Hope, Levy, Marc [good summer reads TXT] 📗

have gone over her head. She was a vegetarian, Amelia explained solemnly to the table, for animal-welfare reasons.

“So, you’re not a meat-eater.” Hope nodded. “How about a man-eater?”

“Hey, I have an idea,” Josh cut in.

“Just the one?” Sam snorted.

Josh turned to Amelia.

“Hope and her dad haven’t seen each other in months. What do you say we leave them alone for a while? I could show you around town for an hour or so? The zoo is just around the corner.”

Amelia looked back and forth between Hope and Sam, before rising from the table.

“Let’s do it.”

Josh leaned in to Hope and kissed her. Although she frowned, deep down inside, Hope was thinking she had never felt more in love in her entire life. She worked to suppress a twinge of jealousy at the idea that Josh would be spending one-on-one time with Bunny Boiler Number Six.

Sam had been speechless, but the expression on his daughter’s face put to rest any doubt he might have had.

“If you don’t mind, that’d be great, son.”

“My name’s Josh, sir.” He nodded to Hope’s father, before ushering Amelia toward the door.

Now alone, father and daughter watched as their partners stepped out of the restaurant.

“I know what you’re going to say. You don’t like her.”

“What gave you that idea?” Hope widened her eyes in mock innocence.

“Stop it, Hope. You have an ugly way of judging people without knowing them.”

“Not people. Your crushes. There’s a difference.”

“Amelia’s heart is in the right place.”

“It sure is. I don’t think anyone could miss that.”

Sam’s mouth fell open as he looked at his daughter. Hope burst into laughter, and he couldn’t help laughing along with her.

“Your laugh makes everything right.” He smiled.

“Hey, we could get your girlfriend to metabolize it and turn it into a drug!”

“So, how’s it looking?”

“The chicken?”

“No.” Sam shook his head. “I meant things with Jason.”

“It’s Josh, Dad! I don’t know. It depends what you mean.”

“Does he make you happy?”

“Doesn’t it show?”

“Yes, it does,” he admitted. “That’s what worries me.”

“Why?”

“No good reason, just playing the jealous old dad. Maybe because I actually am a little jealous. You’re so much like your mother.”

“Oh, come on!” Hope exclaimed. “I look exactly like you! Just my luck . . .”

“I meant your personality.”

“What about Amelia,” she interrupted. “Does she make you happy?”

“As happy as I can be.”

“I guess she must be okay, then.”

Sam asked Hope about her studies, her plans for the future, the everyday details of her life, but she kept her answers loose and vague, and questioned him in return.

He told her that with every year that passed, he felt more and more at home in California. San Francisco was warm and pleasant; he split his time between his practice and the hospital. He had met a young and talented brain surgeon and wanted to introduce her to Hope. She could probably help his daughter in her studies, as long as Hope was willing to one day put aside her absurd ambition to go into research rather than focus on real medicine.

“You need to get with the times. I don’t want to deal with patients. I don’t know how you sleep at night, how you manage to stop thinking about them. I have too much empathy. I couldn’t do it, you know? I’d make myself as sick as they are. I’d feel all their symptoms as if they were my own . . .”

“Hope, what happened to Mom isn’t hereditary. You need to accept that once and for all, and stop with the hypochondria.”

“Excuse me?” Hope gaped. “Hypochondria? Are you serious? I’m the obsessive one here? Who was it who took me in for blood tests whenever I had the slightest hint of a temperature?”

“I’m a doctor! How could I not want to get you checked out?”

“I’m passionate about what I’m doing, Dad. I know what I want from life, and I’d like you to support me in that.”

“Would I be paying your tuition if I didn’t support you? I’m just teasing you.”

“Are things with Amelia serious?”

“It’s a little early to say.”

“Still, though. You moved in together . . .”

“It made more sense. And I’ve always hated being alone. How about you?” He glanced at her. “Is it serious with Jason?”

“Now you’re just doing it on purpose . . .”

“He seems nice enough,” Sam continued. “He’s a classy guy.”

“It’s serious. If you call being in love serious. But we don’t live together. You chose my room in a single-sex dorm, remember?”

“I did that?” Sam frowned. “That doesn’t sound like me. Well, hey, listen. If you’re still together after summer vacation, you can find yourself a new apartment. I’m guessing he doesn’t have the resources to move you into his.”

“He does, actually. That’s what he’s doing. But he shares the apartment with his friend, so it’s not great for privacy.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear the details.” Sam looked at her. “Don’t you want to find out more about Amelia?”

“No, but I can see you’re dying to tell me . . .”

“She’s divorced. She has an eighteen-year-old daughter who’s very nice. Helena.”

“Does Helena live with you too?”

“Don’t be jealous, Hope.”

“How long are you in town for?”

“We’re going to a conference in Boston this evening. We’ll head home tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh.” Hope looked down at her plate. “I thought you’d come to see me.”

“I only said yes to the conference to give the hospital an excuse for coming here to see you.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, honey. Every moment of every day. I have photos of you everywhere. On my desk, the fireplace. Even my bedside table.”

“I hope you put that one in the drawer when you and Amelia get it on . . .”

“You know what the best and worst thing about being a dad is?”

“Having a daughter like me?”

“Watching your daughter forge her own path.”

As lunch continued, it was as if time were rewinding in slow motion, drawing them back to another era, another age, where they would sit together at the kitchen table in Cape May and tell each other about their day. Hope was twelve all over again, and