by Tracy Wolff
“That’s not true. Noah left it in my room yesterday. I was playing with it and when he saw me, he hit me.”
“You want me to hit you?” Noah sneered as he lunged at his brother. “That wasn’t a hit. That was a love tap.”
Sophie slapped a hand on Noah’s chest and moved him away a good three paces. Then turned in time to see her youngest making faces behind her back.
Jack could tell it was the last straw. Relaxing in his chair, he waited for the fireworks to begin.
* * *
IF THE GROUND opened up and swallowed her now, she’d be totally okay with it. Seriously. An earthquake fracturing a random crack down the middle of her kitchen. It would be better than this. Like it wasn’t bad enough that her kids had soaked her wounded neighbor to the skin an hour ago, now they had to start World War Twenty-Seven while he was sitting here watching? Fan-freaking-tastic.
“Give it to me,” she said holding her hand out for the action figure. She had to work hard to keep her voice level. After a week of getting up before dawn to work on arguments for the three cases she had going to court in the next couple of weeks, she was running on caffeine and adrenaline and not much else.
“But, Mom,” Kyle whined. “He left it in my room. That makes it mine.”
“No! I left it there because you distracted me. You couldn’t read your stupid baby book so I helped you. Now give it back! It’s mine.”
“Actually, it’s mine!” she told him, wiggling her fingers in a way that the boys knew meant business. Seconds later she was holding the latest cartoon villain and releasing her grip on two sulky little boys. The joys of motherhood were myriad and many, she reminded herself as she herded them to the table. Myriad and many.
Settling herself at the table, she risked a glance at the neighbor. What had possessed her to invite him over for a home-cooked meal? Yes, he’d looked a little lonely and she’d felt bad for him, but now he looked shell-shocked, and she couldn’t blame him. In the space of a couple hours, he’d been attacked by water-gun-toting maniacs, blabbered at by her at about a million miles an hour, and now he’d witnessed her children acting like…well, she wasn’t going to go there. It was a wonder he hadn’t run out screaming into the night.
An awkward silence descended on the table as she dished out the lasagna and garlic bread. Her boys were busy glaring at each other and the neighbor was pursing his lips and looking at everything but her. At first, she thought it was because he was embarrassed or annoyed, but then she realized he was trying to keep from laughing. The knowledge relaxed her immediately, and she dished up the food with a grin instead of a grimace.
“So, Jack,” she said after everyone was served. “How are you settling into the house?”
“I’m managing. It’s bigger than my last place so I’m going to have to do some shopping to fill it up.”
Before she could respond, Noah butted in. “I’m glad you moved in. I like you a lot better than our last neighbor.”
Jack turned to him, a bemused look on his face. “You don’t know me.”
“Yeah, well, old prune face would never have a water fight with us!”
Jack looked at her, baffled, like he had no idea whether to laugh or wait for her to scold the boy. Sophie smiled. She knew she should admonish her son but Reece really had been an old prune face, despite being under thirty. “Tommy brought a frog to school today!” Kyle contributed. “He had it hidden in his backpack but it got loose when he went in to get his snack. It hopped around the room before landing right in the middle of Mrs. Erickson’s desk.”
“What did Mrs. Erickson do?” Sophie asked.
“She screamed. Then she grabbed the butterfly net from our science kit and chased it around the room. Which was working until Jackson decided he wanted to help. He knocked over the aquarium and Nessy got out.”
Nessy was the class pet—a brown and black python that most of the kids in the class adored. There were a few hold-outs however and Sophie burst out laughing as she imagined the chaos that had to have ensued when Kyle’s sweet, soft-spoken kindergarten teacher attempted to capture a wily snake and a frog hell-bent on escape.
“How’d she catch them?” Jack asked. Kyle responded with a vivid tale about the combined efforts of the entire kindergarten class. Everyone, even Noah, laughed. The ice had officially melted.
After dinner, Sophie excused the boys to go play their nightly half hour of video games while she cleaned up the kitchen. As she stood to collect the plates, Jack insisted on helping her carry them to the sink. She wanted to protest—from the way he’d carefully avoided using his right hand during dinner, she could tell it was bothering him. But she was afraid her refusal would hurt his pride.
“So, I can tell from your accent that you’re not from Atlanta,” she said as they worked together.
He cleared his throat. “No, I’m from Boston.”
“That’s the accent I’m hearing. I knew it wasn’t Southern, but I couldn’t quite place it. What brings you here?”
“Work. A friend of mine runs a clinic down here and she needed a hand. I wanted a change of scenery, so here I am.”
“A clinic? You’re a—”
“I’m a trauma surgeon.” He choked a little, then corrected himself. “I’m a doctor.”
She glanced at his injured hand, which clearly wouldn’t be much help in a delicate surgery. It was balled into a fist where it rested against his thigh, the scars a livid purple white against his tanned skin. She had an overwhelming urge to reach out and stroke them, but she withheld the urge. Which was a good thing because when she looked up again, he was scowling at her.
