Chapter Twenty-Eight. Temperance
The second week of July, the clinic in Linden closed. The university moved all the large equipment back to the school, with plans to redistribute it to the remaining open clinic closer to campus in Philadelphia. With Ike Elias’s and Cole Bello’s help, Temperance convinced the board to agree to cover insurance and the salaries of the few permanent staff members—herself included—through the end of August, so they’d have time for outreach from their temporary location at Linden Community College.
She still hadn’t found an apartment, so she was still squatting at her parents’ house in Linden. Frankie was fully moved into the apartment above her new photography studio in Linden, and Temperance still saw her nearly every day, even though they weren’t roommates anymore. The building she lived in now had a green roof with nearly three thousand square feet of garden space.
Duncan would love it.
She missed him, but she hadn’t been back to Cloud Tide since Rowan and Harry’s wedding.
For the past week, she’d been at the clinic ten hours a day, packing the smaller items that the university left behind and cleaning the place to prepare for the lease end. It was also her responsibility to do all the needful operational sorts of things like canceling the utilities and redirecting mail. That bit of the whole situation seemed particularly cruel.
That morning, a package arrived for her just before she left for the clinic. She brought it inside without much of a glance, assuming it was an odd one-off meant for her parents. But as she tossed it onto the island in the kitchen, she saw that it was clearly addressed to her.
Inside the larger cardboard shipping box was another box—white with a black satin ribbon. Temperance gasped out loud when she opened it.
It was full of sumptuous Fleur du Mal lingerie. A blush-pink angel-sleeve robe, and a silk bodysuit with a lace cutout panel down the belly. Bras—balconettes, bustiers, a plunge demi with intricate embroidery. Several that were on the more practical side, but were still so soft and sexy Temperance couldn’t resist rubbing them against her cheeks. There were matching panties for each bra—cheeky low-cuts, wisp-thin thongs, and lace high-waists that were just as luscious as the racier pieces.
This was thousands of dollars’ worth of silk and lace, and every piece was her size.
There was no note, but she didn’t need one to know who it was from.
TEMPERANCEhad just finished loading the final box of supplies from the clinic into the trunk of her car when she ran bodily into Millie Bristow. She wore dusky-pink scrubs with a laminated ID badge clipped to the neckline.
“Dr. Madigan, oh my gosh, hi there.”
“Hi, Millie—please, call me Temperance.” An awkward few seconds passed. She had no idea what to say, and Millie simply stood there blinking her big, beautiful eyes like she was waiting to be dismissed. “You’re in scrubs. Are you—?”
“I’m a CMA at the urgent care over on Bridgeview. After-work coffee run.” Millie did a balletic little bob, and words rolled out of her like notes from an overcranked music box. “I’m starting school to be a midwife this fall. God, I’d have never made it through the math in physics 101 at LCC without Duncan. He’s so smart, you know? Are you in town for his presentation tonight?” The way her eyes sparkled made it plain how fond of him she was.
“Presentation?” Temperance said.
Millie’s smile sagged a bit. With narrowed eyes, she scanned Temperance’s face. She pressed her lips together with a low hmm. For the first time ever, Temperance saw beneath the other woman’s perky fa?ade.
Millie Bristow had backbone beneath all those bubbles.
Slowly, Millie said, “What don’t you know?”
Temperance suddenly felt very tired. Her eyes tingled, and all the emotion of the past few weeks coalesced into a knot low in her throat. She tried to swallow it down, but that only made it worse. “I think there’s more that I don’t know than I do.”
Millie reached out to squeeze her arm. “Do you have a few minutes? We should talk.”
TEMPERANCEwalked with Millie to Binding and Bean, a dual coffee shop and secondhand bookstore in downtown Linden. The toasty fragrance of coffee beans mingled with the musty, sweet scent of old books. The building used to be a church, with a vaulted and coffered ceiling paneled with glossy blond wood. It retained the original arched stained-glass windows and the pendant lighting, and a few of the pews were converted into booth seating. Temperance and Millie sat in a small U-shaped nook beside one of the windows.
“Disclosure number one.” Millie wiggled her butt back and forth to settle into her seat, like a kitten burrowing into a blanket. “He’s going to be mad at both of us for this. But I warned him I’d tell you if he didn’t. And that was last month. So, he’s had his chance.”
“Okay.” Temperance sipped a perfectly frothed cortado.
“Disclosure number two. We were kind of a thing, ages ago. Duncan and me—we’re built the same way. Neither of us put much stock in physical flings, and we just really like each other for all the best reasons.” Millie stirred honey into an iced coffee. “God, this is so embarrassing—”
Temperance breathed out a quiet laugh. “It’s okay, Millie. We’re grown-ups.”
“We hadn’t seen each other in ages, until we were in a sociology class together at LCC two years ago.” Millie withdrew her phone from her bag, swiped around on the screen a few times, then handed it to Temperance. It was her Instagram profile, filled corner to corner with pictures of her and Duncan together. All of them were selfie shots, and they spanned seasons.
