by Gina Wilkins
“Casey’s welcome to come over. And you can spend the night at Tiff’s as long as at least one of her parents will be there to supervise,” he said automatically. “And don’t worry about me, kiddo. I can entertain myself for a few hours when you have other plans. You don’t have to take care of me, either,” he added in an attempt at levity.
She didn’t smile. “Mom said you might be worried that if you start seeing someone seriously, I’d get upset if it didn’t work out. When I bought the scarf for Meagan, she warned me not to get too upset if you and Meagan were to get together and then break up or something because most relationships don’t work out, anyway. Especially when both people have busy careers, like you and mom did, or you and Meagan do now. So if you’re worried about that, don’t, Dad. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to get hurt or anything, but sometimes these things do work out, you know? Tiff’s parents are still together, and they both have careers. Her mom owns a boutique and she’s there like seven days a week, and her dad does something at a bank, I think.”
“Alice—” It sounded to him as though his daughter and his ex-wife had done entirely too much talking about his personal life.
He didn’t want to fuss at Alice, really, because it was only natural for her to talk about her life during the month she’d spent with her mom, but Colleen shouldn’t have encouraged talk about things that were really none of her business, no matter how helpful she’d considered herself being. Had it made her feel less culpable about their failed marriage to predict that he wouldn’t be able to sustain a relationship with anyone else, either?
He had no intention of letting his ex find out that his most recent attempt had crashed and burned, too. He would never let either Alice or Colleen know that the sting of this failure could stay with him for a while, making him very unlikely to try again anytime soon. He had allowed himself to fall too hard for Meagan. Let himself start believing in things he’d given up on a long time ago. And it had hurt to watch those renewed fantasies disintegrate around him, especially since he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done wrong this time. He should have just stuck to his resolve to date only rarely, and then on a strictly casual and temporary basis.
“Just saying, Dad.”
“Thanks,” he said wryly, “but let’s just leave things as they are for now, shall we? You and Meagan can still be friends, when you both have time to get together, but that’s something the two of you started before I even met her, remember? So go ahead and call her, if you want, to see if she’s home. I’ve got a few emails to return and then we can go out to dinner whenever you’re ready.”
She sighed, but seemed to get the message that he didn’t want to talk about this any more for now. He started to turn back toward the house, then paused. “Oh, and Alice? Do not mention anything along these lines to Meagan, got it? No hinting that she and I should go out or anything like that. Nothing you and your mother talked about concerning me and relationships. Just tell her about your trip and leave me out of it.”
His daughter rolled her eyes and that was one gesture that hadn’t changed in the least while she was away. “Geez, Dad, give me some credit, will you?”
“Just saying.”
Shaking her head in response to his repetition of her, she turned away. “Go answer your email. I’ll give Waldo some fresh water before I come in to call Meagan.”
Hoping this topic was behind them now, though he wouldn’t be surprised if it cropped up again occasionally, he went inside, leaving his daughter pouting behind him.
“Alice, this scarf is lovely. I’ll treasure it—but you really didn’t have to bring me anything from your trip.”
The girl seemed pleased by Meagan’s reaction to the gift. “I didn’t spend a lot for it,” she said with the artless candor Meagan had come to expect from her. “But I thought it looked like something you’d like. I’ve seen you wear that color green before.”
“It’s one of my favorite colors,” Meagan assured her, running the silky fabric through her fingers. “Thank you.”
“Well, you’ve been so nice to us. Rescuing Waldo and helping us with Nina and helping us find Jacqui and all. I wanted to do something nice for you, too.”
Touched, Meagan set the scarf aside and reached out to give the girl a quick hug. “This was a very nice gesture. I’ll wear it proudly.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
Meagan motioned toward the little red netbook computer Alice had set on the table. “I can’t wait to see all your pictures. I’m glad you brought them with you.”
“Dad told me not to bore you with them, because I took a lot, but I’ll show you my favorites and if you get bored, you can just say so.”
Meagan held her smile firmly in place. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy them.”
They sat side by side at the table, the netbook arranged where both could see the little screen. Meagan had made herbal tea for them and set out some cookies for Alice to munch on while they caught up. Meagan made appropriately admiring noises over the snapshots passing on the screen at a medium speed. Most of the photos were quite good; Alice was a competent photographer for her age. Quite a few of the shots featured her mother.
Meagan couldn’t help but study those pictures of Colleen a bit more closely than the European landmarks and countryside. She was a little taken aback at her first sight of Seth’s ex-wife. She hadn’t expected Colleen to be quite so striking.
Alice had gotten her brown eyes from her mother, but where Alice’s were a warm mahogany, Colleen’s were almost black. Slightly almond shaped—an impression likely enhanced by skillful makeup. Alice’s curls came from Seth’s side of the family; Colleen’s hair was a luxurious mane of chestnut waves. Like Meagan herself, Colleen probably resorted to salons for the color but it looked quite natural and attractive. She was slender to the point of thinness, dressed in fashionable dark colors, and looked competent, intelligent and successful.
