by Nella Tyler
As I pulled into the garage for our building, I thought to myself that I’d been neglecting an important part of Landon’s life for years; I had avoided talking about his mom, and I had avoided seeing anyone more than once or twice. He wants a mom. He needs a mom. A mom would have been good for him a couple of months ago when he broke his leg. I pushed aside my guilt; it didn’t do me any good to feel bad about it now. But it might be nice to start looking for another woman to share my life with—someone who could love Landon almost as much as I did, who wouldn’t replace his mother, but who could be a mother to him.
Chapter Seven
Mackenzie
“I wish I had time to sit around and drink coffee,” Amie said, walking up to my desk.
“You have time to come over here and complain that you don’t have time,” I pointed out, sticking my tongue out at her. Amie laughed.
“Like fifteen minutes. Next patient called to say she was going to be ten minutes late—apparently Jocelyn’s piano recital went over.”
“Because as we all know, piano is a million times more important than walking properly.” Amie rolled her eyes.
“So what turn of events made it possible for you to be sitting around drinking coffee?”
I shrugged, sitting back in my chair until it squeaked. “My two-thirty canceled on me,” I explained. “So I walked around the corner and grabbed a coffee to get me through the last few hours.”
“And you didn’t even think to ask me if I wanted something,” Amie said, shaking her head in mock disapproval. “What a bitch.”
I laughed.
“Yeah, well, you were busy. I didn’t want to look like I was slacking off.”
“Which you are,” Amie interjected.
“Well yeah. But I didn’t want to look like I was. So I sneaked out. Besides, didn’t I see you with a Starbucks cup yesterday afternoon?” Amie snorted. It was an open secret in the office that whoever had a cancelation was apt to run to either the closest café—a mom and pop place that had better regular coffee than fancy things like lattes—or to the Starbucks in the opposite direction. If we were slow then whoever ducked out for a few minutes would take orders from everyone else, but if we were busy it was important not to look like we were taking a break.
“How are your patients doing?” I patted the pile of files on my desk and sighed. One of my long-time patients, who’d been coming in three times a week for six months, was finally able to walk competently on her own. I had advised her mother that we should probably go to once-a-week sessions to increase the little girl’s balance and coordination, but the mother had seemed relieved enough that her daughter could walk unassisted that I doubted she’d follow through.
“I’ve got one who’s transitioning out of care,” I said, smiling slightly. “And Ruby-Lee is doing really well, making a lot of progress.”
“My Jeremy had a setback,” Amie said, her face settling into glum lines. “I was really rooting for him, but he had a bad weekend of seizures and now he’s lost a lot of progress.”
“I always hate when that happens.” I sighed with her; it was heartbreaking to bring a patient to the verge of being able to function, only to have something interfere. I reminded myself that if I’d stuck with elderly patients, or even general practice, I’d see a lot more of those cases—generally kids were much quicker to adapt, and faster to recover from setbacks.
“But Cassie is doing really well! I think she might actually be able to get clearance to start dance again in the New Year.”
We chatted about different patients for a while, comparing what we were doing, and picked apart an article in one of the journals that had found that alternating hot, cold, and electrical therapies had more efficacy than any of the individual therapies had alone. “As if we needed a study to tell us that,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’ve been doing that with the bad ones ever since I got my license to practice.”
“Well, but at least we can tell some of those anti-vax parents that there is proof,” Amie pointed out. We both made faces at the mere idea of anti-vaccine parents. More than a few of our patients that had come in over the months were ones whose parents had refused vaccines; when the babies got whooping cough or flu or something like that, their fevers climbed and they got brain damage that they had to spend years and years working through. I had told more than one of my former high school friends that if they refused to vaccinate their children I would never speak to them again; only a couple were stiff-necked enough to actually go against me, but I knew that there was a good chance that I’d end up seeing their kids in my practice, victims of brain damage or nerve damage from one disease or another.
I finished off my coffee, wishing I’d bought one of the delicious-looking apple pastries to go with it while I’d been in the café. “I have one patient that’s all good news,” I told Amie.
“Oh? Which?”
“Landon Willis. He’s making tons of progress.”
Amie laughed. “Imagine that. When his dad brought him in late that first session you were sure that he’d be one of those that fell through the cracks.”
“Well I had reasons to believe that!” I wagged my finger at Amie. “How often does a parent bring their kid in late for an evaluation and then go on to be even halfway decent about follow-through in their therapy?”
“True,” Amie said, nodding. “So he’s a decent dad?”
“He’s really decent,” I told her. “Really worried about his son. Wants to do everything right.”
“And he’s hot,” Amie pointed out. “That’s always helpful.” I rolled my eyes at her, chucking my coffee cup into the trash bin. “Ooh—is he single?”
“Yes,” I admitted, and I felt my cheeks burning up with a blush.
“Look at that! Oh man you’ve got it for him, don’t you?”
“He’s a patient’s father,” I protested. “I can’t have anything for him other than a respect for the fact that he’s taking good care of his kid.”
