Page 25 of The Scars I Bare
“Please don’t let this blow up in my face.”
Taking a moment to rinse out our dishes in the sink, I placed them in the dishwasher and met Lizzie at the front door. She was dressed in purple shorts and a shirt that saidSmart Girls Rule, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Do I really get to go to work with you?” she asked excitedly. “You’ve never let me before.”
“Well, today is a special day,” I said. “It’s Bring Your Daughter to Work Day!”
“Really?”
“Nope.” I laughed. “But we can pretend.”
She giggled as I opened the door, letting her step out before me. “Can I use the stethoscope? Or poke people with needles?”
“Um…”
“I saw a YouTube video on how to start an IV. I think I could handle it.”
I rolled my eyes as we walked out to the car.Damn YouTube.I didn’t even know how she’d managed to get online. With no phone and no iPad, I swore, this girl was the queen of internet stealth.
“That’s a hard no,” I answered.
“But how am I supposed to gather a sample to look at under my microscope?”
Laughing, I helped her up to her car seat. “So, let me get this straight. You want to poke my patients, steal their blood, and then examine it on your neon plastic microscope that Pappy got you for Christmas last year?”
“Yeah. Why?”
I was so getting fired.
Hopping into the car, I started the car and began the tedious process of negotiating with my five-year old. “How about this? Why don’t I download a book on my phone about blood and cells and all sorts of stuff, and you can read it while Mommy does the poking, okay?”
Looking up at her reflection in the rearview mirror, I could see a distinct moment of disappointment, but it was instantly replaced with a soft sigh of content satisfaction once the realization sank in.
She was going to have access to my phone.
All day long.
“Okay.”
I wasn’t sure if I’d done myself a favor or just opened about a dozen more cans of worms. With a child like Lizzie, who found anything and everything interesting, there was no telling.
It didn’t take long to get to the clinic, but as I was beginning to learn, it didn’t take long to get to most places in Ocracoke.
“Is this where you work, Mommy? It’s so tiny!” Lizzie said after we pulled into the clinic parking lot and I helped her out of her car seat.
Leaning down to her height, I decided it was time for a little pep talk before stepping into my place of employment.
That was, if I wanted it to remain my place of employment.
“Okay, Lizzie, you know how we talk about indoor voice and outdoor voice a lot?”
She smiled, a big, wide, ear-to-ear smile, as her head bobbed up and down making her dark curls bounce along with her.
God, she was cute.
So cute in fact, that sometimes, it made it hard to police her or be the bad guy because just looking at her made my eyes go all round and soft, and then all I wanted to do was hug and squeeze her and—
What was I saying?
