Page 73 of A Cozy Holiday
And on the car ride from the airport to Miriam’s house in New Jersey.
And all through the night.
Now that it’s morning, I try to throw myself into work like I would have before. But my laptop has been sitting open and untouched for a while. There’s a paper on gallstone surgery I swore I’d write, but the words blur on the screen.
I’m sitting on the floor, wearing the cowboy hat Jamie gave me, surrounded by my suitcases, when I hear the front door unlock.
“You’re here!” Miriam says when she opens the door. She sprints inside, leaving her bags on her front porch. She smells of sun, coconut, and stale plane air when she wraps her arms around me, but I don’t care. “I haven’t seen you cry in years.” She swipes the tears from my cheeks.
“I’m fine,” I sob as a snot bubble pops under my nose.
“No, you’re not.”
“Well, apparently, once you cry for the first time in a decade, you can’t figure out how to shut the valve back off.”
Not that I really want to. The release feels cathartic, like finally freeing all of the energy that’s been trapped inside of me.
“Tell me what happened,” Miriam says, dabbing her sleeves under my nose. She’s never been afraid of strange liquids.
“I thought I’d go there just to work…have a fling, like you said.” My voice cracks. “I didn’t plan to care about anyone. But Jamie—he made me believe I can want things I’ve never let myself want. I want a family. I want…”
Miriam moves us to the couch, where she places Jubilee on my lap and clasps my hand in hers.
I laugh through my tears, staring at my mentor’s glassy brown eyes. Her long gray hair is usually behind a bouffant cap at the clinic, but today, it hangs past her bronze shoulders. “I thought working all the time would keep me safe. Keep me from ending up scrambling to try to find a career after getting divorced, like my mom. But now, I don’t know.”
Miriam presses her hand to my back. “Joy, you’re strong. You can work and have a family. You can—”
“But I can’t,” I whisper. “I left him. He already lost his first wife. I can’t promise to be the person he needs. I can’t ruin him.”
“Joy, don’t be silly. You can’t ruin anyone, sweetie,” she says gently. “You fix things. You have your entire career.”
“Exactly. I had to come back. I have the clinic—and my job. I want to be like you.”
“Like me?”
“The best.”
She laughs, fiddling with the diamond stud in her ear. “I’m not perfect, Joy.”
“But you’re happy, right?”
“I just spent over three weeks on a cruise with thousands of people and never felt more alone. Sure, my job is amazing, but my love life is shit, you’re my closest friend, and I also never take a break. I did the renovations because I wanted you to have a chance to get what I didn’t get—a chance to reassess if this is the path you actually want to go down.
“Joy, I’ve had four failed marriages, and all my exes—all of them—told me I spent too much time at work. For me, getting to the marriage bit was fun. I got swept up in the romance of dating and getting engaged. But I don’t see you having any fun. You’d roll your eyes every time I asked you about Parker, and you’d turn down happy hour invitations to stay late at the clinic. If that is what you want your life to be, I will stand by you. But you don’t have to live your life based on anyone else. You are strong, smart, and capable. You can make your own choices.”
“But what if I choose wrong?”
“There is no right or wrong,” she says. “You just choose. You take the risk.”
I close my eyes, my voice barely audible. “I love him. Even saying it feels stupid. I’ve known him for less than a month.”
“You fall in love with every patient within ten seconds of meeting them. I hear you whispering to them before surgeries. Your heart has room. Stop standing in the way of your own life.”
“But what if I move to Cranberry Hollow and it doesn’t work out? What about the clinic?”
“Lawrence has been clawing for your job over the last year, so don’t worry about the clinic. That part is taken care of. More importantly, you’ll always have a job here with me. And you’ll always have a place to stay. Whatever you need.”
“What if he doesn’t forgive me? God, I just left him a note.”
