“You’ve put yourself in a time-out,” Dr. Walsh said.
He could see Nora gearing up to protest, but she cracked a smile instead. “That’s actually exactly right. I’ve been thinking of it more as a palate cleanser, or a life reset, but time-out works, too.”
“That’s all fine and good,” Erin said, pointing mock-sternly at Nora. “But don’t forget the other point of being here. Saving money. Have your woo-woo feelings, but save your pennies while you’re doing it.”
“Right.” Nora turned to Jake. “My sister and her kids and I are going to get a house together in a couple years.”
He remembered that from the salon, from the first day they’d met.
“Now that she doesn’t have to live with Doofus—oops, I mean Rufus—anymore, we’re going to pool our resources,” Erin said.
“My grandma lived next door to us when we were kids.” Nora cuddled up to her grandma on the sofa. “So we’re into the whole extended-family-in-close-proximity thing.”
Dr. Walsh smirked as she kissed Nora’s head. “This is the part where I should probably invite you girls to move in with me, but my condo is small, and honestly, I got the whole extended-family-in-close-proximity thing out of my system.”
Erin shook her head affectionately. “I hate to be the party pooper, but we should go.” She turned to her grandmother. “You have your group this evening.”
“Cancer survivors support group,” Dr. Walsh said to Jake. She rolled her eyes. “Honestly. In my day they cut out your tumor, blasted you with chemo, and called it a day. Now, they want you to talk about your feelings nonstop.”
“My mom died of cancer,” he said. Because apparently the Walsh family had the effect of making him blurt out his tales of woe and dead relatives.
“What kind?” Dr. Walsh asked.
“Breast.”
She nodded. “Same here. It’s a bitch.”
“It really is.” He still remembered the cutting news of his mom’s diagnosis, coming so soon after Jude died. Grief layered on grief.
“All right, Mr. Pack Mule Knight in Shining Armor.” Dr. Walsh held her arms out to him. “Get me out of here. I have to go talk about my feelings about my missing boobs.”
He chuckled and did as she asked. Erin ran ahead and opened the car door. Just as he was about to set Dr. Walsh on her feet, she tugged his head down so his ear was next to her mouth.
“She’s not as tough as she seems. You take care of her, okay, Jake?”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “You got it.”
Nora jogged down the steps, and hugs and farewells were exchanged. Soon she was waving at the car as it backed out of the driveway.
“Sorry,” she said. “My grandmother is a force.”
“Nah, she’s great.”
“She is great. Honestly, I think I miss her more than anyone else in Toronto. She was widowed early—that’s why she lived with us when I was growing up. So she was like a second mother. Except, you know, the kind who made you practice stitches on a banana when you were eleven.”
The car disappeared around a corner at the end of the block, and Nora turned back to the house. “What do you say we splash some bourbon into that lemonade and sit for a bit?”
“I say that sounds like a great idea.”
Once they were settled on the deck, she heaved a sigh. “Oh my God, I’m exhausted. I had no idea getting the clinic ready was going to be such a production.” She suddenly perked up. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“I was telling Karl Andersen about the chair we painted, saying how well it turned out and how I wished I had another one, because one chair is sort of sad. Well, he shows up early this morning with another one! Like, not exactly the same kind, but same vintage, you know? Metal, with those swooshy armrest things. I left it at the clinic because I had my sister and grandma arriving, but I’m totally going to paint it to match that one”—she pointed—“now that I know how.”
“You remember when you asked me why everyone was being so nice to you?” he asked, thinking back to his aborted trip to the bar a week ago. “You asked me what the catch was. The catch is that a large proportion of this town will be all up in your business the moment you give them an inch.”
“Yeah, I heard. I also heard that one of these meddlers is your dad.”
“My dad is like one of those old guys who retired and didn’t know what