The Watchmaker's Other Doctor

Regrets

A/N This is fan fiction of @GMTSchuilling wonderful book, The Watchmaker, which make the Wattys 2018 long list! It  is written with her permission.

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Greg sat patiently on the lemon-yellow bench by the pond, knowing that this would be the time the new doctor 'caught' him on her rounds. He had deliberately avoided her, preferring instead to observe her treat the other nursing home patients.

This doctor was older, which surprised him. Usually only the newest doctors worked at the nursing home while they built their practices. Then, once the practice was self-sufficient, they left, driven off by sullen staff and the depressing nature of any nursing home. This doctor wore her ugly sensible shoes with her scrubs, but sported a ponytail instead of a bun. The lines around her eyes and mouth were lessened in their severity with her quick smile, but it was as quick to turn into a frown when she came across sloppy work. Hence, the sullen staff loathed her. The more conscientious staff and those less disillusioned with the hopelessness of a nursing home welcomed the new doctor and her questions. The sullen staff hid when the doctor went stomping down the bleak, industrial hallways looking for a chart, or a staff to help with a dirty diaper or resident relentlessly calling out for help.

Greg liked her when she finally caught one of the laziest and most resentful staff members and told her, "My mom worked for a veterinarian. He wouldn't euthanize the dogs right away and let them suffer in a crate until he got around to it. He was in a terrible car accident and suffered for hours until they could free him from the wreckage. Then he died. Remember that next time you ignore your patients."

Perhaps she was The One. The One who could take the watch and let him pass on. She wasn't afraid to speak to the patients and gazed into their faces as they croaked out their complaints. But she also prescribed lots of physical therapy, telling them to get up and move, even just a little bit. She loved to quote a study from Canada where the physical therapists forced the hospice patients with less than three months to live to walk and move about, and the patients felt better. Then she would declare, "If people with less than three months to live feel better moving and walking, so will you." Whines and complaints after that were met with her quick frown, a shake of her head, and the promise to check up on them to make sure they complied.

Greg watched as the doctor strode across the grass toward him on his bench by the pond, her thick, sturdy shoes crunching down the grass. He wondered if she knew he had been eluding him, or chalked it up to the inefficiencies of the nursing home. The lines on her face were smile lines at seeing him, so he smiled back and patted the bench beside him. She was quick to sit beside him, pat his hand and said, "You're the last patient of the day so I can spend extra time with you. I'm Dr. Somerson."

Greg squeezed her hand. "Why are you here, Dr. Somerson?"

"I'm here to see you. You're certainly one of the healthiest and most active members of this place, but you still need a doctor."

"That I do. I hope you are the right doctor for me."

Instead of taking insult, the older women tilted her head and evaluated him shrewdly. "Do you prefer a male doctor?"

"Not at all. It's merely unusual that you're not a young doctor fresh out of residency training. Again I ask: why are you here?"

"Ah, that." Dr. Somerson looked over the pond in thought. "I was blessed to work part time while my children were in school. My clinic was during school hours, so I could drop them off, pick them up, and take them to school and sporting events. The only problem was that when they grew up and left, I was outmoded. I didn't learn the newest, fanciest techniques. I'm too old and slow and set in my ways for the big corporations that run medicine now. I still think I have patients, not customers." Anger snapped in the deep set brown eyes.

Greg took out his watch and stroked the etched surface. "So, you regret your decision? What if you could go back and change things?"

"Why would I do that? God has used the things I regret for my good and others. I sometimes regret entering medicine, but if I change that, then what will happen to all the patients I treated? I sometimes regret not spending more time with my children, but God provided friends and role models for them and again, what would happen to the patients I treated? They learned from my mistakes. Regret is not a luxury I often indulge in, at least not anymore. Regret is a luxury for the young adult, who still has plenty of time, and the very old, who can no longer accomplish much. But at my age, there's too much to do now, people to help now, to waste time on regret, other than learning from my mistakes. Besides, I'm far from perfect. If I change the things I regret, I'll simply make different mistakes."

She looked at the watch in his hand, stood up, and squeezed his shoulder. "I don't think you need a doctor." Then she leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Some of us prefer our brown eyes to purple." With an enigmatic smile, she left.

Greg replaced the watch in his pocket and decided to make it into a wrist watch. More common in these times. So she was not The One. But The One was coming and he would know her when he saw her, and do whatever it took to make her take the watch.

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Dedicated to GMTSchuilling

For all her hard work and the well deserved Wattys 2018 honor of being long-listed!