I apologized, but the family was livid. Especially the elder son, a middle-age man with a diamond earring and a habit of jerking his head as he spoke, long blond hair flying. They had been in the E.R. more than six hours, he protested.
“I’m sorry you had to wait,” I apologized again.
The daughter — slim and soft-spoken — asked where I was from, adding, by way of explanation, “The accent.”
I was used to the question. “Nigeria,” I said, and apologized anew for my delay.
After that, I thought everything went well. But the next day, the son filed a complaint with the hospital administration. That was when I decided they did not like me. Maybe their father was too good to be cared for by a black man, an African no less, one they probably thought believed in the healing powers of rocks and trees and the voodoo dance. At least that was how one woman put it after I refused to prescribe antibiotics for a viral upper-respiratory infection.
From then, I had done my best to avoid the children, though I always called to update them on their father’s condition.
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