“I disagr—”
“And more than one, by the looks of it.”
Lee frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well…” It sounded like his words were squeezing through a straw, as if he were trying so hard to contain his frustration that he was suffocating himself. “…Barbara and I were hoping to talk to you about Marcelle.”
Lee’s brows shot up. “What?" He heard the edge in his voice, and he hoped his father did too.
“You see, she and Barbara have been talking…”
“Marcelle and Barbara have beentalking?”
What the hell?Lee had not seen Marcelle since the day after he’d brought Victor home. She’d come by to clear out the last of her stuff while he was at the hospital, and she’d left his key. She’d texted him once to see if he wanted his copy ofThe Martianback, and he’d told her to keep it. That was it. Nothing more.
“Yes, and it seems like she’d welcome the chance to reconcile and see if the two of you could work things out. You did end things pretty abruptly, Leland.” Dr. Thomas Hawthorne said these words with gentle admonishment, as though Lee had simply been careless.
Lee thought he was about to choke. He reached up and loosened his tie. “Dad, that sounds… a little weird. Don’t you think? I mean, we broke up. What is my stepmom doing talking to my ex-girlfriend?”
“Leland, they both love you. We all do. We just want what’s best for you,” his father said. “First, you break up with Marcelle, and now you take this charity job? Son, it’s like you’re throwing everything away.”
Lee had heard enough. “Dad, I have patients to see. Patients who need me—”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” he interjected. “I’m not saying there’s no value in what you’re doing—”
“No, you’re sayingyoudon’t value what I’m doing,” Lee shot back.
“You’re angry,” his father said, sounding disappointed.
And Lee felt like he’d lost ground. A familiar weight pulled him down from inside his chest. Anger became heavier, feeling more like defeat.
“I’m not angry,” he lied. “I have to go.”
“You haven’t changed since you were eleven,” Tom said, effectively calling Lee a child. “You let yourself get angry, and you run away.”
The way he said it, Lee couldn’t tell which his father disliked more: the anger or the escape. He only knew that when it came to his dad, neither was acceptable.
“Dad, I have a patient who came in yesterday with toxic shock syndrome,” he said in the most civil tone he could muster. “I need to check on her, so if you wouldn’t mind—”
“At least come for dinner on your next day off,” his father said, intent on clearing the air. “When is that?”
Lee let go a sigh. “Next Tuesday.” But as soon as the word left his mouth, he cursed himself. He’d want to spend the day with Wren — at least as much of it as he could. He could invite her to join, but Wren wasn’t ready to meet Tom and Barbara Hawthorne, and Tom and Barbara Hawthorne weren’t ready to meet Wren.
He’d figure something out. Call later in the week and see if he could go to dinner with them after one of his day shifts ended — on a night when Wren would be working. Already he knew her schedule, and he wanted, as much as possible, to fix his to match. It wouldn’t be easy since she worked noon to ten p.m. and his twelve-hour shifts were six to six. But he wanted as much time with her as he could get.
“Sure, Dad. That sounds fine.” He pretended agreement, smoothing over the rough spots and giving his father what he wanted.
“Good, good,” he said, clearly satisfied. “We’ll see you then and talk some more.”
Lee gritted his teeth. “See you, Dad."
He hung up before his father could say anything else, squeezing his phone in his fist until his knuckles went white. An unwelcome memory flashed in his mind…
Lee, at fourteen, quietly seething as he caddied for his father at a golf tournament. As a member of his school’s Outing Club, Lee was supposed to be climbing at Enchanted Rock in Texas that weekend, but Tom had refused to let him go. He’d make better connections for the future, his father told him, on the golf course than “on the side of some mountain.”
When Tom first told him no, Lee tried to keep calm. The man responded to calm far better than if Lee got emotional. Lee tried to reason with him. He argued that his friends were the sons of those well-connected golfers, and their influence would serve him just as well. This was met with amused condescension, so Lee tried bargaining. E-rock this year; golf tournament next year. His father wouldn’t budge.
When Lee finally exploded in the middle of their kitchen, vowing that his mother would have been on his side if she were still alive, Thomas Hawthorne turned to ice. His eyes. The line of his mouth. Everything went cold.
