The Perfect Life (Ianthony)

Chapter 03: Home

"Daddy!" Maya called as I walked through the door to my home.

"Hey Princess!" I laughed as I lifted her into my arms.

"You're late! You promised you would be home b-before the sun went down!" She pouted, pointing to the bright LA skyline.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. Daddy had to help somebody tonight. If something else doesn't come up, I'll be home on time tomorrow." She giggled.

"Okay Daddy! Guess what!" She exclaimed.

"What?"

"I Learned numbers!"

"Oh, you did?" She nodded quickly.

"Yeah! I can count to ten now! See, look! One, two, f-furee, four, five, s-six, seven, eight, nine, ten!" chuckled at my daughter's cuteness.

"Excellent job, Maya! Daddy's so proud of you!" I told her as I kissed her small round cheek and put her back on the floor. "Where's Auntie Rae?" I asked her as I took off my white coat, loosened my tie, and kicked off my shoes.

"In the, In the kitchen. She said that she, she was cooking dinner." I nodded and walked into the kitchen to see my younger sister, Renee, cooking just like Maya had said. Renee has really helped me out a lot with Maya since me and Jesse divorced. After he moved out, I was forced to put Maya in a daycare center, which I couldn't stand. It made me feel like a bad father. Plus, it's modern day Los Angeles. You can't really trust anybody nowadays. So, Renee asked to move in with me so she could help with not only Maya, but with the house as well. I declined her offer at first because I didn't want to put anymore stress on her than she was already facing with graduate school, but she insisted. Later that following week, she moved in and she has been absolutely wonderful.

"Hey. You're home kinda late. How's work?" She asked as I rested my arms on top of the counter island.

"Awful! This stupid intern that they put me with is so clumsy and  breaks everything he touches!" Renee sighed.

"Tell me what happened."

"We were doing a simple surgery on a patient today and I refused to let him do anything. Because of his history with my medical equipment, I was afraid that he was going to hurt my patient or break something else expensive. Then all of the assistants started yelling and bantering me to let him try, I was already nervous about performing the surgery, and I-"

"You blew up on him, didn't you?" She chuckled. I nodded.

"Yeah... I did." She laughed a bit harder.

"Poor kid. What did he do?"

"He ran out of the room and yelled 'I quit.' I wanted to chase after him, but I couldn't while I had a patient cut open on the operating table. After the operation, I looked around the entire hospital for whole hour, looking for him, but I never found him. I was about to come home, then Dr. Connors texted me from the ER about a patient with a punctured lung. So, I had to take care of that as well. That's why I'm home so late." Renee sat my dinner plate down in front of me and patted my shoulder.

"Sounds like a rough day." I nodded and stabbed a green bean with my fork. " So, what are you going to do about this runaway intern?" I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't know. He said that he quit, but I doubt that an eight year medical student would just up and quit. Too much time and money wasted. I'm assuming tha-" Suddenly my phone rang. "Hold that thought, sis. Could be another emergency call." She nodded understandingly as I walked out into the hall and pulled my phone out of my pocket. It was Dr. Asher... Shit, I'm fucked! I nervously answered the phone.

"H-Hello?"

"Mr. Padilla?" I swallowed hard. I knew this call was coming, but I didn't expect it until tomorrow at least.

"Y-Yes?"

"This is Dr. Asher. I received a call from Ian today requesting another Doctor for his residency period. What on Earth did you do?" I sighed.

"I blew up on the poor kid. Everyone in the whole room was bantering me to let Ian do the operation, but I felt like he wasn't ready to try because he's just so... so-"

"Clumsy?"

"Well, yeah. He's broken so much equipment over the past week and the dean is going to kill me when he finds out!" Dr. Asher let out a small sigh.

"Ian's always been clumsy . It happens whenever he's nervous."

"Well, that's why I didn't want him to help with the operation. He could've caused some major problems for the patient an-"

"Padilla, I understand that the concern for your patients are great, but you have got to let the kid learn. He has to have hands-on-experience." I sighed a bit.

"I apologize, sir. I'll not happen again." Dr. Asher chuckled.

"I'm glad to hear you say that because I'm making him stay with you." Great, what else could go wrong today?

"With all do respect sir, can't you get Misty to intern him or maybe even Rob? They're probably better suited for the job than m-"

"Padilla, Ian has a lot of untapped potential that you just haven't seen yet. I want Ian to have the best in the business so that he can find that potential and turn it into reality. So, you're still his instructor. He will be at your office tomorrow morning ready to get to work so please show some respect for the boy. He's been though a lot. Good night, doctor." And with that he hung up. I slid my phone back into my pocket and groaned a bit as I walked back into the kitchen.

"Sounds like you'll be working with him longer than you thought." Renee called as she took Maya a plate of food. I'm a little worried because I don't know how I'm going to handle him, but I'm also relieved. He might clumsy and annoying, but I would give anything just to stare into his eyes again.