Dr. Walsh surveyed the space with narrowed eyes. “What a dump.”
“Thanks, Grandma,” Nora said with affection in her voice. She turned to Jake. “My grandma is not known for suffering fools.”
“When you suffer fools, you suffer,” Dr. Walsh said. “And who wants to suffer?”
“Amen. And here’s to not suffering any more fools,” Erin said with a pointed look at Nora.
“Yeah, yeah,” Nora said, and he could only surmise that they were talking about her ex.
“Don’t worry, Dr. Walsh,” he said, “I’m going to help your granddaughter get this place into better shape.”
“I like him,” she said, pointing to him but speaking to Nora, who was headed for the kitchen. “Just this morning the UPS guy called me Penny. Can you imagine? I had to correct him. I earned my title.”
“Our grandma graduated from medical school in 1962,” Erin said. “She was one of Canada’s first female cardiac surgeons. There’s even a procedure named after her.”
“The Walsh repair,” Dr. Walsh said. “It’s a particular suturing technique for valve replacements.”
“That’s impressive. Clearly you inspired your granddaughter.”
“Nah,” Nora called from the kitchen. “Grandma is not impressed with family medicine. Real doctors cut people up.”
“That’s right!” Dr. Walsh yelled, even as she smiled at him and shook her head to show she was teasing. “My son—these girls’ dad—is a doctor, too. So is their older brother.”
“Wow. And what about you?” Jake asked Erin. “Did you go into the family business, too?”
“Heck, no,” Erin said. “I’m an accountant.”
“Every family needs its black sheep.” Dr. Walsh patted her granddaughter’s hand.
The affection among the three women was palpable, even as they razzed each other. It made Jake smile. It reminded him a little of the happy days of his childhood, when his mom had been alive and his brother still lived in town. They hadn’t been as snarky-smart as this family, but they’d known how to have fun, passing long, happy summer days in the cove.
He had been so looking forward to Jude getting older, so they could have adventures, too. Inside jokes.
Sadness settled on him like a blanket. But in so doing, it made him realize that it hadn’t been there earlier. He and Mick had passed an hour without him thinking about Jude.
He…didn’t know how to feel about that.
Nora appeared from the kitchen with a stack of glasses and a container from the town’s famous beachside lemonade stand. “Jake, you want to join us for some lemonade? We stopped at Legg’s in our outings today.”
He started to demur, but Dr. Walsh the elder patted the sofa next to her. “You might as well stay. You’re going to have to heft me down those stairs in about ten minutes.”
He sat and accepted a glass of lemonade from Nora.
“So,” her grandma said. “Is this thing you two have going a romantic thing?”
Nora choked on her lemonade and started coughing. “Oh my God, no.”
“Sexual?”
“Grandma.”
“What? I’m just asking.”
“Grandma, I just got out of a five-year relationship.”
“With an asshole.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Maybe you get over assholes faster.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I never dated any assholes.”
“Okay,” Erin said to Dr. Walsh. “Down, girl.”
“We’re just friends, Dr. Walsh,” Jake said.
He paused to consider that he hadn’t made a new friend in years. And that he hadn’t had sex since Kerrie.
He hadn’t thought he was in the market for either of those things. But look at him now: he had a new friend.
“Anyway, I told you,” Nora said, “I’ve declared a moratorium on boys. Dating, romance, all of it. The whole point of being here is to clear my head. Ponder my history of bad judgment.”
“You’ve put yourself in a time-out,” Dr. Walsh said.
He could see Nora gearing up to protest, but she cracked a smile instead. “That’s actually exactly right. I’ve been thinking of it more as a palate cleanser, or a life reset, but time-out works, too.”
“That’s all fine and good,” Erin said, pointing mock-sternly at Nora. “But don’t forget the other point of being here. Saving money. Have your woo-woo feelings, but save your pennies while you’re doing it.”
“Right.” Nora turned to Jake. “My sister and her kids and I are going to get a house together in a couple years.”
He remembered that from the salon, from the first day they’d met.
“Now that she doesn’t have to live with Doofus—oops, I mean Rufus—anymore, we’re going to pool our resources,” Erin said.
“My grandma lived next door to us when we were kids.” Nora cuddled up to her grandma on the sofa. “So we’re into the whole extended-family-in-close-proximity thing.”
Dr. Walsh smirked as she kissed Nora’s head. “This is the part where I should probably invite you girls to move in with me, but my condo is small, and honestly, I got the whole extended-family-in-close-proximity thing out of my system.”
Erin shook her head affectionately. “I hate to be the party pooper, but we should go.” She turned to her grandmother. “You have your group this evening.”
“Cancer survivors support group,” Dr. Walsh said to Jake. She rolled her eyes. “Honestly. In my day they cut out your tumor, blasted you with chemo, and called it a day. Now, they want you to talk about your feelings nonstop.”
“My mom died of cancer,” he said. Because apparently the Walsh family had the effect of making him blurt out his tales of woe and dead relatives.
“What kind?” Dr. Walsh asked.
“Breast.”
She nodded. “Same here. It’s a bitch.”
“It really is.” He still remembered the cutting news of his mom’s diagnosis, coming so soon after Jude died. Grief layered on grief.
“All right, Mr. Pack Mule Knight in Shining Armor.” Dr. Walsh held her arms out to him. “Get me out of here. I have to go talk about my feelings about my missing boobs.”
He chuckled and did as she asked. Erin ran ahead and opened the car door. Just as he was about to set Dr. Walsh on her feet, she tugged his head down so his ear was next to her mouth.
“She’s not as tough as she seems. You take care of her, okay, Jake?”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “You got it.”
Nora jogged down the steps, and hugs and farewells were exchanged. Soon she was waving at the car as it backed out of the driveway.
“Sorry,” she said. “My grandmother is a force.”
“Nah, she’s great.”
“She is great. Honestly, I think I miss her more than anyone else in Toronto. She was widowed early—that’s why she lived with us when I was growing up. So she was like a second mother. Except, you know, the kind who made you practice stitches on a banana when you were eleven.”