37. 37
37
The waiting room of Dr. Harken’s office had gotten upgraded with all new paint and furniture, and yet it was still as bland as a saltless cracker. The front desk beside them was void of any charming decor, not even displaying so much as a name tag. The assistant had stepped away to file somethingand had notyetreturned. There were no magazines on the shiny new table in the waiting area. Everything was silent. The only sound was the swish of Starla’s snow pants as she swung her legs in the chair beside him.
Through the deafening quiet, Will’s head swam. He wished there was something — anything —to take his mind off of Ava. Staring forward at theplain beige wallbefore him was like gazing at a maddening image of his future.
Empty.
Dull.
His heart ached. The lump of emotion in his throat felt like hewas swallowing a boulder.
“Dad, what’s wrong,” Starla asked sweetly, snow boots scraping the floor.
He was grateful for the interruption in his whirling thoughts. “Nothing, Honey.”He forced a fake grin and wrapped his arm around her. “I always get a little anxious when they have to swap out your port.”
Starla chuckled, smacking the heel of her boot with a thud against the carpet, watching packed squares of snow fall from it. “You’re a bad liar.”
“What?” He mustered a chuckle. “I’m not lying.”
“Oh, puh-lease. Your voice always does this weird thing when you lie.”
He laughed. “I’m not lying.”
“ I’m not lying, ” Starla mimicked, her tone more like a cartoon version of Will’s than anything. “And then you do that throat thing.”
Will fought his desire toclear his throat and lowered his tone. “What are you talking about?”
Their heads turned as a baby mewled behind the exam room door. The muffled shushes of parents attempting to soothe the child followed.
“What are they doing in there?” Starla asked, shifting her attention.
Will, once again, welcomed the question. “Well, that baby is probably getting a vaccination. You used to scream like you were being murdered .”
The very word murder conjured memories of his date with Ava at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar about serial killer documentaries. He wondered if she was watching one right now…
Everything came back to Ava.
He couldn’t shake her from his mind and, instead, pictured her there on the couch they’d nearly made love on. In his imagination, her shapely form was lounging comfortably in a baggy t-shirt and shorts, curvaceous legs draped across the dog as investigators in a cold case droned on.
The image overtook his thoughts. His chest throbbed at the loss of all that was, and all that certainly could’ve been.
Was she thinking of him , he wondered. Or was she the type to never look back?
He recalled the wedding photo he’d seen on her wall the day she came into his life, her hair perfectly pinned up in a messy bun, swirling tendrils pulled free. Those green eyes so full of hope. Her elegant neck was adorned with a delicate solitaire diamond perched at the base of her throat, the flesh a canvas he wanted to paint with his lips.
He thought about the other half of that picture, discarded in a landfill somewhere, never to be thought of again. She was fully capable of extricating things in life if they caused her pain.
Starla’s small hand grasped Will’s. His leg jiggled wildly, eyes snapping back to the floor. The floorwas muddy with footprints large and small. He wished he had something - anything - to scrub with. Maybe if he scrubbed hard enough, he could forget that he had botched things with the strongest, sexiest woman to ever walk into his life.
The door opened to the exam room, and a mother emerged, cooing to the crying infant against her chest. Glancing around, she did a double-take and smiled sheepishly when she spotted Will. Her makeup-free eyes were ringed in dark circles, most likely from sleep deprivation. She tucked a wild strand of frizzy hair behind her ear as she quickly made her way past him to the front desk.
Dr. Harken shuffled out to reception. The man was in his early sixties, sporting a head full of salt-and-pepper hair, narrow eyes, and a saggy neck. Today, against the drab walls of his office, the man looked a hundred. “Alright, Dana, it looks like we will submit this to your insurance right away. In the meantime, if little Liam here starts running a temp, won’t eat, or has any signs of an allergic reaction, call me.”
Dana nodded and readjusted the baby on her hip, jostling the diaper bag back on her shoulder. “Thank you. Have a good one.” She gave a polite smile and turned toward Will.
He quickly glanced up at her face, another welcome distraction. She darted her eyes away nervously and hurried out of the clinic’s front door.
“Why do ladies do that?” Starla asked her father quietly. “They always look nervous around you.”
