Second Time's the Charm

Was it only that morning that she and Jon had decided they wouldn’t be “friends” anymore?

The little boy placed a wet kiss on her cheek. “Abie baby.” She nuzzled her nose against his neck, calling him by his father’s pet name before she realized what she’d done. Not that it was the first time. It just seemed too personal now.

Thankfully, that late in the afternoon, the waiting room was empty. There was no one there to notice how long she and Jon stood there, staring at each other.

“Illie eat,” Abraham said.

“You can’t possibly be hungry,” Jon said to the boy. “You just had ice cream an hour ago.”

Jon looked directly at Abe, moving in closer to get the boy’s attention. He also spoke louder than normal.

“Abe had ice cream in the middle of a Thursday afternoon?” she asked, frowning. Ice-cream day at Little Spirits was on Friday.

For a second, she thought she had her days confused. Was it Friday, not Thursday? Having had so little sleep and after experiencing the emotional hell of the past twenty-four hours, she couldn’t be positive.

But...

“You’re not at work,” she said to Jon. Because of her? Because she’d kept him up half the night? No. Jon would go to work on no sleep

at all if he had to.

“Abe and I have just come from Dr. Hillcrest’s office in Phoenix,” he told her, his face serious, but not grim.

Lillie’s heart pounded. “Is something wrong?”

“I had his ears checked.”

She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly, but only because she so badly needed to hear him say what he’d just said.

“And?” she asked. Please, God, let it be something fixable.

“His ear canals have narrowed,” he said. “We saw an ear, nose and throat guy in Dr. Hillcrest’s office. He spent an hour and a half with Abe. He’s not sure what’s caused the narrowing, but he assures me that if he puts tubes in Abe’s ears, the situation will reverse and correct itself.”

“He’s not going deaf.”

“He could have, if we hadn’t caught the situation in time. But no, there’s nothing wrong with his eardrums. Once the canals are opened, he’ll be fine.”

Unprofessional tears sprang to her eyes. Boundaries, she reminded herself.

“We’re scheduled to have the procedure done here on Monday afternoon,” Jon said. “I’d like to ask you to be there, Lil. To support Abe.”

For a split second she wondered if this was just an attempt by Jon to get her back into their lives, but she knew better. He wasn’t Kirk. Jon was who he was—up front and open. She could trust him.

Which was why she cared so much about him.

“Of course I’ll be there,” she told him. And with a last hug, she handed Abraham back to his father and retreated to her office to add his procedure to her calendar.

* * *

WITH THE CO-PAY of Abe’s upcoming procedure and the possibility he would need to take time off from work if there were any complications, Jon picked up extra hours over the weekend. Mark called to say that Addy and Nonnie would be happy to watch Abe so that Jon could go in on Sunday.

They’d had a line go down overnight on Saturday and Mark had been in on Sunday, too, helping to get a conveyer back up and running so they wouldn’t miss Monday’s shipment.

“Hey, man, long time no see,” Jon said, greeting his lab partner at their chemistry lecture on Monday morning.

“Yeah, what’s it been, twelve hours?”

He’d picked Abe up at bedtime and their class was at eight in the morning, so that was about right.