1
PRESTON
“Mrs. Dillard, I’ll be out for a while for an appointment. If any of my students come by, tell them they can catch me tomorrow during office hours.”
I closed and locked my office door with a quiet click, then gave the department secretary a small smile. “I doubt any of them will come by, but you never know, right?”
She returned my wry smile with one of her own. The soft wrinkles around her mouth and eyes showed she had done a lot more smiling than frowning in her years.
“You’re absolutely right about that, Preston. Honestly, if a student came in here to see one of you the week before classes, I’d probably realize it was time to retire because hell had frozen over.”
She chuckled and then toddled back to the break room for her afternoon tea break. I looked at the utilitarian clock on the wall and realized I was running late, so I hustled out the door, slinging my worn brown messenger bag over my head in a long-practiced maneuver, still smiling at Mrs. Dillard and her good humor. You had to have a sense of humor to have worked in academia for forty years.
The thought of being here that long gave me a chill, which was a nice change from all the hot flashes and sweats I’d had in the last six months. I was only thirty-six, but since I’d finally decided to try to start a family, the drugs had caused all kinds of side effects. I’d taken heat suppressants for so many years I’d had to get on some medications to kick-start my cycles again. If you didn’t use it, you could lose it, they said, and they were right. As I walked out the front doors of the English department, I felt the chill again, sliding down my neck and trailing along my spine. It was an odd sensation I’d felt more than once lately. I made a mental note to talk to my doctor about that as I looked toward the parking lot to find where I’d parked this morning and saw Joe Langford walking down the sidewalk to the Art History building. I mentally sighed and let my gaze drift over his broad shoulders and tight ass for just a minute before I tore my attention back to the parking lot. Thank God he was walking away instead of coming my way. I would have hated to look lost in front of him, even though being near him would have been a real treat. He was dreamy and tall and…I shook my head to keep those thoughts from intruding again.
He’s too young, and you’ve been his teacher. You need to get over it already.
But that was two years ago, and he’s almost thirty himself. That’s not such a big age gap.
Shut up already. You’re not helping.
The proverbial devil on my shoulder had been getting pushier and louder lately, but I wasn’t giving in to temptation. A relationship wasn’t in the cards for me. I learned that a long time ago. It was time for me to make my own family, and a partner, or a true mate, wasn’t in the cards for me. I finally found my car and got going, making yet another mental note that I needed to start writing down what section I parked in, so I wouldn’t look like an idiot who lost his car every damn day. Besides being exhausting, it was unprofessional.
And you never knew who was watching.
When I got to my doctor’s office, there was no one left in the waiting room, and they ushered me right in, but instead of the exam room, they led me to his private office. It seemed odd, but I’d already had all the tests and scans. This was just for a checkup, anyway. His office was disheveled in a way that was comforting to me. His papers were all over his desk, and framed pictures of his wife, kids, family, and even their pets lined one shelf behind his desk. A corkboard on the sidewall was full of snapshots, mostly Dr. Morrow holding babies he’d delivered, along with selfies with proud parents and even a few crayon pictures from children he’d delivered years before.
As I scanned the crudely printed suns and smiling stick-figure families, I found myself more eager than ever for that—all of it. I wanted to be a stick-figure dad, holding my stick-figure child’s hand on our fridge. So what if there wasn’t another hand for our child or me to hold? I’d lasted this far on my own. I could do this, too.
After several more minutes, Dr. Morrow bustled in, white coat over green scrubs as always, but he still had on a head covering, which was new.
“So sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Page. I had an emergency delivery and just got away.” He ran his hand over his head, slipped the covering off, and dropped it into a can behind his desk and out of sight.
“That’s alright. I’m in no hurry. Do you need to reschedule? I don’t want to keep you if it was an emergency.” I got up to leave, already planning to stop by the front desk and reschedule, when his mellow voice stopped me.
“No, no, sit down. Everything is fine. We just had a baby get very impatient. She decided to come two weeks early, and I had to hustle to the hospital and deliver the impatient Little Miss. She’s perfect and healthy, so there’s no need to reschedule. In fact, I’d prefer we go ahead and have our conversation now rather than wait.”
I was smiling at the thought of a perfect little princess being brought into the world just a few minutes ago, and once again decided I was making the right decision. I was still smiling when the doctor’s tone began to push past my happy glow, but I still joked. “Gosh, you sound so serious. Should I be worried?” I chuckled to hide my unease.
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile.
“I wouldn’t say you should be worried, Preston, but I don’t have very good news for you. I’m sorry.”
When he hadn’t smiled, a rock had settled in my chest, and breathing became difficult. As his words traveled across his messy desk like a hit traveling toward me, it turned into a boulder that dropped into my stomach and stuck. This couldn’t be happening.
“I don’t understand. What news do you have for me? I thought we were just going to go over my test results and see how much longer I’ll have to be on these boosting meds before my heats kick back in. You said it probably wouldn’t be much longer at our last appointment.”
He couldn’t hide the grimace when reminded of how optimistic he’d been at the last appointment, but he recovered the neutral face he’d probably been taught in medical school to use when giving bad news. This couldn’t be that bad. Could it?
“Let me ask you a few questions first. How have you been feeling lately? Any unusual symptoms?”
“Well, I’ve had some side effects from the meds. At least, I think they’re side effects. I have hot flashes during the day that are brutal. I have night sweats almost every night lately. Sleeping is so hard because I’m miserable. I have some mood swings, but nothing I can’t handle. My memory is gone to crap lately, too. I made a mental note to write down where I park just this afternoon because I keep forgetting. I get a chill on my neck and spine sometimes, too, lately, but it’s less frequent than the flashes.”
The doctor’s grin was meant to be somewhat comforting, but his vibe was stiff and a bit…resigned? Sad?
Oh, God.
Panicking, I blurted out my greatest fear. “I’ve got cancer, don’t I? I’m dying. Is that the bad news?” My heart started to race, and one of the hot flashes was hitting me like a motherfucker all of a sudden. The room was getting smaller, and I needed air. I dropped my head between my khaki-covered knees and tried to breathe while staring at my sensible black leather lace-ups. Against Dr. Morrow’s bright area rug with bold colors and crazy patterns, I thought about how boring I was compared to his rug. I wasn’t even more interesting than a rug in a doctor’s office.
