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His phone rang at five thirty in the morning. To absolutely no one's surprise who knew him, Dennis's strict routine meant he never had to hit snooze.
For him, Mondays weren't actually that bad. Waking Amelia up was never a fight, and he never had to battle her into her clothes or beg her to finish breakfast, while he finished packing her lunch: carrot sticks, strawberries skewered on little decorative picks, and a chicken and veggie sandwich cut into the shape of a bear.
They both left the apartment calmly, right as the noise from 4AB reached them.
Dennis shut the door behind them just as a fresh round of shouting broke out down the hall.
"Dad! I can't find my shoes!"
"Hazel, please finish your breakfast!"
"Whoever has my phone charger better hand it over right now if they don't want me to strangle them."
"Leon, please! You're not Spiderman. Get down from there."
"You called Leo 'Leon'! Are you mad at him?"
"No, Oliver. I called him Leon because that's his name. Hazel, sweetie! Don't feed Pickles cereal, damn it."
The other nice thing about starting the week was that he wouldn't have to deal with that racket again for a good while. Amelia, on the other hand, glanced up at the door of 4AB with a small smile before falling back into step beside him.
He dropped Amelia off at school. He only had a half shift that day, so he'd be the one picking her up after class instead of Paula.
He got to the hospital half an hour before his shift and started catching up on the pediatric cases that had come up from the ER. The third floor was way calmer than the Pitt. He'd done a rotation downstairs back when he was an MS4 and figured nothing could top the awful first day he'd had down there. Then his residency started, and his visits to the first floor became nothing more than a brief headache before he got to go back to the calm of pediatrics and neonatology.
"I heard today's Dr. Al-Hashimi's last day," he heard Connie, one of the nurses, say.
"Yeah, the new head of the ER starts today. Hopefully he's just as organized. Before her, everything was chaos under Abbot." Malik, another nurse, was typing away at one of the computers.
Dr. Al-Hashimi was incredible. Dennis knew Trinity Santos had butted heads with her plenty during her second year of residency, but over time even his best friend had adjusted enough to stop bolting whenever she saw Baran walking down the hall.
Still, after five years of holding the ER together through a national crisis and boosting patient satisfaction scores, Baran had decided to take a break and volunteer with Doctors Without Borders.
Dennis barely paid attention to the conversation. Administrative changes in the Pitt didn't really touch pediatrics. At most, Haleh, the charge nurse, might have to argue on the phone with Dana from the ER over some mix-up with a patient transfer.
"Did they announce who's taking over yet?" a first-year resident asked.
"Asking admin to actually announce things? Good luck with that." The head of pediatrics walked by, chiming in without slowing down. "We'll probably find out in six months, once Baran's already back."
Dennis just listened with a small smile. Trinity would definitely be texting him gossip about the new chief before long.
The first two hours of his shift were easy. Luckily, all he had to do was check on newborns cleared for discharge and look in on a few post-op kids who already looked much better than when they'd come in. As far as Dennis was concerned, any shift where he didn't have to deliver bad news counted as a good one.
By ten in the morning, Connie had already warned him they needed a pediatrician down in the ER. He didn't really want to admit they'd played rock-paper-scissors to decide who'd go, but that's exactly what happened, and he had the bad luck of picking scissors against two rocks.
Dennis loved his job in pediatrics. He also loved the safe distance that existed between his floor and the Pitt.
"What do we have here?" he asked, walking into the room and pulling on gloves. He hadn't clocked who was inside until he heard his best friend's voice.
"Well, if it isn't Huckleberry! To what do we owe the pleasure?" Trinity used that dumb nickname she'd pinned on him five years ago. Dr. Santos didn't wait for an answer and launched straight into the case. "Nicholas Hitch, seven years old. Four days of fever, productive cough, and worsening breathing trouble since last night. His pediatrician saw him yesterday, called it viral, and sent him home, but he woke up a lot worse today."
Dennis walked up to the bed while the boy breathed with visible effort. "Hi, Nick, how are you doing? I'm Dr. Whitaker."
"Sating eighty-nine percent on room air. On two liters by cannula he's up to ninety-five," Princess reported, flashing Dennis a big smile.
"X-ray?" Dennis carefully moved the stethoscope over the boy's chest.
"Right lower lobe consolidation. Consistent with pneumonia. Labs show leukocytosis and elevated CRP. We already drew blood cultures and started empiric antibiotics."
"How's he been doing since he got here?"
"Much better. His breathing rate came down, but he's still got mild subcostal retractions. No more vomiting, and he's tolerating small sips of water now."
Dennis finished listening to his lungs and looked back at the x-ray still up on the monitor. He was about to speak when a new voice cut in.
"I'd admit him now." The voice sounded vaguely familiar. He figured it belonged to some overnight resident or one of the new interns.
Without turning around, he looked back at the film, as if a second glance might convince him of something else.
"I'm not so sure yet. He's only been on oxygen for an hour and he's already saturating a lot better. I'd like to see how he does for a bit longer before deciding on admission." He didn't hear a quick reply, so he finally bothered to turn around and see who was arguing with him.
Of all the people who could have been standing on the other side of that bed, Michael Robinavitch was probably the last one he expected.
If losing at rock-paper-scissors had already felt like bad luck, finding out that his loud, wildly unorthodox neighbor worked at PTMC bordered on cruelty.
