I had two clients to show for opening day. And one wasn't even mine. Bartleby's owner told me at the counter she was a Caldwell person, and she only came in because Caldwell was booked. The Bishops came because they heard about a boy at a lake.
A practice didn't open in a day. A practice opened in months. I knew that. I said it to Audrey at the diner three weeks ago. I said it to my mother on the phone yesterday. I said it to myself in the mirror this morning at six-thirty.
I said it because I needed to say it.
I told myself, when I signed the lease, that I'd be fine if it was slow. That I came back to Hartsdale for me, not for the practice. That the practice was something I was building because I had a license and wanted to use it, and if it took years to fill, that would be fine.
I told myself I didn't need this to work.
Standing in my empty waiting room, I found out how much I did.
CHAPTER 16
Easton
It had been four weeks since I'd had her to myself for an evening that wasn't grief or work, and I'd been counting.
The clinic was swallowing her. She opened at seven-fifty, and the lights stayed on past six most nights. She came home in her own car, walked Moose, slept for four hours, and started over.
We were seeing each other in pieces. Coffee at her counter at six-fifteen on the mornings I went to the station. A walk with the dogs at dawn before she had to be on Main. Sundays on her couch with a book on her chest and Moose at her feet. She slept in my bed twice in the last two weeks, both times in jeans, both times with her hand on my sternum. Both times, I lay awake after she went under and counted how many days it had been since the water tower.
I walked past her window yesterday morning on a coffee run during shift. The waiting room was empty. The sunflowers from opening day were three weeks gone. Astrid sat at her counter with a pen in her hand, her head bent over a stack of forms. The bell went off when I opened the door. She looked up, and the smile she had ready for whoever was coming through died on her mouth when she saw it was me. The other smile came after. Slower, quieter, just at the corners.
I asked her how the day had been. She said steady—the answer you give when somebody's been asking, and you've been answering. I kissed her on the side of her head and went. I'd been carrying the knot through every hour of the shift since.
The eggs were in front of me at the counter. We were at the back end of a twenty-four. Halsey came down from the dorm at five the way he always did, and by six-thirty, he had the foil tray on the burner, the home fries on the back element, and a stack of paper plates on the island. Duke was across from me with the section of the morning paper that had the high school football scores in it.
Duke looked up from the paper.
"How's Astrid?"
I took a forkful of eggs, chewed, swallowed.
"Busy."
"That's all I get?"
"She's good. The clinic's keeping her up."
"Mhm."
He set the paper down on the counter and put both palms on the edge of the island.
"You've eaten the same forkful of eggs four times."
I looked at the plate. He wasn't wrong.
I let out a breath through my nose and set the fork down.
"She's tired, Duke. Practice has been slow. Caldwell's been working the diner against her, and the old-timers haven't moved their charts. Halloran told Audrey, Audrey told Astrid, Astrid told me on a Wednesday three weeks ago, and hasn't told me anything since. I'm reading it off her face on the days I get to see her face."
"Are you getting to see her face?"
"Some days."
"How many of the last seven?"
"Three."
