“This is Dr. Walsh,” he greeted after a single ring.
Behind him, I heard a muffled code announcement. He was at work, just as I thought.
“Hey, Patrick.” I pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sank down. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah, you caught me during lunch,” Patrick replied. He sounded like he was chewing. “What’s up?”
I leaned back in the chair. “I’m being evicted.”
“Oh, Josie.” He seemed shocked. “Do you need some help? I can spot you enough to—”
Oh, shit, he really would give me cash if I asked for it. “It’s not about the money,” I said quickly. “My landlord sold the house to refurbish it and sell it to—I don’t know, yuppies or something, and so I’ve got two weeks to find a new place to stay. I was wondering if I could crash in your second bedroom next semester. Or at least for a little while. I would pay you rent, and—"
“Ah, crap, Josie,” Patrick said apologetically. “Maybe if you’d asked a few weeks ago we could’ve worked something out, but I just agreed to let an old med school buddy stay with me for a little while. Bedroom’s already spoken for.”
My stomach twisted up even more. “That’s okay,” I told my big brother. “I’ll call Moira, I guess.”
“I don’t think that’ll work, either,” Patrick said at the mention of my oldest sister. “She literally just told me that Gavin is thinking about moving in. And George and Annie are probably out, too.”
I grimaced. “No thanks on that.”
George Pallas had proposed to my older sister just a few weeks before, and my presence would just be an intrusion. Add in Annie’s enormous dog and George’s little bungalow would feel downright crowded with me in the mix.
I sighed. “I like George a lot, but those two—"
“Nonstop PDA, those two,” Patrick supplied. “I mean, good for them, but I still want to hit them with a garden hose sometimes.”
I chewed on a thumbnail, thinking over my remaining options. My twin brother John already had a roommate, while my younger brother, Ryan, was off in California for his undergraduate degree.
“Well, I guess that just leaves Mom and Dad.”
“They won’t turn you down,” Patrick said. “It’s just them in the house alone anyway. You’ll barely even notice each other.”
I set the envelope to the side and headed back down the hallway to my room. “You’re probably right,” I agreed, a little bit bolstered by the thought that I wouldn’t be left out in the cold. “Quiet study time and I’ll save money. It’s kind of a win-win.”
“How’s everything going with the studying, anyway?” he asked.
Patrick had just finished his obstetrics and gynecology residency and moved back to Seattle to take a position at a local hospital. Out of everyone in my enormous family, he was the only one who really understood the stress and uncertainty I was experiencing. Because he’d gone through it too, a decade before when he finished his degree in biochemistry, same as me, and moved on to medical school.
Back on my desk, my organic chemistry notes beckoned. “Not bad,” I said. “I was just taking a break from advanced organic chem when Fatima found the letter from the landlord. I need to pull down an A in this class and get ready for the MCAT.”
I wanted some reassurance from my big brother—that I would do fine on the Medical College Admission Test, that I could handle advanced organic chemistry, that all of this would be okay and before I knew it, I would be Dr. Walsh, too—but before I could open my mouth and ask for it, he cursed softly.
“Got a call?” I guessed instantly.
His response was immediate. “Yup. Gotta go. Talk to you later.” And his end of the line went silent.
I huffed a sigh and pulled the phone away from my ear to dial my mom. No point in putting it off, I supposed. Anyway, my mom would probably be thrilled to have at least one of her brood back at home for a little while. She’d been lonely since Ryan left for school, and since he hadn’t stayed local like her other five kids, the visits were few and far between.
“Of course you can come stay,” Mom said, not missing a beat after I told her my sob story and asked for a place to crash for a while. “You can take John and Ryan’s old room.”
“What’s wrong with my old room?” I asked, trying not to sound irritated. They were doing me a favor, after all. “It looked the same as always last time I was home.”
“We had to store some boxes and stuff in there,” Mom replied with maddening vagueness. “You can’t even move around on the floor, so it’ll have to be John and Ryan’s room.”
“I could move them back—"
“Nope, they stay in your old room,” Mom said quickly. “That’s where I want them.”
I rolled my eyes as I sank down into my desk chair. “As long as I have a quiet place to sleep and study, it’s fine.”
“Of course you do, honey,” Mom said. “And we’ll be quiet as mice. You’ll hardly even know we’re there.”
I thought about how loud the Walsh house had always been during my childhood, crammed full with six kids and two adults who had to shout just to be heard above all the noise. It would be—weird to be back in my parents’ house without the chaos, but maybe it would be nice. A chance for us to hang out as adults while I reaped the benefits of living rent-free.
Yeah, I decided. I had a good feeling about this.