Life After Perfect

by Nancy Naigle

  By the time they got outside, cars were lined up behind the hearse and limo, a processional so long that one car might be at the grave site while the end of the line was still here in the church parking lot.

  Would people even realize it was a processional as they drove across town? With daytime running lights, didn’t every row of cars kind of look like one? Lately it seemed like things moved so fast that nothing was clear anymore. Like pausing to reflect might somehow take too much time. She glanced at the people shifting with impatience as they waited for the line of cars to begin to move.

  Ron held the door as Katherine slipped into the passenger seat. He eased out, nosing his way between two other cars without even a thank-you nod. They weren’t any different than the rest of the people rushing through the sad day today. Ron pressed the accelerator and fell in line behind the others as they made their way across town. When they got to the cemetery, cars filled several of the dirt lanes, parking wherever they could.

  Ron pulled up as close to the canopy as he could get and then leaned over and laid a kiss on Katherine’s neck.

  “I’m going to dash,” Ron whispered into her hair.

  “What?”

  “I’ve got a meeting. I made my appearance. You can catch a ride home with Peggy or Shaleigh, can’t you?”

  She replayed his words, taking in what he’d just said. Made my appearance. No sorrow. A duty to be here. Why come, then?

  “Yeah. I can.”

  Had things really gotten to this point? That nothing was worthy enough to be more important than his commitment to his job? Somehow that seemed so wrong.

  Her eyes burned, but she wasn’t going to let him upset her further. Refused to. That service had left her wanting to cling closer to the one she loved, and yet here he was skipping off in a hurry to get to work.

  She picked up her purse, got out of the car, and stood there, a little disoriented.

  He rolled down the window and stage-whispered, “Love you, babe. I’ll see you tonight.” Then he pulled off.

  She turned around and walked along the dirt lane at Westlawn Gardens Memorial Park, falling in step with the others heading toward the burgundy funeral-home tent.

  From where she stood, she couldn’t even hear what was being said, and in an eerie way, it seemed overly quiet.

  Like even the birds had bowed their heads.

  Her chest clenched.

  She stepped back, taking in the rows and rows of headstones that surrounded them. Some with flowers, some bare and tired-looking. From here she could see the lovely casket spray she’d ordered for Bertie. Since Donald wasn’t a flower guy, Bertie chose to do something more personal. She was very specific, and Katherine had taken a legal pad with all the details, as well as a huge tackle box per Bertie’s request, to the florist. Katherine had thought the arrangement might turn out to be hideous, but it was actually quite beautiful, yet masculine, in a whimsical way.

  The blanket of white daisies lay atop bright green leaves that peeked out of the edges like the satin border on a blanket. Among the white flowers, hundreds of fluorescent fly-fishing lures sparkled in a rainbow of bright colors, the tiny feathers moving in the breeze and the shiny metal reflecting the light like a thousand tiny brave stars doing a forbidden dance in the daylight: a loving tribute to her outdoorsman husband.

  Her mind wandered. She couldn’t bear to listen to the preacher, thankful the graveside service was short and people were already starting to peel away.

  Conversational chatter filled the air as people hugged and shook hands.

  Peggy’s red hair stood out across the way. Katherine had always thought her own dark-blonde hair had a reddish hint until she saw a picture of herself next to Peggy. Now that was red hair. Tucker shook hands and patted shoulders, Peggy just moving in his wake.

  Katherine picked her way through the crowd toward the beautiful woman. Peggy had model beauty, the kind that made you take a second glance when she walked by. Actually, she didn’t walk as much as gently glide—a quality Katherine had often admired about her.

  “Lovely, wasn’t it?” Katherine said as she stepped next to Peggy.

  Peggy nodded, but seemed to be still working through the tears.

  “Broke my heart a little, too, and I never really knew Donald well. But Bertie is such a sweetheart,” Katherine said. “Can I catch a ride home with y’all?”

  “Where’s Ron?”

  Katherine hated explaining his absence, but she was getting good at it. Everyone knew he was a workaholic, so why people bothered to even ask anymore still puzzled her. “He had a meeting he had to get to.”

