Alex
Twelve
The last patient leaves just after seven on Wednesday evening. I try hard to accommodate my patients, and one day a week I come in late so I can work later and one morning I come in to work early. It’s the least I can do as we fight this disease.
I finish the chart in front of me, scanning the notes one more time before signing off. The clock in the corner of my computer screen clicks forward a minute as I do. Lab requisition sent. Follow-up booked. Prescription transmitted to the pharmacy. Another patient properly tidied away.
Across the hall, someone laughs softly. The evening staff is thinning out. Jackets and bags appear. One of the medical assistants walks past my doorway with a wave on her way out.
“’Night, Alex.”
“Goodnight.”
The hallway quiets.
I lean back in the chair for a moment, letting the silence stretch around me.
Then my mouse wakes the screen again, and I move through the last few messages waiting in the inbox.
A hospital discharge summary. A lab result that can wait until morning.
A pharmacy request for clarification that I answer with two sentences before sending it back.
When the list is empty, I close the charting program and shut the computer down. My day is finished.
I take my bag from the hook beside the desk and shrug into my coat.
But for a moment I freeze where I am, one hand resting on the edge of the desk.
The memory arrives before I can stop it—the vineyard at dusk.
The light dropping low over the rows of vines, the air cooling once the sun slips behind the ridge.
Josie standing across from me near the young shoots, one hand resting against the post at the end of the row.
Her hair moving in the breeze. The quiet between us.
And then the kiss.
It returns in fragments. The warmth of her mouth. The brief surprise before either of us stepped back. The softness of her breasts against my chest.
I pull in a deep breath. That memory doesn’t belong here.
The clinic is a place for routine, for clean lines and orderly decisions. Patients arrive with problems and leave with plans. Charts close. Doors lock. Tomorrow’s work waits.
The practical part of my brain steps in quickly, the way it always has, and I head for the door.
Tomorrow’s schedule is full. Two new consults in the morning.
A chemotherapy follow-up before lunch. The same-day slot the front desk will inevitably fill before I finish my first coffee.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, I need to call the cardiology office about a referral that’s been sitting unanswered for a week.
And Eloise has school in the morning.
Drop-off happens at eight-fifteen, if the traffic lights cooperate. Or a little later if she decides to argue about socks again or the dress she wants isn’t clean.
I flick off the light in the office and step into the hallway.
“Heading out?” one of the nurses asks without looking up from the computer.
“Yeah. I hope you’re right behind me.”
“Yep. I have one last thing and then I’m outta here. See you tomorrow.”
“See you then.”
The front door closes behind me as I step outside. My car sits near the far end of the parking lot, where I left it this morning.
I slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine. The radio comes on low before I turn it off again, preferring quiet for the drive home.
For a few minutes, my thoughts stay where they should—tomorrow’s appointments, the grocery list waiting on the kitchen counter, whether Eloise remembered to bring home the permission slip for next week’s field trip.
But then the image returns…Josie standing among the vines with the last light of the day catching in her hair.
When I open the front door at home, the familiar scent of laundry detergent and the faint sweetness of whatever Zara must have baked earlier drift out to meet me.
Zara appears from the living room a moment later, holding her jacket. “Hey,” she says quietly.
“Hey.”
“Eloise went down about forty minutes ago. She tried to negotiate another chapter, but I held the line.”
“That sounds like her.”
Zara smiles, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “There’s a drawing on the table she said you had to see before morning.”
“That tracks.”
She pauses near the basement door. “There’s some shepherd’s pie in the fridge for you. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything, but I’m probably going to crash early.”
“Sounds good. Thanks for tonight.”
“No problem.”
The door to the basement closes behind her, and I drop my keys on the small table by the door.
Evidence of Eloise’s evening is scattered everywhere in the living room. A small pile of plastic animals sits beside the couch, abandoned mid-story. One of her socks lies on the floor near the coffee table, probably where it was kicked off earlier.
On the dining table, a sheet of paper waits near the lamp.
I walk over and pick it up.
It looks like another six-legged dinosaur but orange this time.
It has wings that might also be arms and a neck that curves sharply upward before ending in a square head filled with enthusiastic teeth.
