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“Then let’s go.”
* * *
I stay at the hospital an hour past my shift to catch up on notes and charts. By the time I walk through my front door at 10:30 a.m., a heavy exhaustion has settled deep into my bones. It’s more than just physical. I can barely muster a smile for Rosie when she greets me, her nails tapping the wood floor as she trots over to drop a mangy stuffed turtle at my feet.
But then I take a breath . . . and I’m infused with a deluge of delicious, sugary-scented goodness. The whole house smells fantastic, like a bakery—but in heaven.
I wander toward the kitchen like a damned soul in search of the light.
Violet stands at the stove dipping a wooden spoon into a large heated pot. She’s wearing my gray T-shirt, tied at her stomach, and a pair of my black sweatpants that are huge on her—the waist knotted with a rubber band at her hip to keep them up. Her hair’s in a messy chestnut pile on her head, and though her shape is lost in the mammoth clothes, she still manages to look sexy and adorable.
Standing next to her, Spencer sees me first.
“Dad! We’re making homemade doughnuts!”
Brayden holds one in his hand at the counter, his cheeks puffed out with pastry like a chipmunk.
“They’re soooo good.”
Violet flashes me a smile before setting the spoon down and turning off the stove. “Give those a minute to cool and then you can dip them in the glaze,” she tells Spence.
But as she approaches me, her eyes roaming my face, her smile sinks.
“Bad night?” she asks softly.
It was never Stacey’s fault that she didn’t work in an emergency department. That she couldn’t understand what a bad night meant, no matter how hard she tried sometimes.
But Violet does. She knows exactly what this feels like, because she’s felt it.
And there’s a comfort in that. An embracing, easy respite from the persistent weight of guilt and melancholy.
“Yeah—I’ll tell you about it later.”
From the laundry room off the kitchen, the dryer alarm buzzes, signaling a load is done.
“There were wet clothes in the machine that were turning musty,” Violet explains. “So I rewashed them.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem; I was here.” She shrugs. “But I ran out this morning and picked up a new bottle of fabric softener. No offense—your fabric softener was kind of crappy.”
“Told you,” Brayden calls in a singsong voice as he slides on his socks into the laundry room. He comes out holding a freshly washed T-shirt, pressing it against his face and inhaling so deeply the fabric is momentarily snorted up his nostrils. When he speaks, it’s in the voice of a stoner who just took a massive bong hit.
“Oh yeah . . . that’s the good stuff.”
I should probably start keeping a closer eye on him.
Before I can think any more about that, my firstborn pain in the ass graces us with his presence.
He strolls into the kitchen, not a care in the world.
And I try to stay calm, to hold on to my composure. . .
“Where the fuck have you been?”
. . . but I don’t quite manage it.
He has the audacity to look surprised.
“I told you—Mia and I were fighting. I couldn’t just leave in the middle of it.”
“It’s ten thirty in the goddamn morning, Aaron—I’ve been texting you for hours!”
“We drove to Sandy Hook to talk. We ended up falling asleep. My charger crapped out and my phone died. Why are you freaking out? Everything’s fine—it’s not a big deal.”
It’s the flippancy that really gets me going. The total disregard for anyone else’s feelings except his own. You can teach your kids right from wrong, set an example of hard work and responsibility—but you can’t make them give a shit.
“It is a big deal. You’re seventeen, you have a curfew—I expect you to respect that.”
“I’m going to be eighteen in six months. I’m practically an adult already!”
I rein in my response—because he’s a kid and he’s stupid and he’s at an age where he just can’t comprehend that he’s not invincible.
“I lost a patient tonight. A kid just a few years older than you, in a car accident. I had to look his mother in the eyes and tell her her son was dead. That he was never coming home again. And then I had to go through hours of you not picking up your phone! I was ready to send your uncle out looking for you!”
“Oh, please. You weren’t worried about me.” He jerks his chin toward his brothers. “You’re just pissed because I wasn’t here to watch the babies.”
Spencer glares from across the room—his voice small and wounded.
“You suck, Aaron.”
“Yeah, that’s low, man.” Brayden agrees. “We watched Hereditary.”
“We could’ve died!” Spencer insists.
But Aaron ignores them—tossing his resentment at me like an adolescent monkey flinging poo.