Will grinned. “I dunno, kiddo.”
“They always look like they want to smooch you.”
“Alright,” Dr. Harken said, clapping his hands together. The startling noise bounced off the walls like a distant crack of thunder. “Who’s ready to switch out their port?”
“He is,”Starla joked, jabbing Will’s down coat sleeve.
Dr. Harken chuckled. “Ah now, come on, Miss Starla. You and I had an agreement. We get this port in your tummy, and then you get two stickers of your choice.”
“I see you finished the remodel. It looks nice,” Will lied.
“Thanks! Yeah, it’s nice to start fresh sometimes.”
The words wrenched Will’s gut. Is that how Ava feels right now?
As Will rose, he wondered if he could do the same… start fresh, knowing she was out there,probably thriving without him.
Will followed them into the exam room and shut the door.
“Now, Miss Starla, how have you been feeling? Any blood sugar dips?”
Will’s eyes were locked on a painting hanging across the room, just beyond the examination table. It was a dreamy image of a mother and daughter holding hands with their feet in the water, small waves lapping at their legs.
It wasn’t the image that caught his eye, but the brush strokes…
Small. Exact. Careful.
Not fluid, like a typical blended painting, but something more precise with hard lines and edges.
Will listened to the doctor ask Starla a myriad of questions, lost in thought, drawn to the painting on the otherwise bare wall. “Doctor, is that art new?”
“Huh?” Dr. Harken turned his head from the chart notes to follow his eyeline. “Oh! Yes, that was a donation from a lady here in town who paints ‘em. I think they’re those paint-by- numbers. You believe that? There’s one in each of the exam rooms.”
Will walked closer to the painting and viewed the signature at the bottom. Though the last name was a flurry of swirls, the first name was clear…
Ava.
Being this close to something Ava had spent so much time on made his heart ache. Each delicate shape of paint was met with the focus and precision of a surgeon, every boundary respected.
When she gave him that business plan, he pushed her away. And why?
For believing in him?
Even without sex, the intimacy was there, in the lines of her smile, in the feel of her body sleeping against his the night her ex had resurfaced.
He’d had lots of sex over the years, but never anything as intimate as that night with her. Just sleeping. Just holding her to his chest, legs intertwined. Until then, he hadn’t known his life with Starla was missing anything important.
Now, he was painfully aware.
Starla hissed as Harken’s age-spotted hand removed her port.
“You did great, sweetheart. You’re getting to be an old pro at this.” The doctor smiled.
“These had better be big stickers.” Starla grimaced.
“I just got some new ones in. You’ll get the first pick.”
“Alright, time for the new one, okay? Remember: deep breaths. Focus on wiggling your toes.”
“Okay.” Starla craned her neck toward the painting. “I like it, too.”
“Yeah?” Will snickered, returning his eyes to the image once more.
Starla nodded and exhaled as the doctor skilfully installed the new device. Will grabbed Starla’s small hand and kissed the top of her head.
Moments later, Will walked out of the doctor’s office. “You sure you don’t want me to carry it?”
“I got it, Dad. I have muscles. I can carry it.”
“Yes,” he chuckled, “you do have muscles.”
Starla waddled to the car with the framed paint-by-number in her outstretched arms. He opened the back door and helped her lift it onto the floorboard in front of the bench seat. “Why did you buy this?”
“I liked it.” He smiled. “I’m a fan of the artist.”
“Now he doesn’t have anything on his wall in there.”
“Honey, for what we have paid him through the years for your diabetes stuff, he can afford something else to put on that wall.” Will closed the door and made his way to the front. “Where do you think we should hang it?”
“At the house,” she said looking down at the pug and ballerina stickerson her coat as she madeher way to the passenger side.
“No-duh, smart-aleck. I meant, where in the house?”
She tiptoed to get the door open and struggled her way up into the seat like she was climbing a steep rock face. Will knew better than to try to help her. She always refused, insisting she wanted to get in on her own. “How about where that dumb Cast-a-blanca poster is in the living room?”
“Blasphemy!” Will’s jaw hung open for a moment, appalled. “You know what? For that , you’re grounded.”
Starla giggled.