Chapter 10
TEN
MELISSA
I take Liam home for a bath and fresh clothes before heading back to the hospital. When we get back to Claire’s room, Troy’s on his laptop, no doubt trying to keep up with his work responsibilities, and Claire’s watching cartoons on the iPad.
Troy offers to stay in Somerset tonight and look after Liam, and I gratefully accept.
Claire seems fine, but there are no guarantees, and if she ends up in the ICU again I don’t want to be scrambling for childcare.
After Luke’s last text, I certainly don’t want to have to ask him or his family for another favor.
The day passes slowly. Troy takes Liam out for lunch, and they don’t return until it’s nearly time for dinner.
I read a little more Anne of Green Gables with Claire and then she has a nap.
I try to nap too—although I managed to sleep last night, I still feel exhausted—but I’ve never been good at sleeping during the day.
And I reread Luke’s last text more times than I care to admit.
I don’t think that’s a good idea, Melissa.
He doesn’t explain why it’s a bad idea, though. Maybe he thinks I’m trying to ask him on a date. I’m not; I know there can never be anything like that between us again. But I’d started to hope we might be friends.
I guess I read too much into the fact he talked me to sleep last night. Claire had an anaphylactic reaction, and Luke’s a nice person; he probably took pity on me. It doesn’t mean he wants any sort of relationship with me again, friends or otherwise.
So as much as I want to text him back and ask why it wouldn’t be a good idea to meet for coffee, I don’t. I asked, he said no, and I need to leave it there. The only relationship I have with Luke Carlton is as the mother of his patient.
And when Luke comes by the following morning, he greets Claire with a big smile but barely meets my eye.
He’s with his resident and medical student, and he lets the resident do all the talking.
Claire’s going to be discharged this morning, with a plan for a follow-up appointment in two weeks.
They recommend we get a Medic-Alert bracelet for the antibiotic allergy, along with an Epi-Pen, and they’ll make a referral to an allergist.
As the resident rattles off the discharge instructions, I notice Luke still has dark circles under his eyes. He’s probably working too hard. I wonder if he has a girlfriend to nag him to look after himself.
Troy arrives with Liam shortly after Luke leaves.
Troy’s unshaven and irritable, and I suspect his night with Liam was more difficult than he expected.
I thank him profusely for looking after his son, which seems to soften his mood, and he helps me pack up our stuff to go home.
The nurse brings a wheelchair for Claire, but she insists she can walk to the car.
As we’re crossing the hospital lobby, someone calls my name, and I turn to see a tall redhead dressed in scrubs. We haven’t seen each other in years, but I recognize her immediately; Sophie Kaminsky was one of my best friends in high school.
“Melissa Lawrence!” she says again. “I thought it was you. Been a long time!”
A long time is an understatement; I haven’t talked to Sophie in almost ten years. I’m surprised when she leans in for a hug, and I return it a little awkwardly.
“Sophie,” I say carefully. “Good to see you.”
“You too!” she enthuses, with a bright smile that suggests she’s genuinely pleased to see me.
There’s an ID badge clipped to her scrubs that identifies her as Dr. Sophie Kaminsky. “You’re a doctor here now?” I ask.
“Yeah, in the ER.”
“That’s great, Sophie.” Like Luke, she’s wanted to be a doctor since high school.
Troy clears his throat to remind me of my manners, so I perform introductions. I hesitate a moment over how to introduce Troy; my ex-husband sounds antagonistic, and the father of my children just sounds silly. I end up just calling him Troy, and I can tell Sophie assumes we’re still together.
“My shift’s about to start, so I should run,” Sophie says. “But if you give me your number, Melissa, maybe we can get together sometime?”
“Sure. Of course.” We swap numbers before she rushes off across the lobby.
“That could be a good number to have,” Troy remarks as we head out to the parking garage. “An ER doctor, I mean. She might be able to help if Claire has more issues.”
“I guess.” Something about Troy’s comment rubs me the wrong way; it’s like he’s implying the only reason to renew the friendship is to benefit from Sophie’s medical connections. But the stress of the past few days has made me punchy, so I’m probably reading too much into it.
Troy waits with the kids while I bring the car around to the hospital entrance, then buckles Liam into his carseat while I help Claire.
I’m extra careful with her seatbelt, loosening it as much as I dare so it won’t pull across her appendectomy wounds.
Troy kisses the kids goodbye before heading off to find his own car.
And finally, after the longest four days of my life, we leave the hospital.
