“No Dr.Cain, but you do have two patients waiting and a third at 3:30 p.m. Nothing else on the calendar today.” She glanced at the books. “Do you want me to see if we can move your 3:30 p.m. to tomorrow? You have time in the morning.”
“Yes, please.” I climbed the stairs to the waiting area and apologized to the two individuals staring at their phones. “I’ll be right with you. We had an emergency this afternoon and we’re a little delayed. It will be just a few more minutes.”
They each smiled and told me, “No worries.”
After tending to both of the patients, I was finally able to sit down at my desk to call the Kraken team doctor. I didn’t need the card; I had the number in my phone. I put my earbuds in, scrolled through the contacts and hit call.
He answered exuberantly, “Liz! Long time no hear.”
“Hey Ryan, how are you?” I swiveled in my chair and looked out my windows. I could see the lights illuminating the ski runs in the distant hills. Night skiing at 4:00 in the afternoon. Too much darkness up here.
He whispered to someone, “Hold my calls, please.” To me he said, “I’m good. Yeah, yeah, I’m good. I’m the team physician for the Kraken now. New team here in Seattle. Great franchise. Great roster. I also set up a family practice on a small island across from the city. I’m just livin’ the dream, ya know?”
“The Avalanche didn’t work out for you?”
“Nah, great team, but too many egos. I don’t know how you stayed as long as you did. Couldn’t get out fast enough. Besides, I wasn’t pretty enough. They missed you.” He laughed.
I closed my eyes. The irony is that Ryan is very attractive. Girls flock to him like he’s fly paper. Dark brown hair and dark blue eyes. His Sicilian genes give him the perfect toasted complexion.
He’d had dreams of being a hockey player. But when he realized getting slammed against the rails and falling on ice hurt, he went into orthopedics, and then sports therapy. My guess was that he had a conflict with one of the players over a girl, and management suggested he find a new team to support.
“I’m sure they don’t.”
“How is that small Alaska town treating you, anyway? I was a little surprised you gave up the job and moved so far away. I thought you were chasing a man, to be honest. My heart was a little broken.”
At that, I laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Are you calling because you want the position back? Because I think it’s still available.”
“No, no. No. I don’t… No, I don’t want that job back. I’m calling about one of your players.” A second of silence sat between us.
“One of my players?” He sounded incredibly confused.
“Brett Barringer.” I said succinctly.
“Brett? How do you know Brett?”
“Earlier today there was an accident and…”
“That mother-” he muttered a number of expletives and a few other choice words that didn’t make up complete sentences. “He was benched until next Wednesday. He was supposed to be resting his knee.”
I imagined him pacing. He went on about how much money the team spent on him, that he was getting too old for this shit, whatever he thought ‘this’ was. On and on he went for a solid minute. I waited until he stopped ranting.
I chuckled a little when I asked, “Do you want me to tell you what happened, or do you just want to assume the worst?”
“Man, I’m such an ass. Is he ok? I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
“He was skiing…”
“Skiing?” he shouted.
“Ryan,” I cautioned.
I heard him inhale deeply. “Go ahead.” Under his breath he mumbled, “That mother-”
“The EMT’s told me he was found out of bounds.” I rushed on, “I’m assuming it wasn’t intentional. There’s an area on the hill where people like to ski in the trees. There are paths, but the signs can get confusing. He hit a tree. And…” I rolled out the word, “I think the tree hit him back. He has a grade two concussion. He was wearing a helmet but it cracked. He must have hit hard. And he has a pretty nasty gouge on his right temple. We’ve admitted him for the night for monitoring.”
Ryan was silent.