Page 11 of The Someday Daughter
“I got a shot.”
I look down, where a little boy is suddenly standing next to me. He’s in a dinosaur-printed T-shirt and khaki shorts, bright red sneakers with Velcro. He thrusts his bicep toward me, whiteStar WarsBand-Aid a highlight against his dark skin. “See?”
“Wow,” I say, crouching in front of him. He puts his arm right in my face, so I take his elbow to inspect the Band-Aid. “Did it hurt?”
Our eyes meet and he scrunches up his nose. “Nah. It was like a little pinch.”
“You must be brave,” I tell him. “I’m so scared of shots.”
“Really?” His voice is soft and imprecise in that kid-specific way, so it comes out likeweally?“I used to be ’fraid but that’s when I was four.”
“How old are you now?”
“Five,” he says proudly. “For my birthday my dad got this huh-yuuuuugeballoon that looked like a basketball because at summer camp with Micah we always—”
“Liam, honey.” The boy whips around, his arm slipping out of my fingers. A tall man drops a hand onto his shoulder and smiles apologetically at me. “Let’s let this nice lady get back to her morning, okay?”
Liam looks at me, smiling shyly as he leans into his dad’s legs. “Okay.”
“Good job with the shot,” I say, offering him a high five as I stand up. He slaps my palm, all enthusiastic energy. “I hope I can be as tough as you next time I get one.”
I turn toward Sadie as they leave, find her and the doctor watching me.
“Well,” the doctor says. She’s smiling, arms crossed, her dark hair pulled back with a knotted pink headband. “That was charming.”
I flush. I don’t want her to find me charming; I want her to find me impressive.
“My mom always took me for ice cream after shots,” Sadie says as I pick my way around the scattered chairs toward reception. “Even if it was nine o’clock in the morning.”
I glance at her and don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that Camilla doesn’t even eat dairy and I can’t recall a single time she’s taken me for ice cream.
“I’m Audrey,” I say instead, reaching a hand over the reception desk. When the doctor takes it, her skin is cool and dry—like every other doctor I’ve ever met, all my life. I hope mine is, too. “Thanks so much for meeting with me.”
“Aiyla Osman,” she says. “And happy to. Anything for Sadie, really.”
Sadie makes a flattered little noise and the two of them laugh like schoolgirls, which is apparently what they are to each other.
“We were roommates in undergrad,” Sadie explains. “Trauma bonded over O-Chem.”
“Ohgod.” Dr. Osman leans into the counter as a nurse passes through the hallway behind her, patient folder in one hand. “I wish I could tell twenty-year-old Aiyla she’d get through that class.” She gestures around the waiting room. “That she’d be here, one day, doing this.”
“Well, I knew it,” Sadie says on a smile. “Even then.”
Dr. Osman waves her off. “I thought you’d bring Silas.” She peers around me, like he might just be coming in from the elevator bay. “Haven’t seen that kid since he was, what? Fifteen?”
“Fifteen,” Sadie agrees. “At the wedding. He’s nineteen now—he’ll be a sophomore at American in the fall. He’s in the city, but with his friends today.”
Dr. Osman shakes her head, her expression gone soft. “Allgrown up, huh? Your first baby, practically. It’s so great you wound up together in DC.”
“Truly,” Sadie says. “I’m already campaigning to get Lily out that way, too, and she’s only thirteen.”
Dr. Osman laughs, and Sadie gestures toward me. “Anyway, Audrey’s going to Johns Hopkins in the fall, premed.” I swallow, straighten my shoulders. “We’re visiting a whole list of practitioners this summer so she can get a feel for different specialties.”
“Are you seeing Dustin in Santa Fe?” Dr. Osman asks, still not looking at me. My skin’s starting to feel prickly, on the perilous edge of breaking a sweat. On the opposite side of the country, Ethan starts classes at UPenn this afternoon. “Last I heard he’s all set up with his own practice at that spa in the desert.”
“We sure are,” Sadie says, and I can tell she wants to keep talking about this. But, at long last, Dr. Osman catches sight of the clock and drops her hands onto the desk.
“Okay, I’ve got an appointment in an hour, so we should dive in.” Her eyes meet mine, this woman who has everything I want, who’s found her way to where I need to go. “Audrey, you ready?”
