Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Willa
“ C ongratulations,” Mellie said, enveloping me in a hug, along with a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and her massive mane of black hair. “It’s so romantic.”
Mellie was effusive and sweet and a lover of all things romance. She was on her third husband, after all. And when I was in high school, she had snuck Nora Roberts books to me, introducing me to happily ever afters.
She’d worked for my dad for almost twenty years, managing the office, doing billing, ordering supplies, and generally keeping the place bright and cheerful.
Dawn harrumphed where she sat, typing on her computer.
She was Mellie’s first cousin and total opposite. She was a no-nonsense nurse with a pixie cut, several tattoos, and two rescue pit bulls at home. The woman was pragmatic and focused, so despite her surly demeanor, the patients loved her. Sadly, I’d made little progress in my efforts to win her over with my professionalism and charm. I could not afford to lose an excellent nurse, so I made sure to ask about her dogs, Thelma and Louise, often.
Amazing nurses were impossible to find, and while she was only in her fifties, she was constantly threatening to retire. It typically came up when Mellie was talking her ear off about the Star Trek cruise she and husband number three were taking in the spring.
“Why’d you go and do a dumb thing like get married?”
“She’s madly in love,” Mellie singsonged from her ergonomic office chair. I swore there were literally hearts in her eyes. “And he’s so handsome. And tall. Damn.”
A little uneasy, I forced a smile. I didn’t have the first clue how to even have this conversation. It was so weird to think I was married.
Me, a woman who’d never been in a serious relationship before.
Married .
To Cole Hebert, of all people.
Not that it was going badly. His arrival and our first morning together hadn’t been crushingly awkward, as I thought it might be. Instead, he had been sweet and earnest and committed to sticking with the plan to remain married. Nothing I knew about Cole Hebert before this weekend screamed responsible husband material, but his honest confession about not wanting to fail had tugged at my heartstrings. He had a lot to lose as well.
Dr. Walters came in through the front door, and a hush fell over the office. He was wearing his usual wool dress coat over a freshly pressed white shirt and one of a dozen novelty ties he rotated through. He was in his early seventies, and he was tall and athletic. He had rowed crew at Williams, and he never let anyone forget it.
For years, he had been my dad’s right-hand man. We had lured him out of retirement and convinced him to mentor me while Dad recovered. He only came in three days a week, but I needed the help desperately. Without him, Mellie, and Dawn, I would not survive even a single day here.
I’d clearly taken for granted how hard my dad had worked. How the hell had he managed to build this practice and take care of the whole goddamn town, while coaching my softball team, taking my mom out for weekly dates, and reviewing my homework with me every night? It was mind-boggling.
The billing alone was exhausting. At this point, I repeated the ICD-9 codes in my sleep.
Medical school had taught me a lot about the body and how it worked.
Residency had taught me how to triage injuries, diagnose illness, and treat patients.
But nothing could have prepared me for the packed waiting room that greeted me every day and the range of people who needed my help.
The endless paperwork, the outdated systems, the needless hoops for preapprovals.
The hospital in Baltimore had teams of people to handle all the behind-the-scenes work. Here, it was me and a small handful of people.
“Blondie,” Dr. Walters barked while stirring a packet of Splenda into his morning tea. “Has your generation ever heard an arrythmia, or do you just snaptok about them?”
He loved nothing more than razzing me about my youth and the failings of my generation. And he was sure to remind me at least once a day that he had been in the delivery room the day I was born.
And in turn, I enjoyed reminding him that he was older than dirt.
“Where were you when Lincoln was assassinated?” was my sugary sweet response.
Brow furrowed, he waved a hand dismissively. “I know you’re busy with your new husband—the wife says congrats, by the way—but you can’t lose focus.”
Mrs. Walters was a delight. In fact, she had sent me a lovely plant for my office as a “thanks for taking him off my hands” gift when we’d convinced him to come out of retirement for a few months.
“Your charting is a mess. You rely on technology too much. Can you even manually take blood pressure?”
Of course I could. But still, I yanked the small pad from my coat pocket and scratched out notes as he spoke. As much as he loved to annoy me, he did take my development as a physician seriously.
“Also, you’re on peds today. Waiting room is full of runny noses.”
With a grunt, I gave him a mock salute. On any given day between October and May, there was a handful of kids home sick from school, and it was our job to work them in between appointments. Dr. Walters always pawned them off on me, saying he couldn’t afford to catch what they were spreading at his age.
“Dr. Savard. You’ve got a patient in exam room two,” Dawn barked, walking briskly down the hall.
At her command, I grabbed a surgical mask and got ready to start my day.
Kayleigh Whitlock was seven and had double ear infections. Her twin brother, Kayden, was sitting on the floor playing on his iPad while I swabbed her for strep.
“So you’re a real doctor now?” Mrs. Whitlock asked, her voice high and anxious. “Dr. Walters isn’t available.”
I forced a smile and focused on examining Kayleigh, slipping the swab into the plastic container that would keep the sample from getting contaminated. “Yes, ma’am. Board certified and all.” I wasn’t going to launch into a full recitation of my résumé for this woman. At this point, most people in town had fully reviewed my qualifications.
She gave me a tight smile while I examined Kayleigh’s glands.
“Dr. Willa.” The little girl’s voice was scratchy. Poor kid was miserable. “Why don’t you have a ring?”
“Hmm?” I asked, mentally noting that her glands weren’t swollen.
“A wedding ring.” The little girl pointed to her own finger. “My mom said you got married.”
“I did.” I turned to wash my hands at the small exam room sink.
“And she said your husband is a snack.”
“ Kayleigh ,” her mother snapped.
