by Violet Paige
“Okay,” the little girl said putting out her arm.
She didn’t seem that shy and timid to me.
“You want to tell me where you hurt?”
“I told you,” Julie said a little irritated, “she has a sore throat cough and a fever.”
“I'm just going to listen to your heart and your lungs now,” I said putting in my stethoscope.
I had to admit I hated this part of exams the most. The plugging of my ears usually just make the constant ringing that much louder, but I ignored it as I worked.
“You have beautiful eyes just like your Mama,” I said as I shined the light into each one of her honey brown eyes.
The little girl blushed. I couldn’t help but look over the rest of her and sense a familiarity. She had lush black hair that still had a bit of a baby curl to it. I assumed she got that from her father since Julie's hair was a vibrant red auburn color. Other than her hair, however, she had the generic look of a cherubic five-year-old.
“You started school yet?” I asked as I felt her tonsils.
I could tell they were swollen and her throat did look a bit inflamed.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m in Mrs. Gardner's class.”
“Mrs. Gardner, you say. She was my kindergarten teacher too,” I replied. “Does she still twitch her nose and sniff all the time?”
“Yes,” Emma said with a giggle. “Sometimes we call her Mrs. Bunny,” she added in a whisper.
“That’s very clever,” I encouraged with a smile.
“Can you just tell us whats wrong?” Julie said impatiently. “I need to get her home.”
I looked back up at her. I expected to see her irritated with me, even extremely anger. She wasn’t either. All my SEAL training kicked in as I looked her over. Her body movements and posture spoke of nervousness and fear. Why was she so afraid to have me look over Emma?
The only possible answer I could find was that she didn’t trust me. Maybe she feared me not doing a good enough job. I didn’t blame her for not trusting me, but I was a little hurt that she didn’t believe in my abilities.
“I think its just a bad cold,” I said to ease her worry. “I am going to do a strep swab and flu swab just to be on the safe side, but there really isn’t anything to worry about.”
“Swab?” Emma asked inquisitively.
“Yep,” I said back to her. “Just a little cotton ball in your throat and nose. It won't hurt. Might tickle a little. It will rule out any bad germs.”
I wheeled over to the small desk with computer to type in my prognoses and collect the items needed.
“So do you still swim?” I asked as I typed away.
“No,” she said solely.
Julie and I had met in college at the pool. She was on the swim team, and I was with the water polo team. We saw each other often enough between both of our practices, my games, and her meets.
I had fallen for her from the moment I saw her. I smiled at the memory of our first encounter. It took me a while to convince her to go on a date with me. We had the perfect relationship in my books. It was just at the wrong time.
I had to leave before I was tied down to this small town. I guess, in the end, it didn’t really matter for me. I was still tied to this small town, and all that I was free of was Julie. It was the one thing I would have rather not been free of.
I took my two swabs and quickly as possible. Julie's nervousness was setting off my own nerves. The last thing I needed was to lose my head in the middle of an exam.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes with the results,” I said more to Emma then Julie as I took the two swabs and headed out.
I walked out and over to the small lab where we did our basic tests. It wouldn’t take more than five minutes to get the results. I didn't think Julie's little girl had any severe conditions like strep or the flu, but it would be worth it just to cancel out those two options.
“So you saw Julie Jones," I heard my dad’s voice come from his office.
The door was open and was directly across the hall from the lab. I leaned out to look through the two open doors to find him at his desk writing something.
“I thought you were going to lunch?” I said back to him.
He shrugged his shoulders in response.
“Cute little girl, don't you think?” He said this time setting his pen down and looking at me over his spectacles.
“If this is the part where you tell me I missed out on the best thing in my life, I’m really not in the mood to hear it.”
I was probably a little gruffer then I needed to be, but I didn’t need one of those ‘I told you not to go’ talks from him. He had never come right out and said that he didn’t want me to join up, but then again we just about never actually spoke more than a few words to each other. He didn’t have to tell me for me to know he didn’t approve of me leaving and joining the SEALS.
Luckily at that moment, the last test dinged, and I got the results. Without another word to my father at the other end of the hall, I strolled out of the lab and into the small room to give Julie Jones and her daughter the good news.
“It’s not strep or the flu. Most likely it's just a nasty cold. Popsicles for hydration, Tylenol for the fever, and a lot of bed rest.”
“I don’t need you to tell me how to be a parent,” Julie spat back at me. “I know all that. I was hoping you would give me something that actually might help,” she added as she scooped up her purse.
“Sorry, nothing else will really help. You just got to wait it out. Which means,” I said turning to Emma and giving her a Jolly Rancher I confiscated for her, “lots of couch time and cartoons.”
“Thank you,” she said taking the hard candy out of my hand.
“Mrs. J has a little treasure box of stickers and little toys on your way out,” I added to Emma as I helped her down from the table.