  “Well, at least he didn’t turn the funeral into a business opportunity.” Peggy pulled her lips into a tight line. “Like some people.” She glared at her husband over Katherine’s shoulder. “I drove separately. You can ride with me.”

  “Thanks.” Katherine stopped short as someone gave her an overambitious hug from behind. She wriggled from the hold and turned—Tucker Allen was all up in her space.

  Katherine caught the read on Peggy’s face. Tucker Allen was such a jerk. That stray cat had to be prowling other neighborhoods.

  “How’ve you been, Katherine?” Tucker said, coming alongside her and pulling her close again with an arm sliding too familiarly down her back.

  “I’m good, Tucker. Thanks for asking.” She took a step, buying herself some distance from him.

  He gave Peggy a nod. “I’m going back to the office. I’ll see you tonight.” He plastered that perfect white smile on his face and seemed to pause so no one would miss it. It was that same creepy grin he used in the commercials for his car dealership. “Ladies.” Then he turned and left. Unlike the used car salesman stereotype, though, Tucker Allen was an honest businessman. It was only his personal traits that were questionable.

  Katherine and Shaleigh shared a look. It was probably killing Shaleigh not to make a remark, but out of respect to Peggy, they just smiled and said goodbye. The women stood off to the side as the rest of the people made their way back to their cars.

  Peggy elbowed Shaleigh. “Katherine saw where Donald was funneling money to someone. Probably a mistress,” she said.

  Shaleigh rolled her eyes. “What’s it matter? If he did, I can guarantee it’s over now.”

  “That’s true,” Katherine said. “But it surprised me. I mean there were checks every single month. And I’m not talking a couple hundred bucks. They really added up. Whoever that Kim Elliona is, she had a good gig going with Donald.” Katherine looked around. “I wonder if she’s here.”

  “She wouldn’t show up here,” Peggy said. “Wouldn’t dare!”

  “Things aren’t always as they seem,” Shaleigh stated matter-of-factly.

  “You’re just jaded from your job,” Peggy said.

  “Probably,” Shaleigh said. “But you’re mistaken this time.”

  “What do you know?” Katherine asked.

  “Well, he’s dead and gone, so I’ll break the attorney-client privilege. Just between us, though. Donald came to me a while back. Not my area of expertise, but since we’re neighbors he was looking for advice about some money he wanted to give to the Chatahoochie Riverkeeper fund. That woman, Kim Elliona, is the chairman of the board of that foundation. She was not sleeping with the guy. I know that for a fact. If Donald was guilty of an affair it was with that river.”

  “Oh, well, thank goodness,” Katherine said, “because I was feeling pretty bad about a forty-one-year marriage that was based on lies. Although there were checks directly to the Chatahoochie Riverkeeper fund too. Those were normal contribution amounts. The amount of money Donald was funneling to that Kim Elliona was a whole lot more than just hobby money. I itemized it all out for Bertie, but I didn’t put her on the spot with any questions about it. I just didn’t know what to say.”

  Shaleigh said, “I’m pr
etty sure Donald was behind that whole thing with them stocking the river. Remember all the local controversy on that. Don’t know if you noticed, but he was usually one of the winners grinning with a trophy at those big corporate-sponsored tournaments hosted on the river. He probably knew all the right spots to fish.”

  “That doesn’t sound so awful. At least not compared to what I’d thought was going on,” Katherine said.

  “Don’t give the guy a medal.” Shaleigh shook her head. “He was doing it on the sly. You can best believe Bertie will be hot when she finds out that much money was going anywhere other than the foundation her family had set up. She’s the last of that family tree, and she takes that pretty seriously. If you ask me, it’s not so much different from stealing if you’re doing it without someone’s consent.”

  “Well, they were married, so he had a right to spend that money too,” Peggy said.

  Shaleigh rolled her eyes and then settled her gaze on Katherine. “If you ask Bertie about continuing those payments, I bet you’ll see a side of Bertie O’Connor you’ve never seen before.”

