“I had type 1 diabetes at Monique’s age, too.”
Her eyebrows dipped. “Had? I thought it was incurable.”
I nodded. “It is. Usually. But by my freshman year of college my kidneys had started to fail under the strain of my illness. I had a kidney-pancreas transplant. Not only did it save my life but my new pancreas cured the diabetes.”
“Wow!” Her eyes widened. “I can’t imagine seeing Monique go through all of that.” The ghosted look in her eye told me of her fear.
I placed my hand on her knee. “Thankfully, you don’t have to worry about all of it. We’re just taking things one day at a time. Right now Monique’s health is fine. Her diabetes is being managed very well by her loving mama.” I smiled. “Whatever comes up in the future, we’ll deal with it.”
Sandra blew out a breath. “Okay.” She nodded.
“One thing at a time.” I hesitated, not knowing if I really should say the next words that were coming to mind but I felt I needed to say something. “And how are you doing?” I moved to the other side of the examination room, and glanced over at Monique, happy to see she had a pair of headphones in as she stared down at the screen of her tablet.
Sandra inched closer and shrugged. “Managing. My job is going well and I’m scheduled for my annual review in a couple of weeks. I’m in line for a raise.”
I smiled. “That’s great, Sandra. I hear good paralegals are hard to come by.”
“You didn’t hear this from me, but we’re the real stars of the firm.” She giggled.
I joined in, adding, “I won’t tell a soul. Dr. Carlson showed me your blood test results. Everything came back well. Have those techniques I told you helped with managing your stress levels?”
“They have. I’ve been trying to incorporate more self-care into my days like we discussed.”
“That’s excellent. A healthy mom is important to take care of the little one.” I glanced over at Monique who peered up from her tablet and gave her a wink. She giggled before turning her attention back to the screen.
“Thank you, Dr. Reyes,” Sandra said as she gathered her purse.
“Kayla, please.”
She smiled, and not for the first time I noticed how beautiful Sandra was.
“Okay, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”
She nodded.
We both stood and I gave her one last look as she left out of the office. I gave Monique a smile and wave when she glanced back at me. Her smile beamed as she took her mother’s hand.
I stared at Monique’s retreating back, feeling like a total hypocrite. I’d told her in a previous conversation that I wouldn’t bring up counseling, and I hadn’t, but I’d wanted to. I, of all people, knew how difficult discussing something as horrific as sexual assault could be—ever since I went out one night with some friends from med school and woke up the next morning, naked in a stranger’s bed, with only hazy recollections of the night before. Unfortunately for me, the guy whose bed I woke up in happened to be a police officer. One who made it his personal mission to make my life a living hell after I’d attempted to report his crimes.
A buzzing sound from my pocket, pulled my attention from those ugly memories. I took a deep inhale when I saw the text was from Joshua. I’d almost forgotten about going out that night with some colleagues. I’d told Joshua about it that morning, but had told him I didn’t really want to go.
If you really didn’t want to go you wouldn’t have mentioned it, was his reply. Right before he pried the information out of me on where we were going to meet us there. Turns out, the bar my colleagues had picked was owned by the wife of one of Carter’s co-workers.
Josh:I’ll see you in an hour.
While I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of going out with co-workers to a bar, a sense of calmness knowing Josh would be there overcame me.
****
Kayla
“There’re a lot of firefighters in here,” I commented, looking around, skeptically. I didn’t have an issue with firefighters but I sometimes associated firefighters with police. If firefighters were all over this bar, chances were high police officers would be as well. That made me fidgety.
“They’re hot, right?” Andrea, one of our office’s physician assistants, grinned as she leaned over to whisper in my ear.
“Yeah, I guess,” I mumbled, ignoring Andrea to glance around at the patrons. Andrea, myself, and another colleague had left the office just after five since we were finished seeing patients for the day. The rest of our colleagues would be straggling in over the next thirty minutes. And so would Josh. Thank goodness. I honestly hadn’t planned on going out with my coworkers, at least I thought I hadn’t. But he was right. If I really didn’t want to attend I would’ve never brought it up. A piece of me did want to go out and get to socialize more, but after the last time I’d tried to be carefree …
Just then a buzzing from my phone alerted me of a text.
