are you doing in New Orleans anyway?” I didn’t want to ask, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Would you believe, looking for you?”
“No.” I stared him straight in the eye. “I wouldn’t.”
He shrugged, then laughed. “Okay, okay. I came here to work at the casino. But I was going to look you up. That’s not a lie. Just my luck I arrive a week before damned Katrina.”
“Why would you look me up, Tom? To talk about the good old days?” I tossed his bloody sock into a trash bin. “As far as I’m concerned, you and I didn’t have any good old days.”
“That’s not true. That’s not true! We were in love once. You gotta remember that.”
I remembered. He’d been charming and funny and attentive, the kind of man I’d never dreamed I could have. A guy who drove a BMW, dressed like a movie star and had a great job and a great future. “I’m afraid that love died when I finally saw the real you. Look, Tom. Let’s not rehash all that. You’re hurt, I’m a nurse. Let me do my job so you can get back to your life while I get on with mine.”
“What life?” he asked. “There’s no job for me in New Orleans anymore. Katrina flushed that down the toilet. And I bet you’re not getting paid to work here. Are you?”
“It’s called volunteerism. Helping people because you can, not because you’re getting paid to do it.”
He smiled. “The same old Janie. A do-gooder to the end.”
That’s when Ben walked in. “Everything okay in here?” He gave me a look that said Tess had told him who Tom was.
“It’s a puncture wound. Pretty deep. I’ve irrigated it, and still need to check for foreign objects.”
Ben shone a light into the wound. “Looks pretty clean. You had a tetanus shot in the last five years?”
Tom shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Give him the shot and finish cleaning him up. It doesn’t look like you’ll need more than two or three sutures. Okay?” he said to me.
“Fine. No problem.”
To Tom he said, “Stay off that foot. Keep it clean and elevated. If you stay in New Orleans, come back in ten days and we’ll remove the sutures. Otherwise find a clinic or doctor who can do it for you.”
Tom watched Ben leave, then turned to me as I laid out instruments on a tray. “Who’s he? Your boyfriend?”
I shot him a sidelong look. “Don’t I wish. But no, he’s just a first-rate doctor working miracles under really primitive conditions.”
“Yeah. Well, you always were a damned good nurse. But I’d heard you quit nursing.”
How would he know that? “I branched out for a while,” I said, carefully picking my words. “But after the storm I got drafted to work here.”
“Good thing for me. So, where are you staying?”
“With the rest of the nurses,” I lied. I knew Tom Kinkaid. He’d try to wheedle his way into my apartment if he knew it was still intact.
“I was at the Convention Center. My short stay in hell. Man, that was insane. It made prison seem like a holiday. Now I’m crashing in the back room of a bar on Decatur Street where one of my buddies—”
“This is going to sting,” I interrupted him.
“Damn!” he yelped when I gave him a shot to deaden the area.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes to suture you,” I said. Then I left.
“Your ex,” Tess said when she saw me. “What are the chances of that happening?”
“I know. But I’m kind of glad,” I added. “I’ve hated him for such a long time. But now…” I shook my head. “Now he’s just this slick, fast-talking guy I used to know. Like he’s from another time, another life.”
She grinned and nudged me with her elbow. “I believe it’s called closure.”
Closure. One of those feel-good, Dr. Phil words that I usually rolled my eyes at. But not this time. This time Tess was right. Seeing Tom, seeing how he’d aged, how pathetic he was, somehow drained away all the resentments I’d held against him. I didn’t hate him anymore. All I felt was a sort of pity, and a weird kind of sadness—mainly for myself—that I’d wasted six long years on him. The best years of my life, as they say.
Admittedly, it had all been downhill since then.
But I wasn’t going to dwell on that. One day at a time…
I guess the closure thing worked because twenty minutes later when I sent him on his way, I actually felt better, as if I’d lost this heavy weight I hadn’t even known I was lugging around.
“I’ll see you around, Jane,” he said as he limped away with his injured foot wrapped in a plastic bag—we had to improvise any way we could—and carrying his fine leather shoe in one hand. “I’m going to split for Atlanta, I think. But I’ll be back some day. No hard feelings, I hope.”
I actually managed a smile. “No hard feelings.”
I felt really good after that. Around noon, Sarah came by with Red Cross lunches for everyone and we ate in shifts. When Ben sought me out and sat beside me in a patch of shade, I felt even better.
“I’m fine,” I said before he could ask. “We were divorced years ago. And you know what? I’m glad I saw him. I’m not even angry with him anymore.”
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