Page 47 of Severed Rivalry
My plastic surgeon wanted to meet this morning, and my sister has decided she’s chauffeur, lovely assistant, and manager as I recuperate. I can’t say it annoys me. I can say it’s well beyond my typical life.
I’m a grown-ass man. I drive myself to appointments, handle my own calendar, and have spent years managing multi-million-dollar projects. I don’t need a babysitter.
There’s just the little part about only seeing out of one eye, the inability to use my left side very well, and the drugs in my system that make me open to this kind of help.
“What the hell happened to my truck?”
“It’s at your house. Police towed everything from the scene, but we were able to get it from impound and took it to your place yesterday.”
“I’m losing track of days.”
She gasps and points to herself. “Not like…”
“Not like that. I think anyway. I don’t seem to have any gaps in memory, but nothing is routine. It’s like constantly being on vacation.”
“Only with pain and bruising.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t I know it.”
She does. And I get it more now. “I’m sorry, Sis.”
“I haven’t ‘come to terms with it’”—she makes air quotes around that phrase with both of her hands on the steering wheel—“but it’s getting better. It’s been six months and it’s kind of… normal, I guess.”
“I don’t know whether I hate that for you or love that for you.”
“Same.” She looks my way as she turns into the parking lot. Once she parks, she looks from the building to me. “I’m coming in. I want you to have everything you need. But if you want privacy, just say the word, and I’ll go to the waiting room. Support is good. Being all up in the details is not.”
I exhale. “Love you, Ayla. Glad I have you. I’ll give the high sign if need be.”
We exit and make our way into the posh office with a high-dollar address. The lobby might as well be the cover of one of the interiors magazines. Cream and chrome–that’s what I’d call the theme. Everything is backlit and the receptionist is inhumanly beautiful. She’s too symmetrical, her teeth are too white, her lips too full. Instead of being intriguing, it’s unnerving. She could be a robot.
There’s no little mole on the outside corner of her eye. No dark lashes that naturally curl toward dark eyebrows. No character at all.
“Cian Murphy. I have a nine thirty appointment.” I hand over insurance and identification and wonder about the health coverage. I guess I run the business, and I can keep paying that for as long as I need. Things I never considered when I thought of going out on my own. Which makes me wonder… What does Liam do? Maybe he needs to be on mine. I could figure that out?—
“Mr. Murphy?”
“Yes.”
“We’re ready for you,” the woman in the doorway, who is probably Mom’s age but fighting it hard, calls and steps aside sothat Ayla and I can walk through. “We’re here in the first door on the right.” She extends a hand, and we enter a room that’s like no doctor’s office I’ve been in.
The cream and chrome motif extends here as well. There are a few chairs around the perimeter, but one in the middle has a light haloed over it as if God himself opened the skies and is peering down from on high. Weird.
The woman Vanna White’s her hand at the chair for me as if it’s the seat of honor and not the hot seat. In my head I start humming ‘The Cheese Stands Alone’ from “The Farmer in the Dell.”
Ayla picks up on it and snickers. Our childhoods were the same, as much as the age gap and the sex difference could allow. I wonder if Sariah ever sang that song or if that was all she sang. I wonder how she raised Renée in regard to that or how she’d choose to raise others.
Does she want more? Is she done?
My mind wanders down an odd path of wishing I knew if she’d have kids with me or if I’d be okay being a stepdad to the feisty teenager she already has. Would it be enough?
The broken face must’ve knocked screws loose—and my testosterone too—for me to be speculating like this.
Man up, Murphy.Fix your face first. Parenting conversations later.
I’m sure the doctor says lots of things that are worth hearing. But he’s too tan and the hair implants look too fresh. Besides, my mind is over by Green Mountain and the woman who captured my gaze and my heart more than a decade and a half ago. She re-ensnared my mind a week ago.