Though Alice had inherited a few of her father’s features, Meagan saw signs in Colleen of the woman Alice would become once she’d left adolescent awkwardness behind. At least physically. Meagan didn’t know exactly how much Alice resembled her mother in other ways.
Meagan had been home from her mom’s house only fifteen minutes when Alice had called half an hour ago to ask if she could come over with the gift and her pictures. Looking forward to seeing the girl again, Meagan had agreed with pleasure. She wasn’t surprised when Alice had shown up alone, nor had Meagan extended a specific invitation for Seth to accompany her. Not that she would have turned him away, of course.
“It looks like you had a wonderful time,” she said after half an hour of admiring the slideshow. “You were probably reluctant to return home.”
“I had a fantastic time, but I was ready to come back. I missed my dad and Waldo and my friends. I missed you, too,” Alice added a little shyly.
“I missed you, too,” Meagan assured her—and she was being honest, she assured herself. It was nice to see the girl’s sweet smile again, to laugh with her and hear her cheery chatter. Those weeks alone with Seth had been blissful, but the days just hadn’t seemed quite complete even to Meagan without having Alice there at some point.
“I was afraid my dad would be really lonely with me gone.” Alice’s tone was just a bit too casual as she reached out to close the lid on her computer. “I heard you and he had dinner a few times. I’m glad he had you to keep him company.”
“He, um, told you that?”
“Well, I asked if he’d seen you and he said yes, a few times.”
He wouldn’t lie to his daughter, Meagan thought. But he wouldn’t have told her the whole truth about those weeks, either, of course.
“Yes, we visited a few times when neither of us had other plans.” There. That sounded quite friendly and casual. “Can I get you any more tea, Alice? Or something else? I have juice and soda.”
“No, thank you, I’ve had plenty. Dad said I have to be home by six because we’re going out for dinner.”
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“That will be nice.”
“You could come with us.”
Meagan doubted that Seth would have appreciated Alice extending the invitation without consulting him first—and she would bet that there had been no such consultation. “Thank you for asking, but no. I have a few things to do here this evening to prepare for work tomorrow.”
“I understand that you have to work a lot, you know. You’ve got lives to save. That’s really important.”
Meagan wasn’t sure what to say. “Um, yes. My job does require long hours, but I think it’s important, too. And I love doing it.”
“It’s good to love what you do. It makes you happy, and when you’re happy, the people who love you are happy.”
Maybe this oblique conversation had little to do with Seth. Maybe Alice was referring to her mother, perhaps implicitly defending Colleen’s choice to pursue her dreams so far from her only child. “That’s right. I hope you’ll love being an orthodontist—or whatever you ultimately choose to do—as much as I love being a surgeon, and your parents enjoy practicing law in their own fields.”
“I just wanted to say that, you know, I don’t have a problem with you working so much. It doesn’t hurt my feelings or anything when you can’t do something because you have to save someone’s life. I just like seeing you when you have some time.”
“Um, thank you, Alice. I enjoy seeing you, too. Maybe you’d like to come for a swim next Sunday afternoon? I should be here for a few hours then. Of course, you’re free to use the pool whether I’m here or not, as long as there’s someone with you. I don’t want you to ever swim alone.”
The look Alice gave her held exasperation, as if she wondered whether Meagan was being deliberately obtuse. Meagan could have told her it was no act. She wasn’t at all sure what the girl was getting at.
Alice looked as though she wanted very much to say something else, but after what appeared to be a mental struggle, she sighed and picked up her computer. “Okay. I’d better go. But just so you’ll know, I’ve got a very busy summer ahead, myself. You know, swim team and hanging out with my friends and stuff. Dad will probably be on his own quite a bit. Now that I’m old enough to have my own life and stuff, you know.”
Well, it couldn’t be more clear than that. Meagan had a feeling Seth would not be happy that Alice was still trying to push them together. She wasn’t particularly comfortable with the girl’s machinations, herself.
Pretending to still be oblivious to Alice’s hints, Meagan walked her to the door where she thanked her again for the scarf and promised to see her again soon. Alice was shaking her head a little when she walked down the sidewalk toward her house and Meagan could almost see the girl thinking, “Grown-ups!”
Though she doubted Alice would appreciate the over-protective gesture, Meagan stood in the doorway watching until the girl was safely home. Only then did she go back inside her own house and close the door.
A few days later, Meagan returned home from work at almost ten o’clock at night. She’d been detained at the hospital by a procedure that had taken almost an hour longer than expected that afternoon. Almost before she’d finished with that patient, another patient had been rushed into an O.R. with a complication from surgery the day before. Meagan had to rush to scrub, making an almost superhuman attempt to save the crashing patient’s life.
When she left the hospital after several hours of painstaking reconstruction, she still wasn’t sure her efforts had been successful. She would not have been at all surprised if her patient did not survive the night. As much as she truly hated to admit it, there were times when all her training and skills simply weren’t enough.
