Epilogue
Randall
Three Years Later
The clinic's got a line out the door on opening day, which is more than I expected and exactly what Betty and Kori predicted, loudly, to anyone who'd listen to them for the last six months.
"Told you," Betty says, appearing at my elbow with a tray of her famous lemon bars.
She's been perfecting the recipe since she decided the clinic opening needed proper refreshments.
"Half this town's been driving forty minutes to Bramble for a checkup. You really think they weren't gonna show up for a real clinic right here on the mountain?"
"Wasn't sure anybody'd trust a guy with one foot to look after their health."
"Don't be dramatic. You've got two feet. One's just got better engineering than the other."
Barb snorts from behind her, arranging a stack of pamphlets I definitely didn't ask her to print.
"She's not wrong," Barb says. "This town's been needing a doctor like you."
I don't argue, mostly because arguing with Betty and Barb Anderson has never once worked out in anybody's favor, mine least of all, and mostly because they're right.
It took me three years of quiet, careful practice, treating one patient at a time, mostly hikers with sprained ankles and Betty's own dubious home remedies gone wrong, before I trusted myself enough to open an actual clinic.
Kori finds me a few minutes later, weaving through the crowd with our daughter balanced on one hip, our son trailing behind her clutching a fistful of Betty's lemon bars like it's the single most important object in the world.
"You okay?" she asks, reading the tension in my shoulders the way she's gotten good at doing over the last three years.
"Good crowd."
"Good crowd," she agrees, leaning into my side. "You built something worthwhile, Randall."
"We built this."
"I just wrote a screenplay and had two babies. You built an entire medical practice."
"Team effort," I argue. “Never would’ve happened without you.”
She smiles at that, the same smile that undid me the first time we met.
The bell over the door chimes, and I glance up out of habit, half expecting another patient, another curious neighbor come to see what all the fuss is about.
Instead, it's my father standing in the doorway, looking distinctly out of place in a mountain town full of flannel and snow boots, dressed the same buttoned up, careful way he's dressed my entire life.
The room doesn't stop, but my heart freezes in my chest.
"Dad."
"Randall." He glances around the clinic, taking in the exam rooms, the waiting area, the framed degrees on the wall. "This is impressive."
"Thanks."
It's not much of a conversation, not yet.
We haven't had much of one in three years, not since the blizzard.
Not since I called him from the hospital hallway the night Kori nearly died and told him, flat out, that the field medicine he spent ten years dismissing just saved the life of the woman I was going to marry.
He didn't say much then either. Just went quiet on the other end of the line, the kind of quiet that used to mean disappointment and this time meant something I couldn't quite name.
It took him two years after that to actually visit.
Took our son being born to get him on a plane at all, and even then he stayed exactly one night, stiff and awkward in my guest room, gone again before breakfast the next morning like he couldn't quite figure out what to do with himself in a life that didn't match the one he'd planned for me.
I didn't chase him. I wasn't going to spend any more years of my life trying to earn praise from a man who handed out approval like it cost him something precious every time.
But he came back. Slowly. A phone call here, a birthday card there, awkward and stiff at first, softening a little more with every visit, every photo Kori sent of the kids.
"Grandpa!" Our son barrels toward him, lemon bar crumbs trailing in his wake, and my father crouches down without hesitation, catching him in a hug that still looks slightly unfamiliar on him, like a language he's only recently started learning to speak.
"Hey, buddy." His voice comes out softer than I've heard it in thirty years, all of it directed at a three-year-old who has no idea what it took to get his grandfather standing in this room today. "You want to see the clinic your dad opened?”
"He's a doctor," our son announces, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"He is." My father straightens, looking at me properly for the first time since he walked in, something almost like pride sitting uncomfortable and unpracticed on his face. "Always was, really. Took me too long to see it."
It's not a full apology. It's not even close to enough to erase thirty years of feeling like nothing I did was ever going to be the right thing. But it's something, and I decide, watching him let my son drag him toward the front desk to see my degrees, that enough to build on.
Kori slides her hand into mine, watching the same scene with an expression of pleased contentment.
"You okay?" she asks again, softer this time.
"Yeah." I press a kiss to her temple, watching my father laugh at something our son says as Betty foists a lemon bar on anyone who walks within five feet of her.
"Better than ever."
The End