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“How far along did you get?”
“I met Barbara on campus. Bright, funny, pretty—I couldn’t get enough of her. We were both only twenty, and I was in the last term of my sophomore year. We eloped during spring break.”
Jolie expected to see regret in his eyes but found only sorrow.
“Neither of us had a clue about life or the responsibilities of being married and having a family. She got pregnant with Annie almost right away.”
“So you dropped out of school?”
“There was no other way. Her family was appalled, my dad was angry. Neither one wanted much to do with us after that.”
“You didn’t go back to night school later?”
“I tried a few times, but I was supporting the family, making enough time for the kids after work—then trying to race off to night classes. Study time was a little hard to come by.”
“And your wife?”
“Barb couldn’t work much. She’d started to feel ill before Charlie was born, and the doctors couldn’t figure out why.”
So his hopes and dreams for a career were lost long before he lost his wife, and Jolie didn’t need to ask why he hadn’t gone back to school later.
She slathered peanut butter on a couple of crackers and tore a cluster of grapes from the stem. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I don’t regret any of my decisions—I had a wife I loved, she gave me kids I couldn’t love more. What would I ever want to change?”
“Nothing at all.” Drawing her legs up, Jolie wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on her knees.
He’d had more hardship, more struggle in his life than she’d ever had, and maybe hadn’t achieved all the goals he’d held dear, but he’d had far more joy, too. She might have received her coveted M.D., but who had achieved more—and who was happier? He was the winner on both counts.
“You seem awfully quiet,” Matt said after a while.
“Just thinking.” Thoughts of her single-minded pursuit of a degree had hopscotched into other topics. Her practice. The patients.
And what Daniel Aiken’s mother had said on Monday. Her words had hovered over Jolie like a dark cloud ever since.Now I’m praying that all the rumors about you aren’t true.
The rumors again. Spread by whom? Would they account for the nearly empty waiting room day after day? The several phone calls to the clinic each day, when the caller said nothing and just hung up?
And how did one fight something so vague?
Matt pitched a pebble into a puddle of water held by a depression in the rocks. “I wanted to tell you—while we were alone—how much I appreciate your support and patience with Annie. With all of us.”
Jolie tilted her head to look over at him. “She’s done well. I’ve seen her every day this week, and I think she’s really got thehang of taking her insulin and doing her finger sticks. Her blood sugars are excellent at this point.”
“She still doesn’t want people to know about her diabetes.”
“Apparently she has a bit of a crush on the boy who took her to the nurse’s office. That insulin reaction at school scared and embarrassed her.”
Matt’s eyes narrowed at the wordboy.
“It would be better if she just let people know, instead of being secretive. People tend to imagine the worst.”
“A boy?”
“He’s only fourteen—I doubt he’s much of a Don Juan.”
“Haveyouever been a fourteen-year-old boy?” Matt ran a finger around the neck of his polo shirt. “He’s probably already thinking about ways to—”
Jolie elbowed Matt in the ribs. Playfully—as she might have teased her sisters years ago. He was as solid as the rock. “I really, really don’t think he’s going to elope with her just yet.” She raised an eyebrow and tipped down her sunglasses with one finger. “Have you had The Talk with her?”