Flying dinosaurs again. Eloise is nothing if not consistent.
Across the top she has written her name in large, uneven letters that slope downhill toward the corner of the page.
I smile and set the drawing back where it was.
A book lies open beside it, face down on the table. I flip it over to see where the bookmark rests, halfway through the chapter.
The hallway light is dim as I walk toward her room, and I push the door open just enough to look inside.
Eloise is asleep, the blankets twisted around her legs and one arm thrown above her head. The other is curled tightly around the Hello Kitty she has slept with since she was three.
Her hair fans across the pillow in a dark spill, her breathing slow and even in the steady rhythm of deep sleep. I step inside quietly and pull the blanket up over her shoulder where it has slipped down.
She doesn’t stir.
I close the door partway when I leave, careful not to let the latch click.
I return to the kitchen and move through the familiar motions of dinner without thinking much. Evenings used to feel different.
Before Eloise, the house had a kind of loose flexibility. Dinner happened whenever I managed to get home. Anastasia and I would sleep, make love, and sleep some more. Weekends could shift depending on what the hospital demanded.
That version of life doesn’t exist anymore.
Now there are routines holding the entire structure together. School mornings. Homework at the kitchen table. Bedtime stories that stretch longer than they should.
I’d be lost without Zara.
How much give is there in that structure? What could Eloise tolerate?
I set the glass down and run a hand across the back of my neck.
That thought slides easily into the next one, Josie and I standing between rows of vines.
She looked at home there, not performing or explaining anything, just being in the place that belongs to her.
There was an ease between us that night I hadn’t expected.
Conversation moved without effort. Silences didn’t feel awkward.
Attraction isn’t the problem. The problem is the quiet realization that’s followed it. I want more than I’d planned to. And honestly, it’s been a long time since I’d wanted anything. Just ask the dance moms.
The screen lights when I pick up my phone, the messages opening automatically.
Her name appears at the top.
Josie.
The last exchange sits where I left it after our walk along the lakefront.
I haven’t opened it since. And we haven’t gotten together in nearly a week. I look back over our messages to each other.
Josie: Thank you for coming tonight.
Me: Of course.
There’s nothing that crosses a line.
I scroll upward, reading through the texts again, even though I already know what they say.
Then I lock the phone and set it back down on the counter.
The argument within me begins quietly.
Josie has a vineyard to run. Harvest schedules, tasting room staff, the endless decisions that come with a place like Black Bear.
My life runs on a different structure.
Tomorrow morning starts at seven, whether I’m ready for it or not.
School drop-off at eight-fifteen. Patients stacked into the day.
A daughter who values normalcy, who has already experienced turmoil she’s too small to fully comprehend.
Most of all, I don’t want to disrupt what makes her feel safe and secure.
And the families are part of it too. The Paradise and Dempsey names carry a long memory in this valley. They sit under the surface of every gathering and conversation. I’ve escaped that once in my life. Maybe it’s not so wise to sign myself up for it again.
Likely this means that vineyard encounter should remain what it was that evening—a brief moment between rows of young vines while the sun dropped behind the ridge. Something unexpected that happened and then passed.
But that thought doesn’t soothe me the way I hoped it would.
What I realize instead is simpler and harder to dismiss. I don’t want to run into Josie again by accident. Accidental meetings are easy—shared conversations at fundraisers, a few polite words during a tour of the vineyard—but that isn’t what I want.
I want to see her on purpose. I’ve tried leaving it alone, letting it slip away, but I don’t like it.
The clarity of that realization takes over as I reach for the phone again. For a moment I stare at it, considering whether something clever would make this easier.
Instead I type the first thing that comes to mind.
Me: I’m on call this weekend. But are you free for dinner next week?
The words aren’t elegant, but they’re honest. My thumb hovers over the keyboard before I add another line beneath it.
Me: I’d like to see you again.
The cursor blinks at the end of the sentence. There are a dozen reasons I could still stop here, close the phone, and let the moment pass. Instead I press send, and I set the phone back down on the counter.
Nothing in the room has changed. The lamp still glows above the table beside Eloise’s drawing and the half-finished book. Upstairs, the house is filled with the small sounds of sleep.
But my next step is not going to happen by accident.