Page 12 of Yours to Keep

5

BREE

My father and I walked through his neighborhood just outside the city. Staten Island was quiet in that early-morning way that made me remember New York could actually shut up. The trees were doing that polite rustling thing with birds chirping from the branches, and my dad was power-walking like a man on a mission.

After the heart attack, he’d started taking his health very seriously. He was in gray sweats and a faded navy T-shirt that said, I’m Not Old I’m Vintage. A black headband held back the thinning hair he refused to admit was rapidly becoming less.

If I hadn’t known him, I would have assumed he was either training for a 5K or about to aggressively critique my form, but I loved walking with him. Whenever I had the day off, I joined him, because it was good for him, and if I was being honest, it was good for me too.

Something about walking beside your dad while he lectured squirrels about personal responsibility had a calming effect on me. This morning, however, calm was not in my wheelhouse.

“So, how was your first official week at work?” he asked, swinging his arms beside himself as we walked.

I snorted. “Fantastic. I love it. I’m living the dream. Oh, and I threw a cannoli at my boss.”

He stopped walking and slowly turned his head to gawk at me. “You did what?”

“I threw a cannoli at him,” I repeated. “It was a direct hit. You would’ve been proud of my aim. There was pastry cream everything.”

He stared at me for another beat, then nodded. “Okay. Walk me through that. What the heck happened, Bree? Since when do you go around flinging dessert at people?”

“I don’t, but he…” I exhaled and launched into story I wasn’t sure whether to be proud or embarrassed of. “I was so excited to sign the contract, Daddy. It was literally my dream come true, but my new boss is implementing all these changes, and clearly, he’s never worked in an actual medical setting. He thinks hospitals run on spreadsheets instead of people and he’s so damn smug about it that I couldn’t help myself.”

My father hummed sympathetically, nodding like this was all tracking, so I went on. “This week, he replaced the patient gowns with paper ones. Paper. For patients. Obviously, I couldn’t just let that stand, so I went to talk to him like an adult. I even tried to be nice, which is why I took the cannoli in the first place, but then he said some things, and then I ended up throwing it at him.”

“Was it a good cannoli?” my dad asked.

I groaned. “Yes. It was a proper one. Expensive too, which makes it so much worse.”

He sighed. “That does complicate things.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to keep working there,” I said, kicking a pebble off the sidewalk when we started walking again. “Even if he doesn’t fire me, this is only the first of the changes. If this is what week one looks like, what happens when he really gets going?”

My father slowed his pace, matching it to mine. “Hey, you’re strong, kiddo. You’re smart too and you’re good at what you do. Whatever happens, you’ll get through this.”

I swallowed past the bitter disappointment rising from within. “I just wanted it to be good, you know? I wanted it to be home, but it’s never going to be. Not like this.”

He reached over and gently squeezed my shoulder. “I know, but no matter what, I’ll always love you. Even if you become known on the Manhattan hospital scene as the woman who weaponized Italian pastry.”

I laughed. “That’s not the legacy I was going for.”

We walked in comfortable silence for a moment. Then he looked over at me again. “If it’s really as bad as all that, you could always quit.”

My eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“If you can’t stand it there,” he said calmly. “Just quit. Life is too short to be miserable. You’ve worked so hard to get this far and you’ll land on your feet, even if you do it at another hospital.”

I stared at him. “I can’t just quit my dream job because my boss is a dictator with a fetish for cost-cutting.”

“You can if it’s ruining your peace,” he said simply. “I support you. No matter what.”

I sighed. “Thanks, but I can’t quit. I signed a contract.”

He frowned. “So?”

“So if I quit, there’s a penalty.”

He slowed to a stop again, turning to face me fully. Sweat dotted his forehead, but despite his ridiculous post-cardio-rehab pace, he wasn’t even flushed yet. “What kind of penalty, Bree?”