So apparently five days as Medical Director was going to be the way things were going to end. Had to be some new record, I'm sure.
As the Dean tells me I'm fired, not once but three times, I'm racking my brain to try to remember what I could have done to get on his bad side so quickly.
Oh yeah, firing the cardiac department, all the new attendings, and gutting training. I guess I can see why he's pissed. What I don't get is why he thinks the status quo is the route we should be taking in the face of all the problems infecting every inch of this hospital. When he gives me six months, I counter with three.
Great negotiating skills Max! Now you have even less time to get this place set right so you can start repairing things with Georgia. Either way in three months I'll be divorced or dead, so potential unemployment wasn't as daunting of a threat as the Dean thinks it is.
Dr. Sharpe found me again. I am acutely aware of the way she touches my arm as we breeze through the very public halls, as she discreetly tries to bargain me into my appointment. She rifts with me on my misplaced analogies and gives and good as I do. She rolls her eyes at me, and I feel it again, the synergy between us. The feeling of having someone who gets me despite all the reasons why we shouldn't mesh this quickly. It's been only been a week but I feel like I've known her my whole life.
There is definitely something there. But I don't have time to ponder that right now, I need to go see my wife.
Apparently, Georgia is getting discharged… today! I thought I'd have more time. My immediate fear is that she will be all alone in our apartment with a high-risk pregnancy. What if the placenta previa returns, she bleeds out and both she and Luna die before anyone even knows they are gone? If that happens, I know I'm done for. I'll let the cancer take me, since there will be nothing worth living for at that point. But she cuts that train of thought off with a whole new nightmare. She's planning on going back to Connecticut to live with her parents and she seems decidedly resigned to our separate paths.
Not even my usually persuasive optimism can shake her decision to go back to Connecticut, with her mother, the woman whom by her own admission 'merely tolerates' me. But she's not gone yet so I have time to think of something that will convince her to stay.
As I walk Mrs. Rylan through the hospital trying to avoid all the potential situations that could possibly derail her throwing her generous support behind programs for New Amsterdam, I spot her again. Perfect! Who better to talk up the hospital than our own Dr. Helen?
She's so polished and luminous, and Mrs. Ryland isn't wrong about her radiant smile. But that's where any good from this encounter ends. As Dr. Sharpe valiantly discusses the challenges of cancer research, funding, and patient affordability, Mrs. Rylan only seems interested in Dr. Sharpe's expensive taste and appearance. I can see the prickly barbs of a woman who thinks she's being hoodwinked by a persuasive talking head. As we walk away, I can see the apology in Dr. Sharpe's eyes, knowing that she may have given Mrs. Rylan the wrong impression, but this is just a setback. I'll get this tour back on track somehow.
It's all naked psych ward patients, pregnant incarcerated mothers, and a slight feeling that Mrs. Rylan might have an issue with female doctors of color, that has my mind racing all day.
Despite all the chaos I want to see Georgia before she leaves. When I enter her room, she's dressed and ready to go. Was she even going to tell me she was leaving? Or was she going to sneak out and only give me a call somewhere on the 95? She tells me that her parents are okay with me coming up to visit on weekends in the hopes it will placate me.
I can feel my neck burn in indignation, who has supervised visitation with their wife on weekends at her parents? I would rather walk through fire than spend my time facing their disapproving stares and backhanded comments on my days off.
I don't want her to go back to Connecticut. So far gone from me—taking my only family hours away to another state. How can I make this right? I want to be a husband and a father, but not at a distance. I know I'm not perfect and that I broke her heart. But I know Georgia loves me, I love her too and I want this to work more than anything, if nothing more, for Luna's sake. I want my family here with me in New York not a supervised playdate in Connecticut where my in-laws will no doubt make me out to be some evil villain.
I find Dr. Sharpe in her office, and I can tell, she's big mad. All fire and fury, that I know may have more than a little something to do with the $15,000 call out from the wealthy donor. The look on her face when she confronts me about being my doctor blows me away. Her passion to be a good doctor is very evident and I remember why I wanted her to stay. I need her. To go on being amongst the living- I need Helen Sharpe to be my doctor.
When I go to Georgia's room she's gone. I hear the word discharged and my heart drops. She's left me again. I have to find her, maybe she's still in the hospital. Then I see an orderly wheeling her towards the exit. I made it before she left so there's still a chance and hopefully, I can convince her to stay at least for Luna's sake. I want to be there when she arrives, and I can't do that if Georgia is hours away in another state. Who's to say she even calls me when she goes into labor.
If I can't help my wife and daughter, what kind of a doctor am I? I'm pleading, begging, hoping she'll let me be a father and try to be a better husband despite all the reasons she shouldn't. She relents but I don't know if it's because she loves me or if it's because of my appeal for Luna. But for now, I get to keep my family together and that's all that matters.