The Year of Goodbyes and Hellos by Kelly Irvin

Author:Kelly Irvin [Irvin, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-three

Kristen

Fifteen patients down, five to go. I desperately needed a second wind. Not sleeping at night since Daniel walked out—more likely ran out—was taking a heavy toll. The fact that he refused to answer calls or return texts only reinforced the drowning sensation that overwhelmed me in the middle of patient exams. My eyes were gritty. My head throbbed. A sour feeling now lived in my stomach. I grabbed my bottle of tea and slipped out the clinic’s back door to the employee parking. After a quick survey of the lot, I settled against a wall behind a Suburban that would block patients driving by from seeing their oncologist taking a smoke break.

Oncologists knew healthy living didn’t translate to no cancer. So why not have a smoke now and then? For me, now and then meant once a day. Twice if it was a bad day. Okay, three times tops. It was my one vice. I’d quit. Eventually.

“You too, huh?”

I jumped, tucked my hand behind my back, and turned. Arina—or as Sherri liked to call her, Dr. P.—approached, a small pocketbook in hand.

“Oh, it’s you.” I took a long draw and let the smoke curl out of my nose. “Great minds think alike.”

Arina lit her cigarette and leaned against the wall. “Others might contest the great minds part.” She grinned. “It’s been a day.”

“Yep, for me too.”

“At least the end is in sight.” She contemplated the glowing end of her cigarette. “Only two months to go.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess you haven’t heard.” She raised her face to the afternoon sun and closed her eyes, a big smile stretched across her mannish face. “I put in my papers. I’m retiring.”

“What? No way!” I coughed out the smoke I’d just inhaled. “You’re kidding, right? Arina, you’re not much older than I am.”

“That’s sweet of you, my friend. I’m ten years older than you and aging faster.”

That made her fifty-eight. Way too young to retire. “Even so, why so young?”

“For one thing, the stress is killing me.” She held up the cigarette. “Exhibit A. Sergei wants me to quit smoking. I can’t do one without doing the other.”

“Your patients. They love you. They depend on you.” The thought hit me like a bullet between the eyes. “Sherri loves you.”

“I love my patients too. But I love my husband more.” Her face softened and she became more attractive. “Sergei is six years older than I am. I want us to have time together. A lot of time. We’re building a house in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. Plus, we have the cabin in Washington State. What’s the point of having these places if you never get to enjoy them?”

Was that first part a not-so-subtle jab at me? She couldn’t know about my split with Daniel. I loved my husband as much as she loved Sergei. Her husband was an oncologist. He understood her workload and her priorities. He understood in ways Daniel never would.

Plus, she had a built-in pressure valve that I didn’t have.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.