Robby stood with his arms crossed, keeping a polite distance from the patient. He wore dark blue scrubs, perfectly pressed, and had the same calm expression he'd had days earlier when he thanked Dennis for the fruit basket.
"That's the new Chief of Emergency, Dr. Robinavitch," Princess murmured while adjusting the boy's nasal cannula.
Robby held Dennis's gaze for a few seconds before looking back at the boy.
"I don't doubt he'll keep improving. Honestly, I hope he does. But if we're being real, I don't think this kid's going home today." Dennis stayed quiet. Robby kept going. "Right now we've got an observation bed tied up with a patient whose next step is already pretty clear. If we admit this one to pediatrics, you guys can keep monitoring him exactly the same way, and I get a bed back for the next kid who walks through that door."
Then he looked back down at the young patient and smiled warmly.
"And if in two hours it turns out I was being overly cautious, I promise I'll take all the teasing you want to give me, here or at home."
Dennis wasn't sure what bothered him more: finding out his neighbor was the new head of the ER, or the fact that he'd said that like they'd been friends forever. Because that comment was definitely going to start a wave of gossip through the whole building.
"Dr. Robinavitch, if you already had the plan figured out from the start, I don't understand why you called for a pediatric consult." He held his gaze. "When you call in a specialist, I think the right thing to do is let them actually do their job."
Trinity's eyes flicked between them. Princess stopped checking the monitors, and even the boy's mother seemed to sense something was going on between the two doctors.
"That's exactly why I called you instead of just deciding myself." There was no challenge in his voice, just a calm that was almost more irritating for it. "My job is to tell you where things stand in the ER. Yours is to tell me what the patient needs."
He looked back down at the boy. He was breathing better than when he'd arrived, sure, but he still needed oxygen. The x-ray wasn't going to change in the next few minutes. Neither was the fact that he'd had a fever for four days straight, or that he'd probably need IV antibiotics for at least the first twenty-four hours.
"Fine. I'll put in the admission request." He said it after an almost invisible sigh, like it physically pained him to admit Robby was right. Honestly, following his lead didn't sit easy with him at all.
Trinity's eyebrows went up slightly, surprised her best friend was actually giving in. Robby just nodded.
"Thanks, Dennis." He started peeling off his gloves as he headed for the door. As he passed by, Dennis spoke before he could leave.
"I'd appreciate it if, here at the hospital, you called me Dr. Whitaker." The request caught everyone off guard. Dennis was usually pretty easygoing about how people addressed him. But there was something about Robby that got under his skin.
Robby stopped. He looked at him for a second, like he was processing the request. Then he gave a small smile.
"Fair enough. My apologies, Dr. Whitaker."
With that, they both left the room and went back to their shifts as if the whole exchange had never happened.
Aside from Trinity's nonstop texts asking him what the hell that had been about, the rest of the day went pretty normally. He treated Nick, two other kids with pneumonia, and an infant with bronchiolitis.
Before he knew it, it was already two in the afternoon. He said goodbye to his coworkers and left the hospital hoping that, after two less than lucky run-ins with Michael Robinavitch, the rest of the day might actually go smoothly.
Amelia was already waiting for him, backpack on. The second she saw him, she put away the book she'd been holding and ran over. Dennis scooped her up in a hug and kissed the top of her head.
"How was your day, Mellie?"
That one simple question kicked off twenty minutes of nonstop stories on the walk home. Amelia told him about a science class she'd loved, a project she already wanted to start, and a kid from another class who'd smuggled a lizard into school in his backpack.
Dennis listened to every single story with total attention. He asked questions, reacted to what she told him, and smiled every time she got more excited. Then, all of a sudden, her eyes went wide, like she'd just remembered the biggest news of the day.
"Oh! And guess who I ran into!"
"Who?" Dennis braced for basically any answer except the right one. He pictured some classmate from last year, a kid from preschool, or maybe even a teacher Amelia had liked.
Amelia beamed. "Oliver! Turns out he's my new classmate now! Isn't that great?"
Dennis narrowed his eyes just slightly. For a second he wondered if Amelia was messing with him. It seemed impossible that, in under a week, the universe had decided to tangle his life up with that family in so many different ways. But his daughter's innocent smile made it clear she was just as surprised as she was excited. Unfortunately, it really was just a coincidence. A deeply unfortunate one.
He was still searching for the right thing to say to his daughter, who was clearly waiting for him to be just as thrilled as she was, when his phone buzzed with a notification.
It was simply confirmation that this Monday had, in fact, been a mistake from the moment he opened his eyes.
Unknown Number has been added to the group 4th Grade - Ms. Toledo.
Patty Miller (Cleo's mom)
Welcome!! oliver's dad
The message was followed by an endless string of greetings and welcome emojis. Finally, the new arrival's reply showed up.
Unknown Number
Hey everyone thanks so much!! Im robby, can't wait to meet u all at the next parent meeting!
He ended the message with a dumb winking emoji.
Dennis stared at the screen for a few seconds. Then he slowly locked his phone. The universe, without a doubt, had a terrible sense of humor.
Who would've guessed that, two years later, he and Michael would end up signing a workplace relationship disclosure form, and walking into those exact same parent meetings hand in hand.