Page 123 of Look on the Bright Side

He swallowed the pill and lay back. “I’ll be good from here. I’m sorry Winnie called you, but I’m also glad she did.”

She sat next to him, wanting to smooth his hair back. She could do that. He was her husband, after all. So she did, and the feeling of his coarse, silvery hair under her palm made her eyes fill.

He reached up and caught her hand, pressed it against his lips and then tucked it over his heart. “I miss you,” he whispered.

“I bet you do,” she said with a little smile. “I see you’ve done a bunch of projects around here.”

“I did. I’m trying to lure you back by fixing the place up.”

She laughed and wiped her eyes. “I think we should just sell it.”

His face went gray. “Why? Are you divorcing me? Oh, Ellie, please…”

“No! No. I was just kidding.” She paused. “Actually, why are we living in a four-bedroom house, Gerald? We should sell it. We should downsize.”

“We?”

She cocked her head and looked at him. She thought of Joy, who had never loved any of her husbands, who didn’t get to have this. No, Gerald wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t, either. Thirty-eight years of doing their best for each other, though…that counted for a lot.

“Yes. We. We’ve had thirty-eight fantastic years together. You wavered. I wasn’t paying attention, you were going through some stuff, and you wavered. But you realized you messed up, and you ended it. I’m not ditching four decades because of that.”

“Really?” His blue eyes were bright with tears.

“Yeah. I’m over it. I forgive you. I’ll never be okay with what happened, but I don’t have to drag it alongside me for the rest of my life.”

“God, I love you,” he said, and he put his hand over his eyes, because he was crying. “Thank you, Ellie. Thank you.”

“We’ll be okay,” she said.

Because, of course, they would be.

TWENTY-FIVE

LARK

There’d been a shooting in Mashpee. Two teenagers, one hit in the leg, the other in the stomach. Gunshot wounds were the worst kind of injury…foolish, preventable and often catastrophic. The fact that both kids were expected to live was a miracle. Howard had put her on as lead doctor for the leg shot. The bullet had gone completely through, and it seemed like the kid’s femoral artery had been nicked on its way through, because the paramedic-applied dressing was soaked with blood. The other teenager needed exploratory surgery of his abdomen.

Lark had done well. The adrenaline had pumped through her, and she’d kept mentally repeating steps and warnings, making sure she ticked every box as the team flew through the necessary steps. Airway, breathing, circulation…the pulse in his foot had been faint, so she’d had Luis start a large-bore IV. Compression, bandage, tourniquet. X-ray to see if the femur was shattered. Type and cross for transfusion—better safe than sorry. She checked him for other injuries, because sometimes a patient could feel only one at a time. She ordered prophylactic antibiotics and fluids.

It was both terrifying and thrilling to be in charge, needing to think of all possible medical scenarios—was he going into shock? How were his vitals? What secondary damage had been done inside his leg? Irrigate the wound now, or leave that for the OR?

Mara was lead on the other shooter, and Howard had gone between the two patients, ready to suggest or confirm a step if they missed anything. They hadn’t. Still, when the patient was transported, Lark felt limp with relief as she sat at the computer station, dictating her notes for the vascular surgeon. And then she moved on to the next patient, a kid who had a rash. The shift was over before she knew it.

Instead of listening to an oncology podcast on the ride home, she just rolled down the car windows and stuck her hand out, letting the wind push against her fingers, gradually letting go of the controlled chaos of her job.

Connery was waiting on her steps, and she scooped him up as she went inside.

“Who’s my little buddy?” she asked.

He licked her face eagerly, and she smiled, then set him down. She was starving…alas, she hadn’t been to the grocery store in ages. She went to the fridge and opened it. Oh! That was a nice surprise. Someone—Addie—had filled it. Four or five kinds of cheese, wine, clementines, salad fixings, olives, some stuffed bread from Wellfleet Marketplace.

She called her sister, missing her horribly all of a sudden. She hadn’t seen Addie in a few days, and then it had been just a quick visit to see the girls for smooches and bedtime stories.

“You’re welcome,” Addie said by way of answering.

“I love all the cheese,” Lark said.

“It’s like I know you.”

---