A Nurse to Tame the ER Doc

* * *

Taylor refused to just go through the motions of life. She’d been there, done that with Neil, and during the aftermath of their marriage and subsequent divorce. Had gone through those motions during her childhood with the parents she’d never been able to please, so she’d faded into the background instead. She’d existed without really living. She wouldn’t go back.

Not now that she’d gotten a glimpse of what life truly could be.

What she was determined it would be.

She went out dancing. She went to the lake with friends. She found an art class, got access to a kiln, and started a piece, but had started over several times because she’d known it wasn’t right, that what she was uncovering wasn’t what was really hidden in the clay. She’d even white-water rafted with a group from work. She lived, took chances, was the first to volunteer to try something new. Some she enjoyed, some not so much. Either way, she was discovering what she liked and disliked. It was a good life.

She missed Jack and found herself wishing he was there to share her adventures, to share everything. Oh, how she missed his easy smile and twinkly eyes. Earlier that day, restless, she’d driven out to the farm Jack had rented. A “SOLD” sign had been placed at the end of the drive. Her heart broke a little at the knowledge she’d never sit on the front porch again, or fish in the pond, or make love to Jack in the big antique bed with its hand-stitched quilt.

But life went on without Jack Morgan.

Perhaps not as brightly or as sweet an adventure, but life was good.

If she’d learned nothing else, she’d learned she had control over her attitude and the direction of her life. She refused to let it be bad.

The piece of clay she’d been working on again earlier, however, was a different story. That was bad. In the corner of her bedroom, the box into which she’d packed her supplies called to her as surely as if someone were locked inside and pleaded for her to rescue them.

Unable to resist the siren call any longer, she flipped on the lamp and began carrying her supplies into the living/dining room combo. Within minutes she had a protective plastic cover spread over the small dining-room table and her fingers were covered in clay. Immediately, the wet earth soothed something deep in her soul and she began to pinch away bits of clay, molding and shaping, using her fingers, using picks and wooden sticks to free whatever, whoever was trapped inside the clay.

Herself, she thought. Jack had been right when he’d interpreted the piece she’d given to Amy. It was always her that emerged from the clay.

When she’d originally realized that was what kept happening, Taylor had wondered if her art was much like putting together puzzle pieces of herself, slowly letting who she was come into view, slowly getting back to a whole.

As her hands worked, a smile lifted her cheeks.

She truly felt whole.

Was that why she’d been so hesitant to let Jack in? Because she worried that, much like what she was doing with her clay, he’d slowly pinch away the pieces she’d worked so carefully to put back together? Did she worry he’d bend her and mold her into something different than the woman she was destined to be?

Being with him had felt so good, so liberating, it was difficult for her to imagine him stifling her the way Neil had done. But she’d been blind to Neil’s true nature until after they’d married, until she’d experienced his cruelty in bed and life first-hand.

Her hand slipped, and she took off a bigger piece of clay than she’d intended.

Letting out a frustrated huff, she painstakingly added the clay back and worked until it was impossible to tell that anything had ever been missing.

Minutes became an hour. An hour became hours. Night became morning.

She sat. She stood. She moved around the table, leaned forward, stepped back, working on different angles as she slowly chipped away at the clay. Her neck ached and was stiff from how long she’d been working, but she wasn’t tired. Her creativity energized her, pushing her forward, refusing to let her leave the table as she worked on intricate details that were taking shape.

When she was finished, she stepped back and eyed the piece.

She wasn’t very good, doubted she ever would be even if a new instructor had told her she was a gifted, natural-born sculptor, but what she saw awed her more than a little.

And revealed a lot about where her head was.

Or more specifically her heart.

* * *

“Wow, Tay.”

At Amy’s exclamation, Taylor prised her eyes open, realizing she’d crashed on the living-room sofa, and peered up at where her friend was glancing back and forth between the table and where Taylor lay.

“That,” her friend continued, “is amazing and you look like death on a cracker.”

Stretching her stiff body, she wiggled into a sitting position. “It’s a piece of clay and, thanks, you look great this morning, too.”