'So maybe if you step back you can be objective and understand what I mean. About the need for efficiency.
Being realistic. In general, I'm finding doctors out in the private sector do understand.
Because running a practice is running a business. It's only the ones who live off the- But no matter. Getting back to what I was saying, about your involvement with my granddaughter. No one's got the gall to say her problems are in her head, do they?'
'I really can't talk about details, Chuck.'
'Why the hell not?'
'Confidentiality.'
'Chip and Cindy don't keep secrets from me.'
'I need to hear that from them. It's the law.'
'You're a tough one, aren't you?'
'Not particularly.' I smiled.
He smiled back. Linked his hands again. Drank hot water.
All right. This is your business and you have to stick to your own rules. Guess I've got to get some kind of permission note from them.'
'Guess so.'
He smiled wide. His teeth were severely misaligned and brown.
'In the meantime,' he said, 'am I allowed to talk to you?'
'Sure.'
He locked in on my face, studying it, with a mixture of interest and skepticism, as if it were a quarterly report. 'I'll just assume no one seriously thinks Cassie's problems are mental, because that's just too ridiculous.'
Pause. Assess. Hoping for a nonverbal clue?
I made sure not to move.
He said, 'So, the only other thing I can come up with to explain your getting involved is that someone thinks something's wrong with Cindy or Chip. Which is ridiculous.'
He sat back. Kept studying. A triumphant look came on his face. I was sure I hadn't even blinked. Wondered if he'd seen something or was just finessing.
I said, 'Psychologists aren't called in only to analyze, Chuck.
We also give support to people under stress.'
'Being a hired friend, huh?' He jiggled his nose again, stood, smiled.
'Well, then, bL a good friend. They're good kids. All three of them.'
I drove away trying to figure out what he'd been after and whether I'd given it to him.
Wanting me to see him as a concerned grandfather?
Chip and Cindy den't keep secrets from me.
Yet Chip and Cindy hadn't taken the trouble to inform him Cassie was being discharged. I realized that during all the contacts I'd had with both of them, his name hadn't come up once.
A tightly wound little man who was all business-even during our few minutes together, he'd mixed family matters with hospital affairs.
