Page 442 of The Doctors Will See You Now

I’d spent so long looking at it with disdain, I’d barely even noticed how much happier my dad seemed.

Three concussive knocks to the door and a press to the doorbell for good measure executed, I stepped back and waited for my mother to answer. She would, I knew, as my dad would be somewhere tinkering with something with greasy hands and a stained shirt while she toiled with baked goods in the kitchen.

I miss them.

The door swung open with the drama of a curtain on opening night of a Broadway show, and I felt my heart jump into my throat.

My mom’s eyes were worn with age, but they weren’t anything but wide and bright as she recognized me. Now she knew me. Unlike the millions of people who’d seen a highly edited version of one aspect of my life, she’d raised me. I’d lost my way from her for a while, but a mother’s heart never changed.

“Nick!”

“Hi, Mom,” I murmured demurely. She didn’t conform.

All zeal and action, she dove into my arms and hugged me tight with both thin arms.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re here. It’s so good to see you. What are you doing here? How are you off work?”

I laughed at a mother’s ability to ask so many questions at once, and I pulled her clinging arms off of me to give her a smile. “Can we maybe go inside before I start answering?”

Her giggle was light and delighted. “Yes! Yes, of course. Come in, come in!”

But before we could step into the house, she dove into my arms again.

“Mom,” I said through a laugh.

“I’m just so glad to see you,” she whispered in my ear. Emotion rolled through her voice like a wave and broke all over my heart.

I tightened my arms around her. “I’m sorry,” I whispered right into the line of her neck. She smelled exactly like I’d always remembered. “I was such an idiot, staying away this long.”

Her head shook against me. “All that matters is that you’re here now.”

Safely in a chair in the kitchen, after half a cup of tea consumed and a bunch of mother-son mooning behind us, my dad walked in and did a double take when he spotted me. “Jack,” my mom cooed with a smile, “Look who’s here.”

As much as my mother’s exuberant greeting was normal, the tear that leaked from my father’s eye at the sight of me, there, in his kitchen, smiling, was not.

“Dad?”

I stood up and walked toward him, worried.

He pulled me into his arms as soon as I was within reach and pounded at my back like a carpenter with a hammer. I got choked up immediately.

Jesus Christ, I wasn’t used to this much emotion.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I was an idiot.”

“You were,” he agreed easily, and I laughed.

He scooted back and grabbed me by the jaw, pride in his eye. “But you sure made something of yourself. A big-time doctor and a TV star all in one. Most parents only have one thing to brag about.”

“I made a mess,” I corrected. “But I’m finally trying to clean it up.”

He stepped back, and my mom slid under his free arm.

They looked to one another before my father responded for both of them. “We don’t have a damn clue what you’re talking about.”

I chuckled. “Can we all sit down? I’d love to explain it to you.”

They moved toward the table, both eager and set on discovery. I turned my mom to face me with a soft hand on her shoulder just before she took a seat at the table. “Mom?”