Page 33 of Every Good Thing
“I needed to form my opinion before including yours,” he says. “And…”
Behind him, the curtain’s metal hooks drag along the upper bar, followed by a voice. “Okay, Lena, let’s talk about your x-ray… Oh, hello.”
Ben doesn’t hear Dr. Langston enter. Still cupping my cheek, he says, “Talking to you is difficult.”
Difficult? Another pain rips through me. No one in the history of my life has said that before—it’s always the opposite. Most days, I struggle to get out of personal conversations with customers. Trisha and I have a code—don’t forget the sourdough—for her to break me free from long customer engagements (I don’t make anything with sourdough). Hell, just last week, Alice Harvey revealed her trouble keeping things spicy in the bedroom with Jack. People love talking to me. Too much. How can my husband make such a claim?
I redirect Ben’s intense stare with a forced smile over his shoulder. “Hey, Dr. Langston. This is my husband, Ben.”
“Ma’am. I mean, doctor.” He’s surprised and obviously flustered he didn’t hear her.
Dr. Langston gives him a quick once over, her pink lips rising as she does. “Either is fine. Or Elaine is good, too.”
Shit. I immediately think of a sex room. Damn it, Cherry.
My six-foot-two husband presents well, especially in a suit. It accentuates his broad shoulders and wraps his muscular arms, highlighting them. The jagged four-inch scar stretching from his left brow to his ear gives him a rugged look, especially when combined with his near-always stoicism. Dot calls him a cyborg, and he definitely gives off a robotic vibe.
What he lacks in friendly humanness, he makes up for in stature and sincerity.
Given Dr. Langston’s coy smile, she thinks so, too. I wish the girls were here to see this. No game, my ass.
“What’s the prognosis?” Ben asks, clearly missing her coyness.
She prompts her tablet. “Two impact injuries. Mild concussion—no indication of severe trauma.” She points to my illuminated bones. “Two wrist fractures—”
“Intra or extra-articular?” Ben asks like he’s a fellow doctor.
“Extra-articular, not touching the joint.” She sounds surprised. “You know your fractures.”
He shrugs indifferently and doesn’t explain. The injuries he sustained as a soldier and the ones he sees every day as a police officer managing accident scenes give him a decent level of medical knowledge.
“Distal radius and distal ulna,” she says, pointing them out. She unwraps a splint from under her arm and carefully sets my hand, making me cringe and tear up as the pain from moving it claws me. The Velcro and black brace reaches around my thumb and stretches to my elbow. She gently encloses it, but it still hurts like hell. She attaches a fabric sheath around my shoulder to hold the splint against my chest.
“When will I be able to move my hand again?” I ask, trying to keep my tears at bay. “And work?”
“Two months,” they say together.
“Maybe longer.” She side-eyes Ben like he’s a man-sandwich. “You’ll experience pain, bruising, and swelling. The splint will limit movement but adjust as needed. We need the swelling to go down before putting on your cast—that’ll happen next week, and it’ll be on for six. You may need physical therapy. What work do you do?”
I consider puffing up my resume for her. But all that comes out is a weak, “I’m a baker.”
“Take a leave of absence… unless you can bake one-handed.”
My eyes narrow. I can bake one-handed. Can’t I?
“Understood,” Ben says. “Pain medications?”
They review my pain management schedule and care like they’re the adults here.
That fits since a pained haze of anxiety forces me to zone out.
How can I take a leave of absence at my business? I brainstorm my simplest recipes and how I might finagle them, barely using my left hand. Dumping my bag, I find my black notebook and awkwardly flip through the worn, loose pages until I come to tomorrow’s orders and events. It’s a light Friday, thank God. Two cake orders and two groups are scheduled—a dog training class and a trauma support group. It won’t be easy, but I’ll find a way to manage. I always do.
But my lofty plans disintegrate as I struggle to return my notebook to my bag. Fucking hell, how will I do this? Just making the lunch boxes feels like a Herculean feat. So many people are counting on me—how could I let this happen?
Worse, Ben finds me “difficult” to talk to? Who cares about an inoperable left hand or the work catastrophe it’ll cause when my husband can’t talk to me?
Millie Davis just went through a rocky divorce—hence, the boozy girls’ night cupcakes slathered inside the Pilot. She’d focused so entirely on her three young boys that she hadn’t noticed her husband drifting away from her. Over macadamia nut cookies at the café, she told me they hadn’t had sex in a year.
