One Day in Apple Grove(4)
The sound of someone clearing his throat caught Jack’s attention. Joseph Mulcahy sat reading a magazine in the tiny waiting room.
Jack looked at his watch and then at Joe. “Am I late?”
Joe shook his head. “Nope, I’m early.”
Jack knew that the success of his father’s practice had been because it was based on mutual trust between doctor and patient. Jack planned to work hard to establish a similar trust with the townsfolk. He’d start with his high school lab partner’s father.
“What kind of pie did you have?” Joe asked.
Jack laughed. “Buttermilk. I haven’t had any since the last time I was home on leave.” Jack ushered Joe into one of the examining rooms. “Have a seat while I pull up your chart.” He turned on his computer, donned his white lab coat, and placed his stethoscope around his neck—he didn’t miss the flak jacket.
Jack slipped the blood pressure cuff on Joe’s arm and waited for the digital numbers to register.
Joe chuckled. “There was a time when your father used to pump up the cuff and use his stethoscope to check my pressure. Times sure have changed.”
Jack nodded. “But one thing remains the same: my dad and I care deeply about—and enjoy caring for—the good people of Apple Grove.” While he made notes to Joe’s chart, he asked, “Speaking of good people, how is Meg feeling?”
If Joe’s smile was any indication, she was doing just fine. “She’s gone from grim and green to glowing.”
Jack and Meg had been friends—treating each other like siblings—since they toddled together at their first Founder’s Day Picnic.
He smiled and said, “I’ve heard from my parents that she’s an amazing mom and that those twins of hers are keeping her busy. If you need me to butt heads with Meg about going back to her regular work schedule, you just let me know.”
Joe frowned. “She’s exhausted. But Dan’s keeping an eye on her, especially now that those little scamps of theirs are running her ragged and getting into everything.” He waited a moment or so before adding, “Dan Eagan’s a good man.” Joe paused and said, “If you want to keep up with your PT, Dan usually jogs every morning. I go with him a few times a week. Give him a call.”
Jack chuckled. “Hmmm, the patient giving the doctor advice, but I could use a jogging partner.” He cleared his throat and added, “My dad had good things to say about him and how easily he seemed to fit in from the moment he arrived. Mom couldn’t say enough about the way he rescued Charlie Doyle and Tommy Hawkins off the railroad trestle bridge.”
Joe looked up at Jack and asked, “Do you believe in fate?”
“With our Irish heritage, you need to ask?” Joe was still laughing when Jack said, “My dad wanted me to make sure you are getting in your daily walks and following the diet he gave you.” Joe’s heart attack scare a few years ago had Jack wishing he could have gone home to see for himself that his childhood friend’s father was recovering, but he was in the middle of his internship at the time.
The older man hesitated. “Not a big fan of green things.”
Jack tried to keep a straight face. He could take the green stuff or leave it, but he was at least twenty years younger and thirty pounds lighter than Joe.
“Start small and add dressing if it’s salad or a little bit of peanut butter if it’s celery.” When Joe frowned, Jack added, “I could insist on a stricter diet, higher in vegetables and fish—”
“I’ll give it another try, but I’m not promising anything.”
“Do it for yourself and your daughters, Joe,” Jack said quietly. “By the way, how are Cait and Grace doing?” He hadn’t seen either of Meg’s younger sisters in years. Cait had been eleven and Grace ten when he’d joined the navy, so if he had seen either one of them when he’d been on leave, he didn’t remember.
Joe snorted with laughter, a man’s man through and through. A former coast guardsman, he still ran a few times a week and wore his graying hair in military fashion: high and tight. “Driving me nuts, trying to keep me from my threat of running our handyman business again.”
“Mom said that you’d retired and turned everything over to your girls.” Jack pointed the tongue depressor at Joe. “Say ah.”
Joe did and Jack nodded. “Looks normal. I can have a talk with your daughters, but I might not recognize them if they walked past me on the sidewalk.”
Joe chuckled. “They’re hard to miss. Almost half a foot taller than Meg—close to five feet eight—and both strawberry blonde, like their mother, with green eyes.”