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“Are you calling aboutme?”
Jolie smiled at her. “I just have some questions to ask him.”
“You looked at me. You said I looked sick.”
“Pale, Annie.”
“You asked if I felt okay and then right away wanted his number.” Annie’s defiant tone faded. “Do you think I look bad?”
“Oh, honey. Of course not.” Jolie curved an arm around her shoulders and led her to the chairs in the corner of the waiting room. “No one is here. Let’s sit and talk a bit, okay?”
Annie balked. Then sank into a chair and stared at the toes of her Nikes.
“Is there anything worrying you?”
“No.”
“Um...is anything wrong at school, with the other kids?”
“No.”
“With your teachers?”
Annie shook her head.
“Charlie? Your dad?”
“No.”
Jolie hesitated, not wanting to pry too deeply. “Sometimes things don’t seem so bad if we can just talk about them with someone.”
Annie tipped her head against the back of the chair. Her eyes welled with tears.
“Can you tell me about it?”
Annie stared at her shoes. “I’-I’ve lost a lot of weight. Alot.I feel crummy most of the time, and tired. And that was how my mom felt, too.”
“Oh, Annie. Your mom had cancer. But you haven’t been diagnosed with anything. Right?”
“It’s too scary to even think about it.” A sob rose in Annie’s throat. “She suffered a lot, and then she died. And I think that’s happening to me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
MATT PULLED UPto the clinic at four-fifteen on Thursday. Waited in the truck for a few minutes, hoping the kids would see him and come running out. No such luck.
This really had to stop. The kids were supposed to stay with all of the other kids who lingered in the gymnasium after school until their parents got off of work.
Instead, they invariably preferred walking to Jolie’s clinic and hanging around there during the thirty or forty minutes between the end of school and the time he could pick them up.
They need a mom,an inner voice nagged at him.
Jolie always seemed happy to see them, but once her practice grew, she’d have little time to spare. Maybe she already resented the imposition of her daily visitors and was too polite to say so.
Feeling a little embarrassed, Matt stepped out of the truck and walked into the clinic. Bow-decorated pots of flowering plants, each with a gift card, filled the end tables, windowsills, and the receptionist’s window.
He’d been framing the new gift shop up in the foothills all day. Standing in the midst of all this frippery in his flannel shirt, dusty jeans, and steel-toed boots, he felt as out of place as a steer in a dress shop. “Annie! Charlie!”
Two heads appeared at the far-right door down the hallway, past the exam rooms and lab. A spare room, if Matt remembered correctly.
