Been There Done That (Leffersbee #1) - Hope Ellis Page 0,62

clammy. I’d been terrified she’d end up on the Wall of Remembrance like so many women before her. She’d pulled through it, thank God. But we’d kept going to those meetings. I’d been horrified to hear how helpless those women felt during their clinic visits. How fear clotted their throats and left them mute, unable to ask the questions that burned in their hearts and minds during preceding sleepless nights. How many of them hadn’t had anyone to go to their visits with them, and often didn’t remember what was discussed afterwards. How they felt small and ashamed in those moments because of their lack of education or ability to articulate their concerns. Even worse, the cold resignation and anger when residents, fellows, and oncologists spent the entire visit with their hand on the doorknob and spouted technical jargon they couldn’t understand. Further research exposed me to the dilemma of physician burnout, and all the systemic constraints that challenged physicians’ ability to deliver care. I’d been moved by patients’ and physicians’ stories, and unexpectedly galvanized into action. The experience had changed me, and the course of my life.

I’d thought it was what I wanted. Probably, at the time, it was what I wanted.

But it all just weighed on me now.

“Hear me,” Mama said, disrupting my inner thoughts. “If the life you’ve made for yourself doesn’t fit anymore, change it. I can’t give you a promissory note for how long I’ll live, and if you’re doing something that doesn’t excite you anymore . . . Well, that’s not good, even if it’s an honorable thing. And,” she gripped my hand as she stared steadily at me, “your sacrifice won’t keep me here. Your life, this life you have, it’s yours. Do you hear me? Make the most of it, and do what makes you happy.”

Our gazes clung as she stared at me meaningfully.

“Alright, Mama,” I said, then busied myself stuffing my cinnamon roll in my mouth and fleeing.

It just didn’t feel like the right time to mention Nick was back in town.

I watched my sister’s loose-limbed stride across the busy restaurant and marveled that we were, in fact, twins. It seemed inconceivable that we’d once waved to each other across the darkness of our mother’s womb with the same tiny, star-shaped hands. It seemed more likely we were from warring intergalactic tribes.

But the force of nature advancing toward me was indeed my twin sister. My younger sister, technically, although she’d been born with a two-pound advantage. Brimming with her usual caged, restive energy, Tavia dropped into the booth across from me.

She wore a stylish, one-piece jumper that flattered her leanness. I’d absorbed enough of her style advice to recognize the outfit and jewelry would easily transition to an evening out. Whereas the idea of nightly networking dinners and empty small talk at parties automatically set my teeth on edge, Tavia thrived on social interaction.

She pushed a hand through the layers of her perfectly coiffed extensions, her dark eyes moving over me as she settled into the opposite side of the booth. I’d barely registered her windblown arrival before she tossed questions across the table like handfuls of bright confetti.

“So, is that what you’re doing with your hair now? From now on? Really? Why’d you wanna come here? We could have tried the new Mediterranean restaurant up the street. Walker loves it, but you know it doesn’t take much to make Walker happy. Why are you dressed like that? Did someone die?”

I blinked down at my black T-shirt and jeans. “Hello to you, too, Octavia.”

She frowned, already perusing the menu in front of her. “You know I don’t like it when you call me that.”

“Uh-huh. ‘Cause I just love your ongoing commentary about my appearance.”

Dang. Okay, I fully admit it, I’d thrown a little kindling on what had the potential to become a brushfire of a conversation. But I was just so damn tired.

She flicked another glance in my direction. “I’m just saying, you look like the Supremes are about to sing back up for you. Your hair could use some deep conditioning and shaping, and it’d be great to see you in something that showed your shape while not absorbing all the other colors in the light spectrum. But hey. If you like it . . .”

I’m just saying. The three words that most often accompanied her opening salvos.

Ladies and gentlemen . . . we’re off.

I suppressed a sigh, one hand rising to pat my wild mane of curls. In truth,