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CHAPTER FOUR

ADJUSTMENT

JAX

M onday morning, Mom comes over and I leave the girls in her capable hands to get them up and ready for the school day. Scooping a handful of letters out of the printer in my home office, I shove them down in my work bag before heading to the office complex near the hospital. Nina, our office manager, greets me as I walk into the office, handing me my patient files for the day, and the weight of what I’m about to do hits me like a brick.

“Staff meeting in ten,” Erin calls as I head toward my office. Staff meeting, meaning Nate and me, Erin, Nina, and our handful of nurses and techs gathering to talk through the week ahead. It also means a few minutes alone with Nate. I sink into the chair behind my desk and my eye is immediately drawn to the picture of my girls, and the weight of what I’m about to do is lifted. Because I’m doing it for them. Gathering my notes for the meeting, and the letters from my bag, I come across another paper that was in the printer.

Mackenzie’s soccer schedule. Mackenzie has been expressing interest in playing on a youth soccer team for years, and I finally signed her up a few months ago. Trying to figure out how to make my schedule match up with her game and practice schedule, wrangling family members into attending practices and games and taking care of transportation when I can’t be there was easier than I thought it would be, but so far I haven’t been able to attend a game yet and we’re nearing the end of the season.

I quickly grab the schedule and tuck it alongside the letters I wrote, and oddly the schedule gives me the courage I need to have the conversation with Nate, who I bump into in the hallway on the way to the conference room.

“Do you and Erin have a few minutes after this meeting?”

“Sure do. What’s up?”

“Nothing that can’t wait until after staff.”

“Sounds good.”

Nina runs the meeting, as she does every week, and when she’s done, I follow Nate down the hall to his office, with Erin on our heels. This weekend with James and Amanda was eye-opening. I had nothing but time with the girls, who were thrilled to spend the weekend with their Aunt and Uncle but didn’t want me out of their sight. So while they camped out on the living room floor, I crashed in the guest room upstairs, and we spent our days on the boat with James while his staff covered the shop and Amanda worked, and we cooked out with Mom and Dad at night.

Jake, Penelope, and their girls are in town so my kids got to see their cousins, and I got to see my nieces. I’ve had nothing but time to think about this, and I know it’s the right decision for me. I reach for the letters I have stashed in the pocket of my jacket, and take out the soccer schedule instead, laying it on the desk between us.

“Are we…playing youth soccer?” Nate asks with a lopsided smile as he reads the form and puts it down on the completely un-cluttered surface of his desk.

“No. But Mackenzie is. I’ve had her schedule sitting in my printer for a week while I tried to figure out a way to be present for Mackenzie and Alice. And I think I’ve finally come up with a solution.”

“You know,” Nate leans back and kicks his feet up on the edge of his desk, “the night that we stayed with the girls, before the floor turned to lava, they were upset to see you leave. Mackenzie turned on Jake’s show and settled into the couch with Alice, as if Erin and I weren’t there. They didn’t need us, because they had each other. But they missed you, that much was obvious. Erin told me that this conversation might only be a matter of time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?” He counters with another lopsided smile and a raised eyebrow. “Because I’m ready to hear whatever you’re proposing.”

“I’m starting to realize that I’m not being the best dad that I can be to my daughters.” I chose obstetrics as my specialty because after years of being a combat medic in the Marine Corps, I wanted to bring life into the world, be a part of families' happiest moments. Sure, there is still a lot of loss in this field, but nothing like what I saw. However, the hours are unpredictable; when I’m not in the office seeing patients, I’m called to the hospital for deliveries and emergencies and more false labors than I care to talk about. I’ve missed school concerts and parent teacher conferences and am rarely home to put my girls on the bus or pick them up in the afternoon. “Nate, I need to be Dad. And I don’t feel like I’m able to right now. I don’t think I have in a while, actually.”

“So we reduce your hours,” Nate replies without hesitation. “We set strict nine to…when do the girls get out of school?”

“Dismissal is at three.”

“Nine to two-thirty. Strict , nine to two-thirty hours. I’ll tell Nina that you can no longer take appointments after one in the afternoon. And as far as on-call hours, one day. Twenty-four hours. If a patient goes into labor outside of your on-call hours, Erin or I will take it.”

“That’s not going to work, Nate. You and Erin can’t do all the on-calls.”

“I know that. We’ve been talking about adding a fourth to the practice. We find someone willing to be on call an extra couple days. Someone that our patients can trust to be there for them when needed. But, I’m making the executive decision that your new hours start today. Any appointments that you have after one o’clock today are mine now, and you’ll be going home.”

