Page 2 of Doctor Holliday

The next aisle was busier than the produce department. Lucy took the phone in her hand and rolled her head on her neck. She had put in a full day at the clinic, besides two trips over to Eastport for deliveries—one that had taken nearly two hours. And she was on call. Odds were, she’d be called in before the night was over.

“I think so,” Kim answered with a cough. The same smoker’s cough that had killed their grandpa. The same one their brother had. Lucy had been pissed at the time when she was fifteen and Marty caught her lighting up. He had ripped into her, taken the cigarette from her, ground it beneath the toe of his boot, and tossed the lighter in the trash. And told their parents.

Now she was glad he’d caught her. The embarrassment of having her older brother reprimand her, the fury at thedo as I say, not as I do message, had been enough to keep her from picking up another one. Thirty-three years later, she was healthy as a horse. She wasn’t sure she could say the same for either of her siblings.

“Doctor said her sugar’s too high.”

“Any wonder?” Lucy mumbled. “She’s got more of a sweet tooth than any kid I know.”

“I think we should get them a new TV for Christmas.”

Ahead of her, at the other end of the grocery aisle, a guy who looked very much like her ex-husband stood and studied thearray of Mexican food ingredients as if he would be tested on them. Lucy froze for a moment, unwilling to get caught up in conversation with him. Then again, she hadn’t seen him in at least ten years. He wouldn’t want conversation any more than she would.

Probably wasn’t him, anyway. Lucy wasn’t sure he hadn’t left Eastport years ago. They had no relationship left, and the jackass had rarely done anything for Callie.

“What do you think?” Kim asked.

Lucy had no idea if she had said something other than the thing about getting their parents a new TV for Christmas. Her phone clicked. She had another call coming in.

“Sounds good,” she told Kim. “I gotta go, Kim. I’m on call.”

“Oh, I won’t keep you,” Kim said again. “Just wanted to talk about Christmas.”

Lucy held her breath and pulled her phone away from her ear to look at the screen. Not the hospital. Her friend Cheri. Relieved that she wasn’t being summoned in for a delivery, wouldn’t have to retrace her steps around the store, putting things away, she focused on her call with Kim.

“Are you hosting?” she asked.

“Marty and Deanna want to.”

That was new. Lucy felt her face morph into a mask of surprise.

“Oh.”

“You okay with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She snatched a couple of cans of green beans from the shelf and put them in her cart. Callie ate them straight from the can when she wanted a snack.

“Well, you and Deanna had that go around.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Three years ago, Kim,” she reminded her sister. “And I wouldn’t just not go to their house for Christmas because Deanna and I got into it over Kade and his girlfriend.”

Never mind that at the time Kade had been thirteen, and in Lucy’s eyes, much too young to be allowed to be alone in his bedroom with his fourteen-year-old girlfriend.

“Oh!” Kim laughed softly. “Darrell got the promotion I told you about.”

“That’s great!” Lucy said sincerely. She pushed her way through the crowded aisle, past the man who didn’t look nearly as much like her ex as she originally thought. She headed into the next aisle and stopped to peruse the baking items. Callie always had friends over during the holidays—and the holidays in their house started just before Halloween, so they had been ongoing for weeks already—and they liked cookies and fudge and cupcakes. Lucy would wonder how they all stayed slim and healthy, but she’d been a kid once, and had inhaled her share of junk food during those years, too.

She squatted to study the bags of baking chips, finally choosing a bag of Heath chips in addition to a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

“Should be a nice Christmas,” Kim said now. “Listen, I won’t keep you?—”

“Glad you called,” Lucy interrupted her before she could ping from those words straight to some other random bit of news that could wait until the next time they spoke. “I’m gonna get these groceries home and check on Callie.”

She didn’t need to check on Callie. The kid had been pretty independent since she was eleven or twelve. But that didn’t mean Lucy liked leaving her home alone all the time.

“Bye, Luce.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, but the phone rang in her hand before she could slip it back in her purse.

---