Page 132 of Clara Knows Best

She smiled. “Thanks.”

He couldn’t help it—he was halfway through the waiting room when he stopped, tiptoed back to her doorway and peeked around the corner.

Dr. Wilder wascrying.

“That’s the opposite of an evil chuckle,” he accused, and she jumped at the sound of his voice. “You women are so emotional.”

It wasn’t as harsh as it sounded, because he was kneeling by her chair and putting his arms around her.

She hugged him and cried on his shoulder, and it was the saddest sound he could remember hearing.

“Doc,” he said finally, keeping his voice gentle, and he drew back to look at her.

She gazed at him—they were at eye level with one another—with such pain in her overflowing eyes that he was stunned. Her little sniffles and hyperventilating breaths were almost childlike in their honesty.

“Jesse,” she said woefully, “I’m so sorry I let you think that we didn’t want you for s-so many years. You don’t know how bad I feel. I should have gone to see you after the first angry email from you, but I was so hurt, and it was just p-pride and vanity. Won’t you ever forgive me?”

He stared at her, agape. Calm, scholarly Dr. Wilder! Hiccuping!

“Doc,” he managed, utterly horrified by the depth of her emotions.

“I wasn’t there for you at your father’s funeral,” she added, and then she covered her face and started to sob again.

Jesse didn’t know what to do but pull her into his arms again and hold on tight. “Jeez Louise, Doc.”

“I can’t go back and fix it,” she wept.

“Hey, that’s okay,” he said automatically. “I’m not a kid anymore. You don’t have to be my fairy godmother. We both screwed up.”

He blew out a slow breath, and because she was too busy crying to say anything, he kept thinking out loud.

“I spent six years wondering how you could have gone from the best mother on the planet to the Wicked Witch of the West. Like flipping a switch. I had to figure you were just a sociopath, you know? And then I rewrote every memory I had of you, putting evil little twists on everything. Giving you ulterior motives, finding the manipulation behind every kindness. It didn’t make any sense otherwise, and I needed it to make sense.

“After we figured out what happened, I knew you weren’t the villain. But I’d never been hurt by anyone so much in my whole life. It was like my heart didn’t get the message. Ugh, Clara warned me about this and I didn’t take her seriously.”

She lifted her head, frowning and sniffing. “She warned you about what?”

“It’s like being mad at someone for something they did in your dream.”

She watched him with big, tragic eyes.

“Never did fully believe you’d want me for a son in the first place,” he murmured. “It was so easy to believe that you’d been lying about everything, for the fun of breaking my heart later.”

“Like your mother did,” she said hoarsely.

“Over and over.”

“What about now?” she ventured. “Do you still think I’m evil?”

“No,” he answered seriously. “I know you’re not.”

Her eyes filled. “But can you ever forgive me for abandoning you?”

“Turns out, I can,” he said, and then grimaced as she dissolved into more sobs.

A couple of minutes later her last sniffles had let up, and he left the office again, glancing at the grandfather clock in the lobby.

Now for Phase Two. He should just have time.

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