Rowan has lunch with Tomas Bourges, who used to be on staff with him at Harrison Memorial. After the usual discussion of who's been doing what and the latest news of their mutual friends, Tomas has a lot to say about Robert. According to Rivera, who's in Bourges' golf foursome, his son is thinking of applying for a fellowship in the States.
His son is making quite a name for himself. He hears respect in Tomas's tone. More than one of his longtime colleagues has worked with Robert, and the word that's gotten back to his father is all good. 'Driven' and 'dedicated' are words he hears a lot. Rowan wonders, as he toys with his shrimp, how much of that dedication comes from him, and how much of it is the ghost of Cynthia haunting their son. Or...perhaps he's trying to outrun his father's shadow, to make his own professional reputation.
The devil of it is, he'll probably never know what drives his son. He and Robert don't see each other often. They don't work in the same hospitals, and Rowan suspects that's deliberate. He hardly knows the boy anymore. His son has kept his distance for a long time. Even before Rowan's separation from Cynthia, there were too many years when they saw each other only for Sunday dinner or briefly in passing as one of them was coming or going. He was always busy with work, Robert was always studying. When he thinks about it, he doesn't really know who Robert is.
He asks Tomas a few casual questions, and when he gets back to his office, does some quick research on Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. The results are impressive: it's one of the best facilities of its kind in the world, cutting edge, with names on staff that he recognizes from his journals. Stahl, the head of orthopedics, is sometimes referred to as the Michelangelo of reconstructive surgery. Fitchner has pioneered new transplant techniques and has been mentioned as a possible Nobel laureate. House, whose fellowship Robert is applying for, is reknowned as a brilliant diagnostician. Every single department at PPTH seems to have a star, major or minor. This is what Robert wants: to learn from the best. Rowan feels a sense of pride that his son has such high standards.
With the feeling that there's finally something he can do for his son, Rowan Chase makes a phone call.