  Katherine’s stomach turned. If someone would keep something that minor a secret, what other secrets would he carry? “I don’t know, Peggy. We’re talking some significant money. Money that Bertie could use. She’s okay, but the money he siphoned off to feed his ego over fishing could have made her life a lot more comfortable long-term.”

  Why did death always seem to prickle her moral compass? Make her want everything in a tidy line like pretty little maids in a row. But she knew most people didn’t have the kind of life she did. Call it luck, hard work, or clean living, whatever it was, she was thankful for it.

  “What a day,” Peggy said. “Death is exhausting.”

  “Probably not for Donald,” Shaleigh said.

  “Shaleigh! You did not just say that.” But Katherine couldn’t hold back the laugh.

  Shaleigh crossed one black platform heel across her other and folded her arms across her blazer. “Hey, he didn’t have to even pick out an outfit, and someone else made sure he was here on time. Plus, whatever he’d been doing, he’s gotten away with it now.”

  Katherine had to admit, Shaleigh had a good point.

  Chapter Two

  The scent of antiseptic and adhesive hit Derek Hansen as he walked through the back door of the medical center. You’d think a doctor would get used to it, maybe not even notice the smell after a while. He wore boots, and his footsteps echoed through the empty space, like he were a cowboy walking off paces in a duel.

  The nurses back at Duke University Hospital used to tease him that they didn’t have to look up to know when he was coming down the hall. Even when he had the paper booties over them, his boots had a distinct sound.

  He missed the old gang, but his passion for his career at Duke changed when Laney got sick. So here he was, back in his hometown of Boot Creek, North Carolina, doing general practice. It was a far cry from the work he did at the cancer institute, but after losing Laney to the very disease he specialized in fighting, what good was it to treat a disease that fought you back on a personal level? It was like cancer had decided to even the score.

  The change of location and focus hadn’t dulled the loss of Laney though. He missed her. Every single day. Still, after nearly two years, he’d sometimes wake up and turn to her side of the bed, thinking she might be there, her hair sprawled across the pillow. And every time, that reminder dug into him—the wound just as raw and pink as the day he laid her to rest.

  Derek stopped in his office and snagged his white coat from the hook, pulling it on over his shirt and tie as he walked down the hall. In the small practice, the nurse, Wendy, ended up also playing receptionist most days.

  “Good morning, Wendy. How was your evening?”

  “Great. I went over to the annual open house night at Criss Cross Farm last night. I can’t believe how much they’ve done over there since last year. After bottle-feeding the calves, I might never eat a burger again.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” he said with a wink. She ate burgers nearly every single day of the week. Extra pickles. Not that she’d ever told him, but he could smell them when she ate at her desk.

  “You’re right, but those big brown-eyed babies were so sweet.” Her mouth twisted up a little. “Although it was kind of like giving a bottle to a grizzly bear. Nothing gentle about it. They are really strong at just a few days old.”

  The image of Wendy, barely five feet tall, wrangling a calf into submission with one of those giant bottles tickled him. “Glad you had a good time. I haven’t been over to the beefalo ranch since I’ve been back.” He tugged his ink pen out of the pocket out of habit. The same Montblanc that his dad had given him the day he graduated from medical school. “So what’s our morning look like?”

  “Not too busy if we don’t get many emergencies. A couple rechecks, labs, oh, and Jeb Crossley put his back out again. I told him to come in whenever he could make it.” She lifted a stack of charts and handed them to him.

  “Of course he did.” Derek shook his head. Jeb Crossley had been the wrestling coach back when Derek was on the team in junior high and that man refused to give in to the aging process. “What’s that? The third time this month?”

  “Fourth. He came in and saw your dad last week.”

  Jeb should ask for a frequent visitor discount. Derek would almost be obliged to consider it.

  Derek flipped through the first two charts. Routine stuff. Then he glanced at the next file. His gut twisted. “I’m going to look these over. Let me know when the first appointment arrives.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Back in his office he looked closer at the file on Kelly Jo Keefer. She was one of his dad’s patients. Cancer. Stage four. Derek’s teeth clenched. When cancer took Laney from him, he’d made the decision to transition back to a general practitioner.

