Page 50 of Doctor Daddy

“Mom, it’s Chicago. You can come and visit.”

“You can also just come back for the holidays.”

“Maybe.” I knew there wasn’t a maybe. If I did the math right, I wouldn’t be traveling during the holidays. That’s when I should be having a baby.

23

MARK

Sweat rolled down the middle of my back. It was seven-thirty in the morning, and it was already over eighty degrees outside. Today was another hot summer’s day where we could expect the temperatures to be well over one hundred.

The short walk from my car into the office had me thinking that today I was going to be catching a lot of babies.

Storm clouds were building on the horizon and the humidity was steadily rising. Between the heat and the barometric pressure, labor and delivery were going to be crowded.

I walked through the glass doors of the building and let my gaze rest on the information desk. Brooke hadn’t been there for several days. It had been almost a week since I last saw her.

After a week of her ignoring me, I decided to let it play out and see how long before she decided to behave like an adult and let me know exactly what was going on. Now that she was gone for about a week, I didn’t know if she had quit or not.

Once inside, the air conditioning cooled me down dramatically. I felt the cold bite of every sweat drop as they were rapidly cooled by the temperature inside the building.

My morning appointments went smoothly. The storm started to roll in just after lunch. And the pregnant woman started rolling in shortly after that. I had three patients on the labor floor at once. They were all due within a week, so it was not unexpected. It was just a lot of waiting, and a lot of work.

I didn’t make it home until well after midnight. I turned my alarm off and fell into bed. Before I even had a chance to roll over, my phone started ringing.

“Bryant,” I attempted to bark into the phone. I had no energy to muster, so it came out more like a mumble.

“Dude, where are you? I thought you’re coming over today?” My brother’s voice was not soothing, and he interrupted my sleep.

“It’s one o’clock in the morning. I’ll be over at your house later.” I started to hang up on my brother.

“Mark, you moron, it’s already half-past eleven.”

“What are you talking about?”

I sat up and looked around. He was right, sunlight streamed in through my bedroom window. I had slept through the night, even though I barely felt like I had fallen asleep.

“I must have been more tired than I thought,” I confessed. With a stretch and a yawn, I told my brother I’d be over to his house as soon as I got ready.

“Do you need me to pick anything up on my way?”

“Yeah, I need you to get more charcoal.”

“Right right. Do we really want to grill out today?” It was going to be another scorcher.

“Shelly wants to grill for dinner. Get your ass over here. I’m out of charcoal, and she thinks it takes all day to grill a slab of meat.”

“That’s because you lie to your wife,” I groaned.

“No, that’s because I have to clean the grill before we can use it each time. I swear one of these days I’m going to get myself a gas grill. I need charcoal and lighter fluid.””

“Fine, fine.” I got up and slogged through my morning routine, in no hurry to sit around on David’s porch watching him mess with his grill. I didn’t bother to shave, and I overpaid for two bags of charcoal at the convenience store on my way.

It was early afternoon by the time I got to David’s house. As soon as I got there, I dragged the bags of charcoal around back. We had plenty of time. Dinner wasn’t for hours yet.

“Took you long enough,” David pointed out.

Shelly stuck her head out the back door. “Hi, Mark. It’s about time you got here. Is that grill ready for me yet?”

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