“Davey insisted,” David said as he looked up from the cutting board and gave her a smile. “According to him, this is how you dress when you have company over for dinner.”
“It’s when you have a girl over, Dad, and you’re supposed to tell her how pretty she looks,” Davey said in a loud theatrical whisper, then looked over at her with a mischievous smile.
“My dearest, Sarah, you look lovely tonight,” David said with the same ridiculous theatrics as his son which sent Davey into a fit of giggles.
“Well, thank you, Dr. Wright,” Sarah said, playing along with them. She was glad she’d changed into a nice dress after work though she was still dressed a lot more casually than David and Davey.
“Nice kitchen,” Sarah said as she moved around to the other side of the large island.
“Thanks,” David said as he raked the onions into a large pot. “I lucked out finding this place when I got accepted with Dr. Benton, especially since it came furnished.”
“And I have the best room ever, wanna see it?” Davey asked as he jumped down from the stool and ran down the hall.
“I’ve got this,” David indicated with a nod toward the stove where scents of garlic and onions were pouring out of the pot. “Would you like a glass of red wine?”
“That would be great. I’ll be right back,” she said as she followed the sound of footsteps to Davey’s room.
The room was large with a window that overlooked a small manicured yard. With the exception of college she had never lived on a piece of land this small. She’d grown up with open pasture surrounding a large farmhouse and wasn’t sure that she’d ever be able to get used to having neighbors so close that you could hang out the window and shake hands with them.
“Look what Daddy brought me back from that trip you went on,” Davey said as he picked the toy steer off the ground where he had built a fence from plastic building blocks. “He said that I could go with you next time and see those steers with the big horns at the yards where they keep them.”
Sarah felt a slight panic when she realized that she was being included in their family plans. She’d taken a big step agreeing to a date, she wasn’t ready to start planning family vacations, if ever.
“We’ll have to see if Sarah can come when we plan to go to the stockyards. She could have other plans,” David said from the doorway where he held out a glass of wine to her. “Davey, go wash your hands.”
“I love the big window,” Sarah said as she took the glass of wine.
“His room is usually more of a mess, but he decided to clean it up before you got here. I’m sure if you look you’ll find a thousand of those plastic blocks under his bed.”
“Wow, flowers?” Sarah asked as they made their way back downstairs and into the kitchen where she now noticed a small table for four sat in a corner.
“Davey insisted that we had to have flowers on the table. Fortunately there were still a few azalea blooms left in the backyard.”
“How did the surgery go?” she asked as she took a seat at the island and watched David toss the pasta with some olive oil.
“Good. The infection wasn’t that deep, but he did have more blood loss than we expected,” David said as Davey ran in the room and held his hands out for inspection. An alarm went off on David’s watch and he looked over at his son with some unspoken message in the look.
“Okay,” Davey said as the boy moved to a drawer in one of the cabinets and pulled out a medicine dispenser.
“Davey’s been learning how to make sure his medications are on time,” David said to Sarah. She could see that this wasn’t the best part of the day for Davey, but she had to give it to David for sharing some of the responsibility with his son.
“That is great, Davey. Did you know that sometimes we have to give pills to the horses?” They ate while Sarah shared some of her best tricks to get the horses to take their medicine and Davey asked questions about how Pepper and Humphrey were doing since he hadn’t been to see them the week before, something that he pointed out to David with emphasis. They’d just started to clear the table when another alarm sounded from David’s watch.
“More medications?” she asked looking over at Davey.
“No, it’s the hospital asking me to call urgently,” David answered as he moved into the hall to make the call. By the time he returned she and Davey had loaded the dishwasher.
“What’s up?” she asked as she dried her hands on the dishcloth.
“It’s Bailey. He’s bleeding and needs to go back to surgery. Dr. Benton’s daughter is in labor so he’s signed off to Dr. Sherwood who is asking for me to come in to assist since I assisted with the surgery today,” David said. “Dr. Benton knows about Davey so it’s not been a problem...”
“It’s not a problem now. Go. Davey and I will be fine,” she said. She could see his hesitation and understood that he was torn between his responsibility to help Bailey and his responsibilities with Davey. “It’s okay. I’ll take good care of him.”
“Okay,” David said before he rushed off down the hall, then returned seconds later. “He’s already had his medicine and he took a shower before supper.
“His bedtime is in—” David looked down at his watch “—thirty minutes, though he’ll try to stretch it for as long as you let him.”
“Can’t I stay up a little later tonight since we have company?” Davey pleaded with eyes so like his father’s that she knew she would never have been able to deny his request.
“No. Bedtime is nonnegotiable tonight,” David said before
