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CHAPTER FOUR
“Kelsey? You back here?”
At the sound of her father’s voice, Kelsey looked up from her paperwork. “Yeah, Daddy, I’m here.”
Her father came around the corner. “You had me worried! It’s dark up front.”
“We closed early because of the snow. Everybody went home.” When they had animals staying with them, for illness or recovery from surgery, one of the techs stayed overnight, but the crates were empty today, so Kelsey was the last one around.
“Everybody but you.”
“Just wrapping up some paperwork. Why are you here?”
“Mom sent me. You’re not answering your phone—or the clinic phone. With the weather like it is, she’s freaking out, pix.”
Her parents had called her ‘pixie’ or ‘pix’ for her entire life. She’d tried to get them to stop when she was in high school and felt too mature for such a little-girl nickname, but they’d been unable (or possibly unwilling) to break the habit. With a few more years, and actual maturity, she’d found she didn’t mind it too much.
“Sorry. The clinic is closed, so I didn’t answer that line, and I didn’t get any—” She slipped her hand into her pocket to check her phone. But it wasn’t there. “Where’s my phone?”
“Excellent question,” her father said.
“Well, poop.” She got up and she scanned the work area while her father called and let her mom know she was okay. Not finding her phone in the back, she went through the exam rooms, until she found it in a drawer in one of the rooms. She’d probably left it behind after an appointment and the tech who’d flipped the room had stuck it in the drawer out of the way, and then forgotten to let her know.
“Found it!” she called out as she woke it up.
Yep, five missed calls and a stack of texts from her mom. The text on top of the stack saidI’m calling your dad.
Obviously, that was exactly what her mother had done. Now her father came to the doorway and leaned on the jamb.
Her parents were both dedicated hoverers. She’d learned by her freshman year of high school that to be able to do anything fun, she’d needed to get a little flexible with the truth. Not outright lies, usually, but little omissions. Telling her parents she was going to a party at a friend’s and not mentioning that boys would be there.
Or asking for forgiveness instead of permission.
She was twenty-seven years old, had a Bachelor’s degree in biochemistry—which she’d completed in three years, graduating with honors—and a DVM, also conferred with honor. But when she’d wanted to get her own apartment, she’d had to get the apartment first, sign the lease and everything, before she’d told her parents. If she’d told them upfront, they’d have done everything in their power to talk her out of it. Or worse, they would have done something crazy like buy her a house—their choice of house and neighborhood. As it was, they’d wanted her to break the lease before she’d moved a stick of furniture. They didn’t like the complex. They didn’t like the neighborhood. They didn’t like that her unit was on the first floor. She’d be too far from them (ten miles was too far, in their estimation). They’d help her find something nicer. And on and on.
She adored her parents, and they’d built a happy home full of love and fun. But they shared a finely tuned sense of the kinds of threats and risks the world presented, and they were not good at letting their children face those threats and risks on their own.
Kelsey, the oldest, had always been a pleaser, trying to make everybody happy, hating to be in trouble. So she’d developed this way of skirting the edges of rebellion, trying to preload the scales with things that pleased her parents and give herself some room to do things that did not. Like getting the apartment with a little bit of distance for privacy, but working at a clinic close to her parents’ house.
Duncan, the middle child, fought. Over everything. The minute he and their dad disagreed, Duncan pushed back hard. And then they were shouting and stomping and slamming. He didn’t fight with their mom, mainly because as soon as Duncan started to push, she always said she’d talk to dad and see what he had to say. Kelsey thought she was passing off the battle to their dad.
Hannah, the baby, did whatever she wanted, didn’t bother to ask for permission or forgiveness, had since about fifth grade spent half her life on some kind of restriction or another—and blew even that off routinely. Right now, she was on double restriction because she’d been caught sneaking out while she was grounded, so she was stuck in the house for a month and had now also lost phone and online privileges.
She was fifteen years old and talked endlessly about how great it would be when she could drive, but at the rate she was going she’d be thirty before she’d be allowed to get a license.
Kelsey had been grounded a total of three times. For a total of four days. And now she was a fully grown, professional woman.
But that didn’t mean her parents had relaxed much with her.
She put her phone in her pocket where it belonged and turned to smile at her dad. “You can tell Mom I’m fine and just wasn’t near my phone. And I’m heading home soon.”
“You’re coming home now.”
“I can’t, Daddy. I’ve got some more records to update, and I’m getting a lot of work done while it’s so quiet.”
He came into the exam room and held out his hand. “Come here. I want you to see something.”
When she took his hand, he led her out the patient door and down the corridor to the waiting room. All but the security lights were off, and it was nearly dark outside. Later than she’d realized.