“Thank you Nate.”

“One more thing,” Erin stops me as I push myself out of the chair across from Nate’s desk, a stern look on her face. “Absolutely no weekends.”

“You’re sure?’

“Positive.”

“I don’t deserve you. Either of you.”

“Of course you don’t,” Nate grins.

My caseload has me in and out of the hospital today with one delivery and a couple of admitted patients, and I find myself with a spring in my step that I haven’t had in a long time. I’m looking forward to dinner at Mom and Dad’s and baseball with James and the team afterward. But more than anything, I’m looking forward to going home with my daughters at the end of the day.

Mackenzie is kicking a soccer ball around in the grass with Jake when I pull up to the house, and she runs to me as I get out of the car. I press a kiss to the top of her head before grabbing the bags from the backseat of my car, and heading into the house where Alice greets me at the door with a hug around my legs. Shifting my bags to one arm, I lean down and scoop Alice up into my open arm and plant a kiss on her cheek as I walk toward the kitchen where I find the rest of the family.

After depositing Alice on a stool next to Mandy, I drop my bags on the counter where Mom and Dad are prepping dinner with help from Penelope. In the bags I have two four packs of Penelope’s favorite ginger ale, a new book for Alice that I’ll give her later, and a celebratory cake because sometimes you need a dose of store-bought frosting. James spots me from his perch on the deck, eyebrow quirking in my direction; snagging two long-neck bottles of ginger ale, I step outside and hand one to him. He twists off the top of his, and I do the same, holding my bottle out in a toast.

“Here’s to reduced hours, one on-call day a week, and the best part of the deal? No weekends.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I talked to Nate today, and can’t even begin to thank you for giving me the kick in the pants that I needed to take this step.”

“Jax, after everything you’ve done for me over the years, I’m glad that I can finally help you.”

“What do you mean finally? James, you’ve been helping me everyday since Angela left. You’ve helped raise my kids, that’s not nothing.” I wrap my arms around my brother and pull him into a tight hug as he squeezes me back.

“Dinner’s ready,” Mom pokes her head out the door and scrutinizes us with a very Mom look, before stepping outside and cornering us. “Okay. Spill.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say at the same time that James cracks like an egg.

“Jax is working new hours so that he can spend more time with the girls and, by extension, us. ”

James could never hold up to Mom’s interrogations. When we were kids, he sold the rest of us out each and every time, and clearly nothing has changed. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“So we’re celebrating?” Mom asks.

“Definitely.” I answer with a kiss on her cheek as we make our way back into the house to join the family for dinner where I sit between my girls and laugh with my family, feeling, for the first time, like a weight has been lifted. And after dinner, as a family, we head to the ball field.

James and I are selected as captains for tonight’s game, as friends and family line the grass behind the fences, ready to watch our rag-tag group of veterans divide up and play against each other. Mandy sits on the bench with a scorebook in her lap, and Penelope sits beside her to call out any plays that Mandy misses while making her notations. Jake is behind the plate, calling balls and strikes, and after a hearty ‘play ball’ from Alice, the game is underway.

I take the mound and put everything I have into my pitch, throwing it right over the heart of the plate, and give Jake a pass when he calls it a ball, but don’t have the same grace the next inning when he does the same thing.

“That was a strike!” I shout as I reset on the mound and Jake hits me with a stern ‘don’t argue with me’ look. And I wouldn’t argue with him, except that in the next half inning he calls the same pitch a strike when James throws it. This could very easily turn into a family feud if I’m not careful, but Jake is clearly calling this game in favor of James and his team.

I’d rather have Penelope behind the plate calling the game, but she has her hands full with Leigh and Junie, which is fine, I guess, but she has a better eye than her husband. And tends to have a more consistent strikezone. Every now and then Mandy will offer advice to our hitters on how to adjust their swing, no doubt using tips that she picked up from her time working for Seattle’s baseball team; she distributes her tidbits of wisdom equally to both teams, as she continues to diligently score the game.

My next time on the mound, I’m distracted by a shock of mahogany hair in the crowd, but more than that, it's the bright, almost fluorescent green jersey that gets my attention. The same jersey I saw in the outfield last weekend. Emma stands back, away from the assembled crowd, watching the action on the field, I’d like to think she’s watching me. I wind up and fire a pitch right over the heart of the plate, but my reaction time is slow, and I can’t get out of the way of the line drive. The next thing I know I’m flat on my back on the pitcher’s mound.