“Your poor mother is exhausted,” he says, chiding them, “a day in the ED is like five normal days.”
“What’s the ED?” Aster asks, his little face wide open with curiosity. I slide into a seat at the breakfast bar and try not to think about how much he looks like Jake.
If my parents knew Jake, they would have seen the resemblance immediately. Luckily for me, we must have been the only teenagers on the planet to succeed in keeping our relationship private and our identities hidden.
“Emergency department,” my dad says, plopping a chicken breast on my plate as my mother scoops tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil onto the other half. Then my dad drizzles balsamic over the entire thing.
“Bite?” Daffy asks, appearing at my side.
“Now, come on,” my mom says, putting her hands on her hip. “This is theexactsame thing you had for dinner just an hour ago?—”
“How can you ask politely?” I ask, already turning with the food on my fork.
“Bite,please,” Daffy says, raising her little eyebrows, and I lean forward, popping a bite of mozzarella into her mouth.
When I turn back to them, my dad is beaming, and my mom is shaking her head.
“I swear,” she mutters, “that girl is a race car with all that energy. She could eat all day.”
“Can I be a race car?” Daffy asks, her voice rising, which makes us laugh.
Mom takes the kids into the other room to get their things together, and I work on my plate of food. I’m never hungryafter shifts, but if I don’t eat, their feelings will be hurt, and I’d probably start to feel hungry right as I was falling asleep.
Dad and I talk about the horrors of working emergency, and half an hour later, I’m sliding into the driver’s seat with a container of food for Zachery.
“You tell that boy to be careful,” my mom says, leaning in and kissing me on the cheek, “with whatever he’s doing next.”
“I will.” I take the kiss and pass it on to my dad’s cheek when he steps up to the window. “Thanks for everything.”
I say it every night, but I’m never sure if they understand what I’m thanking them for. It’s not just for watching the kids, or for making dinner, but generally making my life possible. Being there for me when I told them I was going to keep the baby.
Being there for me when that baby turned into three.
Accepting it when I said I wanted to become a nurse, even as I’d worried my dad might not like it, might want me to strive for somethingbetter.
“Hospitals don’t run without nurses,” he’d said, kissing me on the forehead the day I told him. “And I think you’d be great at it. I’m happy to see you going after something you love.”
My mom, on the other hand, had looked like she was swallowing back her unease about the decision. Without even asking, I’d known what was going on in her mind. I already did a lot of thankless work as a single mother of three, and I wanted to add a stressful, thankless job on top of that?
They would have been happy to front my expenses for the rest of my life. But I’d always known I wanted to make my own way, and after the care I received from the obstetrics nurses when I waspregnant, on bed rest, and then delivering the triplets, Iknowthat’s what I want to do with my life.
Thanks to my parents tiring them out, the drive is quiet, with only Aster asking me a few questions about birds and how they can balance on the telephone wires.
When I get home, I find a note from Zachery. He got the safari tour guide job and left for the airport earlier, so he didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. The kids are disappointed but also used to this kind of exit from Uncle Zach.
An hour later, I have them tucked into bed and snoring, and I manage to wash my face before falling into my own bed. When I roll over into the middle, I tell myself I’m grateful for the space.
I tell myself that another person in this bed would make it too crowded.
For the next five minutes before I fall asleep, I try to stop thinking about strong arms around me, what it felt like to fall asleep next to someone I trusted with everything.
CHAPTER 14
JAKE
I’ve never looked good in black.
Shelby sits next to me, wearing a stiff, dark dress that looks like it’s pinching her under the armpits. I’ve never even seen her in a dress before, and I’m pretty sure she grabbed this one off the rack without ever trying it on.
