I needed to find a bar. I scanned the parking lot, but unless I wanted an organic shot of wheatgrass and pressed alfalfa sprouts, I was going to have to settle for drinking at my parents’ kitchen table. At least my mom always kept good vodka on hand for such an occasion. I was going to put a dent in her supply tonight. A cop car drove by, and I was tempted to give it the finger, but of course, I didn’t.
I wasn’t that petty. Actually, I was that petty, but the last thing I needed was to get arrested and have to call my dad for bail money on a Saturday night that should be spent doing a perfectly respectable thing, like drinking.
I laid my head down on the steering wheel. I needed one of those meditation apps on my phone or something, so I could relax enough to make it to my parents’ house. My phone startled me out of my pity party, and I looked down to see Dr. Duvall requesting a FaceTime call.
What the hell?
I picked up the phone and stared at his picture, wondering if I should answer it. Worrying over one of the animals at the clinic for the weekend, I swiped to answer and secured my phone on the dash mount. Larry’s face filled the screen, and he looked happy. He had a huge grin spread across his face and what looked like tear tracks running down his cheeks. There were people behind him and beside him, and I leaned forward, focusing on his eyes. They were different. They were full of life, of vigor, of happiness. It was like I was staring at a different person.
“Jenna, Jenna, oh, Jenna, I have the most spectacular news,” he cried, walking away from the commotion behind him to a quieter room. He plopped down in a chair and held the phone up high. It looked like he was in a waiting room, but it was hard to tell. His hand was shaking.
“Larry? Are you okay?”
That seemed like a pretty stupid question to ask with the way he was acting, but it wasn’t like I could reach through the phone and shake him.
“I am better than okay. I am fantastic. I am better than I’ve been in a year, and before I tell you anything else—I owe you the biggest apology I could give. There is nothing I could do to make it up to you, but I’m hoping once I shed some light on things, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”
“Okayyyy,” I said, drawing out the last syllable as Larry ran one hand through his white hair.
“About a year ago, Lily was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer.”
“Oh my god, Larry.”
“We took her to MUSC, and she started on very aggressive treatment, Jenna, and had two surgeries, then more treatment. I was miserable. I’d given up.”
He paused for a second and looked at the ceiling, his eyes glassy. He wiped them with the back of his hand, then his face broke out into a gigantic smile again, and he tugged on the collar of his button-down shirt.
“Today, Lily got her test results back. She is one hundred and ten percent cured. There is no cancer anywhere in her body. She rang the bell today.”
My eyes got a little misty, and I covered my mouth with my hand and smiled, feeling Larry’s happiness pulse through me. Everything that had happened this last year made sense. Even though he deserved to be junk-punched for not sharing his pain and letting me help, I understood. I couldn’t imagine how hard this had been.
“She rang that bell, she beat cancer, and I’m spending the rest of my time with her. I’m retiring.”
What?
“I want you to buy me out, Jenna. Take over theAMC. Make it your own. I’ll stay on long enough for you to bring on someone else or downsize it to something you can manage, whatever you need. But I’m not going to spend another moment without Lily.”
“Larry, I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I know what to say. I’m so sorry, so very sorry. And my wife is cancer-free, and I’m retiring. We’ll hammer out the details next week. I’ll be here, really here for you for as long as you need to transition, then I’m taking Lily, and we’re going to Europe.”
“That’s absolutely incredible.”
“It is, it really is. Talk soon, Jenna.”
Larry’s smiling face winked off my screen, and I put my head back down on my steering wheel. Raising it a moment later, I looked out my windows, hoping a bar magically appeared in the minutes since I’d hung up. The messed up part about all this was that my first thought after talking to Kelli and hanging up with Larry was calling Mark.
I should want to call the girls, my parents, or even my younger brother, but I didn’t. I wanted to call Mark. To ask for his advice, share the good news, and have him tell me he was proud of me or happy things were falling into place. Hell, I’d take him yelling at me not to move because he didn’t trust anyone else taking care of Phoebe. Even though the dipshit still blamed me for her incision infection.I started my car and pulled back on the road, dialing Mom to let her know I’d be there for dinner after all.
“Hi, honey,” she answered. I could hear the television on in the background and figured she had already retreated to the kitchen to drown out the sounds of Dad’s football game from theDen for Menas he and my brother had affectionately renamed the front room.
“Hey Mom, are the guys already watching the game?”
“Oh, yeah. The boys just started pre-gaming in the Den for Men. You heading out with the couple who runs the shelter?”
“No, I’m on the way home.”
“Did everything go okay?”
