Page 41 of The Devil You Know
“Mr. Katz,” I say, forcing a smile onto my face. Of all the patients I could possibly run into at the supermarket,Herman Katz would be my last choice. It’s bad enough that I have to hear about all his physical woes when I’m at work. I’m really not in the mood to hear about it right now, in the candy aisle of a supermarket.
“What a pleasant surprise running into you here!” Mr. Katz says. He’s wearing a tan sweater under his pea green coat and seems more relaxed than he usually does during our visits. “And this must be your little girl! She has a beautiful voice.”
“Yes,” I say without offering Leah’s name. She eyes him silently, no longer singing any risqué lyrics.
I glance at Mr. Katz’s grocery cart. It’s filled with bacon, beef, potato chips, and the bag of peanut butter cups that I talked Leah out of purchasing. None of this stuff is going to keep his arms from rubbing against his chest when he walks. But I’m certainly not going to start lecturing him in the middle of the supermarket.
“Hello, there.” Mr. Katz bends down to address Leah. “Your mommy is a really, really good doctor. And a really nice lady. She reminds me a lot of my own daughter.”
Strangely enough, in all the times I’ve talked with Mr. Katz, the subject of his daughter has never come up. “You have a daughter?”
His face brightens. “Yes. Her name is Rachel. But she moved upstate just before my wife died so I don’t get to see her or my grandkids very much.” He frowns. “Judy used to do most of the long drives.”
I feel an ache for poor Mr. Katz. First his daughter moves away, then his wife passes away. No wonder he’s always running to the doctor—he’s probably just lonely.
“Anyway.” He straightens up. “I won’t keep you, Dr. McGill. You must have lots to do on your day off.”
“Yes,” I say. I clear my throat. “It was nice seeing you, Mr. Katz.”
He smiles at me. “Same here. Have a great day, Doctor.”
I watch him push his cart of horribly unhealthy food down the aisle. Before he gets out of sight, I’ve grabbed the bag of peanut butter cups and stuffed it in my own cart.
Chapter 15
I hate snow.
Does that make me some kind of Grinch? I don’t know, maybe. But I don’t care. I. Hate. Snow.
I used to like it. When I was a kid and snow meant snow days and snowmen and snowball fights. Now it means driving carefully through slippery streets, struggling to get Leah into her snow boots, and shoveling. Shoveling is the worst. How can something that looks so light and fluffy coming down be soheavy?
Last night, when I saw the snow starting to come down, I was furiously checking the weather site on my phone. Would it be snowing enough to close down the daycare? Or better yet, the primary care clinic? And if not, how am I going to get my car out?
“Calm down,” Ben kept saying. “I got that guy to plow our driveway in the morning. You’ll be fine.”
“But he can’t plow the whole driveway,” I pointed out. “There’s always that area right in front of the garage that he misses.”
“So I’ll shovel you out.”
I looked at Ben’s face. He at least seemed to think he meant it.
But now it’s seven-thirty in the morning, I’ve already showered, I’m shaking Ben awake, and he doesnotwant to wake up. He keeps muttering, “Five more minutes,” then I hear him snoring again. He doesn’t seem to have any intention of getting up in the near future.
“Get Leah up,” he mumbles. “I just need another minute, okay?”
I’m skeptical, to say the least. But I go into Leah’s room to wake her up. Leah seems to vacillate between either waking up ridiculously early or refusing to get up at all. Today she’s reluctant. “My bed is so warm,” she whines. I’m sympathetic.
And to top things off, her diaper has leaked all over the sheets.
After I’ve gotten Leah dressed and stripped her bed of the sheets, I return to our bedroom, where my dear husband is still sound asleep. I want to yell in his ear, “WAKE UP!” But instead I shake his shoulder. Not gently.
“Ben,” I say. “You told me you’d shovel the driveway for me.”
Ben rolls over. He rubs his eyes with the back of his hand and squints at me. “Okay,” he says. “Just let me take a quick shower.”
“Ashower?” I nearly scream. “Why do you need to have a shower before shoveling snow in our driveway?”
“I just feel all greasy when I wake up.”
