27
Stella
"Okay, birthday girl,"Cal said. He rested his hand on my thigh—upper, definitely upper—as I drove past the Public Garden. "What am I getting myself into here? Prep me for the medieval torture."
Oof. My family. My birthday dinner. I wasthisclose to calling it off and staying home and being naked with Cal. Because holy shit, I was still boneless from the past half hour. I couldn't believe we'd managed to leave each other alone long enough to get dressed and get out of the apartment.
And just like he'd promised, I could still taste him on my tongue.
I started to respond but pressed my free hand to my lips, stifling a laugh. "Have you ever seen Virgin-Mary-in-the-bathtub statues?"
He swiveled toward me. "Have I—what?"
"Yeah, you know, a Virgin Mary statue where she's enshrined in an upright bathtub. It's a thing around here. For believers, that is. And my mother, she's a believer. It's kind of funny how it came to be, actually. Around here, many of the folks who keep a shrine are of Irish, Portuguese, or Italian descent. My grandmother was Dominican but she grew up in an Italian neighborhood. Over the years, she and her family adopted a lot of Italian traditions and customs. She married an Italian guy and passed this crockpot of culture onto my mother who also married an Italian guy. And that's how a miniature Madonna came to live in our front yard."
"Right. Virgin Mary in the bathtub. Got it," Cal said.
"My mother is highly religious but not in the ways you might expect. She works at the local Catholic church—she's the coordinator there. She schedules masses, marriages, baptisms, last rites. She keeps the priests' schedules and manages the whole joint. She runs a tight ship and she loves her work and that parish. But Cal, she swears like a gangster. She pretends it's a one-off thing but it is not."
He nodded but he didn't understand. How could he? This wasn't altogether reasonable.
"It's not just the swearing. That's just the most obvious part. If you asked after her politics, it would sound like she was speaking to you from the far side of progressive island. But don't try to reconcile any of it. Somehow, she's able to keep a strict interpretation of a centuries-old text that was potlucked together after the fact while also loving and supporting my gay sister, marching with her pink hat, demanding better from those who try to rob women of bodily autonomy. I don't know how she threads that needle and I don't think I could do it myself but she does and I love her for it. I love that she can have these ideals, ones that run in direct contradiction at times, and do it without breaking a sweat. I admire it."
"I know physicians like that," he said. "It's hard to believe in anything other than science after all the years spent in med school, internship, residency. It's tough to hold on to faith." He shrugged, his gaze still on the road ahead. "Or so I've heard. But many do. Many believe even when the science gets in the way of those beliefs."
After a pause, I said, "I believe in football."
"You should believe in better helmets and hit restrictions," he replied, squeezing my thigh. That thumb of his, it was edging into the hot zone. "You're not going to have much football if your players keep hammering their heads."
"Don't mention that to my father," I said. "He thinks CTE is a conspiracy perpetrated by overprotective mothers. The South Americans too. He thinks they're trying to replace American football with fútbol and he's not having it."
Cal barked out a laugh. "Really?"
"Not all the things we believe make sense," I said with a shrug. "And on the topic of my dad—have you ever spent more than five dollars on cheese?"
"Per pound or total?"
"Doesn't matter," I replied. "Either or."
"Then…yes."
I glanced in my mirrors as I merged onto the highway, shook my head. "Don't mention that to my father," I said. "If he sees me with a Starbucks cup—or anything other than black, hot Dunkin'—he says I'm being careless with my money."
"You do well," Cal said, the statement delivered with a hint of a question. "As a publicist, you do well. You don't worry over the price of matcha, right?"
"I do well," I agreed. "But my parents, they've always struggled to make ends meet with a house full of girls. Like I said, Mom's a church coordinator. Dad's a high school football coach. They work hard. They don't understand why I'd spend more than five dollars on cheese even if I can afford it because they'd save that money to fix the roof or replace the boiler or finally go on the cruise they've been talking about for ten years."
"I get that," he replied. "My mom's a physician but rural medicine is a rough situation. She's one of only a few doctors in the entire county. Most people don't realize that access to health care is extremely limited in rural and remote areas. There are no urgent care clinics, no emergency rooms, no medical parks crammed with doctors' offices and labs. It's not an exaggeration. Some areas of the country are hundreds of miles away from a critical care center and that is just too far for most emergencies."
"Wow. I had no idea."
"Her world consists of house calls and setting up shop in shuttered clinics a few days each week. She plays the role of general practitioner, obstetrician, pediatrician, emergency specialist, mental health counselor, hospice coordinator, and everything in between."
"Why does your mom do it? Why not move to a region with more lucrative opportunities?"
He shook his head with a grumble. "Because she knows no one will fill the void. She doesn't want to leave women with high-risk pregnancies and kids with diabetes and seniors with chronic heart failure." Another grumble. "And my dad, well, he's another story. He works with wood. Mostly tinkering but sometimes he sells a piece or two. My sister—"
I held up my hand, interrupting him. "Ada. She lives in Portland. Right?"