Claire recovers quickly. The day after we get home, she’s bored and begging to go back to school, but I keep her home another two days to be safe.
On Claire’s first morning back at school, my mother comes by shortly after I get home from the drop-off. She’d texted late last night to say she and Dad were home from Italy, but I didn’t know she was planning to come over. I’m still getting used to having her close enough to drop in spontaneously.
“Where are the kids?” Mom asks as I lead her into the kitchen.
“Liam’s at preschool, Claire’s at school.”
“You sent her to school?” Mom asks incredulously. From the look on her face, you’d think I’d sent my sick child out to run a marathon. “Right after she got home from the hospital?”
“Her surgery was a week ago, Mom,” I say mildly. “Let me put on some coffee.”
“The doctor said Claire could go back?”
“Yeah. She should avoid vigorous activity until he sees her in follow-up, but there are no other restrictions. I talked to her teacher this morning, and they’re going to excuse her from gym class. And if she has any issues, they’ll call me and I’ll pick her up.”
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell us she had appendicitis,” Mom says.
“I emailed, Mom.” A carefully worded email, sent two days after Claire was home from the hospital, that made no mention of anaphylaxis, the ICU, or Luke Carlton.
“Yes, but not until after it happened,” she points out.
“She was only in the hospital a couple of days.” I spoon coffee into the machine and flip the switch. “I didn’t want to worry you while you were on your trip.”
“Why did she get appendicitis?” my mother asks. “Did the doctors say?”
“I don’t think they know why anyone gets appendicitis. It’s one of those things that just happens.”
“But do you think it could be related to stress? With your divorce—”
“Divorce doesn’t cause appendicitis, Mom.” I’m carrying enough guilt from the divorce without adding Claire’s appendicitis to the load.
“But moving to Somerset on top of everything,” my mother continues. “A new house, a new school; it’s a lot of upheaval.”
I take a deep breath and focus on pouring our coffee. I struggled with the decision to move back to Somerset, and my mother knows it. In fact, she actually encouraged the move. I was worried about uprooting the kids and making them shuttle back and forth to Toronto every other weekend.
But the reality was if I’d stayed in Toronto, I’d have had to move anyway.
Housing prices have skyrocketed in the past ten years, and even though Troy paid me a big settlement for my half of our house, I couldn’t afford our old neighborhood.
I’d have had to move to the suburbs, and the kids would have been uprooted regardless.
And Somerset’s not much farther than Toronto’s outer suburbs, but as an old university town, it still has its own personality.
Housing’s much cheaper, and the money I got for half the Toronto house was enough to buy a house here.
My new house isn’t huge, but it’s in a safe neighborhood with good schools, and I was thrilled to find it.
“I don’t think moving causes appendicitis,” I tell my mother as I set a mug of coffee in front of her. “I got it in high school, and we never moved.”
My mother’s expression changes. “I remember that. Luke drove you to the hospital.”
“Yeah. And I was fine, and Claire is too.”
“I heard Luke’s back in Somerset,” my mother says, studying me carefully. “He’s a surgeon at the hospital now.”
“Is he?” I say, trying to keep my tone casual. “Claire and I made cookies, would you like one? They’re lemon shortbread.” I took cookies to Helen Carlton yesterday to thank her for looking after Liam, but I kept a few leftovers.
My mother frowns, and I imagine her counting calories in her head. “I’ll have half a cookie.”
I cut a cookie in half, set the halves on two plates, and bring them to the table.
My mother takes a delicate bite. “This is good, Melissa,” she says. “I’m sure they have about a million calories, but they’re delicious.”
I swallow a bite of cookie and instinctively suck in my stomach. “Thanks.”
My mother finishes her cookie and smiles brightly. “So now that you and Luke are both back in town, maybe you’ll reconnect.”
“Won’t happen, Mom,” I say with a sigh. “I’m sure he moved on long ago.”
My mother shakes her head. “He’s not married, Melissa.”
“How do you know?” The question slips out of my mouth before I can stop it.
“Eileen Nicholson knows his mom.” Eileen’s one of my mother’s oldest friends.
“Well, even if he’s not married, our relationship ran its course ten years ago,” I say dismissively. “You can’t resurrect a dead horse.”
My mother raises her eyebrows, and I realize I didn’t get the metaphor quite right.
“You know what I mean,” I grumble, taking another bite of cookie.
“Eileen also mentioned that her nephew’s single,” my mother tries. “He’s an optometrist in town. A few years older than you.”