“Where’d you go? You thinking about that woman?”
“What woman?”
“The one in Jill’s store.”
“No. I wasn’t.”
“Well?”
“Lucky I didn’t burn her. Turns out she lives in the same building, at Brighton Court. Can you believe it? Gave me coffee earlier today.”
“No way! She following you? Watch out, man.”
“Why?”
“Retired doctor? Bachelor? Good looking? Flush with cash. You are eligible, my friend.”
“Not interested.”
Walt doesn’t believe me. He gives me a nudge and laughs, and I down my wine and get up to go.
“Hey, Dirk.”
Walt winks. I laugh and sit back down again.
Am I interested? I was a one-woman man, and with Millie gone, I don’t know what I want. I tell Walt Lucy is divorced, and he asks whether she wears many rings.
“Well, now you mention it, Lucy does wear a lot of diamonds. So what?”
Walt shakes his head.
“Prognosis is bad, Dirk old boy. Watch it. Fortune hunter for sure. But no reason you can’t have a bit of fun. Play the field like in our olden days.”
I never played the field. Millie zeroed in on me at college and we were an item. She stuck with me after the big head injury, too, even when my sporting career was shot. Helped me through my medical degree, with all those hours of study. We were married and raising Jamison and Dee in that big old country house before I noticed.
Next day is Thursday. Dee insists I meet her at ten for a catch up once a week at her gym, for a free workout, as well as on Sundays for a family lunch. My grandchildren give me more of a workout than all of Dee’s shiny machines, that’s for sure. Baby bootcamp. I turn up and they jump all over me.
“So, how are you, Dad?” Dee says. She’s wearing a blazer over her fancy gym clothes. She tells me about a promotion; something to do with her now managing several gyms; beyond consulting and giving classes. I’m proud of her.
“Dad?”
I raise my eyebrows. What had she asked me? How am I?
“That’s my question, Dee. How are you?”
“Actually, anyone can ask it of anyone else, and there’s no right or wrong answer.”
I try hard never to ask myself how I am. That was the whole point of moving to the city, to get away from that question, to get away from all that pity. Millie’s friends were everywhere in Franklin. I was drowning in their sympathy – couldn’t take any more of it.
After Millie, my silences alarmed everyone, especially the patients.
I’d refused to take time off – couldn’t stand the empty house, and knew that my patients still needed my care. So I ran my usual, slightly out of control clinic, with urgent extras and all the old faithfuls keeping me busy. And I nodded and smiled and prodded and peered and tapped and listened and kept prescribing as usual, but occasionally, I’d stop in the middle of a consultation.
“Doc? Everything okay?” they’d say. It happened once. And then again. The receptionists started knocking on my door. Cases ran over time. There was standing room only in the waiting room. Someone must have contacted Jamison and Dee, and next thing I knew they were both at my door, the two of them, successful youngish professionals, not accepting silence and not accepting “no”.
Yes, I’d been forced to admit. I’d been drowning in grief, surrounded by the never-ending needs of others and smothered by the sympathy of Millie’s many friends – couldn’t go anywhere in Franklin without being recognised, without having my loss reflected in everyone else’s sad faces.
So, I’d agreed. The only way forward for Dirk “the Doc” O’Connell, after a lifetime of serving his community, was to sell my practice and move away – to make a fresh start, in the city, close to my loving, insistent children and sister.
