Chapter Eight. Temperance
While dinner was made, Maren conscripted Temperance to help fill water balloons for the kids to play with. The cabin kitchen was tiny, with just enough room for two adults to work together at the sink and countertop, so they sat on the ground next to the corroded outdoor spigot along the side wall. Sawhorses and lumber sat stacked under tarps, and a tangle of flowering vines rambled up a sagging wooden lattice.
The tangy scent of Will Brady’s famous pineapple-molasses barbecue chicken skewers and the nutty smell of roasting corn drifted from the front of the cabin. Will had been grilling that same summer meal for as long as Temperance could remember.
“You’re going to relax over the next few days,” Maren said. She was eleven years older, and in all the ways that mattered, she’d been more of a parent to Temperance than their mom and dad had ever been.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I mean it.” Maren handed over a filled balloon for Temperance to tie off. “I don’t even want to see you fold your own laundry.”
Temperance laughed. “Am I allowed to feed myself?”
“No. Nate will make an extra plate for you when he feeds the kids. I hope you like nuggies.”
“Love ’em.”
Temperance had learned early in undergrad that she could thrive on four or five hours of sleep each night, with no detriment to her cognitive function or physical health. She’d had a neurobiology professor who liked to say that life was a marathon, not a sprint. For Temperance, it was a marathon she sprinted through. Everything in her life was something she was running toward or running from.
She kept her body busy every hour she was awake, filling gaps and lulls with long-distance runs and high-intensity activities that would reliably spike her dopamine and adrenaline. Nearly everything she did was a vehicle to propel her from now to next, and she’d spent the last eight years avoiding deceleration at all costs.
Nextwas safe.
But now had finally caught up with her. For the first time in her adult life, she was stuck in a holding pattern, and rather than making progress toward getting out of it, everything she tried seemed to slow her down more. It was the only reason why her sister had managed to convince her to come to the valley for the week and try something so out of character. She was going to do… nothing. For seven whole days.
“If Mom and Dad call this week, I think you should give yourself permission to not answer—”
“They’ve called multiple times a day, for days,” Temperance said. “I can’t avoid them much longer.”
Maren let out a disappointed sigh. “You know I try to not get involved when it comes to them—”
“I know.” Temperance laughed.
“But you seem to be impervious to everyone’s bullshit but theirs. Just—give yourself some space before they sweep you up into the Corbin and Laine show.”
Temperance’s phone rang.
“Oh my god, you conjured them,” she said.
Maren made a face. “Wait—wasn’t their ringtone the Jaws theme?”
“Yes, but I needed something louder. More dread-inducing.”
They both side-eyed the phone.
“Don’t do it, T.J.”
“They’re just going to keep calling until I talk to them.”
“And you can just keep ignoring it.”
The ringtone stopped.
As Laine Talbot-Madigan and Corbin Madigan’s eldest daughter, Maren’s destiny in humanitarian healthcare had been all but written on her birth announcements. She was a satellite to their planet, her worth contingent upon remaining within the orbit they’d designated for her. So when Maren eventually dropped out of med school to marry Nate Brady and start a family, it divided the Madigan family into two opposing factions of a very small war. Maren was cut off financially and emotionally, and Temperance had been caught solidly in the middle of it.
Temperance had been only thirteen and knew very little about the emotional politics of falling in love. But it was unmistakable that Maren Rose Brady was an elevated version of Maren Rose Madigan. She was unburdened and sparkling in a way Temperance hadn’t seen in years. For that, she was solidly Team Maren.
But.
Maren’s absence created a space for Temperance in their parents’ lives that hadn’t been there before, and wouldn’t have ever been, otherwise. Young Temperance quietly resolved to not let them down in the same way Maren did, even though at the time she’d had no idea what committing to a career in medicine actually meant.
