7. I Will Wait #3
Emory plants her hands on her hips, forgetting all about that zit as her ire immediately grows. “Jordan Love, I know for a fact you were raised better than to speak about a woman’s pajamas.”
“Wasn’t it your kid just last night discussing a grown man’s pajamas?”
“He sleeps naked.”
I raise an eyebrow, leaning against the rickety railing. My next project.
Emory’s face grows more red. “I wish I didn’t know that.”
“Same… And here I am just wondering where I can get a matching pair of jammies with your face printed all over them.”
“I made them,” she says, clearing her throat. “It’s a stupid hobby. Dinah got me into it a few years ago.”
“Dinah? How is she these days?” Emory and James were pseudo-parents to Emory’s little sister after their parents were killed in a car accident.
Despite the tragedy, though, Dinah always seemed to keep her positivity and light.
Probably, in large part, due to the way Emory swooped in to take care of her and how she all but followed Emory around like a shadow.
“She’s great. Married Jackson Jones… He said he knew you years ago?”
“Yeah, I remember Jackson. So, they’re married? That’s wild.”
Emory smiles, proud as ever of her sister. “Oh yeah. They’re so happy. Dinah owns the pretzel shop in town, and Jack took over his grandparents’ flower shop. They have a daughter, Lola. She’s essentially perfect in every single way.”
“Of course, she is.” Her face brightens at just the mention of Dinah, and the way I suddenly feel like an addict, hopeful for more of her smiles, has shame burrowing deep in my gut again.
Scratching the shadow of hair across my jawline, I try to do anything but look at Emory and the pride still painted across her face.
“A daughter… That’s awesome. Hopefully, I’ll run into them in town. Sooner or later.”
She shrugs. “If you decide to stick around.”
“I, uh…” I don’t know what to say. I came to help Mom and Bill prep for retirement, but every minute standing on Emory’s porch, getting to know Molly, reminiscing—even about the slightest memories—has me realizing this may have been a terrible idea.
One I don’t know that I’ll be able to walk away from, but a bad idea, all the same.
Still, I foolishly find myself promising, “I’m not going anywhere. ”
Emory shrugs again, clearly indifferent to my permanence. “You never called last night.” She stretches her hands along her sides and taps her thumbs against each of her fingers. “How’s Pam?”
“I didn’t want to wake you,” I answer, trying my best to remain clinical.
To not let the emotions of how I feel about this farm and this woman cloud my judgement or behavior as a veterinarian.
“I’m waiting on the lab results which should confirm what the ultrasound and stool sample already told me. ”
“Flukes?” she asks, looking towards the barn where Pam rests inside.
I nod. “I’m sorry, Red.” Even more so for how I’m about to break her heart.
I take a meager step forward, hoping she won’t turn into the house and slam the door in my face again.
She takes a step back like I’m a predator she’s wary of, which is somehow worse.
“The ultrasound revealed that the damage to her liver and bile ducts is extensive. Worms were present and visible. I’d say it’s a miracle she hasn’t hemorrhaged yet, and though we can try Triclabendazole or Albendazole, it’ll be costly and will more than likely still end in—”
“No.” Emory shakes her head and takes another painful step back, eyes glaring through me, and I follow her like a fool. “You said you’d help me, Jordan. You weren’t supposed to be here. I wanted Dr. Rafferty, but you said you could help me. You said you would.”
“I’m trying, Red.”
“No,” she repeats. “I want a second opinion. Dr. Rafferty or whoever. I don’t want you.”
She crosses her arms, curling in on herself.
If I thought I couldn’t feel worse today, I was sickeningly wrong.
Because the impulse I have to help her—to hold her—now that I’m here, is so strong, I hate myself.
If hearing Emory spew all of the truths I deserve is the penance for every other feeling I shouldn’t have, wracking my body, I’ll pay it.
“You should leave,” she says, adding, “please,” when we see Molly chasing a brood of chickens in the sideyard, wearing farm boots with her Buttercup pajamas.
I want to meet the pigs she’s so proud of. To show her some vet work as I do health screenings on the rest of the alpaca herd. To finish this porch together. I want to make up for lost time with the kid I should have made a priority years ago.
But instead, I neatly stack the supplies I’ve been working with on the porch before stepping down as Emory watches the quiet barn across the pasture.
“I’ll call Mom right now and ask her to come by,” I offer, knowing Mom and Bill could run hundreds of tests and find the same result.
Pamela is dying. “I truly am sorry, Emory.”
Emory nods but doesn’t look at me, and I do the thing I swore I wouldn’t ever do again.
Walk away.