Chapter Forty-One Jenn
Chapter Forty-One
Jenn
Sunday evening
I’m snapping the shit out of the pink band on my wrist as I walk down the path and under the arching portico of the posh but tasteful Coral Gables home.
Once I ring the bell, I stand there shifting from foot to foot.
Snapping and shifting, shifting and snapping, until he opens the door.
David Kellogg is barefoot, in khaki cargo shorts and a T-shirt.
It’s jarring to see him looking so normal, like any suburban dad.
He appears to be as perplexed as I feel.
“Dr. Flores. What brings you here at”—he glances down at his watch—“eight forty-five on a Sunday night?”
Shit, it’s later than I thought. I’ve spent the last two hours hunched over in my rental car, reading Julian’s case files by the dome light.
“I . . . uh . . . I’m sorry to show up like this, but I didn’t know where else to go . . .”
His brows draw together. “What’s wrong? What is it?”
“I need your help.”
The four words come out in a whisper, but, somehow, they’re some of the most impactful that I’ve ever spoken.
For a long, awkward beat, he scrutinizes me, like I might be some Trojan horse trying to slip past the gates of his kingdom.
“Right. Well, then I guess you’d better come in,” he says, stepping aside so I can join him in the house.
Suddenly this feels like a bad idea. A very bad idea. Why hadn’t I thought this through or run it past Gabe first? He’d have talked me out of this inadvisable notion of walking right up to the lion’s den.
Instinctively, I take a half step backward.
“Maybe we could . . . I don’t know, go to a diner or someplace?”
Someplace public.
When he quirks an eyebrow at the same time he quirks a corner of his mouth, I know he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“Cassandra?” he calls out, his eyes never leaving mine. When there isn’t an immediate response, he tries again a little louder: “Cass? Would you please come here for a second, hon?”
Hon? He’s got a hon?
A tall woman about my age steps into view in a silky red kimono and matching pajamas, her hair a cascade of tight, shining curls.
The toddler behind her is unmistakably hers—the same graceful features, the same warm undertones in her skin—except for the hazel eyes she shares with the man standing in front of me.
Gobsmacked, I stare from her, to Kellogg, to the woman, and back again.
He puts a hand on her arm and gestures to me with the other.
“Dr. Jennifer Flores, this is my wife, Dr. Cassandra Middleton.”
“Oh!” she exclaims, her face filling with a lovely, brilliant smile.
“Dr. Flores, how wonderful to finally meet you!” She starts to reach out her hand but then retracts it quickly.
“Sorry, sticky apple juice hands,” she tells me with a sheepish nod toward the child now peering at me from behind her mother’s long legs.
“Um . . . hi?” I murmur, too stunned to know what to make of this domestic scene.
Cassandra hoists the toddler up into her arms and starts speaking excitedly. “You don’t know me, but we actually travel in some of the same circles. I’m a psychiatrist as well—general family practice.”
It’s too much to process at one time—him, her, the kid.
“I-I . . . uh . . . yes, I—” I pause, take a breath, and try again without the stammering.
“Yes, Dr. Middleton, I’ve heard your name before .
. .” Just not in conjunction with this asshat.
“I didn’t realize you . . . and Dr. Kellogg .
. . that he’s . . . that you’re . . .” I blather until she jumps in to save me.
“Married? Oh, yes! A few years now. And this,” she says, bouncing her child, “is Melody—Melly, we call her.”
I give a tiny awkward wave to the little girl, who turns bashful suddenly, burying her face in the crook of her mother’s neck.
“Melly, can you say hello to Dr. Flores?” David asks.
She peeks at me just long enough to return my greeting with one tiny hand before hiding her face again.
“I caught your presentation on trauma in preteens at the APA conference in Vegas last year—you were brilliant!” the woman gushes. “I told David you were the only person he should consider for this case.”
My eyes snap back to his face, but his expression is unreadable. “I’m sorry—I thought it was Julian Braithwaite who wanted me here for the consultation?”
“I was just trying to entice Dr. Flores to come inside,” David tells his wife, ignoring my statement.
“I . . . no, really . . . I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize how late it was. I can come back tomorrow. Or, better yet, meet you at the hospital. Please, forgive me for intruding . . .”
I’m ready to bolt, already in the process of pivoting when I feel a light touch on my elbow.
I look back to find the woman’s bright, open expression.
She’s one of those rare people whose inner beauty radiates outward, warming and illuminating the darkest corners of the people around her.
How on earth did this guy land such a stunning woman?