The Madigan girls had been born into a family of women who’d lived and breathed medicine for five generations. Their great-great-grandmother Louisa Capewell had been one of the faculty physicians at the country’s first medical college for women in the late 1800s, and her eldest daughter, Theodora, became a physician as well. Theo married into money when she wed August Talbot, the eldest son of a Philadelphia iron and steel family. Theo and August had shared the same philanthropic spirit, combining their talents and resources to establish the Capewell-Talbot Foundation. Today, the foundation provided funding to the Vesper Valley healthcare system and an endowment to the University Hospital where Temperance, her mother, Laine, and Laine’s mother, Helen, had done their residencies. But Capewell-Talbot’s signature initiative was Domestic Relief and Aid—also known as DORA.
Founded in the 1960s by Helen Capewell-Talbot—Temperance’s grandmother—DORA began as a small, secular humanitarian aid organization during the counterculture movement providing medical aid at protests and marches, and advocating for healthcare reform. Helen had a bohemian heart, a brilliant mind, and a larger-than-life personality that gained her name recognition amongst activist groups and the medical community alike, and DORA’s scope and influence grew along with Helen’s own reputation in the following decades.
Most of what Temperance knew about her grandmother she’d learned from books. Helen’s own memoir, Hippie Humanitarian, had even been optioned for a film in the 1990s, but it never got made due to fundamental differences in vision between Helen and the studio. Between Heaven and Helen: A Lifetime of Radical Compassion was the tantalizing and fan-worshippy biography written after her death, and teenage Temperance had read it cover to cover more times than she could count. Helen Capewell-Talbot had been an influencer before influencers existed, a minor celebrity in humanitarian healthcare, and a household name within activist circles around the country. Even now, Temperance knew of at least two attendings whose LinkedIn profile photos were from two decades ago at the annual Capewell-Talbot fundraising gala, posing with an ageless Dr. Helen Capewell-Talbot.
Temperance’s mother, Laine, was born and raised in the unconventional DORA lifestyle, and road-schooled by DORA’s tight-knit nomadic community of doctors, nurses, engineers, and social activists. Temperance’s father came from old Philadelphia money—the youngest grandson of a real-estate tycoon. Corbin Madigan had been a hotshot emergency medicine doctor fresh out of residency when he joined DORA, and he and Laine were married within the year. Helen eventually took on more of a figurehead role in the organization by doing keynotes and fundraising appearances, while Corbin and Laine ushered DORA into a new era of expansion. In the name of keeping DORA as nimble as possible, they strategically built five small brick-and-mortar locations throughout the country after cross-referencing social vulnerability indices with decades of FEMA disaster data, and they used humanitarian response as a platform for preventative health measures like vaccines and family-planning resources.
Objectively speaking, her parents were good people. They made positive change in the world.
It didn’t mean they weren’t shitty parents, though. Being Corbin and Laine’s daughter was like being the child of superheroes. Eternally second to their higher purpose.
When Temperance reread her grandmother’s biography a few years ago—the first time she’d done so as an adult—she’d realized that shitty parenting might be as much a part of the Capewell-Talbot legacy as life-changing healthcare was. The only mention of Laine in either of the books about Helen Capewell-Talbot was in the context of what a brave and progressive thing it was for Helen to have shrugged off the social stigma of single motherhood, defying the patriarchy by refusing to name Laine’s father.
It hadn’t occurred to Temperance until then that her grandmother’s larger-than-life personality and legendary status as an activist might’ve meant she made little time to actually be a good mother. That realization had come during a particularly probing session with her therapist, after which Temperance had ugly-cried in the front seat of her car, blowing her nose into the (admittedly large) stash of Taco Bell napkins she kept in the glove box.
The phone blared again. When Temperance reached for where it sat on a low stack of lumber, Maren tried to snatch it away.
Temperance was faster. “Just let me get it out of the way,” she whispered. Then she smoothed her hand down over her hair, pasted on a smile, and held the phone in front of her face. “Hey.”
“Temperance, hello.” Laine Talbot-Madigan’s voice echoed a bit. “It’s Mom and Dad.”
“I can literally see you right now, Mom.”
