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The door was open and was directly across the hall from the lab. I leaned out to look through the two open doors to find him at his desk writing something.
“I thought you were going to lunch?” I said back to him.
He shrugged his shoulders in response.
“Cute little girl, don't you think?” He said this time setting his pen down and looking at me over his spectacles.
“If this is the part where you tell me I missed out on the best thing in my life, I’m really not in the mood to hear it.”
I was probably a little gruffer then I needed to be, but I didn’t need one of those ‘I told you not to go’ talks from him. He had never come right out and said that he didn’t want me to join up, but then again we just about never actually spoke more than a few words to each other. He didn’t have to tell me for me to know he didn’t approve of me leaving and joining the SEALS.
Luckily at that moment, the last test dinged, and I got the results. Without another word to my father at the other end of the hall, I strolled out of the lab and into the small room to give Julie Jones and her daughter the good news.
“It’s not strep or the flu. Most likely it's just a nasty cold. Popsicles for hydration, Tylenol for the fever, and a lot of bed rest.”
“I don’t need you to tell me how to be a parent,” Julie spat back at me. “I know all that. I was hoping you would give me something that actually might help,” she added as she scooped up her purse.
“Sorry, nothing else will really help. You just got to wait it out. Which means,” I said turning to Emma and giving her a Jolly Rancher I confiscated for her, “lots of couch time and cartoons.”
“Thank you,” she said taking the hard candy out of my hand.
“Mrs. J has a little treasure box of stickers and little toys on your way out,” I added to Emma as I helped her down from the table.
“I’d like to have her come back if things get any worse or any new symptoms show up,” I said back to Julie. “I’ll have the office cell on me all weekend so if you need anything just call.”
“Okay, sure,” she responded with little heart in it. “Okay, come on Em let’s get you home.”
The little girl took her mom’s hand happily, and I watched the two of them as they strolled out of my office. I couldn’t help but feel that ping of regret in losing her as I watched Julie go. I told myself she had to be better off now, she had the little girl after all, but a part of me still wished she was mine.
I sat back down in the doctor's chair as I took in all that had just occurred in that room. I thought about that little girl some more. There was something so familiar about her. Then I looked at her records again. She was five years old.
For a second it made me a little mad. I left six years ago. Julie
must have bounced back quicker then I thought from my leaving to have a kid a year later.
I hauled in my tracks at the thought. Looking at Emma’s birth date one last time I did some quick math before cursing out loud.
Four
“How about we get a smoothy on the way home?” I called back to the backseat.
“Okay,” a soft voice answered in response.
I looked in the rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of Emma in her high back seat. She had her pink bear lovey wrapped tight in her arm while she fiddled with the tag with one hand and sucked her thumb with the other. It was a gift from my parents the day she was born. Just this little gift shop toy they picked up on their way in to see their granddaughter for the first time. There wasn’t a night that little pink bear wasn’t at her side now.
“You feeling tired, sweetheart,” I asked.
I knew she almost never sucked her thumb now unless she wasn’t feeling well or really tired.
She merely nodded in response.
“How come it was a new doctor today?” she finally removed her thumb to ask.
“Um,” I hesitated not wanting her to attach her memory to Hawk anymore than the one encounter. “Dr. Smith is getting old, so his son is going to start being the doctor there.”
“He was nice,” she said quietly.
“He was,” I said struggling to hide my own emotions from her.
