Page 5 of Big Risks

As I drive to my next appointment, I can't shake the image of Nurse Hailey's smile. There was something about her that seemed to reach past all my carefully constructed barriers, making eye contact feel dangerous. It's been a long time since anyone has made me feel noticed.

Drowning out that thought, I turn up the radio and drive.

I spend the rest of the afternoon in a fog, going through the motions of installing security systems and explaining features to clients without fully engaging. My mind keeps drifting back to the school clinic, to that strange moment of recognition I can’t quite place.

By 5:45, I'm pulling up outside Mrs. Winters' house. Through the large living room window, I can see Olivia sprawled on the floor with colored pencils, completely absorbed in her artwork. The sight of her, so small, so focused, hits me in the chest like it sometimes does. A reminder of everything I have to lose.

Mrs. Winters opens the door before I can knock. "Right on time," she says with a smile. "She's been drawing cats for the last hour. Apparently, they're for someone special at school."

I suppress a groan. "Let me guess. The new nurse?"

"Got it in one." She lowers her voice. "Between us, I think someone has a little hero worship happening."

Great. Just what I need, Olivia fixating on a woman who'll probably be gone by next semester. That's how it works in small towns like ours. Eventually, the good ones always leave.

"Daddy!" Olivia spots me and jumps up, papers clutched in her hand. "Look what I made for Nurse Hailey!"

She thrusts three drawings at me: wobbly cats in various poses, each one meticulously colored with an impressive attention to detail I didn't know she possessed.

"These are really good, Liv," I say, genuinely impressed. "But maybe we should save them for a while?"

Her face falls. "But I want to give them to her tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's Saturday, honey. No school."

"Monday, then." She gathers the drawings carefully. "Mrs. Winters helped me write 'To Nurse Hailey' on all of them."

I shoot Mrs. Winters a betrayed look. Unrepentant, she just shrugs.

"We'll see," I say, which is parent code for probably not, but I don't want to argue right now. "Ready for pizza?"

Her eyes light up. "Can I get pineapple?"

"Absolutely not. That's a crime against pizza."

She giggles, tucking her drawings into her backpack. "You always say that."

"Because it's always true."

We say goodbye to Mrs. Winters and head to Gino's, the only decent pizza place in town. It's busy for a Friday, but we snag a booth by the window. Olivia colors the kids' menu while we wait, but I notice she's favoring her right leg, keeping the scraped knee from bumping against anything.

"How's the battle wound?" I ask, nodding toward her knee.

"It's okay. Nurse Hailey said it might feel tight, and that means the medicine is working."

I nod, though I'm pretty sure it's just the scab forming. "Did she give you any other medical advice?"

"She said I'm very brave and that brave people still need Band-Aids sometimes." Olivia looks up from her coloring. "She has a funny accent sometimes. Not like Miss Garcia's, but different."

"Different how?"

Olivia scrunches her face, thinking. "Like the way she says certain words. When I asked her she moved from, she said Savannah."

Savannah. Something clicks in my brain, but before I can follow the thought, our pizza arrives. Olivia dives in with the enthusiasm of someone who hasn't eaten in days, not hours. Before I can figure anything out, I'm distracted by the practical matters of cutting slices into manageable pieces and making sure she doesn't drip cheese on her clothes.

We eat mostly in silence, because Olivia’s too focused on her food to chatter. It's only when we're finishing up that she returns to her favorite subject.

"Nurse Hailey asked if you were my only parent." She says this casually, licking sauce from her fingers despite the napkin I pointedly push toward her.

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