Page 88 of Maid in Heaven

Their heads turned as a baby mewled behind the exam room door. The muffled shushes of parents attempting to soothe the child followed.

“What are they doing in there?” Starla asked, shifting her attention.

Will, once again, welcomed the question. “Well, that baby is probably getting a vaccination. You used to scream like you were beingmurdered.”

The very wordmurderconjured memories of his date with Ava at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar about serial killer documentaries. He wondered if she was watching one right now…

Everything came back to Ava.

He couldn’t shake her from his mind and, instead, pictured her there on the couch they’d nearly made love on. In his imagination, her shapely form was lounging comfortably in a baggy t-shirt and shorts, curvaceous legs draped across the dog as investigators in a cold case droned on.

The image overtook his thoughts. His chest throbbed at the loss of all that was, and all that certainly could’ve been.

Was she thinking of him, he wondered.Or was she the type to never look back?

He recalled the wedding photo he’d seen on her wall the day she came into his life, her hair perfectly pinned up in a messy bun, swirling tendrils pulled free. Those green eyes so full of hope. Her elegant neck was adorned with a delicate solitaire diamond perched at the base of her throat, the flesh a canvas he wanted to paint with his lips.

He thought about the other half of that picture, discarded in a landfill somewhere, neverto be thought of again. She was fully capable of extricating things in life if they caused her pain.

Starla’s small hand grasped Will’s. His leg jiggled wildly, eyes snapping back to the floor. The floorwas muddy with footprints large and small. He wished he had something -anything- to scrub with. Maybe if he scrubbed hard enough, he could forget that he had botched things with the strongest, sexiest woman to ever walk into his life.

The door opened to the exam room, and a mother emerged, cooing to the crying infant against her chest. Glancing around, she did a double-take and smiled sheepishly when she spotted Will. Her makeup-free eyes were ringed in dark circles, most likely from sleep deprivation. She tucked a wild strand of frizzy hair behind her ear as she quickly made her way past him to the front desk.

Dr. Harken shuffled out to reception. The man was in his early sixties, sporting a head full of salt-and-pepper hair, narrow eyes, and a saggy neck. Today, against the drab walls of his office, the man looked a hundred. “Alright, Dana, it looks like we will submit this to your insurance right away. In the meantime, if little Liam here starts running a temp, won’t eat, or has any signs of an allergic reaction, call me.”

Dana nodded and readjusted the baby on her hip, jostling the diaper bag back on her shoulder. “Thank you. Have a good one.” She gave a polite smile and turned toward Will.

He quickly glanced up at her face, another welcome distraction. She darted her eyes away nervously and hurried out of the clinic’s front door.

“Why do ladies do that?” Starla asked her father quietly. “They always look nervous around you.”

Will grinned. “I dunno, kiddo.”

“They always look like they want to smooch you.”

“Alright,” Dr. Harken said, clapping his hands together. The startling noise bounced off the walls like a distant crack of thunder. “Who’s ready to switch out their port?”

“He is,”Starla joked, jabbing Will’s down coat sleeve.

Dr. Harken chuckled. “Ah now, come on, Miss Starla. You and I had an agreement. We get this port in your tummy, and then you get two stickers of your choice.”

“I see you finished the remodel. It looks nice,” Will lied.

“Thanks! Yeah, it’s nice to start fresh sometimes.”

The words wrenched Will’s gut.Is that how Ava feels right now?

As Will rose, he wondered if he could do the same… start fresh, knowing she was out there,probablythrivingwithout him.

Will followed them into the exam room and shut the door.

“Now, Miss Starla, how have you been feeling? Any blood sugar dips?”

Will’s eyes were locked on a painting hanging across the room, just beyond the examination table. It was a dreamy image of a mother and daughter holding hands with their feet in the water, small waves lapping at their legs.

It wasn’t the image that caught his eye, but the brush strokes…

Small. Exact. Careful.

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