Page 29 of A Lot Like Lavender
“She seems uncomfortable, but she isn’t waking up,” I say just loud enough for him to hear over the stethoscope hanging from his ears.
He nods, acknowledging me, but keeps his eyes closed,listening to her heart and lungs. When he’s satisfied with what he hears, Jordan dangles the tool from his neck then checks the IV he must have set up while in here earlier. It’s such a strange sensation to observe him in his natural habitat, seeing the switch between the man I’m not sure I recognize anymore to the version of him I remember.
Calculated and controlled. Reserved but intentional.
It’s a peculiar kind of comfort to have Jordan be the one to care for Pamela. To disagree with how I do things—where I choose to keep her or feed her—but to support me all the same.
It feels a lot like friendship. Shaky and uncertain, yes, but friendship all the same.
“It’s probably best if you call Mom or Bill,” he says apologetically. “I got approval to start her on a sedative earlier and will push a bit more, if you’ll allow me to, until one of them can get here, but I don’t think it will be long, Emory.”
“Will you…” I clear my throat, surprised at the sudden clarity I have about what will make the impossible night ahead of me, maybe, more bearable and, even more so, that I feel compelled to ask, “Will you stay, Jordan? I mean… since you’re here anyway, and I know Drs. Rafferty and Rafferty are busy and… you know me… kind of… or you used to and…”
“I’m Molly’s friend,” he interjects, saving me from further babbling.
I nod. “Right. Molly’s friend.”
“And, I’d really like to be here for her.”
“I think she’d really appreciate that.”
When Jordan’s hazel eyes find mine, he adds, “I want to be here for you both.”
In some ways, as he holds his breath waiting for aresponse, it feels like I’m seeing Jordan—my friend—for the first time since he left. He looks like the man I remember. The man who planted a tree in memory of my parents on the first anniversary of their death, though he’d never met them. Who, during our friendship, never missed a birthday or the opportunity to make small moments big. A ribbon cutting for our house closing. A publicroastwith our mutual friends for James’ twenty-second birthday. A pink party when we found out we were having a baby girl. Jordan waits with an unwavering patience, as kind and as earnest as he’s ever been, reminding me of the friend who, despite his own pain, held me on my worst day. And I feel that brittle piece of my heart that wants to stay hurt and angry with him begin to soften.
“Okay,” I agree, as if he were the one asking, and I think maybe he is. “And, as Pam’s vet, she’ll need you here… until the end.”
It’s a peace offering. Holding my palms open wide with nothing more than the chance to be here on another bad day.
He swallows and nods, accepting the unspoken terms. The opportunity to show up, and to stay. “Okay, Red.”
I don’t even argue about the nickname as our eyes stay locked in quiet agreement. An acknowledgement of our delicate truce.
Jordan can call me Red, and I get to decide which pieces of this farm he can be a part of. He’ll stay. I’ll try to trust him, and for a little while, maybe I won’t feel so alone. The air in the room is tense for an unknown measure of seconds before my alarm blares with the Jackson Five’s, “ABC.”
“Oh shoot! Molly!” I jump up, ready to race to the school where I should already be waiting on that cursed,concrete lawn for pickup. I’m stopped abruptly in my tracks, though, when Jordan’s hand wraps around my wrist, pulling me back.
“Why don’t you let me go and get her?” His fingers stay locked around my wrist, holding me in place. “You should stay here with Pam.”
“Actually,” I say, preemptive sadness washing over me. “Dinah and Jack agreed to take Molly when it was time. I’ll just call her now and she should be able to pick Molly up.”
“You aren’t going to let her say goodbye?”
“She doesn’t need to be here for this, Jordan,” I say, freeing my wrist from his grip as my defenses rise.
“Molly loves Pam, though. She talks about her all the time. She wants to be a vet one day. She should have the chance to?—”
“She’s lost enough.” I cut him off and take a step back, pulling my phone out to text Dinah with an update and my request then retreating to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” Jordan says, and his footsteps soon follow. “I don’t want to overstep, Emory. I just think?—”
“I’m Molly’s mom, Jordan. Me. Just me. I get to make the decision, and I say she shouldn’t be here to watch something she loves so much slip away. My daughter is not going to carry that loss around with her when I have the chance to protect her from it.”
“Emory,” he says with more conviction than I care to hear. “Molly will feel the weight of that loss, whether she’s here or not. But if she doesn’t get to say goodbye… Well…” He pauses, running his fingertips back and forth over his bottom lip. “I think… I know,” he amends, “she will always wish she had.”
Rather than answer him, I wrench open the refrigerator doors, feigning a search for something to scrounge togetherfor dinner. I’m not sure if Jordan remembers my cooking skills are limited to mac and cheese and fancy cereal night, so nothing in this fridge will help me. Really, I just need a minute. To process. To not feel entirely enraged at his intrusion, despite the truth that, I’m acutely aware, he understands more than most.
How dare Jordan give me advice? Unwanted advice. Dumb advice. A sprinkle of mansplaining about parenthood from a guy who doesn’t have children, coming in with advice he has no business giving. Especially when we had a truce, and I’d only just decided to extend the olive branch of peace between us. I hate that he offered it. I hate that it’s made me second guess myself. And I especially hate that the more Jordan’s words resonate, the more I think I agree with him.