“You can have the hots for him just fine,” Amie said. “There was a guy like…a year ago. He was so hot. He looked like Brad Pitt from like twenty years ago. I could barely keep my mind on work when his daughter came in for her sessions. I kept thinking of all the ways the equipment could come in handy for sex.”
“You’re terrible!” I shook my head. “There are kids using those machines.”
“It’s not like I’m saying I’d use it to have sex with them!” Amie looked at me wide-eyed with pretend shock. “But it’s the same equipment we’d use on an adult, most of the time. And you can’t tell me the TENS unit wouldn’t be fun to play with if you found the right open-minded guy.”
“You are depraved.” I shook my head again. “Don’t you have like, two boyfriends right now? Why are you peeking at patients’ parents?”
“Greener pastures, girl,” Amie said. “I’m always on the lookout for a better option.”
“So you’re never going to be happy with what you’ve got,” I told her. “Because you’re going to keep looking for a hotter, sexier guy. You could land Brad Pitt himself and you’d still look—and waste all that Brad Pitt hotness.”
“I’m not saying I’m not happy with what I have,” Amie told me, holding up a hand to forestall me saying anything. “I’m just saying that if a better option shows up, I’m on board.” She looked me up and down, her lips twisting into a weird half-smile. “I think your problem is that you’re not looking at all.”
“That’s not fair!” I gestured to my cluttered desk. “I’m crazy busy all the time.”
“So am I, but there are these things called phones. You can use them while you’re doing other things. They even have apps that let you find people who are interested in meeting up and maybe hooking up.”
“I don’t want to just hook up with someone,” I said, frowning. “I want to find someone I can really have a relationship with.”
“They have apps for that too. Girl, you must be getting desperate if you’re getting all worked
up over a patient’s parent.”
“I’m not getting worked up over him!” My cheeks burned even hotter. “I swear to god—they’re coming in later, and if you even look at me while they’re here I’ll beat the hell out of you.”
“You are hot for him,” Amie said, looking at me a little more seriously. “Not that I blame you. He’s totally got the goods.”
“That’s not the point,” I said, sighing. “It’s unethical.”
“That makes it even hotter,” Amie told me, raising an eyebrow. “That little bit of risk of what might happen if it gets out.”
“Nothing is going to happen. He’s not even interested in me, not even a little bit.” I shrugged. “He’s a nice guy, he’s taking good care of his son. He works all the time anyway, according to Landon, so it’s not like he’s looking for a relationship in general.”
“Well I think you’d be cute together,” Amie said, her voice teasing. “I better up there. My patient’s probably finally showed up.”
I watched her leave. I don’t have a crush on Patrick. He’s just a nice, cute guy. I shook my head. The one time he’d called me he’d been interested in finding out something about his son; even if we’d had a quick personal conversation on top of it, it hadn’t been like he’d tried to flirt with me or anything. A man as responsible as Patrick was wouldn’t rush to date someone anyway; he’d want to wait until he knew that the girl he was seeing would be a good influence on Landon—which was how it should be. Besides, he’s good looking and has money. It’s not like he’s got a shortage of people who’d like to play Landon’s step-mom.
I spent the rest of my impromptu break thinking about Landon and Patrick Willis, and trying to focus on the next patient that I had coming in. He was a little boy with cerebral palsy, who had moved to the city recently and had already had years of physical therapy in the hopes of managing his health problems more effectively. I knew his parents hoped that he might eventually be able to walk completely unassisted, but from the progress he’d made so far I thought that the boy would need to have a walker or possibly even a wheelchair at his disposal for the rest of his life. There was a limit to what we could accomplish; that fact was something that a lot of parents didn’t want to believe.
Patrick, at least, had come in with realistic expectations, I thought as I pulled up the patient chart for the little boy with cerebral palsy. I thought—though I wasn’t going to say it yet, at least not to Patrick—that Landon might actually be able to take a week or two off of his therapy at the end of the scheduled sessions. I might be able to transition him to twice-per-week sessions by early January, and get him finished up before Valentine’s Day. That would please both of them; but I didn’t want to suggest it before I was absolutely sure. It was always a terrible idea to suggest that a kid might recover faster, only to have a setback arise or to see him or her hit their plateau sooner than you thought they would. But I looked forward to seeing the widower and his son, whether or not I wanted to think of how cute Patrick was.
Chapter Eight
Patrick
I told myself that there was nothing different about the latest session with Mackenzie, that Landon was just the same as he had always been and so was Mackenzie, but ever since Landon had asked me if I thought Mackenzie looked like his mother, something had been eating at the back of my mind. I sat on one of the benches, watching the two of them as they went through one exercise after another, talking like they always did. She doesn’t look anything like Joanne. Nothing at all. I watched Mackenzie guiding Landon through another exercise, encouraging him with her soft voice full of enthusiasm. “You’re doing great, Landon,” I heard her say, patting my son on the shoulder. “Two more of these and we can take a break.”
Landon told Mackenzie about his school day as he caught his breath, and I listened in too, even though I’d gotten all the news from him as we’d driven to the center from the school only a few minutes before. “One of the third graders said that Jessie is my girlfriend,” Landon told her; that was one thing he hadn’t mentioned to me.
