Chapter Two
This was not how Dr. David Adler had hoped a reunion with his ex-wife would go.
He had hoped that, one day, they could look beyond the injuries they had caused each other during their marriage and find a way to be friends.
But judging by the way her left eyebrow was twitching, Evelyn was pissed.
As it turned out, time had not healed all wounds.
Evelyn growled. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you,” he said, calmly. Professionally. “I’m covering for Vikram.”
She shook her head, unconvinced. Splotchy circles of red appeared on her cheeks, as her lower lip fell to the floor. Though he couldn’t be certain if the delay in her speech was due to running headfirst into a Yamaha piano or because she still hated his guts after all this time.
He didn’t blame her for hating his guts.
He was, technically, the person who had walked out on her.
Still, David was a doctor. Currently, the only doctor on set. He attempted to explain what had happened.
“Vikram’s grandmother fell seriously ill,” he explained. “Being that she’s ninety-six, the whole family decided to take a last-minute trip back to India. They’ll be there until the New Year. He asked me to cover for him, and my own practice is kind of quiet right now—”
“You haven’t worked here in two years.” Her voice skewered him.
“But I still have a contract on file with the studio.”
“Of course you do.”
He wasn’t sure what Evelyn was driving at, but there were perfectly logical reasons why Vikram had asked David.
For one, he was a doctor with a subspecialty in orthopedic sports medicine.
Before he had moved to Pennsylvania and gone into private practice, he used to work sporting events, reality television competitions and live television shows—right beside his wife, Evelyn.
She knew that. Just like Vikram knew that of all the doctors he could call in a last-minute pinch, David would be a great fit to serve as the chief medical officer on a live-action musical.
Still, he could see by the way Evelyn hissed that his ex-wife remained unconvinced.
“Oh, please!” Evelyn said. “Like Vikram couldn’t find another doctor? It had to be you, right?”
“He asked two other people,” David explained. “But they were all booked up already. Smith was on vacation . . . and you know that Hart has never worked a Christmas in his life. Vikram was desperate at that point, so he asked me.”
Originally, David had planned to use the holiday season to catch up on items around his farm.
He wanted to do some hiking with his dogs, and build another extension onto the chicken coop for his girls.
Plus, Miracle—one of his rescue alpacas—was pregnant.
But Vikram was desperate, offering his apartment for the week, and David couldn’t leave his old friend hanging out to dry in an emergency.
He’d informed Leila, his farm manager, that he would be heading into the city.
And he’d called up his sister in Manhattan so that he could spend the first few nights of Hanukkah with his niece, Jesse, before they jetted off to Florida to visit the in-laws.
It seemed like a win-win for everyone involved.
Well, everyone except him and Evelyn.
“Believe me,” he grumbled. “It was a favor.”
He caught on her eyes. A tiny hint of wetness was forming in the corners. He swallowed and looked away from her, telling himself it was the migraine. Still, a nagging guilt crept its way up into his chest.
“Yet here you are.” Evelyn smirked.
“And here you are,” he reminded her, “likely bleeding from the brain, but doing everything possible to go back to work. Congratulations, Evelyn. It’s been two years since we’ve seen each other and you haven’t changed, at all.”
She raised the non-twitchy eyebrow at him. “Are you done now?”
He bit back his words. It was impossible to talk to her.
Evelyn stood up, wobbling with the attempt.
“I’m sorry,” David said, preventing her from leaving, “but I really can’t let you go back to set until I examine you.”
“It’s a migraine, David.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I’ll know it as soon as I take the Maxalt sitting in my office and my headache goes away.”
Stubborn. She was so damn stubborn. Worse than talking to a brick wall.
In the beginning, he had adored her obstinate spirit.
Evelyn had this gutsy, gung ho zeal regarding life that made everyone around her want to come along for the party.
She had even once told him, back in high school, that the only time she ever felt truly confident in her voice was when she was using it to fight for others.
Her words had stuck with him. Mainly because he thought it was an unfair assessment of her wealth of talents.
