Protecting What's Mine(115)
57
The day before Thanksgiving, Mack sat gingerly on her office chair and quickly transcribed her notes from her last patient appointment into the portal.
Her lips quirked when she added the note, “Keep up the great work!” Seventy-four-year-old Jimmy McGuire had come in for a long-overdue physical after a come-to-Jesus from his pal Leroy Mahoney. Together, the two fishing buddies had decided to start walking and take a stab at a pescatarian diet. Jimmy had already lost five pounds in two weeks, and Mack was betting his inflammatory markers and cholesterol would be drastically different when he repeated the bloodwork in three months.
With a few minutes to herself, she opened her new handy-dandy home security app on her phone and snickered while she rewatched the backyard camera’s recording of the middle of the night backyard patrol by Linc and Sunshine. Both security officers paused to take a piss synchronized on the lawn before they returned to her bed.
Men.
Her desk phone buzzed. When she reached for it, the chair lurched under her in warning.
She steadied it—and herself—before answering the phone.
“What’s up?”
“You have a couple of walkins out here,” Tuesday announced chipperly.
“As in plural? Flu or pink eye?”
Tuesday laughed. “Neither, but you’re definitely going to want to see this.”
Mack eased out of the chair, then gave it a quick kick for good measure.
She was just tucking a sticky note that said “Order a new fucking chair” into her coat pocket when she rounded the corner at the front desk.
“Surprise!”
Mack gaped at Dottie, Win, and Violet Nguyen, who were grinning at her like a JC Penney family portrait. “You guys are early,” she exclaimed even as she was wrapped in Dottie’s strong hug. It always lasted a beat longer than Mack expected, and it always made her feel…safe.
“You look so official,” Dottie squealed. She was an inch or two shorter than Mack and wore her hair in a short, curly, face-framing ’do. The woman loved turtlenecks and themed earrings. She was rocking both today.
Win, dressed in podiatrist casual Dockers and a checkered button-down shirt with Nikes, nudged Mack. “You hear about the podiatrist who was having a bad day?” He wiggled his eyebrows over his silver-rimmed glasses.
Mack pinched her lips together. The man took dad jokes to a new low, combining them with lousy podiatry jokes. “I did not.”
“He started the day on the wrong foot.”
“Dad!” Violet rolled her eyes. She was shorter than Mack and had the slump-shoulder posture and amused smirk of a teenager. She was going through a cute Nirvana/Seattle-grunge phase and experimenting with eye makeup and flannel.
Mack laughed. She couldn’t help it. “That’s terrible.”
Win pulled her in for a hug. “You look good, Dr. O’Neil.”
Her bruises had finally faded enough to be hidden under a coat of makeup—thankfully. She had no real need to walk the Nguyens through the latest and final ordeal with her family. They’d witnessed enough of that history. It felt like it was finally time for them all to focus on the future.
She slung an arm around Violet’s shoulders and gave the girl a squeeze.
“Nose stud, huh?” Mack asked, tapping the tiny heart-shaped stud in Violet’s nose.
“Awesome, right?” It kinda was.
“It suits you.”
“Tuesday, would you mind taking a picture of us together?” Dottie asked, pulling a hefty, practically antique digital camera out of her purse and handing it over.
Tuesday eyed the dinosaur with apprehension and fascination. Dottie was big on pictures. Some of the kids she and Win had fostered didn’t have a photographic history of their childhoods. So the Nguyen’s made sure to document every moment they could for the kids who came into their lives.
The first time Mack had seen the Nguyens as an adult, Dottie had presented her with a photo album of her ten weeks with them. To this day, it was the only photo album Mack owned. Her mother had left behind Mack’s baby pictures somewhere along the way, either in a half-empty apartment or in one of the long line of “uncles’” homes.
“I can take a bunch on my phone, do some fun filters. I can text them to you,” Tuesday offered. She’d spent fifteen minutes of her lunch break explaining photo editing apps to Mack earlier in the week.
Violet snorted, then hugged her mother, who probably had only understood every other word in that sentence. “You can text them to me or Mack. We’ll get them to Mom,” the girl offered.
“Get over here, Mack,” Dottie insisted, putting an arm around her and Violet. Win squished in next to Mack.
“Everyone say ‘duck lips,’” Tuesday sang.
“Duck lips!”
Mack mentally added “Get Dottie a smartphone for Christmas” to the sticky note in her pocket.
They smiled cheesy smiles and let Tuesday play Annie Liebovitz before Dottie invited Tuesday, Freida, and Russell to join them for “one of those selfies.”
While she oohed and aahed over Tuesday’s photographic expertise, Win stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels, and made some wistful comments about lunch. Next up would be jokes about hypoglycemia as well as twenty questions about local restaurants and their signature dishes.