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I YAWNED AS I LOOKED over the prescriptions I still had to fill out for the day, trying to stop my vision from getting blurry. I really should have been getting home, but I had some stuff to take care of before I left, and I didn’t want to leave it until the next day.
In truth, I was hoping if I stuck around long enough, I might get some good news from Celeste about her daughter. She hadn’t exactly sounded pleased to speak to me on the phone, but that didn’t bother me. She deserved to know what had happened to her mother, and I needed to find out why she had abandoned her out here without anyone to rely on.
Not that it was any of my business, of course. But the small-town energy was getting to me, and I was finding it harder and harder to ignore the small details of the people’s lives. Before, at my other clinics, I would have just been willing to see them for the day and then brush them off, but now, there was so much more I wanted to take care of.
I wasn’t sure what it was about Celeste, but I wanted to make sure she was all right. Maybe it was because she reminded me a little of my own mother; stubborn, focused on what she wanted, and not willing to make many exceptions for anyone.
Or maybe I was just curious to find out how someone like her seemed to have nothing in the way of family around here. It didn’t seem like a whole lot of people made it out of this town. It got its claws into its residents and didn’t let go. But her daughter had left. She had made it far out, judging by how long it had taken my call to connect and the area code on her call when she had phoned me back to confirm exactly what had happened. She was in Europe, by the looks of it. I didn’t know what she was doing out there, or if she would even be able to return.
She sounded genuinely upset, but it was hard to read people over the phone, hard to tell if they were anything other than just trying to get back to what they were doing as soon as possible. I didn’t think she could make it back quickly, given how far away she was, and I didn’t know if she would drop whatever she was doing out there to come home to her mother after spending so long away. When I was in Celeste’s house, there had been no hint of another person in there, no room kept aside for a visiting daughter. It was clear Ellie hadn’t made much of an effort to return since she left.
Which was likely why Celeste’s house was in such a bad state for a woman of her age. I didn’t want to think how long she had been living there by herself, how easy it would have been for her to fall into an accident before this. All things considered, it could have been a hell of a lot worse, and I was relieved she hadn’t been harmed any more than she was. At least we had been able to get her out of there before something more dangerous had happened. And, hopefully, I would be able to convince her to put more people in her rotation to keep an eye on her, plus a few safety precautions in the house to ensure something like this didn’t happen again anytime soon.
It was hard for older people to admit when they needed the help they so clearly did. It was an admittance they were getting old, a hard thing for most of them to come to terms with. I didn’t blame them, in some ways, though their stubbornness could be frustrating sometimes. It must have been hard to admit they were getting to the age where they needed that kind of help.
I finished up my work in the office and headed back through to check on Celeste. I had convinced her to stay for another night, just to make sure nothing happened to her, and she had agreed after a little cajoling. I really wasn’t happy with the idea of her leaving without anyone to rely on, and I needed to make sure she had plenty of support during her recovery. It was going to be a long process, a hard one, and she needed enough support during that time to ensure she didn’t push herself too far, too fast.
“Evening, Celeste,” I greeted her as I came into her room. I noticed at once she seemed to have brightened up a whole lot compared to when I had been in this morning, and I smiled at the sight. Mental recovery was as much a part of things as physical, and I wondered if she had heard some good news from that daughter of hers.
“Well, doc, looks like you’ll be getting rid of me soon,” she remarked, beaming.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because I just heard my daughter is coming back to town to take care of me,” she replied, her voice brimming with excitement.
“That’s great news, Celeste,” I replied, declining to mention I’d been the one to call her up about the accident. It had surprised me to find out she’d had no idea. How much of a gulf was there between mother and daughter, for Celeste not to have bothered letting her kid know what had happened to her?
It wasn’t my place to ask, and I knew it, but I was still curious.
“When’s she going to be here?” I asked.
“The end of the week,” she replied. “She’s a long way away at the moment, so it’ll take her some time to get down here.”
“Where is she?”
“Spain, I think,” she replied, furrowing her brow as though she was having a hard time remembering exactly. “That’s where she was the last time I spoke to her, anyway.”
“Wow, Spain,” I murmured. I had never made it out of the States, and I had to admit, I was a little envious at the thought of living in another country.
“Yeah, she works out there,” Celeste remarked proudly. I could tell she was glad to have an excuse to talk about her daughter, and wondered briefly why she hadn’t before—but then, I supposed, she would have had to explain why her daughter wasn’t here right now. Perhaps it would have been too painful for her.
“What does she do?” I asked.
“I’m not quite sure,” she replied, her brow furrowing slightly. “She has told me, but...oh, it’s so hard to keep track, she does a lot of different things.”
I nodded. It sounded like it had been a long time since the two of them had talked much, and I didn’t want to put too much pressure on her to come out with anything else. I needed her to rest right now, and I was glad the return of her daughter seemed to be such a boost to her mindset.
“Well, I’ll be happy to let you out of here once you have someone at home to take care of you,” I told her, and she smiled at me warmly
“Yes, of course,” she agreed. She seemed to put up far less of a fight now she knew her daughter was coming back, as though the mere thought of it soothed something in her. I was glad to see she seemed to have settled a little, though I was sure she was still just as stubborn as she had been before. It would be her daughter’s problem to deal with, not mine, and I was more than happy to hold up my hands and let her do just that.
“I’ll let you get some rest,” I told her. “And you let me know if there’s anything else you need, okay?”
“I will, doc,” she replied, smiling at me. “Thank you.”
I stepped out of her small room and closed the door behind me, and realized I was smiling, too. I was glad she had someone she could rely on.
Though, I had to admit, I was curious about this daughter of hers. This girl who seemed to have taken off across the world and left her aged mother behind to take care of herself. How long had it been since she returned to Maple Valley? Being in Spain, it wasn’t like she could just hop a train down here whenever she wanted, that was for sure. I was curious—what exactly was going on with her? And how much guilt was she carrying for allowing something like this to happen to her mother in the first place?
I needed to stop getting so involved in people’s lives here. I was just Celeste’s doctor, and I didn’t need to know every little in and out in her life. I wanted to make sure she didn’t get hurt again, and that should be the end of it. And yet—and yet, I found it harder and harder to keep my nose out of whatever was going on in these people’s lives. I was curious. Small towns like this seemed to bring it out in people, forcing you to deal with the possibility of something you might never have considered before.
If there was one thing I knew, it was that places like Maple Valley held secrets. And when someone left for months, even years, those secrets didn’t just vanish and stay forgotten. I was sure this woman’s return was going to stir up at least a few of the stories she had tried to leave behind, and I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to finding out what they were.
Shit, look at me—I was starting to become a small-town gossip. And if there was one thing a doctor should never be, it was that. It was time to get back to work, remember what I was here for, and do my best to make sure Celeste had everything she needed to go back to her life outside of this clinic.
Whatever happened with her daughter, that was between the two of them. And none of my damn business.