A photo of Duncan with a swoop of hair falling down over his forehead, and Millie wearing his favorite ball cap backward. The leaves in the trees behind them were bold orange. Another, both of them in colorful knit caps with cold-reddened cheeks pressed together, and one of Millie riding piggyback with her arms around his neck. A photo from earlier this summer, when Millie had shown up at the cabin at the lake in her cute little truck. The two of them looked more vivid than life itself, with sun-kissed cheeks and big bright smiles, each with the impossibly thick and shiny hair of a shampoo commercial.
At first glance, they looked like a happy couple, but a scroll through the images didn’t show any of them kissing, and all of them were taken in public spaces.
“Gavin, my ex-husband, is a real jerk. Harassing me online, showing up at events where we had the barbecue truck. Never anything serious enough that I could get a restraining order for, but enough to scare me. Enough to scare my mom.”
Temperance looked up from Millie’s phone. “I saw her bracelet at the bakery a few weeks ago. Stress is dangerous for people with Addison’s.”
Millie nodded solemnly. “So, last year, I shared a picture of Duncan and me together, just for fun. We were at the student organization fair at LCC. Gavin stopped contacting me after that, and it was one less thing for Mom to worry about.”
There were a few photos in a series from Harry and Rowan’s wedding. Millie looked radiant in her fire-engine-red dress, and the sheer volume of photos sold the romantic narrative. But Temperance knew that Millie had left barely an hour into the reception.
“She got what she needed.”
“Anyway, all fake.” Millie tapped the glass screen with a fingernail and sat back in the booth. “It was Duncan’s idea. Pretty smart, huh?”
“Oh, Duncan.” Temperance sighed. Her eyes burned with tears.
Without pause or pretense, Millie asked, “How long have you known you were still in love with him?”
The power of the question was in its simplicity. “Long time,” Temperance said.
“I’m heading to school in Michigan at the end of the month.” Millie plunged her straw up and down in her drink, making the ice clatter against the sides. “I’ll be at a safe distance from Gavin, and my mom won’t have to worry anymore. I hate the thought that this has somehow kept you two apart—”
“Oh, no. We’ve got plenty of other issues.” Temperance’s laugh was sad. “Why didn’t he want anyone to know about school?”
Millie lowered her coffee and shook her head. “I’m not sure. But that’s not my story to tell, even if I did.”
Temperance laughed softly. “Duncan used that same phrase when I asked him about you.”
“Dr. Madigan—”
“Millie, you have to call me Temperance.”
“Temperance. It doesn’t seem right that I know more about how you two feel than either of you do. The way you love each other deserves to be more than a secret.”
PRESENTATIONShad already begun by the time Temperance snuck into the back of the LCC auditorium and sat in the last row. On a brightly lit stage, a person in an indigo pantsuit talked about the sociological and environmental aspects of architecture in front of a projector screen. At the far end of the stage was a long table covered with architectural models made of white foam or 3D printed plastic.
She spotted Duncan immediately, seated in the front row between a woman in a mint-green hijab and a person with long blond hair even paler than Temperance’s own. His shoulders rose high over the seat back. He was a black bear amidst tropical birds.
Duncan was the sixth person out of seven to present. To introduce his work, he presented a few case studies of adaptive reuse in agricultural settings, highlighting the long-term cost effectiveness of energy efficiency, the importance of reducing carbon emissions, and the imperative of employing materials and methods that were truly sustainable and not just “greenwashed.”
The expressive bass of his voice filled her all the way up even at the very back of the room. The rest of the world smudged to a monochrome blur around him. He shepherded the audience’s attention with purposeful movements of his body and hands. He paused for impact. When he used phrases like “driving force” and “main thrust” to describe what he’d set out to accomplish—god, who was this man?—Temperance squirmed a little in her seat. When he transitioned into the segment of his presentation about the work on his cabin and the Cloud Tide winery, the photos on the screen hit her with such a wallop of homesickness, she felt lightheaded.
I’m not at a place in my life where I pass up a chance to get something I want if I have the means to get it.
He used the cabin as a brief proof of concept, and based on what she’d seen in the other students’ presentations, his choice to do so was a departure from how these things typically went. The slides began with amateurish photos of the cabin from earlier in the summer—the place was a mess. The “after” photos of the cabin were professional quality, crisp and as beautifully composed as a real-estate listing. They were paired with the schematics—or whatever architects called them—of the structural updates Duncan had made to the place. The new metal roof, the solar panels, the reclaimed barnwood planks on the front porch. Even a 3D rendering of how he’d installed radiant heat in the floors.
In the final part of his presentation, Duncan focused on the Cloud Tide winery renovation. He seamlessly wove together anecdotes and lessons learned, with a proposal for how he’d approach a brand-new sustainable winery design. He melded the architectural elements with his business savvy and years of contracting experience, dissembling a bit with a joke about how much older he was than his classmates.
