Chapter 4 #3
“I also don’t have the time,” Theo went on.
“That’s a huge issue. Before I start any work on the cabin, I would need to clean it out but every night, I only go home and fall asleep.
On weekends, there’s more to do at the office or the hospital, and I’m overwhelmed.
” He paused. “That’s the real answer. I’m overwhelmed by all of this.
I had previously thought that I was a person who was capable of dealing with most things in life, but I’ve found that I’m not. ”
“I think you’ve found that you’re a person who needs help,” I said.
“You’re like Nicola. She tried to do everything by herself, alone, but it’s sad that way and lonely.
It’s better with other people, so now she has her husband Jude and…
” I paused to count on my fingers. “There’s at least one kid.
” That was for sure, because I had been in the room when she had been born and her middle name was Grace.
“So I need help.” He nodded. “You’re right. I need it at home and at work, and that was one of the things you were going to do at the office when you had the temp job with us.”
“But you said it was more important for me to help Pinar when I was there.”
“And I’ve been hesitant about letting Regina into my crazy office because she’s busy enough already. The house is another story.” He took a bite of fattoush. “It’s genuinely frightening.”
I nodded, because I could definitely believe that a ghost or two lived in that mess, and I had never been fond of them.
“What have you been doing with yourself, besides moving?” he asked. “Regina and Pinar said that you hadn’t responded to their texts either.”
I shrugged. “You know. Some car repairs, because I had an oil leak. I used to work in a garage and I think I repaired that. And I briefly adopted a dog, but then he fell in love with my brother-in-law Campbell, so he lives with them now. I went to Calcutta, I helped my sister Addie plan a garden. She does landscape design,” I explained.
“Did you say that you went to Calcutta?”
“I’m back,” I assured him. “It was a short trip.”
“How…why…” He stopped.
“I would definitely want to go again, but for more than eighteen hours next time. You just don’t get to see as much as you’d like,” I said. “I also did a bunch of laundry and Nicola told me that I had to give back your shorts.”
“You’ve been busy,” he remarked, and I nodded. Not busy enough to keep my mind off stuff, though, and I also sighed. “Are you ok?”
“There have been things going on,” I answered.
“Is that why you went to India? Wait a minute, did you mean that you went to Calcutta, India?”
“What?” I stared at him. “I don’t have a passport. I can’t even find my driver’s license. Are you talking about my trip to Calcutta, Ohio? Because the city in India is named Kolkata.”
“Ok, thank you for clarifying. Are you finished with your hummus?” I was and we got up to leave. “What’s going on that’s making you upset?” he asked as we walked to the counter.
I didn’t want to talk about it, and I wanted him to go home and sleep.
It was a long way to his cabin on roads that were very dark and I was sure he’d be up bright and early to traverse them again tomorrow morning.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him, and he wanted to argue but I started to walk across the parking lot and he followed.
“Could I see you again?” Theo asked me when we got to my car, and that was confusing. I had definitely gotten the idea that he hadn’t liked me.
The next day, that was what I explained to Regina and Pinar at lunch. “I probably shouldn’t see any of you, including the fish. Including the friendly daddy longlegs under my former desk,” I stated.
“What? A spider?” Pinar asked immediately. “That desk is in my office!”
I started to explain what a daddy longlegs actually was, but Regina waved her hand to dismiss that discussion. “Why shouldn’t you see us?” she wanted to know instead.
“Theo doesn’t like me and it’s awkward. I feel very awkward,” I said, but then I didn’t want to explain any further. They knew a lot about his life, but they didn’t know that I’d gone up to his cabin and spent the night there. Nothing had happened. Nothing at all had happened.
“I don’t know why you think that,” Regina said, and she did sound puzzled. “He likes almost everyone. I’ve never heard him raise his voice and he’s so compassionate.”
“Too much,” Pinar muttered, and we both looked at her.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Relax, Regina!” Pinar told her. “I’m not criticizing your precious boy.
” Regina’s eyes got big and she opened her mouth, but Pinar kept talking.
“It’s not good that he’s so involved. He feels all this stuff too much.
Dr. McGonagle cared about his patients but not the same way.
