Page 19 of Big Witch Energy

Josh’s head moved up and down against Ben’s shoulder.

“And maybe we need to get in touch with the therapist back in Arizona?” Ben suggested.

Josh squeezed Ben’s arm. “Yep.”

“You know you can’t use your toothbrush until we get a replacement, right?” Ben asked.

Josh nodded. “Yep.”

“Also, you might want to hide the replacement where she can’t find it,” Ben added.

Josh sighed. “My floss, too.”

It had required both chocolate rugalach and raspberry rugalach to mollify Mina’s pastry-based indignity. She’d threatened to steal Josh’s chocolate rugalach, but then he’d held it up over her head, out of her reach no matter how high she’d hopped. While she protested mightily, it always made her laugh. And, thus, a delicate peace was restored with their world.

Ben trusted that his children would return to the house and not reduce the island to rubble within the next few hours while he worked at the Starfall Point Community Clinic. That was new for him, knowing that his kids were somewhere, unsupervised, and he told himself that this was part of the reason he’d moved them all “home.” For all its shortcomings in grocery availability and extracurricular activities, the island felt safer than the busy city environment the kids had grown up in. Given that cars weren’t allowed in the more historic areas of the island, including their neighborhood, they didn’t even have traffic on Starfall. Ben’s commute to work was a seven-minute walk.

Ben stood in the supply closet that had been converted into an office for him. The clinic had been designed for one primary care provider at a time, and the clinic’s other physician, Dr. Toller, had been flying solo for more than ten years. He was very much looking forward to sharing the workload. Ben wasn’t quite up to seeing patients yet, but he was moving into his office, becoming familiar with the filing system, reviewing the cases of longtime patients, so he could be prepared for the inevitable illnesses and emergencies.

Life as the doctor of a small island clinic was a never-ending cycle of back injuries in adults and children with colds and flu. And in the summer, the tourists would come with their sunburns and fishhook injuries. The strange accidental death of a boy named Kyle Ashmark over the winter was one of the few emergencies of its kind in years.

“I know you’re not going to have a lot of room, but the good news is all of the files are kept into another room…now,” said his new nurse practitioner, Samantha Vermeer. Samantha was a newcomer to the island, a Milwaukee native who was looking for a break from the bustle of the city. Personally, Ben thought she’d overshot it a bit.

Ben paused to put his hand on the newly hung wallpaper—a strange khaki color with maroon and navy-blue pinstripes. He was pretty sure it was left over from when the clinic was originally built in the 1940s. It gave the room a sort of Norman Rockwell sepia-toned quality, as opposed to the antiseptic white of most medical offices. What hadn’t changed was the constant ringing of the phone. It never stopped ringing, which didn’t seem to perturb Samantha at all, as she leaned her tall frame against the door.

“Between me and you, Dr. Toller’s just tired,” Samantha admitted. “He’s been doing this alone for so long. That’s a lot of weight to have on his shoulders. He doesn’t get sick days, himself. He doesn’t get vacation days. And sometimes, it can get frustrating, dealing with people who don’t listen to advice and are surprised when they have the same problems over and over.”

“Well, that’s why I’m here,” Ben chuckled, closing the digital patient portal on his new desktop computer. Knowing his patients for decades…well, it was going to present its own set of challenges, in terms of awkwardness, but he knew things about them personally that would help him serve their interests. For instance, he knew that—no matter how he might protest that he was sticking to his diet—Mr. Qualls hid behind his garage every night so his wife wouldn’t see him enjoying a bowl full of ice cream, even in January.

Samantha asked. “How are the kids settling in?”

Ben paused. “Well, I don’t hear screams or sirens…but the island only has the one ambulance…so…”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Samantha said with a laugh.

“I’m gonna go get lunch and then go check on them,” Ben said. “First full day tomorrow.”

“I’m going to warn you now, it’s going to be a big one,” Samantha told him. “The phone’s ringing off the hook, and you’re booked out for appointments for the next five months.”

“That’s what that is?” Ben cried as the phone jangled to life in the background.

“Oh, yeah, we normally get maybe ten calls a day,” Samantha said, nodding. “It was part of the reason I took this job, Dr. Hoult.”

“Sorry, Samantha,” Ben said, running his hand through his sandy hair. “And you might as well call me ‘Ben’ if I’m causing you this sort of stress.”

“Well, I was going to eventually anyway,” Samantha told him. “I was just trying to be First-Day Polite. And it’s OK, it just reminds me of why I quit working in a big-city ER. And technically, the clinic is closed today, so I’m just letting most of them go to our voicemail.”

“Can I grab you a sandwich or something, for your emotional distress?” Ben asked.

“Oh, for the amount of calls coming in, you’re going to have to pony up something from Petra’s,” she retorted, leveling a pair of dark-brown eyes at him. “Possibly a whole tray of something.”

“Understood,” Ben said, sliding into his jacket. He texted the kids, telling them they could join him for lunch. By the time he made it to Main Square, they hadn’t responded, which was troubling.

Ben pulled his hood up to protect his head from the light snow-rain mix pelting the sidewalk. There was a certain fluid energy he enjoyed about summer on the island, thousands of feet on the cobblestone streets of the historic district, the smell of melting butter and sugar wafting out of the fudge shops. But this quiet, windblown solitude had its charms.

Isabelle had always insisted she got this sort of “meditative space” from those yoga retreats in the desert…but Ben had never seen the appeal. The desert could be beautiful, but it was so…unwelcoming. Any time he’d tried to hike on the paths near their gated community, his thoughts were on a loop of That might be a rattlesnake. That might be a scorpion. Am I drinking enough water? Why does everything here want to kill me, including the sun?

He preferred snow and wind, the way every winter seemed to have its own personality. Ice could kill you, but it followed rules. Desert creatures didn’t care about rules.

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