Strong and Steady

The woman pulled one from the jar on the counter, switched papers around. “Carrie in room two. Next appointment?”

I thought of the woman who was three-months pregnant. “One month. Give her a pack of the prenatal vitamin samples. She hasn’t taken any before.”

“One more.” The woman sighed as she rotated her charts in her arm. “Then we can all head home. Alice Watkins. Wants a refill on her pain meds.”

I thought of her case. Broken rib, short-term pain meds. Glancing at Faith for her take, she shook her head. She had ten years on me and was even more cynical than I was. While I'd become jaded by an asshole ex-husband, hers came from growing up in a rough section of Denver. What she'd seen on the streets was what I treated in the ER. While I could understand the cases that came through the door, up until my divorce, I’d been a woman who'd lived in the suburbs while married to a rich lawyer. Faith knew the streets, knew the people.

“No,” I said to Samantha. “She can’t have any more. Second time she’s gotten it refilled. If she’s still having pain, she can take ibuprofen, but if that doesn't cut it, she needs to be seen again.”

I wasn't overly conservative about doling out pain meds. Some patients needed them. Some were being abused and came in for falling down the stairs or walking into a door, which was doubtful. Their pain wasn't. I'd learned long ago that a woman needed to want help—the clinic offered options to get out of abusive relationships—before anyone could truly give it to her. In the meantime, I could at least make them comfortable. But I wasn't an enabler either. Alice Watkins' injury was such that she didn't need Oxy or Vicodin any longer. I wasn't going to help her become addicted.

“Got it. Thanks.” Samantha left to wrap up those loose-end patients.

“That’s it? Just an auditor?” Faith asked, returning to our conversation. “I need to live through your dating life.”

I swiveled my chair around to face her. “What dating life?”

She gave me a pointed look over the edge of her reading glasses. She let them drop to dangle from the thin chain around her neck. “Exactly.”

I sputtered, tugging my stethoscope from around my neck and placing it on the desk. “You have four kids and a man who loves you dearly. Why are you so interested in other men?”

“Not for me, sweetheart, for you.” She pointed her finger at me like Uncle Sam then grinned.

I held up my hands, leaned back in the creaky office chair. “Oh, I’ve had a man. I’m good.” I’d settle for no guy than to have Jack back in my life. But then my thoughts veered to Gray. Again. I sighed.

She pursed her lips and clucked at me. “From what you've told me, Jack was an asshole. I never met the guy, mind you, but I know that’s a fact.”

I thought about my ex-husband. He really was an asshole. “Yeah, but I got Chris out of it. Jack can’t take that away from me.” Especially now that our son was eighteen. Sure, he’d grumbled about getting custody and moving him to California with him when we'd first gotten divorced four years ago, but he wouldn’t have gone through with it. He just hadn't wanted to pay me child support. Besides, he and Paralegal Sue hadn’t wanted to be bothered by a teenager since they had both acted like them.

“Damn straight. Heard from him?” I knew she meant Chris not Jack because her tone softened. Her youngest two were still in high school, but her daughter was in her last year at the state school, and her oldest was in the army stationed in Germany. She knew how hard it was to have a child leave the nest.

I sighed. “Last week. I told him to settle in and not worry about me. It’s a big adjustment for him, and the first year is extra tough. He did say he's on the soccer team, and Advanced Calculus is, I quoted, 'going to kick my ass.'”

She laughed and gave my arm a squeeze. “Girlfriend, you raised a fine boy.”

I did, and I was totally biased, but now what? What was next for me?

An hour later, I was climbing the front steps of my house when my neighbor, Simon, popped his head out his door. “How was it?”

Simon was a few years younger than me, an architect and gay. We’d hit it off from the day he moved in three years ago. He was from Tennessee, and his accent was thick like syrup. He was tall and lanky, with blond hair cut in a very crisp, very conservative style—short on the sides and longer on the top. He wore chunky glasses and stylish clothes. Although I’d picked my own dress for the party last night, he’d forced me back into my closet and into the heeled sandals instead of the ballet flats I’d originally chosen. He was bossy, opi

nionated and had a sense for fashion I never would.

He’d also been a great guy role model for Chris when his father had pretty much abandoned him and had a surprising knack for getting through to a cranky teenager in ways a mother never could. I still had no idea some of the things those two had talked about, but it didn't matter. As Faith had said, Chris had turned out just fine.

“It was good.” I dropped my shoulder bag beside the door then leaned against it as I took off my work clogs. Lifting the metal lid on the vintage metal milk box, I dropped them inside. They remained there until I went to work next, not wanting to take any of the funk I walked through at the clinic or hospital into my house. The sun was intense, and I was sweaty and ready for another shower. Even though I’d had one after my workout this morning, I always took one after being at work or the clinic. “Christy rocked her dress.”

We stood twenty feet apart, each on the short set of steps up to our front doors. The entire block was one long row of houses, all red brick with white stone steps. Built back in the forties, they were small and identical, but with a basement, there were three floors. My parents had bought the townhouse back in the late sixties, and I'd grown up in it. When I married Jack, I'd moved with him to the suburbs but returned after the divorce. I even slept in the bedroom I had when I was a kid, but my mom and I had ripped off the old eighties teenage wallpaper and painted it a pale yellow the first week back. A year later, they’d retired and moved to Florida, and Chris and I had stayed.

“Of course, she did,” Simon replied. He was casual in a pair of jeans and a short-sleeve button-down shirt. “How did the shoes work out?”

He had to gloat. I had to roll my eyes.

“I hooked an auditor named Bob or Bill.”

“Which was it?” Looking downright gleeful, he added, “Was he any good?”

I tilted my head down and gave him the stern look I used on Chris when he was a pain-in-the-ass teenager. “Any good? I didn’t catch his name, and there was no way I’d sleep with that guy. He ate Rocky Mountain Oysters like they were donut holes.”