Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“I know your father is adamant that you boys shouldn’t be seeing women in the hospital, but that’s how we met.”
I nodded. I’d heard the story a thousand times. “I know, Mum.”
“Your father and I gave that advice to you and your brothers when you were all young and . . .” She raised her eyes to the ceiling and shook her head. “Having fun.”
“I know, Mum. Like I said, Sutton and I met before either of us knew we were working at the same hospital.”
She reached over and peeled my hand from my mug of finished tea, grasping it between her own. “I’m not criticizing you. I’m saying, you’re not a boy anymore. You’re a thirty-six-year-old, accomplished, caring doctor.”
Accomplished? Not compared to her and Dad.
“And you and Sutton seemed like . . . a good match.”
I groaned and pulled my hand away. I didn’t want to hear about how well-matched Sutton and I were.
“Jacob, I’m saying in your circumstances—where two people are serious about each other—it’s different.”
“We’ve been dating a couple of months. Things were good but who knows if we were serious. What I do know is that I’m not going to be promoted to head of the foundation program if I’m sleeping with one of the foundation doctors.”
“Well, I have two things to say about that. First, it doesn’t take more than a couple of months to understand if someone is right for you. I knew I was going to marry your father the night I met him.”
A pressure released from my chest as my mother spoke, like a restrictive dressing had just been cut away, the wound beneath it healed. Sutton felt right for me. I’d known it since that first evening we’d spent drinking tequila and sharing our lives. Sutton had been different from the start.
It was confirmed when I couldn’t stay away from her. Yes, we had a physical attraction stronger than my will, but it was more than that. I admired her. Respected her. I wanted to make her happy and make her smile. I wanted to share every part of my day, every thought, every moment with her. “What was the second thing?”
“There will be another promotion. One that doesn’t involve the foundation program.”
“I’ve been working toward that promotion for as long as I can remember.”
She sighed, pulled her hand away, and stood. “You know your father and I never planned out our careers like this. We did what interested us. Some decisions led us down dead ends, but at least we enjoyed the day-to-day. Other decisions led to fantastic opportunities.”
“I get that, Mum, but honestly, things are different now. I’m your son. People’s eyes are on me. I can’t make mistakes and go down the wrong route. But if I make the right choices . . .” I didn’t want to hurt her. It wasn’t a bad thing that she and my father had had such distinguished careers. It just meant it was harder for me to establish myself in my own right. “I need to make the right choices.”
She pulled out a bowl of cold roast potatoes from the fridge and set them on the table. Not even my favorite thing my mother cooked could encourage me to eat at the moment.
“Have you ever considered why your brothers aren’t as . . . careful as you are, despite them also being our sons?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re telling me you have to make the right choice, that people are watching you because you’re a Cove, but none of your brothers feel like that as far as I’m aware.”
“They’re not at the same stage in their careers.”
She pushed her lips together in the way she did when she didn’t agree with what you were saying but didn’t want to make a thing out of it. “You’ve always been the same. A total overachiever, but somehow you don’t see it.” She shook her head and her eyes dropped to her lap. “I feel like I’ve failed you.”
“Mum,” I said, shuffling my chair around to hers and putting my arm around her shoulders. “You’ve done anything but fail me. How you brought the five of us up and had the career you did, I have no idea. Dad wasn’t much help.”
She laughed. “When you were growing up, your father was . . . He was in a very high-pressure job, as the Chief Medical Officer. It didn’t leave much room for family time.”
“I don’t remember him much back then, if I’m honest.” That wasn’t quite true. I remember when he was around, he was grumpy and used to bark instructions at me. I remember being pleased he was gone a lot. I remember thinking that no matter what I did, it wasn’t good enough. There were no big rows or falling out. Just questions about what I’d gotten wrong when I’d come second in the school in my chemistry exam at sixteen. Remarks about how there was always room to do better when I’d got a biology prize at fourteen. And then of course, the merciless teasing from the entire family when I was at university and I made millions from designing and selling a female urinal that got sold to hospitals and care homes worldwide.