“No. No problem there, nor would I put up with it. So, back to my question. Birth control options.”
Ava rolled her chair over and pulled some brochures off the wall, knowing that their conversation was coming to an end, but it was fun while it lasted. She missed this with other women and found there wasn’t much of it in Plymouth.
The other doctors at the practice were older than her. The office staff and nurses didn’t really want to mingle with the doctors. Or maybe she didn’t want to mingle with them. She’d always had a hard rule about keeping friendships out of the office. It was just easier that way.
“The usual pill, a shot in the arm every three months, an IUD. Lots of information to read.”
“How soon could I get the shot in the arm?” Emily asked, looking at the brochure quickly. “I’ve read a bit on it already.”
“Today if you want?” Ava said, laughing.
“Give it to me.”
“Your wish, my command,” she said, standing up. “I’ll be back in a few.”
She’d given Emily her Depo shot, updated her notes in her computer, then went to the temporary office she used here. It was more like a coat closet and the next person that filled in once a week would get it once she moved over to the bigger office next door.
“Have a safe trip home,” Anne, her nurse for the day, said to her when she was walking out the door.
“Thanks,” she said, knowing it wouldn’t be much longer and she’d be home right here on the island.
2
Security and Stability
“Daddy!”
Seth let out a big sigh when he heard his daughter, Adele, yell his name from the top of the stairs off the kitchen. “What?” he yelled back. They’d just finished dinner and he was cleaning up and loading the dishwasher. At the oddest of times he had memories and the yelling to him while he was bent over the dishwasher hit him like a tidal wave of sadness.
“I can’t find my book for my project.”
The first grade project that the two of them had been working on for days. Find a book to read with a parent and then make a collage out of it. Which meant homework for the parent too.
He had no problem doing that with his daughter and never did. It was him or his mother; that was the only family Adele had locally.
When Ellen died three years ago, he hadn’t known how he was going to make things work with his long hours and a young child at home. His mother was retired and living on Amore Island. She’d come to stay with them for a few months until he could figure it all out.
Months later when a promotion was thrown at him to move up to the position of president and oversee the several bank branches on Amore Island, he decided it might be the life and chance he needed. His mother could go back to her place and help him out and he could take his time getting things in order.
“Did you check in your bookbag?” he yelled again. He hated doing that but wanted the kitchen picked up. Some things just stuck in his mind like an automatic routine. Start and finish and move away from it.
Maybe it was because this was the routine he’d had with Ellen for so many years and he couldn’t bring himself to detach from it.
That morning years ago when he’d come home from the hospital, the first thing he did was walk in the kitchen to get a glass of water. He’d seen the dishwasher still open, half the clean glasses put away, the rest of it full just waiting for him.
Life had to go on, even if it was only he and Adele now.
“Found it,” she shouted back.
He fought the urge to roll his eyes. Most things were where he put them or asked her to look. He kept things neat and organized as best as he could because it seemed to be the only way he could function for the longest of times.
He was shutting the dishwasher door and turning it on when he heard his daughter’s small feet pounding on the stairs as she descended the steps. “Slow down,” he said. “You don’t need to trip and fall.”
“I won’t. I’m not clumsy.”
She wasn’t, but she moved too fast too often. His child was energetic and took after her mother. “You’re not,” he said. “Are we ready to work on your project some more?”
“It’s almost done,” Adele said excitedly. “Grandma and I had fun with it today.”
Part of him was thrilled, the other sad. He did enjoy the time with his daughter, but tonight he was beat and looking forward to relaxing and watching TV until Adele was in bed and then he could enjoy the crime shows he’d never watch in front of her.
“So, what is left to do?” he asked.
“I need to glue on all the pieces that Grandma and I made earlier.”
He walked into the dining room where the project was set up. There were a lot of little trees and bushes, some flowers too. Most were made out of paper, some out of fabric covering Styrofoam. It was much daintier and more feminine than he could accomplish and was forever thankful for the female influence in his daughter’s life.
“Then let’s get to it,” he said. “You tell me where you want them and I’ll apply the glue.”
“But I want to put the glue on too,” she said.
Her long brown hair was hanging over her shoulders and all he could envision was sticky fingers pushing it out of her face and he’d be stuck getting glue out of his daughter’s hair all night.
“Let me get a rubber band and tie your hair back first. Wasn’t it up when I dropped you at Grandma’s this
