Page 84 of Doctorshipped
“You know, I miss your chatter. No one talks my ear off like you do, sweet Feedleedee.”
Fiona doesn’t even correct my dad for using her childhood nickname. She beams up at him. “I miss you too, Gramparoo.”
“Gramparoo?”
“I’m just trying on new nicknames for you.”
Dad chuckles. His good nature comes effortlessly. It’s obvious why his patients love him, besides his incredible skill and renowned reputation.
“Oh! And I want to take you out to burgers, and to pizza at Pop’s, and there’s a really great bakery here too,” Fiona says. “They call it Oh Sugar! Isn’t that cute?”
Dad smiles over at me while Fiona drags him out through my office doors and toward the staircase.
“I’ll get your bags,” I offer. I’m nearly invisible in this reunion.
They head up the stairs together, Fiona still holding Dad’s hand and him obliging her with his undivided attention.
“You definitely have to meet the older women here too, Grandpadoodle.”
He chuckles at the moniker. She’s really having a heyday with these.
“I do, huh?”
I hear Fiona’s words from the bottom of the stairs as she and Dad disappear into her room.
“Oh yeah! I mean, they even had a shirtless paint night!”
Dad’s laughter fills the upstairs hall.
After Fiona tours Dad through the house, we eat lunch, and then Fiona goes up to her room to draw while Dad and I sit together in the family room catching up.
“Fiona has tutoring in a bit. Then we could go out to tour the town. That should take about five minutes, if we drive slowly.”
Dad chuckles. “Fiona mentioned the tutor to me. Jayme, is it? She sounds like quite a woman.”
“She is.”
“And she sounds like the type of woman worth taking a risk on. Just the sort of woman a young doctor should consider asking out for, say, a cup of coffee.”
“Dad, I know what you’re doing, and you may as well quit while you’re ahead. I can’t see myself falling in love—ever. Jayme’s been a blessing to Fiona. And she’s definitely like no one you’ve ever met. But I know you’d eventually at least want me to find someone more stable than her, not a fairy whose spirit animal must be Pippi Longstocking.”
“Did you just say spirit animal?”
“Let’s just move on. You understand what I’m saying. Jayme’s impractical, a dreamer, out of touch. No one can maintain that level of exuberant happiness without medication. Something has to be wrong with her.”
“Because she’s happy?”
“Because she’s chronically happy. Nothing ever gets her down.”
“And this is a problem?”
“It’s a problem for me.”
“Just as I thought.”
My dad has the nerve to chuckle.
“It sounds like she means something to you.”