“Oh? Did you ask him why he thought that?”
“He said it was because I always spend recess with her, and I share my afternoon snack with her.” Landon made a face. “She’s just nice.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Mackenzie advised him. “I doubt that third grader boy even know what he’s talking about.”
“But he’s so much bigger and older!”
Mackenzie shrugged. “I’m bigger and older than him, aren’t I?”
Landon considered the question and then nodded and I stifled a little laugh. “You must know a lot more about boyfriends and girlfriends then,” my son concluded.
“I know a little bit,” Mackenzie admitted. My heart beat a little faster in my chest with a kind of dread; I just knew Landon was going to ask a question that I’d have to talk Mackenzie’s way out of. “I’ve had a few boyfriends in my time.”
“Did you share your toys with them?”
Mackenzie laughed, leading Landon over to a new machine. “When I had toys to share, yes, I did,” she said, nodding sagely. “But a boyfriend or girlfriend is really just a special kind of friend, a different friend. Is Jessie different from your other friends?”
“Not really,” Landon said after thinking about the question for a moment. “She’s just a normal friend.”
“Then she’s probably not your girlfriend,” Mackenzie said. I didn’t know why, but I was glad she wasn’t taking the tactic of telling my son that he was too young to have a girlfriend; that was exactly where most people’s heads would have gone—hell, it as where mine went—but the way she was explaining it to him made so much more sense, and she dodged the issue of things that weren’t right for him to know yet. She works with kids all day, I reminded myself. She probably hears all kinds of talk about boyfriends and girlfriends, especially in the older kids. There were a couple of pre-teens in the area with us, working on balancing exercises, and I could tell that the girl was making eyes at the boy.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
My stomach dropped to my knees at the question. Oh god, Landon… it was exactly the kind of question that I’d hoped Mackenzie’s explanation would avoid. I’d hoped that Landon would move onto something else before he thought to ask it.
“Landon, that’s not a good question,” I started to say. “Mackenzie is…” but she glanced at me, humor in her big, bright eyes, and held up a hand.
“It’s okay,” she said, laughing a little bit. “I don’t mind being asked about it. Kids are always curious. I’d rather have kids asking me than adults anyway.” She turned back to pay attention to Landon. “I don’t have a boyfriend right now,” she told him. “Can you hop on up here for me?” Landon did as he was told, and in minutes they were back on task, the question of Mackenzie’s love life forgotten.
Except by me. I wondered why Mackenzie was single; was it by choice? She was a beautiful woman, and obviously patient and kind, as well as smart. If I had ever really thought about it, I would have probably just assumed that she was seeing someone—maybe someone in medicine like she was, who would understand her stress and her lifestyle. A guy would have to be really special to deserve a woman like that. If she wasn’t single by choice, then what was wrong with her? She didn’t seem to have any red flags—no crazy vibe to her, nothing awkward about the way she talked to either me or Landon. She seemed fine.
I made myself forget about the question and focus on what Landon and Mackenzie were doing. I thought she might be going through some evaluation of him even while they went through the exercises together; she kept looking at a clipboard and marking things off on it that I couldn’t see. I couldn’t help but wonder what verdict she was coming to.
Landon was full of energy, and he got through the exercises easily; even the stretches that normally bored him. He asked Mackenzie about a wide array of subjects as they went through the session—but thankfully he didn’t touch on the subject of her single status ever ag
ain. In spite of what she’d said, I couldn’t imagine that Mackenzie was really all that okay with the fifth degree about her love life. I knew I’d get irritated if it came up for me.
Instead, they chatted about movies and video games.
“I don’t really play that much anymore,” Mackenzie admitted. “But I was a total champ when I was in school.”
“What kind of games do you like to play?” Landon had only liked video games a little bit before his broken leg; but I’d bribed him with a few new games when he’d had to keep off of his leg for a few days, so I could get him to stay on the couch with his leg propped up to help it heal. Ever since then he’d been more and more into them.
“I like puzzle games,” Mackenzie said.
“Dad likes those! Don’t you dad?”
I laughed, standing up and joining them at one of the machines. “I like all kinds of games,” I said. “I even like card games.”
“Dad is so good at Uno,” Landon told Mackenzie. “I can only beat him sometimes, not all the time.”
“Well that’s pretty impressive then,” Mackenzie said, glancing at me. I could see she was fighting back the urge to laugh. “I could never beat my dad. But my mom was always really easy to beat—she hated to make people mad at her by making us draw four or anything like that.”
“I love those cards,” Landon said excitedly. “I win by using them every turn for like, five turns!”
“That will definitely help you out,” Mackenzie agreed. “Not a bad strategy. Maybe I’ll use that the next time I play against my dad.”
Eventually the session came to a close and Mackenzie gave Landon permission to use the restroom as she went back to her desk. “I’m really pleased with Landon’s progress,” she told me, sitting down.
“He seems to be doing well,” I agreed. I felt weirdly awkward and didn’t know why; I’d been attracted to many women before, it wasn’t like Mackenzie was any different. You’re awkward because Landon asked the weird question. That’s the only reason.