Page 27 of The Scars I Bare
“There’s so much you can do,” my mom would say.
“You don’t have to go out on the water,” my brother would remind me.
But, every morning, I’d wake up, look at my front door, and never pass the threshold.
It’d been like this for three years.
But not today.
Something had been bothering me since dinner last night.
Something had shaken me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
Try as I might, steering clear of Cora was proving to be a difficult task. I knew there was an attraction there, maybe even a mutual one, but I couldn’t pursue it.
No, I wouldn’t.
She’d just come out of what could have possibly been a messy divorce.
And then there was that moment.
The moment I’d touched her hand.
At first, I’d thought she’d flinched, a possible distaste for my prosthesis—an obvious error on my part and something I never did. I wish I could say I wasn’t embarrassed by it, but I was. There had been far too many stares and wide eyes over the years to not be. So I’d learned to hold it close to me and protect what little dignity I had left.
But with her, everything felt natural.
Normal.
So why did she react the way she did? Was she disgusted? The more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed.
Cora was a nurse. Someone who dealt with the unpleasantries of the human body on a daily basis. A tiny touch from my plastic hand would most likely be a zero on her gross meter, right there with taking a temperature or wrapping a blood pressure cuff.
So, why did she pull away?
That was the question that had kept me up until the wee hours of the night. Sure, she could just genuinely not like me. That would be a hard blow to my ego, but I honestly didn’t think it was as simple as that. And the more I thought about that hand flinch, the less I liked the answers I was imagining.
So, I decided a friendly cup of coffee with my best friend was in order. Nothing like a morning cup of joe with the town doctor, who also happened to be Cora’s boss, to set things straight. Maybe he’d noticed the same thing. Maybe he knew something I didn’t.
He wasn’t going to tell me a damn thing—this I already knew.
Molly had tried just about everything—and I did mean everything—to get that man to tell her things about some of the townspeople, and he’d never cracked.
And all I was offering up was coffee.
But, like I said, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Jumping out of bed, I did my usual sprint to the coffee machine, but instead of making enough for one, I made an entire pot. After that was done, I headed to the shower for a quick rinse and got dressed.
Start to finish, the whole process had taken less than fifteen minutes, and my coffee was still blazing hot as I revved up the engine of my truck and headed for the clinic.
Again.
But, this time, I knew what I would be walking into, and this time, I’d come prepared.
Making the short journey in record time, I chose a spot in the back of the lot and left the prime spaces for actual patients. Jostling around the two travel mugs proved to be a bit daunting, but at this point, I’d decided nothing would tear down my upbeat mood. With some quick thinking, I shoved both mugs into the crook of my right arm, leaving my working one free to close the car door and allow me entry into the clinic.
Sometimes, my own genius really astounds me, I thought to myself as the door closed behind me.
