Page 31 of The Do-Over
“Alive, thanks to you,” his mother said. “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Cathy Prentiss.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she countered. “I think of you all the time. My son is home with me and doing well thanks to your help. I heard they gave you some kind of award, isn’t that right?”
Rob nodded. It was one of several awards he’d received for his service. He felt a little uncomfortable talking about them—he didn’t do what he did to win prizes. “The real reward is the fact that Zachary is doing so well,” he told her. “It’s really good to see you, and to hear about him. I hope you’ll pass along my regards.”
“I definitely will.”
“And if he needs anything, he’s always welcome to come by the office,” Rob said.
He finished his sandwich and took his drink back across the street to the office, sipping it as he went and thinking about how strange it was that he was so well known for two such different things. When someone approached him, he could never be sure if they were going to want to hear about his basketball days or if they were going to want to talk about some medical service he had done for a loved one.
I’ve been really lucky in my life,he reflected. Ever since I left Deer Ridge, things have really started to go my way.
And, briefly, he wondered what his father would say if he could see him now.
It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered about this. It was hard not to. Harder still was working out what he would want his father to feel. Of course, most of him enjoyed the idea of rubbing his success in his father’s face—the man had never liked him, had never thought he would amount to anything much, and he’d been dead wrong. But there was also a part of Rob that still longed for some parental approval.
He didn’t even remember his mother. She’d died when he was just a baby. His father had always been the only one Rob had had.
And now he was gone too.
I don’t need him. I don’t need him to validate the life I’m living. There’s nothing he could say that would make me more aware of how great everything’s been for me.
He nodded, satisfied with that conclusion. He didn’t need his father’s approval, and he also didn’t need his stunned disbelief that the son he’d written off and abused had made a success of himself. In fact, it was better that his father wasn’t here to see it. He had always poisoned everything he’d touched.
Marcus Winter, an Air Force veteran, was sitting in the waiting room when Rob returned. Rob had never tended to him while he was on active duty, but he had been seeing the man for several years, monitoring some joint damage from an old wound.
“You can come on back, Marcus,” he said. He liked to be informal with his long-standing patients. He thought it made them feel more at ease, which was something he wanted to cultivate.
He led Marcus back to an exam room and went through the motions of checking out his injury. Actually, he thought, these appointments were more about giving Marcus a routine than anything else. Not much was changing with his injury at this stage, but the old man needed to know that someone was paying attention. Rob asked questions about his life, and he smiled gratefully and answered them.
Afterward, when he had left, Jenny handed him a piece of paper. “This was faxed over while you were at lunch,” she said. “It didn’t seem urgent, so I thought I’d let you take Mr. Winter first.”
Rob nodded his approval of her choice and skimmed the paper.
“They want to give me the Award for Achievements in Military Medicine,” he said.
She laughed. “There’s an award you don’t have already?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, congratulations!” Jenny said, then frowned. “You don’t look happy.”
“No, I am,” he said. “It’s just…it looks like I have to go back to my hometown to receive it.”
Back to Deer Ridge. It had been years.
But it would be ungrateful to turn it down.
He handed the fax back to Jenny. “Will you make the arrangements?”
She nodded. “I’ll get right on it.”