Corbin Madigan and Laine Talbot-Madigan were dedicated first to each other, a very close second to the family foundation, and a distant third to their daughters. They were so intertwined they didn’t even have separate personal phones, so whenever they made a video call, it was both of their heads crowded in the frame. They were in their seventies but had the decades-younger look of two people whose wealth and privilege translated to lifelong wellness. Laine’s hair was ash blond and white, twisted into a long braid just like Temperance’s was. The glow of the phone screen made her eerily pale green eyes seem almost silver. Corbin’s dark-blond hair was trained into an obedient side part that Temperance had quite literally never seen move out of place. She got her icy blue eyes from him, but she hadn’t been gifted with the same dark lashes he had. Her own were blond and even paler at the tips, requiring a generous swipe of mascara to summon them from the ghostly realm and into the corporeal one.
“Hi, Teej,” Corbin said.
“Are you”—Laine squinted at the screen—“in the woods?”
Temperance pointed a finger over her shoulder. “It’s—ah, a virtual background. New feature.”
“I hear people, though,” Laine said. “And birds.”
“Part of the feature, Mom.”
“You look tired.” Laine leaned toward the screen. “Doesn’t she look tired, Corbin?”
“Are you exercising enough, Teej?” said Corbin. Not, Are you resting enough, Teej?
“Her iron might be low,” Laine mused. “Her vitamin D, maybe.”
Corbin said, “When was your last CBC?”
“I’m sorry,” Temperance said, “are we doing a differential or having a conversation?”
Laine’s version of a smile didn’t involve her mouth, only a slight squint of her eyes. “Doctor humor. That’s cute.”
“I have a CBC every six months, Dad. Same as always. All normal. Platelets above one-fifty. Same as last time.”
“You look pale,” Laine said.
“This is just my normal face, Mom.”
There had been a time in her life that she’d have gladly parted with a limb to have her parents fussing over her health. Temperance recognized it for what it was now, though. They were keeping tabs on a valuable professional asset.
Since the Capewell-Talbot Foundation was founded more than a century ago, every generation of Temperance’s family had a woman doctor who’d made an important contribution to it by the time they were forty. Now, Laine was positioning a program to address the unique needs of children in natural-disaster responses as Temperance’s chance to do the same. A two-million-dollar innovation grant was on the line, and they wanted her to write the proposal for it.
Two million dollars.
If DORA was awarded the grant—which they would be, because Temperance was damned good at what she did—the program would need to be underway within six weeks of receiving the funds. An initial progress report would be due by week eight, and after that, every four months. It would mean more than a year of administrative and operational work. Lots of paperwork, meetings, and red tape—and very little practicing actual medicine.
Deep down, though, Temperance knew it wasn’t really her that her parents wanted. It didn’t matter that she had a master’s of public health and an MD from an Ivy. For them, the most attractive thing on her résumé was that she was their daughter. They got to leverage her expertise and her energy, and they got to maintain influence in a way they wouldn’t have with another doctor.
Perhaps most important of all, they could groom her as the eventual successor of Capewell-Talbot Foundation leadership.
In another move that was far ahead of her time, Helen and her original board had written the Capewell-Talbot bylaws to require the organization’s chief executive officer, chief medical officer, and chief operating officer to all be physician executives rather than MBAs and suits. Laine had been happy to take over that role after Helen died, and throughout undergrad and her first year and a half of medical school, Temperance had always assumed she’d be ready for it someday, too.
At first, medicine hadn’t been something she’d loved like so many of her student peers, but the coursework came naturally to her, and she’d managed to convince herself she’d be satisfied with being a doctor as much as any other profession. Then, halfway through her second year of med school, she’d volunteered at the university’s student-run free clinic in Linden, and she fell in love.
As was often the case when unexpectedly falling in love, things got complicated.
Temperance quickly found that she lived for that steady build of trust with the littlest patients. That visible transformation on the parents’ faces when they realized their child was in safe hands with her. Even now, Temperance had a few patients in their early twenties who she’d originally seen in the clinic as teenagers when she’d still been a med student.
An executive role in Capewell-Talbot meant she wouldn’t do clinical work at all. Not only would she not have time for it—it would also be a conflict of interest from a business perspective. She would spend most of her days doing personnel management and report writing and strategic planning of how donor dollars translated to clinical outcomes.
