Page 24 of Doctorshipped
“Daddy.” Fiona rolls her eyes, crosses her arms across her chest and gives me one of herdon’t mess with melooks.
“She’s fine.”
“Fine. Oh my gosh. Would it kill you to say something nice about someone besides me?”
“I think it just might.”
She giggles. “Well, I think Jayme’s amazing. Did you know she gets to write fortunes? And she calls the other things she writes for the cookies, aphorisms. She said that means she writes happy sayings that have a grain of truth in them. She let me think some up with her today. Jayme’s my hero! She’s so much better than my old tutor. And she told me I’m a rock star for being a girl hockey player.”
“That’s a misuse of the term rock star. Being a rock star doesn’t have anything to do with hockey.”
“You’re hopeless!” Fiona says on a huff, but then she strides behind my desk, throws her arms around my neck and kisses my cheek.
“Apparently, hopeless is your favorite.”
“You’re my favorite,” she says, and I soak it in.
I’m pretty sure we’re due for the days where she thinks I really am hopeless. But for now, I treasure her affection like a rare gem, even though she pours it out so freely.
“What do you want to do this evening?” I ask her, regretting the words almost as soon as they are out of my mouth. No doubt she’ll want to enter society and be around people.
“Let’s go out to eat.”
“That actually sounds good,” I admit. “One of those casseroles looks suspicious.”
“The one with Fritos and hash browns across the top?”
“That’s the one.”
“The other two look good, though.”
“We can eat them later. Where do you want to go?”
“I heard there’s a good burger place.”
“You heard. How did you hear? You’ve been in this house or the back yard since we moved in.”
“Jayme told me. They call it Mad River Burgers, because there’s a river around here called the Mad River. Sounds like a river you’d like to row down.”
She bursts into laughter.
“Funny.” I deadpan.
“It’s so funny!”
Fiona laughs hard while I sit, watching her, containing the smile I feel all the way through my chest. She’s pure joy, and for some reason her happiness never unnerves me like certain other people’s cheeriness does.
“Let me finish my work here. Did Miss Jayme leave you something to work on?”
“She did. I have to read out words in syllables and clap between each syllable. She told me not to worry if it takes a long time. Something about digesting. I don’t know. Just, she said to take my time. That was cool. My tutor in St. Louis didn’t do that.”
Cool? Fiona resisted her tutoring in St. Louis. I paid top dollar for a woman who was a specialist in working with processing disorders. She was all business. But she came highly recommended and was accredited as a tutor.
She certainly didn’t come bearing baked goods and a sassy attitude, dressed in a T-shirt that said5’ 2” but my personality adds another six inches. Who wears shirts like that? Not a tutor who takes herself seriously. Still, clapping between syllables seems logical—possibly even helpful. And Fiona’s eager to do what she’s been asked, so it’s an unexpected win.
I spend the rest of the afternoon combing through files and setting up appointments. I call Walt Satterson. He answers and we discuss his arthritis. He’s open to my suggestions. By the time my stomach growls, Fiona’s standing at the doorway to my office, holding a square tupperware with a grin spreading across her face. I should be scared. That particular smile usually means she’s going to ask me something big.
“Daddy?”
