“You can stay. You can have my bed if that would be more comfortable.”
“Thanks, but I think I’d rather find my own bed. And I’ve taken enough of your time and sympathy.”
“I didn’t mind, you know. Any time you need me...” He gently grabbed her shoulders. “Are you all right to drive?”
“Sure. It’s been hours since I’ve had alcohol.”
“Will you text me when you’re home safely?”
“Okay. It’s a long drive, you know.”
“I know. I’d appreciate the text. And I’d like to say, when this storm passes, remember that it’s all right for you to be happy. To think of yourself sometimes instead of putting everyone else first. That’s what you’ve been doing, I know. This next stage, this can be yours.”
“Thanks, Joe,” she said. “No one has ever said that to me before.”
SIX
Jessie McNichol was a beautiful woman, so the only person surprised that Dr. Patrick Monahan was attracted to her was Jessie. People often told her she was beautiful but Jessie thought of herself as vulnerable and naive. She fell in love quickly, totally and frequently. And, usually, tragically. She had tallied up a string of heartbreaks a mile long, starting with Ryan Siverhorn in the sixth grade.
Patrick Monahan was sexy and enormously accomplished in his field. Even though he’d been single for years, she had never heard any hospital gossip about him dating or being involved but she instinctively knew she would be the envy of every woman who knew, maybe even the married ones. And for the ninety-secondth time, she thought, Maybe this is it. She was not the least troubled by their age difference.
He phoned her as he said he would, and even though it was very late when he called, they chatted for an hour. He sent her a text in the morning saying he very much enjoyed their chat. He wasn’t due any time off for a few days after returning to town, but he called and their talks grew more personal and entertaining. It took exactly two days for her to begin to look forward to his calls and she learned so much about him. For one thing, he was so kind and tender. He asked repeatedly how she was doing with missing her father, something she needed to be asked. She really needed someone besides her mother to care. And he told her what sorts of things made him happy. Good fiction lit him up; he looked forward to having a great story to read and hated to see it end too soon, but of course he read too fast—a by-product of medical school. He loved live music, as did she. And movies. They began a list of books, concerts and movies they wanted to see together.
And about five calls into their new relationship, she asked him what happiness meant to him. He said, “Successful surgeries, good sailing weather, minimal conflict in the neurosurgery department and it always feels good to be madly in love.” He seemed to add that as an afterthought.
She was in a fever of longing.
Finally the night of their dinner out arrived. They were going to a nice restaurant in the city and would walk around San Francisco after. She lived a quick commute to the city while he lived in the city so they arranged to meet. He waited outside the restaurant, and when she approached him, he smiled and stood stock-still, just staring at her. His eyes glittered. “My God, you’re beautiful.”
She smiled back and said, “So are you.”
He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her toward him, giving her cheek a kiss. “Thank you for going out with me.”
And Jessie thought, Are you kidding me right now?
Here he was the most attractive, smartest, most successful doctor she knew and he was thanking her? She was just a thirty-one-year-old internist with a string of failed relationships in her past, and yet he was thanking her?
That fast, she was a goner.
He took her to an exquisite seafood restaurant in Union Square. It was elegant, dimly lit with plenty of dark corners and fancy specialty drinks. Other diners in the room would immediately know they weren’t married because of how intently they talked and talked. They entertained each other for a while with med school and internship tales.
They walked around the city after dinner, confessing to each other that it was such a nice change from last year when COVID had been raging and the streets and sidewalks were barren. Now there were more people about, though most restaurants had kept their occupancy lower than capacity. About half the people out and about still wore their masks in public, including Patrick and Jessie, especially in crowded places, though they had both received the vaccine and the virus was now so low in numbers it was no longer required. They talked a little about what a dark time that had been, especially for people in medicine. “For a while I was so lonely I answered the spam calls,” she told him, making him laugh, and he pulled her close for a squeeze.