It was important work, no doubt. It just wasn’t for her.
But her parents had another lever that they hadn’t hesitated to pull.
“We heard about the clinic,” Laine said.
“Of course you did, Mom. You’re on the board.”
Corbin cut in. “Your mother isn’t the only trustee on that board, Teej. And the funding vote wasn’t even close.”
“Closing that clinic will mean more patients enroll in Medicaid, and they can get into facilities that receive government reimbursement,” said Laine. “It’s stronger and more sustainable.”
“How do you think people in communities like this find out about the care that they qualify for, Mom?” Temperance’s voice rose. “A huge part of what we do there is connect people with social workers to get them into programs and more specialized care.”
“It’s no longer a good investment,” Corbin said.
“You make everything about money—”
“Everything is about money, Temperance.” Laine Talbot-Madigan never raised her voice, but the pace of her words picked up speed when she was irritated. “Money increases influence, and influence increases impact. Ninety percent of the med students trained at that clinic over the years haven’t stayed in the valley, or even in the suburbs. That talent goes elsewhere.”
Temperance glared at the screen. “You do realize that clinics like mine serve a purpose beyond teaching, right? Actual human beings come to them for care. It’s not just a simulation to train med students.”
Her mother disregarded that, a technique she’d employed since Temperance was a child. Laine was so good at smoothly skipping over questions or contributions to a conversation that sometimes Temperance wondered if she’d even verbalized them at all. It was an insidious, invisible sort of gaslighting.
In the background on her parents’ end of the line, a forklift beeped over the sounds of muffled voices and two-way radio conversations.
“You could make a difference in tens of thousands more lives with DORA,” said Laine.
“Sorry, never heard of her.” Temperance made eye contact with Maren over the top edge of the phone. Maren slapped a hand over her mouth to hold in a laugh.
Laine made a sound that was the auditory equivalent of an eye roll. “Aren’t you the comedian today.”
“You can tremendously increase your impact by coming to work with us,” Corbin said. “It’s a numbers game.”
“I’m ending the call if you say impact again.”
Corbin pressed on. “DORA is bigger than you, Teej.”
“Maybe I want to be small?” she said.
Laine sniffed. “Nobody wants to be small, Temperance.”
Temperance did want a small life, and she resented the way her parents made it seem like a desire to care for individual patients and form community relationships was somehow a waste of her effort and attention.
“We made sure you had the kind of privileges and resources you do so you could do more with your life. Not less,” Corbin said.
Abruptly, Laine said, “Does this have anything to do with Duncan Brady?”
Temperance’s belly dropped. She did a double take at the screen. “Why would you ask me that?”
At the edge of her vision, Maren tipped her head in curiosity.
“Where are you right now?” Corbin said.
“I’m in the valley. Taking a little break.”
“A break.” The way Laine said it, Temperance might have said she was taking a little crime spree.
“With Maren?” said Corbin.
“Yes.”
Strained silence. “Is she well?” Laine eventually asked.
“You could call her sometime, Mom. Ask her yourself.” Ask about your son-in-law, too. Ask about your grandchildren, you ghouls.
Maren grimaced and made a horizontal slashing motion in front of her neck. No thank you, please, she mouthed.
Her parents shared a look but didn’t respond.
“Okay. Well. This was fun, but I have to go,” Temperance said. “Send me the grant application materials, and I’ll take a look.”
“Wonderful. Expect an email from Seraphine sometime tomorrow—”
“No promises, Mom. I’m just going to look. I have to go now,” Temperance said, and ended the call. She lobbed the phone into the grass beside her and groaned into her hands.
Maren reached out to squeeze her arm. “They’re not bad people. They’re just bad parents.”
“It might be easier if they were bad,” Temperance said. “I’d feel a lot better saying no to what they want me to do.”
“Why even consider it, honey? They can find someone else to write their grant. You don’t need their money. Get a business loan. Open your own clinic once the Linden clinic closes.”