An apology trembled on the tip of her tongue. She was embarrassed to be caught staring and felt bad because it was obviously a new and touchy subject for him. But she found herself unable to say she was sorry. Maybe it was the way he was looking at her, like he was daring her to say something. Or maybe it was the way he was so obviously caught up in the pain and confusion of having to be something different than what he’d always been.
She could relate to that. She’d had to reinvent herself a couple times so far—once when she was eighteen and had finally escaped from the foster-care system and again after Jeff had died in Afghanistan and she’d been left to raise two little boys alone. Neither time had been easy, but she’d made it through just fine.
But it seemed ridiculous to ignore his injury when they were both so aware of it. She’d hated it when she’d run into people after Jeff had died and they’d either drown her in pity or ignore the subject like it had never happened, even though it was written all over their faces So she decided to simply be straightforward about his injury.
“What happened?” she asked. “If you don’t mind me asking, I mean.”
His face turned a mottled red and when he answered he was looking at a spot over her shoulder instead of directly at her face. “I was shot.”
Her knees shook a little, before she locked them in place. Jeff had died from gunshot wounds. “In Iraq?”
“No.” He looked at her strangely. “Why would you think that?”
“I’m sorry. With your injuries, I figured you were a veteran—”
“I already told you. I’m a doctor.”
“I know. It’s just…not many civilian doctors get themselves shot.”
“I didn’t get myself shot.” He spoke so softly and precisely that she could tell she’d touched another sore spot.
“I’m sorry. I seem to be putting my foot in it a lot today. I didn’t mean that the way it came out. We can talk about something else if it will make you feel better.” He’d tensed up so much that she really wished she’d never brought the subject up. Maybe he didn’t feel the same way she did, that it was better to get the elephant in the room out in the open rather than hide it behind a sheer curtain three sizes too small. She hop
ed she hadn’t made a terrible mistake.
He didn’t answer for a while. She was about to attempt to broach some other, much less harmful subject—although she didn’t have a clue what that might be—when he said, “I was operating on a patient when it happened.”
“In Boston?” She couldn’t imagine a gunman getting into the operating room of a major hospital.
“In Somalia. I ran a clinic for a charity organization there.”
“Really? Which one?”
“For the Children. We’re a non-profit organization that goes into war-torn and disaster-stricken nations to establish medical care for people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to it.”
“I know who they are. I contribute every year during their big fundraising drive.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “From someone who’s worked for more than a decade in clinics that have benefitted from those donations, thank you.”
“I really admire what your organization does. It’s amazing to me the way you put your whole life on hold to help others.”
“My life wasn’t on hold. Going to those countries, working with For the Children, that was my life.” As soon as the words came out he looked sick, like he wanted nothing more than to never have said them.
Sophie thought she knew what it was like to have your whole life taken away with one pull of the trigger. She’d thought, when Jeff died, that everything had changed. But in the months that followed, she realized that in fact little had changed. Yes, she’d lost her husband. Yes, the boys had lost their father. But the truth was, Jeff had been gone more than he’d been around during their entire married life. Three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan had created a life at home, with the boys and with her career, that operated independently of him. And after he died, in a way, it simply continued that way.
Looking at Jack, hearing his story and seeing the small amount of pain he had exposed to her made her see that life had indeed changed irrevocably for Jack. With the injury to his operating hand and the trauma from being shot in the very clinic where he worked, there was probably no chance he could return to the life he loved.
Empathy pierced her and despite her feelings about apologies, she murmured, “I’m really—”
“Don’t say it.” His tone told her the conversation was closed.
Silence stretched taut between them as she continued to wash dishes and he continued to clear the table. When she could take it no longer, she asked. “So, where’s this clinic you’re working at now? Is it near here or—”
“It’s close to downtown.” He set the lasagna pan—the last thing to be brought over from the table—on the stove with an urgency that couldn’t be missed. “Thanks for dinner,” he continued. “But I should probably get going.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s late and I have work tomorrow.” Neither of them commented on the fact that it wasn’t yet eight o’clock. He made his way down the hallway, but she stopped him at the front door.
“At least stay for ice cream. I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t.” It was an obvious lie. “Thank you again for the meal. I guess I’ll see you around.”
In other words, please don’t ever invite me over again. Nice job, Sophie, she told herself as she stepped back, watching as Jack fled. She’d invited him over to welcome him to the neighborhood and had, instead, managed to both hurt and embarrass him. Definitely not one of her better ideas.
Yet as she watched the lights come on in his house, she couldn’t help thinking that Jack needed someone to shake him up. Oh, he was doing a good job of coasting along, looking and acting normal. But below the surface lay a seething wound of anger and regret that was festering.
It was none of her business. She knew it wasn’t. And yet…and yet she kept seeing him in the yard with her sons. Happy, kind, engaged. A huge grin on his face as he forgot, for a moment, all the pain and rage he had inside.
