Page 124 of Keep This Promise
Eden pops up from behind the chair. “Pickles loves you, Daddy.”
“Pickles loves you. Can you get him and move him so I don’t get clawed to death?”
“He won’t claw you, right, Pickles?” she coos to the feline.
He doesn’t move, just stares at me. “Go on then,” I tell it.
Standoff it is.
Pickles licks his paw, places it down, and then starts on the next. Really?
“Eden, can you get the monster to go with you?”
She laughs and hoists the cat away. “Come on, Pickles! Let’s go watch the telly!”
I spend the next hour working on putting back the files the way they were. My previous office in L.A. sent this because I have a new patient with a similar issue as two of my old patients, but it’s a bit trickier, so I wanted to go over anyone with this diagnosis in case I can find a link. I treated a lot of patients with this bone deficiency.
I figured they’d send the file I requested electronically, instead I got hard copies of almost everyone I treated via courier. Well played.
Somewhere between O and S, I give up, no longer caring if anything makes sense because I just want it put away.
“Is everything all right, darling?” Sophie asks from behind me. I feel her gentle touch on my neck.
I look over with a smile. “Why are you up?”
“You said I could use the loo.”
“Which is in our room,” I remind her.
Sophie smiles warmly. “I missed you.”
“I always miss you.”
“What are you doing?”
I put the file in the box. “Recleaning what wasn’t a mess.” I glance at the clock before adding, “Jackson should be here soon, so why don’t you hang out in here—”
My phone pings with a camera notification. I pull it up just in time for the video footage to show Jackson knocking on the front door. Sophie jumps at the sound but then forces a smile.
“It’s Jackson,” I tell her before I pull the door open.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he says as he walks in. “Hello, beautiful.” Jackson kisses Sophie’s cheek. “You look much better than the last time I saw you.”
“The last time you saw me, I was almost dead.”
“This is true. Let’s go somewhere we can talk and you can sit,” I suggest.
Mama James and Eden are in the living room, and as soon as my daughter sees Jackson, she rushes forward, wrapping her arms around him.
Afterward, she shows him the cat, her new doll house, the teepee that has lights all around it and a stack of pillows inside where she can color or do whatever, and the tea set her uncle Spencer bought her. I look at Sophie, who is starting to fade a bit.
“Mama James, can you take Eden somewhere so that we can talk?”
“Of course, dear. Come on, Eden, let’s get your clothes out for tomorrow and find something that might fit Pickles.”
Once they leave, I get Sophie comfortable on the couch and sit beside her, taking her hand in mine. “You said you found information?”