It wasn’t like he got rocked every time something bad happened, and a lot of bad shit goes down with the patients in our office. ”
Regina’s eyes had subsided and now she nodded. “I’ve thought that, too,” she agreed. “Dr. Winter has a hard time rolling with it. You know, feeling sad but then moving forward.”
“Why did he go into oncology?” Pinar asked her, and Regina shrugged.
I was glad that this tangent meant they had forgotten about me, and also, I was interested in hearing more about Theo.
He had said that it had been his dream to be a doctor, but he’d never mentioned why he’d chosen this specialty and I realized that I didn’t know much about that.
Did all the kinds of medicine require the same amount of education?
Did the different types of doctors earn the same salary, or was one a lot fancier so they were making more?
But he had also said that his grandfather left him a mint—to him, and not to his mom.
“Grace?”
I looked up from the ice cube I’d been sliding around the table as I thought. “Yes?”
“Pinar asked why you believe that Dr. Winter doesn’t like you,” Regina prompted. “Personally, I’ve never seen evidence of that.”
She hadn’t been a witness to when he and I had been alone in his bedroom, in his freaking bed.
She might have had a different opinion if she had been there with us and had noticed his indifference to my presence.
But I was currently concerned about something else.
“Is he going to burn out?” I asked her. “Is that what you two are afraid of?”
They looked at each other. “Well, it would be better if he didn’t work so hard,” Regina said. “It would be better if he had other interests. Like a family!”
“You just want grandchildren,” Pinar scoffed, and they started to argue, carping back and forth at each other until the lunch was over.
As we walked out to the cars, both of them urged me to stay in touch better, saying that they were happy I’d moved and were hopeful that they could find a long-term position for me in the medical building.
“I sent you information on at least three job openings,” Regina reminded me. “Did you apply for them?”
“We’d give you great recommendations, and so would Theo,” Pinar added. “You know, you never told us why you think that he doesn’t like—”
“Goodness, Grace! What is that giant puddle under your car?” Regina asked loudly. It wasn’t water this time. I hadn’t worked for that long at the auto repair shop and it seemed like I hadn’t picked up enough knowledge to fix my own gaskets.
I did make it home, eventually, and it was to the home that my mother owned. She was there by herself and was seated in the kitchen, surrounded by several moving boxes and even more wads of balled-up Kleenex.
“Grace, what are you doing here?” she asked me, and blew her nose. “Why aren’t you at work at the hospital?”
“That’s Nicola,” I answered. “She’s the nurse, not me.”
“You do something with medicine,” she said vaguely, but then she picked up an item from the table. “Look! Dion is helping me clear out the attic and I found this today. Your grandmother saved everything.”
I did look and saw an old photo of a little red-haired boy holding a pencil and frowning. “Is that Dad?”
“Wasn’t he adorable?” she asked, and then she started crying again. “I texted him to say that I have these pictures from his childhood but he hasn’t answered. Did he change his number?”
“Addie told me that you guys are only supposed to talk through your lawyers now.”
She bristled. “I was his wife for decades! He should respond to me…what is that terrible odor?”
I sniffed my coat. “Maybe oil.”
“Did you come here to do laundry? Don’t put anything stained with that stuff into my washing machine because you’ll make everything smell, just like when you worked for the mechanic.”
“No, I didn’t only come to do laundry. I live here,” I said, and my mom stared at me for a moment and then shook her head hard.
“No, you don’t. Not anymore.”
“Temporarily,” I suggested, and she shook her head again.
“Dion has Patrick’s old room. The girls’ bunkroom is my new studio,” she said. “Where did you plan to sleep?” I had made myself at home among Dion’s things the night before, and she was very angry to hear that now. “Grace, that’s his property, and not to be touched!”
It reminded me a lot of how she’d also acted with my brother Patrick, who’d had his own room (now Dion’s) while the six of us girls shared the other. “Temporarily,” I suggested again, but the answer was no.
“It’s time for you to spread your wings,” she told me. That sounded angelic or butterfly-ish, but I understood that she wanted time alone with her new son before he moved out like the old son had. There was no room for the old daughter, either.
“Ok,” I agreed. It wasn’t the first time I’d been kicked out of a place and it probably wasn’t going to be the last. I would go, but I went to make myself a PB and J before I made my final exit from my parents’ home.