“Should have brought my hat,” Archer says, echoing my thoughts.
“We’re not going bald yet,” I tell him wryly.
“With all this worry, we might be on the way.”
I blow out a long breath. “Yeah.”
“I am sorry for doing that to you.” He slides his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “I assumed you knew it was coming.”
“I really didn’t.”
We walk a little further in silence, both thinking our private thoughts.
“I’d like you to stay,” he says. “I’ll say it now, but I won’t keep on. If you’re convinced you want to keep on moving, I’llunderstand. But I think the Ark is a good place for people who need healing.”
“Rescue, recover, rehome?”
He smiles. “Yeah.”
“Noah said the Ark isn’t just for animals, but we have to be open to healing. I know he was saying that I’m not.”
“Do you think he was right?”
I nod. “I feel I don’t deserve it.”
“Because of what happened to Jack? You feel you’re to blame?”
“Yeah. Isla said I have survivor’s guilt.”
“I think that’s absolutely the case. And PTSD. It might help you to talk to a therapist.”
“I thought I was.”
He gives me a wry look. “Therapists are ethically bound not to take on clients who are friends or family members. But I encourage you to talk to someone, if not me, then another friend. It sounds corny, but it helps to get it off your chest.”
“Isla said it’s like opening an attic and letting in the light.”
“She sounds like a very wise woman.”
“Yeah.”
He glances at me. “Do you like her?”
“She’s very pleasant.”
“No, I meanlikelike her.”
“I was thinking about sending her a note in chemistry class.”
He rolls his eyes. “I was only asking.”
I chuckle. Then I remind him, “She’s married.”
“From what I hear, it won’t be for much longer. Beth said Isla’s mentioned seeing a lawyer soon.”
“Yeah, she said she’d told her husband that she wants a divorce. But that could just be talk. It’s one thing to say it, but another to actually do it.”
“True.” We’ve reached the Ark, and we pause in the Quad. “I’m heading back to my surgery in town,” he says. “Thanks for coming today. Think it about it, okay?”
