Dr. Heartless, a short short story Read Online Free

countered.
    “Deal.”  She hurried to catch up with the group.
    “And that’s the last patient,” James Hartford said as she walked up.  “Nice of you to join us, Dr. Mason.  If you are so determined --” he started just as a nurse came rushing down the hall.
    “Dr. Hartford,” the nurse called anxiously.  “Amy Maxwell in four eighty-two is in respiratory arrest.”
    He scowled and gestured to one of the residents, who handed him Mrs. Maxwell’s chart.  “Did you call a code?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Is her family here?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Get them out of the room and into the conference room,” he barked. A few steps down the hall, he turned back.  “Dr. Mason, don’t leave today until I’ve had a chance to talk to you.”
    Caroline looked at the nurse.  Amy Maxwell was a young woman with small children and a husband who adored her.  “Is she going to make it?”
    The nurse shook her head.  “This is it, I’m afraid.”
    Trying to shake off her sadness at the information, Caroline wrote a few routine orders, then glanced at her watch and stepped up to the nurse’s station.  “Any word on Mrs. Maxwell?”
    The nurse looked up from the chart she was reading.  “She expired about ten minutes ago.  Dr. Heartless is in the conference room with the family.  Can you imagine what he’s saying to them?”  She shook her head.  “‘This is a hospital,’” she mimicked in a deep, cold voice.  “‘People die.’”
    A pang, half fear and half compassion, echoed through Caroline’s chest.  “He’s not like that with the patients.”  She defended him with more assurance than she felt.  “He couldn’t be.”
    The nurse grinned crookedly.  “Why do you think they call him Dr. Heartless?”
    “But the patients trust him.”
    “Oh, he’s good at his job.  He just has no heart.”
    Caroline shook her head.  “Everybody has a heart.  Some people are just more protective of it than others.”
    Walking down the corridor, Caroline thought about her conversation with the nurse, and with Marlene earlier.  They’d known James Hartford much longer than she had.  Were they right?  Did the man have no heart?
    She refused to believe that.  Sometimes there was a glow in his dark blue eyes that looked suspiciously like compassion when he talked about his patients.
    She waited near the conference room door, not without a bit of trepidation.  She was in for a chewing out, she knew.  First she’d committed the unforgivable sin of crying over a patient, then she’d missed part of rounds.  She winced in anticipation as the door the room opened and the family came out.
    Caroline smiled sadly at the young father and his two children, a little girl of about nine and a boy was no more than two.  Ovarian cancer was a horrible, greedy disease.
    She waited a moment, but Dr. Hartford didn’t come out.  Had he left before the family?  Briefly she was tempted to just walk away.  This was her last day on Medicine Service.  Surely not even Dr. Heartless would follow her to Neurology tomorrow just to make his point.
    But she actually wanted to thank him.  He was the best physician she had ever worked with.  No matter how he felt about her or any of the other residents, he had taught them a lot.
    Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door.  He was standing on the other side of the room with his back turned.  His shoulders were bowed slightly and he was rubbing his temple.
    “Dr. Hartford?” she said tentatively.
    He stiffened, but didn’t move.
    “Are you all right?”
    He wiped his face and pushed his fingers through his hair, then turned around.
    Caroline stared.  Dr. Hartford . . . Dr. Heartless, had a suspicious brightness in his eyes, and his face was haggard and sad.  She’d never seen him like this.  She was pretty sure no one had, except maybe his patients or their families.
    “I — I’m sorry,” she stammered, embarrassed.  “I can come back . . . .”
    He smiled