Page 17 of None Of Your Business

“And think about it?”

“I’ll think about it.”

She stands, signaling the end of the appointment. “Fluids. Compression garments. Physio. And don’t ignore that hip if the pain increases.”

I schedule my follow-up at the front desk and push through the glass doors into the overcast morning.

Halfway across the parking lot, my fingers touch the folded pamphlet in my pocket.

There’s a trash can twenty feet away. Mercer would never know.

You’re limping again.

I clench my jaw. First Hudson, now Mercer. Apparently, everyone has an opinion about my body except me, and now one of them wants me to enter a building full of people whose entire job is to analyze me.

God, I hate head doctors so much.

Four

Hudson

I’m eleven minutes late, which, in my mother’s kitchen, is the equivalent of missing the birth of a child.

I know this because she texted me at minute six.

Mom: Are you alive?

At minute eight:

Mom: Your father is ruining the eggs.

And at minute ten:

Mom: Never mind. We’ve accepted your death.

Some families communicate through quiet affection. Mine uses escalation.

“There he is.” She wheels herself back from the table where she’s been supervising my father while he cooks. “We were about to send out a search party.”

I apologize and kiss her cheek.

Dad slides a plate of eggs onto the table and looks at me. “Tell your mother they’re not burned.”

“They’re not burned,” I say, sliding into the chair next to the empty seat at the end of the table—the spot no one ever claims, though nobody talks about why.

“You didn’t even look at them.”

“I trust you.”

I don’t.

Dad has two egg settings: underdone and overdone. But I’ve been here less than ninety seconds, and I’m not stupid enough to enter that argument.

Mom rolls over to the counter, grabs the coffee pot, and pours it before Dad can get there to do it for her. It’s a small victory she wins about half the time these days.

“I had it,” Dad says.

“I like to keep you on your toes.” She wheels back to the table and sets the mug down at her place with satisfaction.