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Shivering, she flipped the air-conditioning to heat and turned onto the back road that would take her to Señor G’s, her favorite local café slash general store slash gas station. It took a little bit of navigating on the mountain roads, but she’d been driving it once,sometimes twice, a week for a year now, so she could basically do it with her eyes shut.
Figuring that would be a bad idea, she wrapped her fingers around the wheel and squinted into the onslaught. “Lord, this was dumb,” she whispered. “I should have just gone on to work instead.” But this was her routine and she liked routine in certain areas of her life.
Besides, she wanted to check on Julian Gonzales and make sure he was taking his insulin. She finally rounded the curve and pulled into the parking lot, under the protection of the gas station’s metal roof.
The front door opened and Mr. Gonzales appeared with an umbrella over his head. He walked toward her. “I figured you would show up in this mess.” His near-perfect English sounded musical when combined with his Hispanic accent.
Lainie ducked under and they hurried back to the café entrance. “It’s a habit now, Señor G. You know I can’t get through my week without my special cup of java from you.”
She opened the door and stepped inside, spied her cup on the counter, and made a beeline for it. “You know, if it wasn’t so far out of my way on the way to work, I’d come here every day. I think you need to open a location by the hospital.”
“You say this every time. And what do I tell you?”
“This was your papa’s store and you must carry on the family tradition. I get that, but expanding would be good for you.”
“I cannot be in two places at the same time.”
“That’s why you hire people.”
He tsked and shook his head. “You know I pride myself on my personal touch.” He waved a finger at her cup. “And I don’t give away my recipes.”
“Myrecipes, el viejito.” Maria Gonzales came from the back to give Lainie a tight squeeze. “Hello, cariña. So good to see you, as always.”
“You too, Mama Maria.” She turned to Señor G. “What was your blood sugar this morning?”
He shrugged. “Eh.”
“Señor G...” She raised a brow at him.
“Ah, there’s the tone.” He sighed. “A little high, but I will work on it.”
“How high?”
“Under three hundred.”
“Julian...”
“Ack”—he pressed his hand to his chest in mock horror—“she brought out the first name.”
Lainie sighed and pursed her lips. “This has been going on for a while now, Señor G. I want to add another medication to get that number down.”
Lainie saw the concerned glance his wife sent him. She laid a hand on his and lowered her voice. “Mama Maria needs you to be around for a long time. You simply must take care of yourself.”
He swallowed, shot a look at his wife, then gave Lainie a look of resignation and a faint nod. “I know, niña, but it’s not easy. My body does not like to cooperate anymore.”
“I understand.” She pulled out her phone and logged into his account at the office of his primary physician. Since it was in the same network as the hospital, she had access as a physician’s assistant. She voiced the instruction into the chart, fixed a few typos, and hit send. “There. The meds will be waiting on you to pick up. They’re not expensive and I think they’ll help. Try them for a week and I’ll check on you when I come back.”
Mama Maria hugged her. “You are too good to us.”
Lainie lifted her cup in a salute. “It’s mutual.” She spent the next fifteen minutes chatting, catching up on their proud-grandparent news and pictures, then after another exchange of hugs and promises to see them next week, if not before, she hurried to the door, grateful to see the rain had lessened. Before Señor G could offer to walk her out with the umbrella, she said her goodbyes, pulled up the hood of her raincoat, and bolted to her car.
With her coffee in the cupholder, Lainie buckled her seat belt, then wheeled out of the parking lot and onto the road that would take her back down the mountain. She loved the Gonzales family.They were the kind of parents she wished she’d been born to. Not that she didn’t love hers, but growing up with Stan and Louisa Jackson had been hard. To put it mildly. With her father and his “we must prep for the end of the world” mentality and her mother’s hoarding tendencies, not to mention the sibling issues, her childhood had been full of uncertainty, fear, and drama.
Which was probably part of the reason she liked her routine.
She sighed, took another sip of the coffee that tasted like none other, and rounded the next curve only to hydroplane.
A gasp slipped from her lips, and she barely refrained from slamming on the brakes. She went with the slide that took her much too close to the edge of the road, but with some careful maneuvering, she stayed on it. The tree-lined two-lane road was slick with standing water, and she slowed even more, creeping along, looking for a place to pull over so she could collect herself and take a look at the tires. How had they lost tread already? They were basically brand new.