“I’d like to have her come back if things get any worse or any new symptoms show up,” I said back to Julie. “I’ll have the office cell on me all weekend so if you need anything just call.”
“Okay, sure,” she responded with little heart in it. “Okay, come on Em let’s get you home.”
The little girl took her mom’s hand happily, and I watched the two of them as they strolled out of my office. I couldn’t help but feel that ping of regret in losing her as I watched Julie go. I told myself she had to be better off now, she had the little girl after all, but a part of me still wished she was mine.
I sat back down in the doctor's chair as I took in all that had just occurred in that room. I thought about that little girl some more. There was something so familiar about her. Then I looked at her records again. She was five years old.
For a second it made me a little mad. I left six years ago. Julie must have bounced back quicker then I thought from my leaving to have a kid a year later.
I hauled in my tracks at the thought. Looking at Emma’s birth date one last time I did some quick math before cursing out loud.
4
“How about we get a smoothy on the way home?” I called back to the backseat.
“Okay,” a soft voice answered in response.
I looked in the rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of Emma in her high back seat. She had her pink bear lovey wrapped tight in her arm while she fiddled with the tag with one hand and sucked her thumb with the other. It was a gift from my parents the day she was born. Just this little gift shop toy they picked up on their way in to see their granddaughter for the first time. There wasn’t a night that little pink bear wasn’t at her side now.
“You feeling tired, sweetheart,” I asked.
I knew she almost never sucked her thumb now unless she wasn’t feeling well or really tired.
She merely nodded in response.
“How come it was a new doctor today?” she finally removed her thumb to ask.
“Um,” I hesitated not wanting her to attach her memory to Hawk anymore than the one encounter. “Dr. Smith is getting old, so his son i
s going to start being the doctor there.”
“He was nice,” she said quietly.
“He was,” I said struggling to hide my own emotions from her.
In reality, seeing Hawk again had been a slap across the face. I worked so hard to bury down my broken heart after he up and left. It was made that much easier as a new mom. I often didn’t have time to think let alone sulk around. In that one instant of seeing him, it all come flooding back to me.
I had the sudden need to flee. If I could run away, I could continue to live in this relatively blissful life where he left, and I didn’t have to face these emotions resurfacing.
A quick trip through a drive-through to get Em a fruit smoothy and we were headed back home. As I pulled into our apartment complex, I couldn’t help but wonder how much they would charge for me to end my contract early.
I couldn’t believe it, but I was already going over that mental list of things I needed to do to leave. How soon could we move away? Would I be able to get a new job? Where would we go?
I never was really close to my parents, but moving back to South Carolina seemed like the obvious choice. Maybe they would let us crash with them for a while till I got back on my feet.
Neither my father or mother were very happy when I told them that I was pregnant. As much as they loved their granddaughter, their opinion of me was that I made my bed and was now stuck with the consequences of it.
It wasn’t a big shock to me when they were less than thrilled. I had grown up in a very prominent bible thumping Baptist town with very devout parents. I unquestionably wasn’t the first one in my community to get pregnant without a father in the picture, but that didn’t make the sting any less for my parents.
I carried Emma up the two flights of stairs to our small two bedroom apartment. It was modest and simple, but that worked well for us. We didn’t take up much space and didn’t need much.
“How about I put some PJ Mask on for you, and you can snuggle on the couch?” I asked Emma.
She quietly nodded her reply not lifting her head from my shoulder.
Settling Emma on the couch surrounded by her favorite blanket and fluffy pillow I put on her shows. She would happily watch the same season a million times, despite the fact she already knew it all by heart.
I sat down to a pile of papers to grade. I usually didn’t have to do such things being the P.E. teacher, but this year I also added the task of teaching the cardio health class. It was half a year of health education and half a year of cardio training.
It was a class required for all ninth graders. It made it that much more tedious to read paper after paper of thirteen-year-olds explaining what they think healthy nutrition looks like. I was pretty sure they didn’t care about writing the assignment anymore then I was to read it. Sadly it was a state requirement for the both of us.
Thankfully my phone rang pulling me away from my papers. I looked down at my smartphone and was slightly less thankful for the call.
“Hi, Mom,” I said doing my best to hide a heavy sigh.
Of my two parents, I got along the least with her. My mother was a southern bell through and through. I on the other had played sports and didn’t care much for revivals. We never got along through my teenage years, and then I went and chose to move away to Georgia for college.
Having Emma was the last nail in the coffin of our relationship. Very few words ever seemed to pass between us solely for the fact we had nothing in common.
“How is that granddaughter of mine doing?” She asked.
I had to give it to my mom, even if we didn't have the best of relationship she did care for Emma.
“Still the same, not feeling too great.”
“Did you take her to the doctor like I told you?”
I rolled my eyes, “yes I did. I am capable of taking care of my own child.”
“Well, what did they say?” She said ignoring my jab.
“Just that it was probably a cold. He took swabs for the flu and strep, and both came back negative.”