  Researchers had made a lot of progress since he started in the field, but for all the new discoveries that would someday save lots of lives, the truth was the disease was relentless. For those needing a cure right now . . . it was hard to deliver the news that there still were not a lot of answers.

  Now his days were filled with vaccines, scrapes, and the occasional stitch or two. Things that would put a bother in your day, but for the most part weren’t life-threatening. And that was a much better place to be in his life right now.

  He sat back in his chair and read Kelly Jo’s chart until Wendy knocked on the door to let him know his first patient was ready.

  Just reviewing Kelly Jo’s chart, so like Laney’s, was already chafing those still unhealed two-year-old wounds.

  He saw the first four patients. A cold. A case of jock itch. Chiggers, and one sprained ankle.

  Then he tried to calm down his next patient’s mother, who was clearly more upset than her son was about his predicament.

  “I bet he can bear-ly breathe with this gummy bear up his nose,” Derek said, trying to put a light spin on the situation to calm down Ryan’s mom while he dug out the culprit. Finally, he got a grip on the squishy piece of candy and tugged it from the boy’s nostril. “A green one at that.”

  “Ryan? Why in the world do you keep doing this?” She gave an exhausted sigh. “Why couldn’t I have had girls?”

  Derek smiled at the irritated mother. “I think there’s a misconception that boys do this more than girls, but that’s not the case,” he said. “It’s common in kids under six. For items found in the ears, girls equal boys, but for the nose, it’s a two-to-one ratio in favor of girls.” He laughed. “It could’ve been worse.”

  Derek gave the five-year-old the speech about sticking foreign objects up his nose and then sent them on their way. Before seeing his next patient, Derek headed straight to his office, pulled open the left desk drawer, and chucked the bag of gummy bears stashed there right into the trash. “Won’t be eating any of th
ose again for a while.”

  The nurse knocked on his office door. “Mrs. Keefer is here. Room seven.”

  “Thanks, Wendy. I’ll be right there.” Derek took in a deep breath and counted to five.

  With the chart tucked under his arm, he walked down the hall and gave the door to Room 7 a quick double-knock. “Good morning, Mrs. Keefer.”

  “Hi.” The dark, bruised-looking rings under Mrs. Keefer’s translucent skin made her look fifteen years older than her thirty-one years.

  “Dr. Hansen is off today so I’ll be seeing you. I’m his son, Dr. Derek Hansen.” Derek’s being back allowed his mother to spirit his father away from the clinic on any number of couples’ trips.

  “Nice to meet you.” Even her smile took an effort.

  “You’re new in town?” he asked.

  “Staying with my Great-Aunt Naomi. She lives down at the creek.”

  “Mrs. Laumann is your aunt? I’m surprised you and I never met. I grew up around here. All of us used to hang out at the falls down near her place. Good lady.”

  “She is,” Kelly Jo said. “I only spent a couple of summers here. She speaks quite fondly of you, and your dad, of course. He’s been great.” She fidgeted, seeming to be as uncomfortable as he was.

  “Thank you. I think he’s pretty amazing. Now let’s take a listen to that heart.” He placed the ear tips of his stethoscope in his ears and pressed the diaphragm to her chest. “Good. Now a deep breath in.” He moved his stethoscope and closed his eyes, listening. “Another.

  “Lie back for me,” he said.

  He pressed his hands along her abdomen. “Any pain or discomfort?”

  She shook her head. “Just the normal stuff.”

  “The new medication helping with the nausea?” he asked, seeing his dad had switched medications for her after her previous visit.

  “Yes. Pretty much.” She showed hardly any emotion as he went through the examination and asked a few more questions.

  “Good.” He stepped back, and then sat down in the rolling chair; for a split second he felt like he was back in Raleigh with Laney at the point of no return. No more hope. Just waiting. That feeling, fear wrapped up in helplessness, surged like electricity through him. Making him want to run for safer ground. He took a moment to pull himself together as he checked off the updates on the report. “You can sit on up.” He forced what he hoped was at least half of a smile, and scanned the list to be sure he covered all that was expected in today’s visit. “Okay, I’m going to write your refills for you, and we’ll get those labs done today.”