Reede had stood up, signaling the end of all that he was going to listen to.
It was years after that when he’d come home from med school and Laura had dumped him. With a coolness, a detachment, that shocked him, she’d told him that she was in love with and was going to marry a little man with watery blue eyes and spend her life as a preacher’s wife. Reede’s foundation was knocked out from under him. For weeks afterward, he’d had no idea what he was going to do with his life. If he had no one to share things with, if he was to be alone, should he even become a doctor? During those weeks, all he could do was sit and stare at the TV.
There was one incredibly low point when he’d climbed up Stirling Point and jumped off the cliff into a pool of water. As he’d gone down he’d thought that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he didn’t come up. If it hadn’t been for Kim’s cute little friend, Jecca, jumping in to save him then nearly getting drowned, Reede wondered if he’d still be alive. After that, he’d been so embarrassed by his depression and his reckless behavior, which had almost cost Jecca her life, that he’d packed up and left before she got back to the house.
He’d returned to medical school, but he’d rarely gone back to Edilean. At first all he could think about was that he was alone. Truly and deeply alone. But then he began to see some advantages in that. Other women were his first foray into a world-without-Laura. Then there was volunteering for jobs that other people didn’t want, such as rescue missions. He was the one who put on fire fighter’s gear and went into a burning building to search for trapped people.
It seemed that the more dangerous the mission, the more he liked doing it. After his residency, he went to Africa—and he found that he fit in there perfectly. The small town life of Edilean had prepared him for village life.
What he didn’t want to see is how good it made him feel to be free of the stigma of not being Tristan. He’d not realized that all his life he’d been compared to his cousin—and found wanting. Reede was an Aldredge and he was a doctor but he wasn’t Tristan. Tris made people laugh; Reede was too serious. Tris cared about everyone; Reede couldn’t abide people who imagined illnesses that weren’t there. Tris was sweet and kind, always in a good mood; Reede wanted his time alone, and he let people know it.
The list went on and on. In the Middle East, in the Gobi Desert, anywhere on Earth other than Edilean, Reede wasn’t compared to anyone. And maybe it was vain of him, but he liked being appreciated for what he did, what he risked to help people.
Reede stared through the windshield of his car. It wasn’t until he’d returned to Edilean to help Tris out after he’d broken his arm, that Reede began to see things more clearly. With the constant comparisons, it’s no wonder he wanted to leave and never return. After the first week in Tristan’s office he’d begun counting the days until he could get out of town again.
Tris’s staff of two women, one ready to retire, had nearly driven him mad. “Dr. Tris always—” began every sentence. They seemed to expect Reede to walk, talk, eat, breathe exactly as Tristan did.
And that Reede wasn’t like his cousin made them roll their eyes, give grimaces, and make little comments under their breath. Reede gave up trying to appease them. Besides, when he found out he was going to have to endure all of it for three years while their beloved Tristan was in New York, Reede’s ability to smile left him.
One of the women decided to retire early, and to replace her she hired a young woman who jumped at Reede’s every word. But then, the truth was that by that time there was so much anger inside him that he probably did snap out an answer to her every question.
But yesterday had been too much. He’d been indulging himself in whining to Roan and Russell about his life when a pretty young woman poured beer over his head. Reede had been so shocked that all he could do was sit there and stare at her. Since he’d been in Edilean he’d become so used to people asking him about their ailments that that’s how he’d come to see them. Somewhere along the way his misery had even overridden his ability to appreciate a pretty girl.
The young woman had stalked out of the restaurant and Reede was shocked that some of the people had applauded her. Had Reede been so bad that a physical attack on him was applauded?!
Russell, as befitting a pastor, had gone after the girl, but Roan went to the bar and returned with a couple of towels. He tossed them at Reede. “I don’t know what you did to that girl but it sounds like a lot of people think you deserve what you got.” He waited while Reede sopped up some of the beer, and they left together. Reede didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, but he saw the smiles.
Tomorrow, he thought as he left the tavern. Tomorrow he would call more people and do anything he could think of to get someone to take over for him in Edilean.
But that was yesterday. He’d spent today at the hospital in Newport, and he’d called people he barely remembered. He’d begged, pleaded, offered to pay, but no one wanted the job. He’d accomplished nothing.
So now he was driving back to that bleak apartment that came with the office. As he parked at the back of the building, he noticed that there was a light on upstairs. His first thought was that a patient was up there waiting for him. Or worse, it was a single woman who saw Reede as a challenge to win.
He slumped up the stairs, expecting . . . He didn’t know what would be there when he opened the door.
Everything he’d imagined didn’t come close to being what he saw. First of all, the apartment was clean. Not just with the dust moved around as the last two women he’d hired had done. Surfaces sparkled. The ugly furniture looked brighter. There were half a dozen new pillows on the couch, and their colors almost made the room look cheerful. He turned to put his medical bag on the floor by the door, then saw a little table there. There was a chrome bowl on top, and he dropped his keys into it.
Hesitantly, as though afraid that if he moved too fast the dream would disappear, he stepped farther into the room. And that’s when the smell hit him.
Was that food? He usually ate a frozen dinner, but that smell didn’t come from something premade. Like a cartoon character, he followed his nose into the kitchen.
He lifted a lid on a pot on the stove and took a whiff of something heavenly. It was an orange soup. He couldn’t help sticking his finger in it and tasting. Divine.
In the fridge he found a plate of chicken and vegetables with a note on top. “Microwave five minutes.” Salad was in the crisper, and there was a cold bottle of white wine in the door. As he got them out he noticed a note on the oven door. “Open” it read.
Inside was a small pan that held something that was oozing juice, with a crumbly crust on top. It took Reede only minutes to gather it all and put it on the old dining table—which had been set with a place mat and tableware. He ate everything, every drop of soup, every morsel of the chicken, and he practically licked the bowl of the apple dessert. He emptied the bottle of wine.
When he finished, he leaned back and saw that the room didn’t look as bad as it usually did.
When his cell rang, he didn’t hesitate in answering it.
“So how do you li
ke Sophie?” Kim asked.
“Sophie?”
“Yeah, your new employee. Remember her?”