When We're Thirty Casey Dembowski (the chimp paradox .TXT) 📖

“I can hear you thinking all the way over here,” she said, closing her eyes for the briefest of moments.

“Right,” he said, clearing his throat. “I just wanted to thank you, really.”

She sat up too quickly, and all the blood fled from her head. She kept her eyes closed until her equilibrium returned. When she opened them, Daniel stared back at her, an amused expression on his face.

“Thank me?” she said after another moment.

“Listen, I don’t know why you and Will got married. Maybe it was because you needed this appointment.” He held up his hand as she started to protest. “I was there after everything happened. There is no way he met you and fell in love the way you two said. When you supposedly ran into each other, Will was so drunk every day he could hardly function.”

There was no proper response to that, so she remained silent, lacing and unlacing her fingers. She knew things had been bad, but hearing it outright from someone besides Will made her heart ache for him.

“I don’t need to know why,” Daniel said, looking up at her. “That’s between you and Will. But whatever your reasons, you make him happy. And in a real way. You’ve brought him back to us.”

“He makes me happy too,” she said, her cheeks heating up to what had to be a flaming red.

“I can see that,” he said warmly.

The door to the exam room opened, and Dr. Annabelle swept into the office. And he was younger than she expected for someone who Daniel called his mentor. He was most likely in his midforties, dark skinned, with close-cropped hair and a verifiable goatee. A gold wedding band gleamed on his left ring finger every time he flipped a page in her chart.

“I was able to get ahold of your old scans,” he said, finally looking up at her. His smile was friendly and comforting. She took that as a good sign. Her old doctors had been all serious faces and grimaces.

He held up the scan she had memorized after the accident. “What do you see, Dr. Thorne?”

“Grade two, maybe three.” Daniel stood and pointed at a spot on the scan. “I would’ve recommended a closer look with the possibility of surgery.”

She looked between the two of them, waiting for the bad news to drop. Surgery would get her back on her feet in the long-term. It would also prohibit her from attending concerts for the foreseeable future. She had avoided acknowledging that for too long.

“This is your scan from today,” he said, holding it up.

Her breath caught in her chest. Even to her untrained eye, it looked better—not healed, but the tear wasn’t as defined. She’d felt the difference in her time with Madison but assumed it was simply because she was working it out consistently rather than breaking out her TheraBand when it rained.

“Wow.”

“Wow, indeed, Ms. Abbott,” Dr. Annabelle said with another smile. “Dr. Thorne tells me you’ve been working with a physical therapist?”

Hannah nodded. “For over two months now.”

“Let’s continue that,” he said, typing something into the tablet hidden under her chart. “But pending any further injury, I think your knee will heal itself with proper rehabilitation.”

“So I don’t need surgery?”

“Tentatively, no. I’m comfortable, if you are, with you continuing to work with your PT, and we can revisit this in three months.”

Hannah’s heart raced. She didn’t need surgery. At least not yet. “Can I run?”

He paused for a moment then nodded. “I wouldn’t run a marathon or even a 10K, but yes, if you take it easy, I think you can work a run or two into your weekly routine. Dr. Thorne can go into further details with you.”

Daniel put a hand on her shoulder once Dr. Annabelle left the room. “We’ll have you out on our Saturday-morning run in no time.”

She grinned. “Will said no girls allowed.”

“True, girls have cooties,” Daniel said, cringing at her.

She poked him. “Oops, now you do too.”

RILEY, DANNY, AND THE girls lived in a Park Slope brownstone. It was just big enough for the four of them if Cecilia and Jo shared a room. Riley had talked about upgrading, but that would mean moving to the suburbs, and they were city dwellers through and through. At least that’s how Hannah always imagined them. Though even household meetings in Westchester would be preferable to making the trek to Brooklyn.

She pulled a note off the door of the brownstone. If you ring the doorbell and wake the baby, I will kill you.

Hopefully, this was intended for Hannah and not some poor, unsuspecting deliveryman. The knob turned easily. She taped the note back to the door and peeked around the block. There was no sign of a delivery truck of any type. Hannah did not want to be in the house if someone rang that bell, especially if she was the one who took the note down. She’d experienced Riley during the newborn phase, and now she had a toddler as well. The click of the door was barely audible, but Riley stuck her head out of her office, which was right off the front hall and far away from Jo’s room.

“Sorry for the death threat,” Riley said. “We’ve got those damn cable salesmen wandering around. Yesterday, they rang the bell three times.”

“That’s persistent.” Hannah fell back onto the couch and tucked her feet up under her.

“So, is surgery in your future?” Riley asked, glancing from Hannah’s knee to her face.

“Definitely not in the next three months,” Hannah said, still not quite believing it. She knew her expression must match all the grinning emojis in her texts from Will, Kate, and Madison. “After everything, my knee has started to heal.”

“That’s amazing. And how’s married life?”

Hannah narrowed her eyes at her boss. “We’re great, but please tell me you didn’t make me come all the way to Brooklyn so we could talk guys.”

“All that banter and no time for chitchat.” Riley shook her head. “I have some