Maren’s sunny, simple optimism was clear proof that she was more Brady than Madigan now. The Brady family identified the thing they loved, and they went for it. Together. It seemed so simple.
“It’s a little more complicated than that, Mare.” Temperance took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.
She told Maren everything.
Sometimes, she wished she’d hated medicine. Or at least been ambivalent about it. Either way would have made her life a lot simpler. Because once she loved being a doctor, she became protective of it. It was hers in a way nothing in her life had ever been, and she would fight for it if necessary.
A fight was what it had come to, and her parents’ weapon of choice was money.
After those first two months of volunteering at the clinic back in med school, Temperance told Laine and Corbin she planned to pursue pediatrics, and she wouldn’t be joining them at the helm of Capewell-Talbot and DORA after residency. They’d threatened to cut her off the same way they’d done to Maren. Temperance hadn’t had any weapons of her own to fight with, so she did the only thing she could.
She disarmed them.
She rejected the Capewell-Talbot money and used federal loans to pay for her final two years of medical school tuition. It had made her feel powerful for the first time in her life. But now, it was painfully obvious that she hadn’t actually reclaimed any power at all. She’d simply transferred it away from her parents and into the hands of loan servicers.
She’d cut the proverbial apron strings and sliced off her own leg in the process.
Now, Temperance found herself in the paradoxical position of being a double trust fund baby with six figures of student-loan debt and virtually no assets of her own beyond a ten-year-old Corolla and a gratuitous collection of couture lingerie—half of it secondhand.
And time. Time was another currency she didn’t have. It couldn’t be generated or borrowed, either. You either had it, or you didn’t.
The announcement of the clinic’s closure gave her a little less than three months to figure out how to keep the lights on—and covered by insurance—while she figured out a more permanent solution. But thanks to her parents’ close management of her finances through the first half of her twenties, followed by a frugal cash-only lifestyle during residency, Temperance had a mediocre credit score that would slip into “fair” territory under the weight of too many simultaneous hard inquiries from lenders. So she couldn’t simply cast a wide net of loan applications and hope one of them caught an approval. Her first two attempts hadn’t even made it past the pre-qualification step, since her per diem work history wasn’t extensive or consistent enough to indicate income stability. There were grants available through healthcare foundations, but they tended to avoid funding nonprofit startups, and many of those required an invitation to even apply, anyway. Those invitations weren’t exactly pouring into her inbox, and even if she knew where to begin with those, she didn’t have time.
The clinic’s impending closure had given her parents a sharp, shiny hook baited with the only thing that could possibly get her to bite: a fresh start. She’d write the grant for the Capewell-Talbot board so they could groom her for executive leadership someday. In exchange, they’d establish funding to make sure underserved Vesper Valley families got the aid they needed.
Temperance left out the part about how Capewell-Talbot was her very necessary backup plan in case coexistence with Duncan proved impossible once Harry and Rowan were married. Maybe she’d be eager to get the hell out of there by then.
Maren was quiet for a long time after Temperance was done talking.
“So, yeah. I started med school for them.” Temperance raised her chin. “I finished med school for me.”
“Bold choice,” Maren said after a thoughtful silence. “A little stupid, maybe—”
“Thanks, Mare. That’s super helpful.”
That earned her a classic Maren look that said, I’m not finished yet. “—and emblematic of your privilege, rejecting so much tuition money. But bold, for sure. And probably—” Maren sighed. “The right thing.”
Temperance wasn’t a big crier, but the grudging approval from her sister made her eyes well with hot tears.
“Look.” Maren took her by the shoulders and gently touched their foreheads together. “You say you want a small life. But even small things take work to build. You might need to do this thing for Mom and Dad to get started, but you have more negotiating power than you realize. Sometimes you have to turn around and take a different path to go forward, honey. But it’s okay. It’s still movement.”
Temperance swiped away tears before she slid her glasses back on. “I love you. Even though you’re bossy.”
“I’m not bossy.” Maren sat back and smiled. She pulled a new balloon over the faucet and turned it on. “I eagerly share my wisdom—and I’m right a lot. There’s a difference.”