Before I Let You Go(103)

I fight a battle against myself as I drive into the clinic. It doesn’t seem right that my sister is dead, but that life can still go on as if nothing ever happened. That battle grows fiercer as I force myself to walk through the doors at the clinic. The receptionists greet me with an awkward welcome, careful not to reference what happened, but the sympathy and apology is in their eyes. Even Oliver is gentle with me, offering only a gruff, “It’s good to have you back.”

When I’m alone in my office, tears loom and I know I’m being ridiculous. This is the job I loved and that I’ve worked damned hard to get. But I don’t want to be back at work. I want to be at home with Daisy. I want to focus on making sure she is okay.

I have patients coming, and once the tide of them starts, it doesn’t stop. I eat lunch between appointments, in the downtime between Mr. Williams’s sore elbow joint and Mrs. Thomas’s eczema. Sam texts me several times during the day. I tell him I’m fine. I don’t want him to worry, and I don’t know how to explain why I’m not. Just how much time do I think I’m entitled to for grieving here?

When five o’clock arrives I’m exhausted—emotionally and physically—and I cry all the way home. Sam has let me know that he will be late; he is still dealing with a huge backlog of patients and surgeries after these disrupted months, too. I walk through the front door to find Jayne sitting on the lounge while Daisy kicks in the bouncer, cooing happily, and an exhausted kind of anger comes down over me.

“What is she doing?”

Jayne gives me a confused smile.

“She’s had a great day—”

“The television, Jayne,” I say sharply. “You can’t put a baby that age in front of the television.”

Jayne rises and snatches up the remote, then flicks the television off.

“I’m so sorry. The house was so quiet—”

The turmoil inside me bursts, but the energy shoots in the wrong direction. I walk briskly toward Daisy and I scoop her up from the bouncer and I say, “Look, I don’t think this is going to work—if you don’t have good enough judgment to realize that a newborn shouldn’t be watching television, how can I possibly leave you alone with her?”

“But—Dr. Vidler—”

“I’m sorry, Jayne. You should go.”

She is staring at me in disbelief, and no wonder—this is coming out of nowhere and I’m being completely unreasonable. I know it, but I also know that I cannot go back to the office tomorrow. I can’t pretend to care about my patients when my entire mind is full of grief and loss.

Jayne tries to convince me to change my mind, then her pleading turns to irritation and after she packs up her things I hear the squeal of her tires as she drives away. I feel so guilty about how I’ve treated her that I cry again.

When Sam comes home, I’m too embarrassed and ashamed to tell him what I did. Jayne was perfect and I’m an idiot. He notices that I’m upset, though. “First day back was tough?”

I could tell him that I can’t handle this. I could tell him that I need to take some time out from my career to heal and to focus on Daisy, but I can’t admit I need to—not even to Sam. I’m strong and I’m independent and I’m not the kind of person who unravels. That’s who I’ve always been, and it’s how I understand myself. If I could get through Dad’s death and Mom’s depression, surely I should be able to cope with this.

“I let Jayne go tonight.”

Sam frowns at me, bewildered.

“Let her go?”

“I fired her.”

His eyes widen in shock.

“What? Why?”

I shake my head fiercely.

“She had this baby in front of the television all day. She all but admitted it. That was her first day, Sam. That would have been her A game—God, who knows where things would have led from here? She has a snooze on the lounge while Daisy rolls around the floor? What about when Daisy is crawling? She has a little nap and Daisy crawls over to play in the fireplace or the medicine cabinet? No. This isn’t going to work. I’ll find someone myself, and until then I’ll take some time off work.”

Sam is staring at me incredulously. There’s a pause, and I wait expectantly for his response, knowing he’s pissed.

“Lexie. This is ridiculous.”

“Oh, I’m ridiculous now?” I gasp, and Sam throws his head back and sighs slowly. I stare at him, but my anger and my frustration are running rampant now, and if there was a chance that I was going to be honest with him, it’s lost to my defensiveness.

“If you need some more time off, we’ll figure it out,” Sam says. “But let’s keep Jayne. We’re not going to find anyone else as qualified.”

“No.”

“Let’s ask Oliver if you can work part-time for a while.”

“Oh, you’re going to go in and do that for me, too, are you?”

“Lexie!” Sam raises his voice and I jump, cringing. He sighs again and rubs his forehead, and then his eyes are pleading with me. “I know you’re under a lot of pressure, Lex. I know you have a lot to process. But surely you can see that you’re being completely irrational about this.”

“Now I’m crazy, too, am I? You just keep pressuring me. What else do you want from me, Sam? I have to talk to you about everything and go straight back to work and take the nanny you want whether I like her or not and oh—” I laugh bitterly “—and don’t be crazy, Lexie. Your family is completely batty and that’s caused enough problems in our perfect little life here, but you can’t be crazy, too. Would that be the straw that broke the camel’s back, Sam? You can put up with my drug-addict sister and my batty mother, but if I’m crazy, too, what happens then, huh? Do you walk out and find someone better?”