the absence of numbers or log of previous calls- it is a burner phone.

“Great you’re here for the post op. The patient’s surgery went as expected, although I would have expected a doctor to be in a slightly better condition. I won’t get into the particulars of the operation, but the salient point is that he is better now I have dealt with him. However, if you need me to revise the procedure with you as your attending…”

“Putting stents into a patient is hardly a difficult procedure that needs explaining to me, Dr Harris. Although I do not doubt your skill in this area, there seems little that I can learn from a procedure we would expect second year residents to be able to complete. Furthermore, I’m not here for your post-op report. This patient is my father, and I would appreciate more due diligence when reading his medical history, and taking care of his post-operative needs.”

I don’t wait for a response, before storming into the room and ensuring my father is comfortable.

Inevitably, I look over his chart, assess the surgical notes and watch his heart monitor as if the machine and I are engaged in a staring competition. Each rise and fall of his chest is a blessing. I have a thousand questions to ask him, but the only one that is relevant now is if he will still be here in the morning.

Abruptly, the phone starts to ring. The anxiety from before freezes me as I think of all the reasons I should ignore it. Remembering my papa’s repeated instances, and being unable to disobey him, even as an adult, I dig the phone out of my pocket, stare at it, and then flip it open.

“Come now!” The emotionless, commanding voice demands.

Then it hangs up.

Shortly afterwards, a text appears with an address. Everything in my mind tells me not to go, except for my father’s voice. Even my limbs are heavy, but by the time I am in my car I have come to terms with the fact that this is happening, and I have no choice. My papa has got himself involved with something bigger than he can control. I know it is more than likely that I will be dealing with some deviant group. I am not completely naïve. The information that I am clinging to is that they have taken advantage of an elderly man, and this will end tonight.

By the time I am approaching the Hudson Valley, I realise that my temper is soaring. I’m not going to do anything that they ask me to do when I arrive. If the Head of the Family himself is bleeding out, the last thing he will hear is me telling him to leave my papa alone. Nests of nepotistic, nefarious, nocturnal evildoers aren’t going to exercise their power over my family any longer. They are my enemies from all perspectives. I try to save lives that they are committed to ending. Haven’t we been at war for all this time? The triggers they pull are hours of my nights spent plucking out the bullets. How many times have I had to call the time of death because of a perceived offense that had to be punished? I hope a member of this crime family is hurt so badly that there is nothing I can do. In some ways, it would tip the balance. A reasonable person might turn around and head home at this point, but with righteous indignation I push the accelerator to the ground.

Knowing that my presence will be ineffective, I repeatedly wonder if I should turn back to the hospital, until I remember my papa’s face. He was adamant that I retrieve the bag and answered the phone. The disappointment when I hadn’t immediately attended to his instructions was unprecedented. He had never spoken to me like that before. My father had treated me as an equal all my life. I suppose he had to make me mature quickly when he was being both mother and father to me. Concluding that his behavior had come from a place of fear, I am more determined to sever all connections with this corrupt family tonight, either by speech or scalpel. After tonight, the Ricci family would have nothing to do with any disgusting criminal activity.