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To be a fly on the dock posts and witness that morning, I’ll admit would have been funny to observe.
“Just do me a favor and don’t let the girls make Sarah’s special candies.” Gigi snickers and quickly covers her mouth. “I understand they are too young to realize what they are making but there will be a day that they think back to this point in their lives and I don’t want to have to explain why I allowed them to decorate P E N I S and B O O B I E shaped candy.” I spell out thewords instead of saying them. Both Riley and Regan are too busy dancing around in a circle. They are both too busy to pay any attention to our conversation but I don’t want to take the chance.
“I promise,” by Gigi’s smile I am not so sure I fully believe her. Aunt Sarah likes to make a private adult stash of candies and goodies that some of her regulars like to grab for gag gifts or bridal, and bachelor parties. She has no shame and I’ve walked into Sugar Rush a time or two to find her nibbling on a chocolate covered penis.
I shiver as the visions come back. I grew up witnessing and overhearing too many things I wish I could forget. She warped my mind and I don’t want the same for my girls.
“What do you have planned today?”
“Lawyer,” I grumble. If Reece wasn’t a friend of my dad’s, I’d have to take out a loan to get divorced. Carson has been dragging it out, and there is no reason for it other than he wants to be an ass. He literally never wants to see the girls; he never even asks about them. He used to call almost daily asking me to come back, then those calls moved on to him telling me I wasn’t fulfilling my wifely duties, to him yelling at me for ruining his life. Which makes no sense because all he has to do is sign the damn papers. I want nothing of his, I left everything but the girls personal things and my own behind. I live in a rental property owned by my parents and took none of the furniture with me.
He has his automotive shop, I have Zoey’s Treasures, and besides the court ordered support he has to pay for the girls, I left the money alone. He could be freed of any other attachment to me. But for some reason he chooses instead to make me miserable.
“Maybe you should play hardball so he realizes how easy you were letting him off. Give him a little nudge,” Gigi shrugs. “Reece can be a real hard A S S if he needs to be, maybe you should cut him loose on you know who. Ask for half of everything. Have the value of the home, the auto shop, split all the belongings that are still in his possession right down the middle.”
I’ve thought of it, so many times.
But then I fear that all it would do is reflect on the girls somehow and I have to keep them sheltered. They are both so happy and oblivious, and they’re too young to be tainted by their parents’ mistakes.
“Well, I will take these two angels and we will have ourselves a day full of joy,” Gigi assures me. I’m so grateful for her. Grateful for my parents basically taking me back in after a failed marriage and all of them stepping in when I need them most.
“I shouldn’t be later than five,” I say and of course she waves me off. She would keep the two of them forever if I asked her to.
“Go enjoy your day.” The girls come running in my direction to hug me goodbye. Both squealing excitedly, “I’ve got this.” Gigi ensures me.
I’m not so sure the day will be enjoyable. It always puts me in a mood after I’m faced to go another round with Carson and his ridiculous demands.
I have orders to fill and some bookkeeping to finish up. I’m thankful that I have Fiona there today to help handle the front of the store. She has been a lifelong friend of my mother’s and knows what I am going through. I don’t have to explain and I don’t have to worry about her asking me a million questions I don’t want to answer.
I also know after another battle with Reece and Carson’s attorney, I won’t feel much like being social.
five
. . .
Jayson
“You ready for this?” Georgia, my best friend Eric’s younger sister and my grandfather’s nurse asks. I guess she is my nurse now, but still after a week I haven’t gotten quite used to anything about this practice being my own. I know I will always refer to it as his. It’s the very place that holds so many memories from my childhood. It’s the very place I truly discovered how wonderful a man my grandad was. Its where I went to observe him being vulnerable with his patients and treating each and every one of them as if they were a member of his forever growing family.
“Why do I feel so guilty?” I stand in the doorway to my grandfather examining room and feel nauseous. Why did I wait so long? Why wasn’t I here with him, at his side, exactly where he wanted me to be?
“Can I tell you something?” I look over to find Georgia standing at my side smiling at me. Fresh out of college my gramps hired her on the spot and she has been his sidekick every day since. Ifthere is anyone that knows him in the sense that I do, it’s her. She watched him doing what he did best.
Taking care of others.
“Yeah,” I say trusting that she is going to say something I need to hear.
Georgia has grown into a beautiful woman and from what Gramps used to say, one hell of a nurse. His praise means something because the care of the people of Magnolia Grove was not something he took lightly.
“Doc wanted you here, and yes he tried for years to get you to give up what you had in Mobile and join him.” I close my eyes right before she places her hand on my forearm offering me a squeeze. “He wanted to know that what he built and the people of Magnolia Grove would be cared for. You were the only person he trusted to do that. So whether it was years ago or now, his dream came true, because here you are. You’re carrying on in his name, making the people comforted by the ideal that their health is still protected by the only man Doc trusted to do so.”
I nod, feeling too raw to respond.
“Let go of the guilt Jayson, and be the doctor he’s always known you to be. Because I can assure you the last thing doc would ever want is for your regrets to be dragging you down.”
Georgia steps away, giving me some time to reel in my emotions. I move further into the very room I shadowed my gramps and the place he spent years giving his all to every person that walked through the doors.
His stethoscope lays on the tray next to the examining table. Gliding my finger over his initials that Grams had engraved onthem. I smile remembering when he gave me that very same gift after he sat in the front row of my graduation ceremony. No one clapped louder than he did when I was handed my degree, no one smiled bigger.
