Chapter 36
Ryan patted his patient’s hand. “It’s a bit of indigestion, Mrs. Sylvester.
I’ll write a prescription that will help you with that.
” The eighty-nine-year-old woman showed up at the ER with a minor ailment once or twice a month.
Her real problem was that she was lonely, so if it wasn’t busy, he always tried to spend a little extra time with her.
“Thank you, Dr. Palmer. My George used to tell me all those spicy foods I loved were going to catch up with me someday.”
Her George had died a year ago, and she’d started showing up shortly after he was gone. “Your George was right, so no more jalapenos for you.”
She giggled. “You’re funny.”
He grinned. “Yep, that’s me.” He was glad to be back to work. If he could stay busy enough, he wouldn’t think about Matti.
After he wrote her a prescription and sent her on her way, he went to the break room to grab something to eat before all hell broke loose, which would probably happen now simply because he was taking a lunch break.
The brief conversation he’d had with Jon first thing this morning played in his mind.
He didn’t tell Jon that Matti’s reason for ending things was because he was a doctor. All he’d said to Jon when reminded about dinner Saturday night was that he wouldn’t be there since he and Matti were taking some time away from each other.
“What does that mean exactly?” Jon asked. “It’s a temporary thing?”
“I don’t think so. She made it sound like we wouldn’t be seeing each other anymore.”
“That’s ridiculous. She likes you.”
He agreed with both those statements. For what good it did.
“My daughter’s always been stubborn. You just need to show her you’re not going away.”
Easier said than done. He would have to change his profession if he wanted Matti in his life, and he’d briefly considered doing just that.
Briefly being the operative word. That he’d even thought of other occupations he might be capable of doing showed just how much he loved Jon’s stubborn daughter.
But he was a doctor. He didn’t want to be anything else. Didn’t know how to be anything else. If she couldn’t love him for who he was, she wasn’t the woman for him. If only he could make himself believe that.
If only he’d stop wanting to cry. To go to her and drop to his knees and beg her to put him out of his misery so he could breathe again.
Yes, he was a doctor and well knew he was actually breathing, but in a way he wasn’t.
His breaths were keeping his heart pumping, but said heart hurt like it had never hurt before.
How long did it take to recover from heartbreak?
Wasn’t that something a doctor should know?
“I’ve been thinking about your problem,” Jon said, walking into the break room.
At seeing Jon for a second time in one day, Ryan set the last half of his turkey on wheat down on the paper plate. “My problem?”
“Yes, my obstinate daughter.” Jon took the seat across from him. “Are you in love with her?”
No reason to deny it. “Yes.”
“Then here’s what you need to do.” Jon leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the table. “Show up. Be steady. Keep showing up until she believes you always will.”
Ryan frowned. “That’s your big plan? Just…show up?”
Jon shrugged. “If you want to prove her wrong, you don’t do it with words. You do it by being there when it counts.”
He sat back in his chair. “And if she pushes back? If she tells me again it’s over?”
Jon gave a small, knowing smile. “Then you nod, give her space and then show up again the next day.”
Ryan rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t know if I have it in me to be that patient.” He also thought showing up on Matti’s doorstep every morning would piss her off.
“You became a doctor. You made it through med school, residency, God knows how many sleepless nights. Don’t tell me you don’t have patience.”
“This feels different.”
“It is,” Jon said. “Because this one’s for keeps.”
Ryan stared at his half-eaten sandwich, his appetite gone. “And what if she really means it? What if showing up just makes it harder for both of us?”
“Then at least you’ll know you tried. But I don’t think she’s done, son.
She’s scared. You don’t walk away from someone you love because it’s easy.
You do it because you’re convinced it’s the only way not to get hurt.
She’s afraid you’ll hurt her. Show her she’s wrong.
That she can trust you.” Jon stood and gave Ryan’s shoulder a squeeze.
“There’s not another man I’d want to join the family over you. ”
Ryan watched him go, the quiet click of the break room door sounding louder than it should.
Would Jon’s advice be the same if he knew Matti’s reason was because he was a doctor just like her father?
That she resented her father for missing times that were special to her?
There was no getting around that if she was double-downed on her vow to never marry a doctor.
Matti wasn’t the only person on his mind today, though.
Someone else just as important to him was.
Sam. He loved that boy. As he’d stared at the spinning blades of his ceiling fan last night, unable to sleep because his body wasn’t curled around Matti’s, the seed of an idea had planted itself in his head without his agreement.
Instead of laughing it off as he should, he let the idea grow roots, growing deeper with each hour he debated the notion of doing such a thing.
What if he adopted Sam?
His answer: Why not? Why not indeed.
* * *
A broken arm, a heart attack, an accident involving three cars, and numerous minor ailments had made for a busy afternoon in the ER. The advantage to that was he didn’t have time to think about Matti and brood. Because he had no one to go home to, Ryan stayed an extra two hours to help out.
Exhausted by the time he made it home, he went straight to the shower.
That refreshed him somewhat, enough so that he had the energy to make a salad, which he put in the refrigerator until he was ready for it.
He packed a seasoned chicken breast, a corn on the cob, and a bottle of beer in a cooler and headed down to the apartment’s common area where there was a grill.
While the chicken and corn cooked, he cracked open the beer, settled on a lawn chair, and considered the cons and pros of adopting Sam.
He couldn’t deny there were plenty of cons.
The hours he worked, for one. He couldn’t exactly bring a six-year-old into his life when he never knew what time he’d get home from the hospital—or whether he’d make it home at all.
He had no family nearby to help out, no backup plan if he got called in during the middle of the night.
Also, he’d have to move. That was actually okay with him as he was growing tired of living in hospital housing, and it would be no place to raise a boy.
And then there was Matti.
She was Sam’s social worker. And the woman he loved. Would she think his adopting Sam was the right thing to do? Would she think he was trying to win her back with a grand gesture? But it wasn’t about her. Not entirely.
He took a pull from the bottle, leaning his head back as he watched the smoke rise from the grill.
The truth was, he missed Sam. His life was emptier without Matti and Sam in it, but he could have Sam…
If Matti would agree to vouch for him. Would she?
He hadn’t given up on her, but he didn’t hold out much hope that she’d change her mind.
He got up and checked the chicken, flipped it, and went back to his chair and his mental list. The pros, the biggest one of all, was he loved that kid. Plain and simple. And Sam… The boy needed someone to love, and Ryan wanted to be that person.
Next on his pro list, he could afford a nanny, and the extra hours he put in at the hospital now were on him. He didn’t have to stay after his shift was over. Other doctors didn’t. He only did because he had no one to go home to. He could make it work.
He was going to talk to Matti. Even if it complicated everything. Because he wasn’t walking away from that boy without a fight.