11. Changes #2
“You’ve seen that happen?”
Her expression hardens. “I’ve seen enough.”
The phone rings before I can decide whether it’s safe enough to ask another question. Annie picks it up, and the opening vanishes.
I take the next patient.
When the clinic finally starts to wind down in the late afternoon, we’re both moving slower. Annie comes out of exam room two while I’m at the counter, writing a note.
“Annie.”
She stops. “Yes?”
There are eight ways to do this wrong. Maybe nine. We’re at work. I’m her employer. Phones could ring. She has made it clear that control matters to her, and I have no interest in backing her into a corner.
I keep my voice low. “About Friday.”
Her eyes don’t flinch. That’s somehow worse.
“It happened,” she says. “We’re adults. The storm got ugly, things got intense, and no one needs to make more out of it than there is.”
That answer is too rehearsed to be casual.
I set the pen down. “Is that really what you want?”
“What I want is for Monday to remain Monday.”
“Annie.”
“Doc.” My name from her mouth is quiet and firm. “We work together. You own the clinic. I work here. Ellie likes me. What do you want me to say? Yes, it happened. And yes, it was good. But good doesn’t mean smart.”
The fact that she says it was good with that much control does more damage than if she’d denied the whole thing.
Annie’s gaze holds mine. “We should move on.”
I could tell her that I haven’t moved anywhere. I could tell her I woke up Saturday with her in my head and went to sleep with her there again. I could ask whether she really believes what she’s saying.
But pressing her here would be wrong. Pressing her now would be worse.
“All right,” I say.
Her shoulders ease, though her face doesn’t change. “Okay.”
She turns away first.
I pick up the pen and stare at Mr. Anderson’s chart. The bell over the front door rings. Ellie walks in with a fishing rod case over one shoulder, a small tackle box in one hand, and enough pride on her face to make every cranky thought in me disappear.
“Hey,” she says. “Am I interrupting?”
Annie comes down the hallway. Something in her face softens before she can hide it. “Depends. Are you bleeding?”
“No.”
“Vomiting?”
“No.”
“Transporting worms?”
Ellie holds up the tackle box. “Not yet.”
“Then you’re safe.”
Ellie comes to the counter and sets the box down. “We went to Jensen’s. Cal helped me pick out stuff. He said you know the good spots.”
“Cal is a very smart man.” Annie smiles for real.
It changes the room.
I stand by the hallway and watch my daughter lean toward Annie over the counter, already talking faster. Lures. Rods. Cal’s advice. Erin. The fear of looking stupid. Annie listens without making Ellie feel young.
“What did he sell you?” Annie asks.
Ellie comes around the desk and opens the tackle box with ceremony.
Annie leans in. “That’s actually not bad.”
“Actually?”
“For Cal, that’s high praise.”
Ellie beams.
Annie picks up one lure, checks the hook, then sets it back. “This’ll work. How about we go back as soon as you get home from your trip. I’ve got a great spot for you and it’s good for beginners, but you’ll have to get up early.”
“I can get up early.”
“That sounded overconfident for a teen.”
“I can try to get up early.”
“Better.”
Ellie looks over at me. “Dad. I need to talk to you.”
“What’s wrong? I know that face.”
“Dad, I don’t want to go to the wedding. I want to stay home.”
“Ellie, we leave for Fiji on Friday.”
Ellie’s smile fades. “I know.”
I look at my daughter. “You know?”
“I don’t want to go.”
My focus narrows to her face. “You should have told me sooner.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She lifts one shoulder, then stops herself. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“That is not a reason to hide it.”
“I wasn’t hiding it. I was trying to make peace with it.”
Annie stays on the other side of the counter, careful enough not to get in the middle of this.
Ellie looks down at her feet. “I love Uncle Herc. Bella’s great. I’m happy they’re getting married.”
“I know.”
“But all those people…” She bites her lip. “They knew Mom.”
The sentence takes the air out of every answer I might have given.
Ellie keeps her eyes on the box. “They’ll be nice.
They always are. That’s part of it. They ask how I am, and then they look sad.
And I’ll have to be fine at a wedding. I don’t want to be.
And I know it’s Fiji, and I know everyone thinks that means I should be excited, but Dad, it’s your trip. Your friends. Your thing.”
I set the charts in my hand on the counter.
“And I like it here,” she says. “School is starting to make sense. Erin and I were going to work on the history project this weekend. Annie said she’d take me fishing. I don’t want to leave right when things here are starting to feel normal.”
I step in front of her and lift her chin. “Look at me.”
She does.
“You are allowed to have these feelings and tell me. Honesty, remember?”
Her eyes shine, but she blinks it back. “I remember.”
“And El, I should have talked to you about it.”
“You did.”
“You’re sweet, baby girl, but I didn’t. I told you we were going. I never asked you. I made a lot of assumptions. For both of us.”
A small breath leaves her.
“Daddy, can I please stay home?” she asks quickly. “I can take care of myself and you are always saying how mature I am for my age.”
“No.”
“Dad. I’m responsible.”
“Yes. You are also fourteen.”
She looks out the window, then back at me. “Well Erin said maybe I could stay with her.”
I hold her gaze. “Did you ask Erin before you asked me?”
“We talked. I didn’t make a plan.”
“Ellie.”
“I know. I should have come to you first.”
“No kidding.”
Annie closes the tackle box latch. “She can stay with me.”
Ellie turns so fast her backpack slides off one shoulder.
I look at Annie.
She meets me directly. “If you are comfortable with it. If Ellie is. Rhea can be a backup. I have space. We can fish Saturday. Sunday too, if the weather cooperates.”
Ellie’s hope is immediately restored and plastered all over her face. “Really?”
“Yes,” Annie says. “Spare bed, food, normal rules, and I know what to do in a medical emergency.”
“Annie, we have rules,” I say.
“I assumed.”
“To a degree you may find excessive.”
“I work with you daily. I understand excessive.”
Ellie makes a sound suspiciously close to laughter.
I point at her. “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
Annie stands and leans a hip against the counter. “I can take her to school and pick her up, make sure homework gets done, feed her, get her into bed at your prescribed bedtime and we can even take you to the airport and pick you up.”
“Ask whatever else you need to ask.”
“Homework before fishing,” I insist.
Ellie groans.
Annie nods. “Homework before hooks.”
“You too?” Ellie looks betrayed. “Fine.”
“Phone stays charged,” I say. “You answer when I call. You tell Annie where you are when you are not with her. You listen to directions near the water. You do not wander off with Erin or anyone else without Annie knowing where you are going.”
“I know.”
“I am not finished.”
Ellie sighs.
“Emergency contacts are up to date and on your phone. You will share all contacts with me, complete with phone numbers and addresses for your friends. If anything feels wrong, you call me, Annie, or Rhea. And, if you change your mind before Friday and want to come with me, you say so.”
“I won’t.”
“If you do, you will say so.”
She nods. “Yes, sir.”
I look at Annie. “And you’re certain you want to do this?”
“I wouldn’t offer it if I wasn’t.”
There are things I could read into that answer.
Things I want to read into it.
I keep my mouth shut. “All right.”
Ellie freezes. “All right?”
“You can stay with Annie while I’m in Fiji.”
She throws herself at me.
I catch her against my chest. She is taller than she used to be and evidently getting older by the minute. I hold her tight anyway.
“Thank you, Daddy,” she says into my shirt.
“You’re welcome, baby girl.”
She pulls back and runs to hug Annie. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Annie’s face blushes. “You’re welcome. But I mean it, about baiting your own hook.”