Hungry and bone weary, she braked for her driveway. It was raining hard, as it had been all day, and she had to peer through the thumping wipers to see the turn through the downpour. She glanced automatically across the street to a house where warm lights glowed through the storm. She could just see the blue flicker of a TV screen in one window. Perhaps Seth and Alice were watching together in the dry shelter of their cozy den. Seth enjoyed eating popcorn and watching movies on his big TV.
Meagan pictured him and Alice sitting on the sofa laughing at something silly on the screen and mentally inserted herself into the picture, snuggled up with them. The fleeting fantasy did nothing to lighten her mood as she dragged herself into her kitchen and opened the fridge to make a cold sandwich. She was much too tired to cook anything.
She missed him—them, she corrected herself quickly. She enjoyed being with them. But she didn’t belong in that picture. Seth and Alice had been a tight unit long before Alice stumbled into Meagan’s backyard. She wouldn’t be the one to disrupt the dynamics of that cozy household, to risk bringing pain and disappointment into a little family that had already seen its share.
Even as that noble thought crossed her mind for at least the dozenth time in as many hours, she wondered if all her posturing about protecting Alice was really just a smokescreen. More and more, she was beginning to suspect that it wasn’t only Alice she was trying to shield from pain and disappointment. Nor Seth.
It seemed that for all her confidence in the operating room, she was quite the coward when it came to risking her heart. For years, she’d used her training and then her practice as an excuse for not letting down her guard. Was she now using Alice?
A rumble of thunder rattled her windows, followed by another gust of rain. Setting her sandwich aside only half eaten, she wandered into her bedroom and lay fully clothed on top of the covers. She should probably call her mother before it got any later, check on her grandmother. She had a few reports to look through, some notes to dictate. But she was so darned tired. How could she possibly add anything more to her already frantic schedule? And if she tried and failed, how many people would she hurt? How deeply would she suffer, herself?
Closing her eyes, she turned her face into the pillow. If failure hurt any worse than this lonely ache, she wasn’t at all sure she could survive it.
Scrubbed and gloved, Meagan was just preparing to begin a simple lap appy early the next afternoon when her phone rang. Draped and snoozing, the patient lay on the table surrounded by the surgical team waiting for Meagan to begin. A third year medical student shifted restlessly as he waited for directions and undoubtedly hoped he wouldn’t embarrass himself or earn the surgeon’s or resident’s censure. Meagan could hear the resident already giving instructions, warning the student about breaking the field or other operating room transgressions.
Because she hadn’t yet started, she took the call, just in case it was important. She didn’t receive many calls on her personal phone during her working hours, since her friends and family didn’t want to disrupt her schedule. She didn’t want to descrub, so she had the floater nurse hold the phone to her ear while Meagan kept her sterile hands carefully elevated. “Hello?”
“Meagan?” The young voice was choked with tears, hardly recognizable. “It’s Alice.”
“Alice? What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
The room went quiet behind her when the chatting team heard the instinctive panic in Meagan’s tone.
“It’s—it’s Waldo. He’s—” The words broke with a sob.
Meagan felt her heart clench. If anything had happened to Alice’s beloved pet…
“He’s missing,” Alice finally finished. “He got out of the fence again, and we can’t find him. He’s been gone for hours. Jacqui and Daddy are looking for him. They told me to wait here at home in case anyone called. But I—I hope I’m not interrupting you, but I just wanted you to know.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I wish I could come help look for him right now, but I’m just about to start an operation. I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”
“It’s okay,” Alice said forlornly. “I know you can’t come, but I just needed to tell you. What if we never find him? What if he got hit by a car or something? What if he’s—he’s—”
“I’m sure he’ll be okay,” Meagan said
with an optimism she had to force. “Your dad will find him.”
“I hope so. I’m sorry I disturbed you,” she said again.
“No, honey, I’m glad you called. I’ll be there when I can. If you hear anything in the meantime, send me a text, okay? I’ll have someone read it to me. Waldo will be fine, Alice. Your dad will bring him home to you.”
“Okay. Thanks, Meagan.”
Gale, of course, was the only one who had the nerve to question Meagan when she joined the team at the table, moving into position at the patient’s left side, near the shoulder. Gale and Meagan had worked together hundreds of times during the past few years, and had bonded over numerous procedures. Meagan considered the scrub tech one of her best friends among her coworkers.
“What was that about?”
“A young friend’s dog has disappeared. She’s very upset about it. She’s home by herself and I think she just wanted reassurance from someone she trusts that everything will be okay. I hope I was telling the truth when I assured her it would be.”
“What else could you say?” Gale asked with a shrug, positioning the monitor so Meagan could see it clearly while working through three tiny cuts in the patient’s abdomen. A tiny camera held by the resident would be inserted through the umbilical port, and Meagan would focus on that monitor as she removed the diseased appendix using the camera images for guidance.
“This young friend wouldn’t happen to belong to that single dad you’ve been seeing, would she?”
Wincing a little behind her paper mask, Meagan nodded without looking up from her patient as she prepared to make the first small incision. “Yes.”
“Uh-huh.”
Scalpel poised, Meagan frowned at the tech. “What does that mean?”
Gale’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “You’ll be a great stepmom.”