She was smart, and funny, and the sex between them was the full-on earth-shattering type that poets wrote sonnets about.
And while she had a tough exterior like the sabra fruit of Israel, he’d mainly fallen in love with her because he had seen beneath that to find one of the most altruistic people he had ever met.
Though she had never been as observant as David in her Jewish practice, she embodied the Jewish value of tikkun olam, making the world better in tiny bits and increments—expecting no gain in return.
Growing up, she was a defender against bullies. In their marriage, despite working her own full day at CBS7-T studios, she would often stay up late with him, running through flash cards, gathering snacks . . . leaving little notes of support in his bag when he was killing himself during residency.
Even her singular and obsessive drive to be successful in film and television came out of this altruistic nature. She believed that escapism through entertainment had value, and she fought to create programming that could be enjoyed and shared by broad swaths of audiences.
It was a mindset that worked for her. At thirty-four years old, Evelyn was not only one of the youngest executive producers on staff, she was also the founder of Women in Film & Television, a nonprofit organization designed to pair young women in the entertainment industry with high-quality female mentors.
He respected her drive, and understood the importance of her work in creating real and lasting change in the entertainment industry.
All he asked in return was for her to put ten percent of that same effort into their marriage.
Instead, as her work hours increased, she began cutting corners by robbing the time from their personal life.
She ran out on date nights to head into the office.
She skipped family gatherings and Jewish holidays.
She disappeared when he needed her most, missing his phone calls, staying late at work, tiptoeing in and out of their apartment at all sorts of weird hours—until it felt like Evelyn was having an affair with CBS7-T studios.
More than once, he caught her curled up and sleeping with her tablet.
He never wanted to take away her career. Or, dampen her passion. He just wanted her to find some balance.
“Tell you what,” David said, pointing to the cot.
“I know you’re eager to get back on set, so why don’t you give me three minutes to examine you.
Just three minutes, so that I can fill out some paperwork at the end of the day .
. . and the studio can deny any legal culpability if you go back to work, against my advice, and subsequently drop dead. ”
She smirked. “You would do that for me?”
He pointed, again, to the cot. “Just three minutes.”
She huffed and sat down. Victory. He grabbed the penlight from the desk and began to check for signs of a concussion. He pointed the light in her eyes. Her pupils dilated. That was a good sign. He went to scribble a note.
“Two minutes and thirty.” She smiled.
David looked up from the chart. “Are you having any headaches?”
“You spent eight years in medical school for this?”
He ignored her jab. “Nausea? Vomiting?”
“Actually—” her eyes trailed down his form “—I am feeling incredibly queasy this afternoon.”
“Wow, okay,” he said. “Can you maybe try to take this seriously?”
“Seriously?” she scoffed. “You mean . . . like a marriage?”
His breath caught in his throat. “That’s not fair,” he said.
“Fair?” She laughed. “You want to talk about fair, David? You walked out on me after seven years of marriage, and I had to track you down and call your sister to even figure out that you had left. Seven years, David. Even longer as friends. And you didn’t even have the decency as my husband to send a damn text message.
Hey, Evelyn. What’s up? Just a little note to tell you I’m divorcing you! Happy First Night of Hanukkah!”
She hated him. It was so obvious she still hated him.
Then again, he couldn’t exactly blame her.
David hadn’t just left Evelyn. He’d absconded in the middle of the night.
In a moment of desperation, while she was working late, he gathered up a bag and took off, contacting HR the next morning from a hotel room in Queens to take an emergency medical leave.
Six months later, his lawyers served Evelyn with divorce papers.
Evelyn would keep the two-bedroom apartment they owned in Manhattan, and he would take a significant portion of their savings to start over.
He purchased a run-down, but totally acceptable, working farm for a steal in Hamlin, Pennsylvania, and opened a private orthopedic practice from his basement.
During the week, he saw students from the local high school with sports injuries, and the occasional pulled shoulder or inflamed tendon from weekend warriors taking up a new fitness regime at the local CrossFit gym.
He also began to do house calls, visiting the elderly, disabled and infirm when they were too sick to come into his office.