“That’s good at least,” she said more to herself than to me.
“Do you think she will be better by next weekend?”
“I don’t know Mom,” I answered knowing why she asked.
My younger sister’s sixteenth birthday was going to be held the following weekend. Where we lived, your sixteenth birthday was akin to a coming out into society with southern bell dress and all.
Alexa was the daughter Mom always wished for. With eleven years between us, we weren't that close to each other. That being said, I would have still liked to go to her party even if it was going to be a tafia barf fest.
“I plan on it, but if Em is not feeling well probably not.”
“Maybe you could just leave her with your friend, whats her name again?”
“Savannah.”
“Yeah, that one,” Mom affirmed.
Savannah was a born and raised California girl. She moved to Georgia when she was seventeen with her mother and new step-father. Though Savannah had stayed in the southern state, nothing could change her from her long hair, hippie, granola eating ways. This, of course, deemed her ‘that one’ in my mother’s eyes like she was more related to aliens then human beings.
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving Em if she isn’t feeling well.”
You could just come for the party. It's only a two-hour drive. You could come up for the party and be home in time to put Emma to bed.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said not wanting to argue over the matter.
“Your sister only turns sixteen once,” she guilted, apparently not letting it drop.
“I know Mom.”
“I just hate that you are so far away. I wish you were closer, then maybe you and Alexa would be better friends.”
“It’s not like I am trying to avoid it because I don't want to be around my sister. My kid is sick. What do you expect me to do?”
“Hmmm,” she huffed in her that’s what I get for having a kid outside of wedlock kind of way.
I was seriously reconsidering my thoughts about moving back home. The one conversation had cured me of ever wanting to live near her again.
None the less, I figure it wouldn’t hurt just to put my feelers out.
“Hey Mom, I was kinda thinking about maybe moving back up that way actually?”
“You were?” She said just as surprised as I was that the words actually left my mouth.
“Yeah. I mean, you guys are Em’s only grandparents maybe she should be closer to you.”
“You know we aren’t her only ones,” Mom said pointedly.
She never liked the fact that I wouldn't come out and say who the father way. I am sure she guessed it was Hawk. After all, I was in a two-year relationship with him before he left.
She only asked once who the father was. That was when I first told her I was pregnant. All I said was that he wasn’t in the picture anymore, so it didn’t matter. We had never spoken of the other half of Emma’s gene pool again. That is until this moment.
Why on all days did Mom have to bring up Emma’s paternal connections today? My mind immediately turned back to Hawk sitting in his father's doctors office today.
I couldn’t help but feel my treacherous heart skip a beat at the image of him in my head. I couldn’t believe after all these years, and what he had done to me, my body would still react such a way at the thought of him.
“Forget it, Mom. Forget I said anything. I got to go make dinner for Em now. I’ll take to you later.”
I hung up the phone and got up out of the plain kitchen chair. Just the thought of Hawk made me light headed. I had to do something, keep myself busy, so my mind no longer could wander.
One thing was for sure; I could cross out moving back home from my list of escape routes. Maybe I would be lucky enough that Hawk wouldn’t give our encounters a second thought.
Evidently, he never thought I would stick around here, or that he might see me again. Maybe he was just as k
een to avoid me as I was to avoid him. If that was the case, a simple change of doctors would do the trick, and we might never have to cross paths again.
I walked over to Emma. Realizing she had fallen asleep on the couch, I couldn’t help but relax my anxiety a little. Nothing was more soothing then seeing my own baby peaceful at rest.
I came to sit next to her as gently as possible and placed a hand on her forehead. She was still a little warm. Soon I would need to give her the next dose of fever reducer. I debated waking her up to do it our just waiting for her to wake up on her own.
I couldn’t help but play with her soft locks of black hair. Just like Hawk’s, it pained me to realize. There was so much of me in her it was easy to ignore the parts of him. But now that I had seen Hawk face to face again, all I could see in her angelic sleeping face was his visage looking back at me.
My head was spinning. My mind couldn’t comprehend how everything could drastically change in one day. I wanted to curl up in my own bed and never come away. Looking at that little girl in front of me, I knew I couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted to crumble, I had to keep my head clear just for her.
I took a steadying breath.
I gave a little start when a knock came at my door.
I checked Emma one last time to make sure it didn’t wake her. Getting up, I went to open the door. I was speechless to see the man standing before me.
“Jules, we need to seriously talk.”
5
I was struggling to keep my temper. The longer I thought about it, however, the more and more I was sure that Julie had something she was keeping from me. I was boiling over with rage. How could she have a child, my child, and not so much as tell me?
I may have gone to another country, but it wasn’t like I was on another planet. I mean, Julie saw my father as her doctor. She had ample opportunity to tell me she was pregnant and just chose not to.
I didn’t wait to be invited. Instead, I stormed right into the room.
“Come on in,” she said sarcastically as I paced back and forth like a caged animal.