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She wondered if she had anything to do with him fleeing his post. It was useless speculation. Maybe, for one glorious moment, she had been the stable center of Dr. Merino’s universe, but there was no denying he thrived amid chaos and she introduced the expectation of order.
She was disciplined and he was dangerous.
It was better this way, or at least that’s what she insisted as she swallowed the lump lodged in her throat. And yet, her mind wandered to that office across campus, to the man who held her heart on a string.
Kenna ran before she realized she was in motion.
“Please inform me in a timely manner about—Miss O’Callaghan?”
Professor Henrick’s questioning voice echoed in the foreground as her feet carried her out of the classroom, out of the hallway, out of the building, everything a blur of drywall and sound. She flew along the paved walking paths, that university highway. Her Mary Janes clacked as she went, heart jumping, and she ignored an inane passing comment.
“Where’s the fire?”
Kenna burst through the doors of Markham Hall and breezed up the staircase. Her lungs were on fire and her breathing had turned ragged by the time she reached the third-floor landing. The urgency that had guided her died as she tiptoed through the hallway she’d come down twice a day for months, where she spent hours with a doctor who inspired both panic and awe within her.
Someone who had, briefly, held a great deal of importance in her life and who had gone just as quick.
She stopped short of Dr. Merino’s office and stared blankly at the frosted glass window. It was the middle of the day and the interior was dark. A familiar voice startled Kenna.
“He’s gone.”
Professor Scott stood a few feet away, bundle of papers and thermos in tow. His expression bordered on apologetic and he channeled the nervous energy of a flustered father tasked with administering an awkward topic of conversation to his daughter.
“Shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon?”
He raised the papers. “Have to make it through exam week first.”
“But you knew the schedule when you set the date, right? Why didn’t you push it back a week?”
Any other day, Kenna might have thought it impolite to ask a faculty member such a personal question, but she’d had her hard work revoked and figured she could risk flying closer to the sun.
“I wanted to, but the date was important to my wife. It was her mother’s birthday. She passed on a few years ago. You do that for the people you love.” His gaze flicked from her to the office door before walking away. “You make sacrifices.”
34
SIGNATURE
The steady hum of traffic whooshed by through the cracked window. Beads of perspiration rolled along Dayton’s neck, cementing strands of hair into place.
He had unknowingly leased a unit with a shot A/C and could withstand the noise if it meant some degree of relief from the summer heat.
His new office wasn’t much: 300 square feet awkwardly split among a waiting area, session space, and a private office. After eight years in psychiatry, he had ventured out as an independent practitioner. And though it should have been a moment of professional triumph, everything dulled in importance with his darling Kenna out of the picture.
She was gone but he thought of her endlessly.
When he arrived home every evening, Dayton was haunted by the scenes that had played out between them. He sat in silence and reflected on the pain—physical and mental—he’d inflicted upon her. He had toyed with the idea of selling the house, but he wanted only to distance himself from her and feared that in moving he’d slowly lose the pieces of her he guarded so dearly until there was nothing to put together.
He pinched the bridge of his nose as if to silence the unwanted thoughts and turned his attention back to the slim stack of applications on his outdated, industrial metal desk.
Dayton had quickly learned that he couldn’t effectively manage his patients’ care as well as reception duties, and had placed an ad online a week earlier.
He sifted through the applicants without having any hire-worthy criteria in mind. Even so, the candidates were a far cry from impressive. A Midwest transplant. A former dog walker. A retiree.
Distinct, clean print writing froze his hand in mid-reach of the next application.
His mouth slackened but he regained composure and cracked a smile as ineffable disbelief coursed through him. Kenna O’Callaghan graced the line marked ‘name of applicant.’
A delusional hopefulness engulfed him while reviewing the form, but that hope eroded as her responses to the answers progressed.
Special skills?Excellent at keeping secrets.
Experience?Hands-on with the employer.
References?Alex Guerrero, Charlee Pender, Erin Wright. Shoot, I have plenty more, but I’m out of space.
All these months, Dayton had been certain she’d looked in the box but a most dreadful confirmation came with the sinking of his heart as the signature resting innocently at the bottom of the application stared back at him.
Saint Kenna.