My face heated with embarrassment, but at the same time, it took effort not to burst into laughter. This was one of the many reasons I loved treating kids. They said whatever the hell they wanted.
Lips pressed together, I inhaled through my nose and composed myself. When I was certain I could keep a neutral expression, I looked over at Mrs. Whitlock with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m sure he’s a fine young man,” she said, head down and very concerned with the contents of her purse.
“To answer your question,” I said, smiling at Kayleigh as I pulled my prescription pad from my pocket. “I don’t have one yet. But we’ll get one soon.”
Once I’d torn the script from the pad, I explained to her mom that I’d call with the results of her strep test once they were in.
Once I’d ushered them out, I turned and headed to the second patient room. It wasn’t even ten, and the day was already off to a roaring start.
I skipped lunch because I was so far behind, and I hadn’t even updated charts yet. So while Dr. Walters talked me through which labs should be ordered when the patient presents with hypertension, I shoved a protein bar into my mouth.
“Dr. Savard,” Mellie said, poking her head into the office I now shared with Dr. Walters. “Mr. Moran is here for his physical in exam three.”
Standing, I threw the wrapper away and picked up my laptop.
When I stepped into the exam room, I was greeted with a wide, warm smile. “My favorite doctor.”
“My favorite patient,” I said, returning the expression.
Bob Moran had retired from the timber business a few years ago and now drove a school bus in town. He was only sixty-one, but his health was poor.
“Have you started the vitamins we talked about? And added a little exercise?” My dad’s notes showed that he’d been trying to talk him into exercise for a long time. Heart disease ran in his family, and his blood work was not great.
“Exercise is boring. Let’s talk about the fact that you got hitched.”
I rolled my eyes. “Small habits can have a big impact on your health.”
He huffed. “You sound like my wife.”
With my hand on my hip, I gave him a pointed look. “Your wife is right, but I expect that’s most of the time.”
“Oh, is that how it is? Now that you’re married to the town hockey star, you know everything?”
“About heart health? Yes, pretty much. Multivitamins and fish oil and exercise. I mean it.”
“Fine, Doc. But only because you’re my favorite.”
“I mean it.” I eyed him for a long minute so he’d understand I was serious. “And if that cholesterol isn’t getting lower in three months, we’re adding medication.”
As he was leaving, Mr. Moran turned and gave me a wink. “You’re doing a great job, kid.”
I thanked him, but his compliment did little to counteract the way every other patient questioned my capabilities.
After a case of the flu, a case of eczema, another ear infection, and a few well visits, I collapsed in my office chair and massaged my temples. My massive water bottle sat full on the top of my desk, calling to me. So I picked it up and chugged.
When I’d set it down again, I opened my email, praying I’d find notifications that indicated I had applicants for the job I’d recently posted.
Instead, there was nothing.
My shoulders sank. I was getting desperate. We needed more staff. Sure, my father had always run a lean operation, but he’d worked himself into a stroke. And with the recent closure of clinics in Heartsborough and Millinocket, we were more in demand than ever. Medicine was changing, and in order to offer the best care to our patients, we needed to change with it.
In residency, I’d been introduced to the community care model that had been adopted in a lot of big cities with vulnerable populations. The more I learned, the more I believed that type of approach would be beneficial to rural communities as well. People up here had few options, which made it even more important for me to bring comprehensive care to my patients.
But right now, my grand plans were on hold. There was no time to work out the best way to tackle the problem while I was struggling to keep up with my day-to-day tasks.
Dr. Walters, the cranky pain in my ass, was the key to my sanity. So for now, my number one priority was keeping him happy.
“You were totally right about RSV prevention dosing . Thank you for helping,” I said as he put on his coat and headed toward the door.
He snorted. “I may be old, but I know what I’m talking about.”
Keeping my expression neutral, I dipped my chin. “Of course.”
“And I read. Never stopped. This isn’t a job, Blondie. It’s a calling. A life’s mission. You don’t punch out at the end of the day. This stays with you on your way home, while you eat dinner, on the weekends. You carry these people and their lives with you forever.”
His words washed through me, a reminder of why I was doing this.
I’d known all this going in. But I couldn’t help but hope I could be everything my community needed without burning out and destroying my health and happiness.
“See you Wednesday,” he said as he stepped out into the hall, leaving me in my cramped office.
As I input my notes and codes, his words played on repeat in my mind. I’d graduated from med school six years ago, and yet I was still waiting for the confidence to kick in. For the ability to thrive and own this job the way my dad had. To possess the ease with which he approached each day and the tidal wave that came through the door.
So many of my med school friends had dreams of going into specialties with minimal patient involvement. They longed to be the expert who swept in at the last minute to solve the big problem. Or the doctor who triages a patient and then passes them along.
I envied them. They could take off the coat and switch it off. Put boundaries in place to protect themselves.
But me?
I didn’t have that luxury. And I was shit at setting boundaries.
The evidence of that was currently living in my spare bedroom. My husband. My platonic roommate. The man who, in the span of a few days, had gone from an acquaintance I barely tolerated to a major part of my life.
While the news was burning through town like wildfire, I didn’t waste much time worrying about it. I’d grown up here. I knew how it worked. New gossip would pop up in a matter of weeks, and we’d be old news. Teenagers would spray paint a penis on the side of the water tower, or Bernice would introduce a new flavor of pie at the diner, and my Vegas nuptials would be all but forgotten.
And then we could quietly separate as friends and move on.
Or he could move on. There were very few romantic prospects for me up here, and if the past few months were any indication, it would be many years before I had time to start the whole dating process.
But I’d worry about that another day.
I was almost thirty-one. There was plenty of time to worry about me later.
Right now, my job was my primary focus. And my biggest concern?
My accidental husband.