“Oh, please don’t go, Jenn—may I call you Jenn?
David’s famous spinach artichoke pizza is just going into the oven .
. . I know it’s late, but between his schedule at the hospital and this little night owl of ours, we’re rarely sitting down to dinner before eight or nine.
So please, come, come. He’ll make you a nice ‘adult beverage,’ and the two of you can sit out on the deck and talk while I get this little one into a bath. ”
I shake my head quickly, holding up a palm in protest. “Oh, I . . . I couldn’t—”
“Nonsense!” David declares, clearly enjoying the cocktail of shock, confusion, and awkwardness that I’ve got going on at the moment. “Of course you can!”
“Daaaaaddy!” the child whines, holding out her chubby little arms toward her father.
He scoops her up effortlessly, plopping her atop his shoulders before turning around and walking back into the house.
“What’ll it be, Dr. Flores?” he calls back to me without turning. “Beer? Wine? Vodka?”
“Yes.”
I mutter the comment under my breath, but he doesn’t miss it, turning slightly to shoot me a grin past his toddler.
“Excellent suggestion.”
For once we agree.
We’re out on the deck overlooking the canal, a couple of gin and tonics between us on the glass coffee table that separates our respective love seats. David sits back in his chair and crosses his arms in front of his chest.
“I had no idea,” I begin. “That you were married. That you had a baby.”
He chuckles. “You’re surprised that anyone would want to settle down with me.”
“Well, yeah, a little, I guess.”
His frame relaxes back into his chair, and his gaze strays out to the water as he talks again.
“I’m not the same man I was ten years ago, but I couldn’t expect you to know that . . . or to even believe that. Though that woman back there in the house, and our little girl, should be some compelling evidence in my favor.”
“Okay, yeah, I can see that. But you’re still kind of a . . .”
He glances at me, smirking. “What? A dick? A douche? An arrogant prick? Yeah, I know. But, for some reason, she loves me anyway. And it makes me want to try a little harder to not be those things.” He pauses and sighs.
“Look, I’ve made some pretty big mistakes in my lifetime—Cami Miller being at the top of that list. You being a close second.
But apologies don’t come easily for me, and they don’t do much good anyway.
I believe in making things right with actions instead of words. Making amends, if you will.”
“Well, that’s very ‘twelve steps’ of you,” I comment wryly.
“Yes, it is, in fact,” he replies, the smile gone now.
Then I see it.
“Oh! Oh my God . . . are you?”
“An alcoholic? Yes.”
My eyes go right to the drink in front of him.
He notices and holds it up. “That’s the beautiful thing about a G&T. Who’s going to notice if you skip the G?”
Memories explode in my head, shattering into a hundred jagged-edged possibilities.
“That night?” The two words are as profound a question as I’ve ever asked.
There’s a slow nod from him. “I was good at hiding it. So highly functioning that no one knew except for me.”
I can scarcely believe what I’m hearing.
The man I’ve known and hated for a decade is disappearing before my very eyes, and I have no words to describe just how unnerving I find this.
Him being an alcoholic does not, under any circumstances, excuse what happened in the ER.
But it goes a long way to explaining how it happened—and why.
It allows me to see the gray nuances between the black and white I’ve always painted him to be.
He’s hardly a good man. But maybe . . . just maybe .
. . he isn’t the complete monster I thought he was.
“As for you,” he continues, oblivious to my inner monologue, “maybe my opinion has changed. A little. Maybe.”
“Okay . . . so then what’s with the Big Bad Wolf routine these last couple of days?” I ask, incredulous. “Why work so hard to convince me—and everyone else—that you’re still an ass?”
“Oh, make no mistake about it, I’m still an ass.
I’m just an older, wiser ass. Which makes me a little more judicious about where and how I apply that particular trait.
” He glances back out at the water, shimmering under the brilliant Miami moon.
“Okay, enough of the confessions. You gonna tell me what this is all about? Are you having second thoughts about admitting Sam Kinski?”
“Um, no. And anyway . . . She’s gone.”
All traces of humor leave his face. “What do you mean, ‘She’s gone’? Did someone discharge her?”
“When she said she wanted some fresh air, her nurse, Shannon, wheeled her outside to sit in the gardens for a little while. She went in to get Sam a bottle of water and when she got back, the wheelchair was empty.”
“Jesus.” He scrubs a hand over his face, the motion raking through the stubble shadowing his jaw. Away from the hospital’s fluorescent glare, he looks steadier, more self-possessed—the years have only carved his features in deeper.