That’s when she knew she wasn’t going to be able to leave well enough alone. It looked like she had a new project after all.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PHONE RANG as Jack was coming in from work. He was tempted to ignore it—only a few people had his house number and he wasn’t in the mood to talk to any of them. But he felt that familiar tug of responsibility. What if something was wrong? He answered it.
“Jack?” His mother’s smooth, cultured tones slid through the line as soon as he picked it up.
“Hi, Mom.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Really?” She sounded hopeful.
No, not really. His leg throbbed and he’d had to pass two patients on to one of the residents today because they needed stitches he couldn’t do. “Absolutely.”
“Oh, good. I’m so glad to hear that.”
Of course she was. It was so much easier to move on with life when one’s son wasn’t mucking it up by getting shot. “Do you need something, Mom? I just got in and I want to take a shower.”
“Your father and I are celebrating our fortieth wedding anniversary next month and I’ve decided to throw a party. Naturally, we want you to be there. Especially since you missed the one we threw for our thirty-fifth.” Five years had passed and Jack could still hear the note of accusation in her voice.
“I was in Rwanda, Mom. It wasn’t like I was around the block and refused to come.”
“Of course not. But now that you’re so much closer, there should be no excuses.” There was a will of steel running through the conciliatory words. “Besides, it will give your dad a chance to check you over, make sure you’re healing all right.”
“Dad’s not an orthopedist, Mom.”
“He’s a doctor. And we’re both worried about you.”
Jack sighed. Of all the things he hated about his damn injury, this definitely made the top two. His relationship with his parents, at least up until the shooting, could be described as a benign disagreement. His parents loved him, he loved them. They’d provided him with everything a kid could ever need and in return, he’d graduated top of his high school class, went on to Johns Hopkins undergrad and Harvard Med—where he graduated second in his class. And then he dared to do the unthinkable—he’d taken a job with For the Children against their wishes—a decision they never understood. Even so, they had still enjoyed trotting out tales of their philanthropist son at dinner parties.
Now that he was injured, he was still refusing to settle down into the expected¸ and ritzy, path of private practice. But their interest had taken a sharp upswing. Suddenly his mother was calling him regularly to check on him, while his sister was bombarding him with emailed articles about post-traumatic stress disorder and learning to live with disabilities. Even his father was getting in on the act, albeit more subtly. Even though Jack had taken the position at the clinic, and made it clear he had every intention of going back to Africa once his physical therapy was over, he continued to get interview requests and partnership offers from lucrative practices all over Boston. He knew very well that his father was responsible for every single one.
Jack tolerated their interference for the most part, knowing they were trying to be supportive in their own ways. But it was so unlike the comfortable distance that had existed before the shooting—and so much more intrusive than he wanted to deal with right now—that he didn’t quite know how to respond. So, with a silent apology to his sister, he very deliberately threw her under the bus.
“How’s Anna doing, Mom?” he asked. “Is everything going okay with her pregnancy now?”
His mother gasped. “Why? Was something wrong that I didn’t know about?” Her voice rose in alarm, a little higher with each word she spoke.
“I’m sure everything’s good now. I was just checking.” He smiled as he said
it, because he knew everything was perfectly fine with his sister. And he knew he was going to get an irate phone call from her later in the evening, right after their mother got done interrogating her about the baby—the other favorite topic in the Alexander household. It was a crappy thing to do, he was the first to admit it, but Anna would understand. When his mother got like this, it was every Alexander for him or herself.
As they were hanging up—his mother now anxious to get off the phone and assure herself that all was well with her youngest child—Jack wandered over to the window and glanced out at the street in front of his house.
Noah and Kyle were riding their bikes on the sidewalk, going four houses away from their own and then turning around and riding four houses back. He watched them for a minute as he thought about the disastrous dinner he’d had at their house the week before. He wanted to blame it all on Sophie—she had been pretty pushy, after all. But at the same time, he was the one who hadn’t handled her questions well. After all, he was the one who had run away rather than deal with the feelings her questions had brought up.
He didn’t like explaining what had happened to him, didn’t like showing weakness in front of anyone, let alone a woman he barely knew. That was why he’d been so frustrated today at the clinic when he hadn’t been able to stitch up those patients. It had been humiliating to have to get help from kids who were barely out of med school, even more humiliating to have them look at him with pity and relief that they weren’t in the same situation. Relief that they were whole.
Outside, the boys were calling back and forth to each other, laughing as they tried to do stunts on their bikes. Noah rode off the curb, did three big circles in the street to gain momentum before riding hell bent for leather straight at the sidewalk. At the last minute he pulled up on his handlebars and jumped the curb.
Kyle congratulated him, gave him a high five, and then rode carefully down his driveway into the street. Jack stiffened, glancing toward Sophie’s house, expecting her to run down the driveway toward the kindergartener at any second. It was one thing for his eight-year-old brother to do it, but Kyle looked unsteady on the bike, like he’d just learned how to ride a two-wheeler. Letting him jump a curb seemed like a supremely stupid idea.