Even as an outsider, it was clear to Temperance that his work was on an elevated level compared to that of his peers. Duncan was in his thirties, already balancing a staggering amount of operational and interpersonal responsibility, and he’d still chosen to take this on. Because he’d wanted it bad enough.
When he finished, polite applause rippled through the crowd, then the design jurors began their brief question-and-answer period. Duncan aced his response to the first inquiry about the challenges that building a sustainable winery might present for a client. He wrapped it up with a charmingly self-deprecating joke about how the only thing he’d recommend anyone turn a century-old bank barn into… was an updated bank barn.
After a few more jurors asked questions he handled with ease, one of them asked a gotcha question about how the manufacturing process of sustainable materials themselves could have negative environmental impacts. Duncan nodded thoughtfully and tucked his hands into the pockets of his chinos, momentarily stretching them taut over his thighs. He was comfortable and confident with the brief silence as he composed his reply.
“I think it’s important to keep in mind that—”
Someone a few rows in front of her sneezed. Again, louder the second time, and it echoed in the sparsely occupied auditorium. Duncan paused mid-sentence to look away from the jurors and into the audience.
His eyes landed right on her.
Shit.
Temperance melted into a deep slouch. Through the crack between the seats in front of her, she watched Duncan smooth the front of his shirt and crack his knuckles on both hands.
“Continue, Mr. Brady,” the gotcha juror said when Duncan hesitated.
“Ah—”
He hiccupped. Hard enough to make his shoulders jerk.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
He tried again. “Ah—it’s important to—” Another hiccup. A dark blush materialized at the upper edge of his beard.
One person in the audience chuckled uncomfortably, someone else cleared their throat. The jurors quietly shuffled papers.
Duncan’s posture was stiff. He eventually managed to answer with authority, though without the finesse of his previous answers. The hiccups sounded painful and jarring, punctuating every other sentence. When the jurors no longer had questions for him, they thanked him and recommended he take a break and get some water.
Temperance slid out of her chair and bolted for the exit.
SHE’Dalmost made it to the external doors when she heard behind her, “Stop.”
Duncan was already striding toward her as she turned. Everything about his posture screamed irritation, but his eyes were pleading. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Hiccup.
Her heart felt like it was attempting an escape through her mouth. “I was trying to leave, and you stopped me.”
“You shouldn’t have been here at all, Temperance.”
“I’m glad I was. I’m so proud—”
“I don’t need you to be proud. I needed this to be completely separate from you.” Hiccup. His jaw went taut. “Damn it.”
When they were eighteen, they’d had such plans, full of youthful optimism and ambition and invincibility. Duncan had already enrolled in classes at LCC for that fall semester, so he’d applied late to the university’s bachelor of architecture program. He’d be a semester behind Temperance, but they’d be together.
Then she’d gotten sick, and everything fell apart.
“I never imagined that just by being here I could be a distraction for you,” she said.
Duncan dipped his head and squeezed his temples. “The fact that you exist at all has been distracting me for most of my life.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that. But the choices you made about your education are not my fault. They’re also not my responsibility.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know about this until I was sure I could do it.” He frowned down at her. “I applied late for the evening architecture program at Drexel. I still don’t know if I got in. I didn’t want anyone to know yet,” he repeated, like he was trying to reason through his own irritation.
“Ah, Temperance. You’re so used to being the smartest person in a room, but there’s a lot you don’t know shit about.”
Temperance chose her words carefully. “No matter what happens with that, it doesn’t diminish what you accomplished here.”
His laugh was sour. “I know you think that’s encouraging. But you’re not getting it. It’s not enough for me. I want more. I don’t need people in my life making it easier for me to not achieve things.”
“Duncan, you have the kind of family support that most people only dream of having.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You were raised on affection. So you take the affection for granted. I was raised on expectation. It’s not great—”
He cut her off. “You know what? I would love it if a single person in my life would set a high expectation of me. High expectations mean they believe you can fucking do it. Do you think anyone ever said to Harry, ‘It’s okay if you don’t get into med school, bud—look at everything you already accomplished’? Or Patrick, for pharmacy school? Arden’s thinking of applying to vet school. Nobody’s tried to talk her out of that. And you—you’ve had your family’s money, scholarships you didn’t even need, you’re so effortlessly smart and fearless and good—” He snapped his teeth shut and took a sharp breath through his nose. “You’ve always been playing tournament chess while I’ve been doing tic-tac-toe on the back of a fucking used napkin.”
“I don’t even know how to play chess.”
Duncan’s voice dropped into growl territory. “It’s a metaphor, Temperance.”
“Not everything has been easy for me,” she said softly.
“Bullshit.”
“Why are you so upset about this?”
Duncan tucked his hands into his pockets and let out a weary breath. He looked at the ceiling for a long time. “I wanted you to want to be with me as I am now. Not because I was doing— becoming—something more.”
“How can you be more”—her voice broke, and her chin trembled—“when you’re already everything?”
Finally, there was some tenderness in his eyes, but his voice had an edge. “Not yet. Not for myself.” More applause came from the open auditorium door behind him. “I have to go.”
He left her there. Alone.