They weren't ever really around, my parents, and so they stuck me in exactly the kind of school you're suggesting for Sophie. I hated it. I cried every time I went but it didn't matter. They sent me and I got punished, and no amount of pleading could get me out of it. When my dad died I was only six, and things got worse.
My mom was so sad but she wouldn't let me be. I had to grow up, to straighten myself out. I did it, but it was never a very pleasant experience. My mother, she was a very harsh woman, is a very harsh woman. I don't want that kind of environment for Sophie. Not ever."
"Of course you don't," I said quickly, eager to help him not to worry any more than he had to for his little girl. "I'll help her, David. She's a bright girl and I know I can teach her. And we'll have fun doing it."
"Thank you. Really, thank you."
He stood up then, shutting his eyes and grimacing. He was pale and it was clear that he was hurting. He looked down at me with a weak smile and I stood, unsure of what I should do.
"Speaking of my mother, she will be here tomorrow for dinner. I was wondering if you could attend as well, to help with Sophie."
"Sure, that's not a problem. She's my little buddy."
"That's good to hear, but I feel that I should warn you. My mom is a tough woman. She's difficult and, well, she's not the most tolerant person. I don't know how to put that delicately."
I wasn't afraid of David's mother. I always did like a challenge.
"Oh don't you worry about me, David," I said with a mischievous grin, "I'm pretty sure I can handle her."
"I bet you can. Alright, dinner, then. Now if you don't mind, I'll be heading off to bed. I've had a wicked headache all day and I can't seem to shake it. Migraines. A tough thing to beat."
I nodded in sympathetic understanding and sat back down in relief. It had been a good conversation, much better than I had expected it to be, but it was still stressful. Talking to David Wyatt felt like navigating a minefield. I was finally starting to feel a little bit better about him, though, enough to wonder if maybe everything that had happened to Nikki wasn't all his fault.
I felt that way right up until, halfway up the stairs, he pulled a little bottle of pills out of his pocket and popped a few into his mouth. That was what I had been looking for, right? Some kind of proof that he was a drug addicted negligent doctor leaving dead patients in his wake? So how come it felt so wrong to think that's what he was now? What the hell was I going to do?
Chapter Four
David
God, these headaches were starting to get brutal. They were bad enough that I had actually broken down and seen a doctor myself, which wasn't something I was prone to do. I was absolutely that doctor cliché. Do as I say and not as I do and all of that nonsense.
"It's stress, David, plain and simple. You've got to start taking care of yourself. You've had an unbelievably trying couple of years, everyone here knows that. You've got to start taking it a little bit easier, okay? Speaking of which, how's your leg doing? Still in pain?"
"It's fine. It hurts occasionally but I still have the prescription you gave me."
"Need me to put in another one for you?"
"No, thanks. I've still got plenty. I try not to use them any more than absolutely necessary."
The doc gave me a suspicious look so I shoved my hand down in my pocket and gave the bottle a little rattle. Sure, I carried them with me just in case, but they were a last resort. I may have been a doctor but I wasn't a fan of using medication myself.
"Alright, but take it easy, you hear me? You've got that little girl to think about now, too. Don't forget about that."
"Thanks for your time. I'll see you around."
That little girl. I had that little girl to take care of now. He was a nice man and he meant well, but did he really think I had forgotten about Sophie? Did he think that she had just slipped my mind the same way one might sometimes forget to feed their cat? She was my brother's daughter, for Christ's sake.
My brother. Just thinking about Mikey made my leg start to ache. I winced at the pain, shaking it out and waiting for the wave to pass. It was hard to tell if it was a legitimate pain or just a memory right now. Sometimes it hurt when I thought about him. Then again, when I thought about Mikey I hurt all over. Still, after almost two years.
Mikey was younger than me by a couple of years. Our relationship had always been an interesting one. He was pretty much brilliant, and in some ways he seemed like he was a decade older than me, maybe more.
In other ways, though, he was always a little bit of a child. He was a dreamer, my brother. Both the youngest and the top of his class in Yale Medical School. It was never about money for him though. He always wanted to do something great, something worthwhile.
My brother wanted to save the world from the time he was small up until the day he died. I almost believe he would have done it too, if things had happened differently. Not for the first time I thought to myself that the wrong brother had died. I was sure I wasn't the only one with that opinion.
"Don't you want to see them, Daddy?"
Shit, I cringed just thinking about it. I could still hear Sophie from way back when she first started talking, toddling up to Mikey and saying something very similar to that. He had handled it so much better than me. Infinitely better than me. I was never meant to father his daughter. I was nowhere near as good at it as he had been.
Those two had been made for each other. Even Anna, Mikey's wife, noticed it. Sophie had been a daddy's girl if ever there was one. From practically the day she was born she had wanted nothing more than to be right by his side. Hell, she looked exactly like him. I had to smile, thinking about how goofy the two of them had been together. It was true love, two perfectly matched quirky personalities.
It made it so much harder to take it when I heard her call me Daddy. I knew why she did it. It was the natural thing for her to do. She was still only four years old, still practically a baby, and I had a sinking fear that she remembered very little of her parents. That just about broke my heart, although it made me feel better to think that she probably didn't remember what happened either. Jesus, I wish I didn't remember it myself.
It was a camping trip. It was a vacation and it should have been fun. And it was, up until the end. Mikey and I didn't get to see each other nearly as much as I would have liked. We were just so busy all of the time, every day. We kept telling each other that we were going to make more time and when Anna insisted on taking Sophie on her first camping trip Mikey asked me to come along. How do you say no to a request like that from your kid brother? And I had barely even seen my own niece. This would be a good start. The whole thing was almost perfect.
"Dr. Wyatt? Everything okay?"
Crap, I needed to get out of this hospital. Now that I knew that there was pretty much nothing I could do about the headaches, because let's face it, everyone has stress and I was pretty sure mine wasn't going anywhere soon.
I knew the people around me meant well when they asked if I was alright, but I was just so tired of answering that question. I felt like it was the only question I had been answering for the past two years. I just wanted to get home. At least things felt like they were starting to get a little bit better on that front.
"Dr. Wyatt! David. How did everything go?"
I smiled at Kayla, happy to be asked something new. I liked the way she asked me, too. There was something about the tone in her voice, the expression on her face. When Kayla asked me how things went I could tell she was genuinely interested in the answer. That was something you got from a whole lot of people.
"It was alright. Fine, really."
"Did you learn anything useful?"
I laughed and rolled my eyes. It was always funny to me, being asked a question like that about my experience with another doctor. Especially when there was nothing of any use to report. This must be how other people felt when they left my office and didn't like what they heard. Maybe it was karma.
"Stress. Apparently it's no good."
She laughed, her striking green eyes shining with just a hint of mischief. I watched her intently, hoping she wouldn't notice that I was basically just staring at her. There was something about this girl.