King of Death

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"Your dad is a nice human being. There is no need for you to hide him." His words echoed through the whole hall and there were patients staring at us. Hugging even closer all the documents and papers that were in my hands and rolled my eyes at him and got inside my office, slamming the door right in his face. I sensed that he was getting angry but he needed to understand that I had no valid reason to make a "meet and greet" with my dad and my mate. I was an adult. I made my own decisions in life and I felt like it was maybe a little bit embarrassing to do something like that. The door slammed open and I could see the pissed look on his face.

"We're not here to do therapy with ourselves, Sergio. There are patients waiting for us." I knew he hated when I bossed him around. He was my partner, especially my partner in crime, but I there was no will from me to talk about that.

"You're not talking about that inside the palace because you're afraid he'll hear. Then we're doing the talking here!" He threw his phone on the table and for a moment I felt like we were like brothers fighting. Sergio's relationship with my dad was a very special one. They were always close. They always had a crush on each other and they had this need to protect one another that I couldn't actually understand. But just as how I liked to get drunk with Sergio, my dad loved that also. Sometimes, when I got into a fight with my ex-husband, we all met at my dad's house and drank ourselves to sleep. We loved to spend nights at our dad.

When I was younger and I had issues with opening my clinic, he was always there to help. He taught me everything I know. As a child, we used to be very rich. My dad had his own business and he worked in collaborations with a lot of health clinics and hospitals. One day he and my mom fell apart, they got divorced and things got very nasty. Because he couldn't handle things too well, everything got out of hand and we became very poor. We could barely afford to get a bread. Depression hit him, but since I was left with him, he always made sure I didn't feel that we were poor. I didn't. I always got what I needed. New clothes, school supplies, money to spend at school, bus tickets, food, books that I didn't need, but loved to read. Everything. All that I wanted, I used to get, even if he couldn't afford it, he made it possible.

And I was very thankful.

"I feel like I own him that." I sighed. "How will it go, Sergio? What am I supposed to say to Childeric? "Hello, wolfie, would you like to meet my dad?" How is that?" I also threw my papers at the table and I ran my fingers through my hair. I had this urge to push a little to calm myself down, but I knew I couldn't. Sergio kept an eye on me and there was no way I could get away with that.

We both burst into laughing. "Hello, wolfie" was not my greatest line. We usually cut the tension with laughing. We were both tired. Maybe we needed a small vacation. Only the two of us. On the beach, with cocktails in our hands, singing songs out loud covering the sounds made by the waves. With some hot chicks and guys getting us food and alcohol.

"Look, Irma, just call your dad first. See what he thinks about that." He said winking at me. He took his phone back and found his way out. I looked at the watch. He was late two minutes for his next patient. We needed to work on that, again!

Looking through the files in front of me I figured out I didn't spend enough time at work. There were a lot of things I had to fix, to sign and to take care of. First step was to make sure all of my staff was doing fine. They were not supposed to stay over their schedule and I needed to know if we needed more people. It was that time of the year when depression, anxiety and addictions ware blooming. Bad weather goes hand in hand with bad mental health. Our clinic was usually full during winter time. During summers, we only had people in therapy and some evaluations. Only a few of them were hospitalized. Ten people in total. Maximum.

Besides our staff, I had to make sure our collaborations were during well and our students were actually learning something. We had this thing that we didn't truly admit to the rest of the world. We threw them in a tank with sharks. When they see someone for the first time, we make sure they can't handle it. Because they all come full of themselves, thinking that learning everything from the book matters more than having to practice. They feel smarter than they should. It was more than great to see them having confidence, but they needed to act like psychologist. They needed to show empathy, they needed to understand every single one of their patients and not assume they know how to handle things from the first look. There was no book that could actually explain the how practice truly is.