“You didn’t do anything to hurt her,” Nick said. “You were given that job offer out of the blue, and you wanted to take the time to think about it before you brought it up to your girl. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Yeah, it’s not that,” I said. “It’s the fact that I had all but gotten behind the idea of going for it with Harper. Like going all in and seeing where this relationship took us, then I get this job offer, and then I see how Harper reacts to the job offer, and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t want to put pressure on her to make a decision about what she wants, and I don’t want to have to come up with answers right now.”
“And that’s fine if you don’t,” Nick said. “You have a lot to think about with this one, man. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to just fly through the process and go with what you impulsively think is the right thing to do. That’s not you. You think far too much about things to be that reckless.”
“Right,” I said. I sighed once more.
It was a lot harder to be the person in my shoes than it was to talk to someone who was in my shoes. Nick wasn’t the one who was on the verge of losing the person he’d just fallen in love with.
Nick was still in that position of getting to pick up and go any time he wanted. I knew I technically was, too, but the fact that I was falling for Harper as fast as I was meant that it wasn’t that easy to just get up and walk away from all this.
It didn’t matter that there had been a time in my life when I had been able to just go from one town to the next and not give it any real thought. I was able to transplant myself and start over again and again. It wasn’t entirely starting over, sure. I knew I was making steps toward getting the job at this clinic one day.
But, there wasn’t another Harper out there. She was once in a lifetime, I could tell that from just how amazing we had been in the past few weeks we had been together. I didn’t want to risk that.
Without any quick fix to this, however, I knew I would just have to settle in and give it time to work itself out. I would think through the pros and cons of this, and I would talk to Harper about it when it felt like there had been enough time for her to digest what she had seen – and I could tell her where I was in my mind at that point, too.
I felt a little better after Nick left, and by the time Monday morning rolled around, I sent Harper a quick text telling her to have a good day and that she would be on my mind, and to message me when she got the chance. I put my phone on vibrate and put it in my pocket, then I headed into work.
My first patient of the day was Mrs. Elliot. I was glad she was coming in Monday rather than Tuesday, though initially I thought it would be later in the week. I didn’t want her to skip out on this one, especially since I wanted to go through with the surgery on her next week. If she didn’t show up to this appointment, there was a good chance we were going to have to push it out another week, and that wasn’t ideal.
But, I couldn’t force her to do anything, so when I walked in the room and saw her in the chair, I was relieved.
“Mrs. Elliot, aren’t you looking lovely this morning,” I said. “I’m glad you were able to come in today. How are you feeling?”
“Like I didn’t want to come in here today,” she said. “But I told you I’d be here, so here I am.”
“Even after they changed your appointment on you, too. You really are a sweetheart, you know that?” I asked.
We made small talk as I examined her, then we talked a bit about the upcoming surgery and how I hoped it would look in the future. She had already been through a number of these surgeries, so at this point, they were pretty routine.
But, with how routine they had become, she also knew what a pain it was to recover. She would be bedridden for nearly three weeks, and that was if things went well. She could wind up in bed for another month, and she hated that.
Mrs. Elliot often told me she would rather die younger than she was meant to if it meant she could still take care of herself rather than be lying on some bed like a bump on a log for someone else to care for.
“I don’t want to be that in life,” she told me. “I don’t want to be someone else’s shift. I’ve always been strong and capable of caring for myself, and I don’t want to let go of that now. I know I’m an old lady, but that doesn’t mean I have to be someone else’s chore, does it?”
“Of course not,” I told her. “Of course not, Mrs., Elliot. Don’t you worry about that. You’re going to go through with this, and you’ll be back up on your feet in no time, I promise. You’ll get better, and you’ll be back to your young self by the holidays.”
“I wish I bounced back as quickly as you young folks do. Anyway. Do you have any plans coming up with the holidays? I know they’re a few weeks off yet, but once they get started it seems they really just fly by,” she said. “This time of year was always Harold’s favorite. Do you have a young lady in your life?”
I got the strongest impression she was looking for companionship. It wasn’t the first time I got the feeling she was lonely, and with some extra time on my hand, I decided to indulge her a bit. I didn’t cut her short or rush anything, giving her all the time in the world to hear about Harper and Harper’s mom, and how I had met Harper because of the blind date her mother had put us on.
“What a good woman,” Mrs. Elliot said as she clapped her hands together. “I wish I had been that close to my kids. I would love to have played a part in their happiness.”
“I’m torn right now,” I said. “It’s not entirely about Harper, but sort of. I mean, I thought things were going absolutely perfectly, but then life has to get in the way of things and make everything so complicated.”
“What’s wrong?” Mrs. Elliot asked, then she continued. “Life seems to be getting more complicated every year, but I’ve been around a few times. I might be able to give you a bit of advice on what I think you should do. But you should take it with a grain of salt, of course.”
I explained to her the situation with Abraham Mardquart and how the job offer came right at the time when I was starting to really think about moving forward with Harper. I had all but decided she was going to be my primary focus. My career was going very well, and I felt stable enough in that to start focusing on a relationship.
“And how has that been going since you were introduced by her mother – your patient?” Mrs. Elliot asked.
“It was awkward at first, I will admit, but I guess my other patient knew her daughter well enough to know she would go for something like that, and the two of us really hit it off. We’ve been seeing each other pretty regularly for the past couple months.”
“Do you see it going anywhere? Maybe getting her a ring for the holidays?” Mrs. Elliot asked.
I flushed. It was rare for me to be flustered by someone sitting in my office, but to ask if I was going to buy Harper a ring by Christmas put the entire thing in perspective for me, and I could almost see myself doing that very thing. I wasn’t sure how Harper would respond, but with how happy she seemed to be with how our relationship was going, perhaps she would be open to the idea.