“You were doing a princess? Which one?”
“Get outta here, I’m not telling you.”
“You’re too old for those princesses!”
“Oh, she was a lot older than she looked! Plus, she was an animal!”
“So not only was it a bad decision, you didn’t like it?”
“I never said that,” he said. He grinned lasciviously.
“You’re lying!” she said. “I don’t believe one word of that!”
“Okay,” he said. He took a drink of his beer. “It’s true, though. A very embarrassing situation. We both got fired. I lost a pretty fun job and I think she lost her lifetime dream. I was planning to take a few months off to camp, but I wasn’t planning to start until April or May. I hate being cold. However...”
“Callahan, I think you’re a liar, con man and maybe a predator.”
He just laughed at her. “Seriously, you ever going back to work?”
“I told you, the practice shut down,” she said.
“We both know there are things you could do.”
“I was picking up work here and there from colleagues. I just came to Sully’s for a badly needed break. I packed up a bunch of stuff, left the disposition of the office in the hands of a broker who can be sure the equipment, furniture and supplies are sold or stored, emailed all my colleagues that I was taking a leave of absence. I was burned out, bloody well sick of all the controversy my partners had stirred up and I was exhausted. I was only home for twenty-four hours when Sully crashed. That’s almost four weeks ago. I haven’t thought about anything but Sully since.”
“You can let go of that pretty soon. Aside from being a little ornery and sick of salmon and chicken, he’s doing great.”
“I know. But I don’t know if I want to go back to that grind. Check with me after I’ve actually had some time to think. But one thing I’m not crazy about is being a caretaker the rest of my life.”
“Maybe another residency? A different specialty?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Right now I just want to escape. Have you ever felt like that?”
He chuckled. “I’ve been in your campground for five weeks. Through rain and mud and heart attacks. What do you think?”
“You’re traumatized by the aftershock of screwing a princess?”
“It takes a lot more than that to traumatize me,” he said. He put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay to take a break, Maggie. I’m not sure it’s good for you to obsess about Sully, though. It might be misplaced anxiety. Really, he’s going to be fine.”
“You didn’t see what I saw,” she said.
“No one saw what you saw, honey,” he said very sweetly. “I was right there when they loaded him into the ambulance. You saw your father slipping away. Everyone else saw a cardiac episode. I think you’re a little terrified.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Guilty. I’m not very close to my mother and I have no siblings. And it was Sully. Maybe it’s because I always felt deprived of him when I was growing up—my mother and stepfather lived in Chicago and it wasn’t easy to see Sully. Or it could be that he’s as special as I think he is. You don’t know him that well yet. He’s one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever known. If you were going to be around here longer, like through summer, you’d see...”
“Tell me,” he said.
“Oh hell, where to start. I’ve seen him break up fights, rescue drowning kids and dogs! You didn’t think a dog could drown, did you? He was tangled in fishing line. He’s given refuge to the lost, tracked and killed a bad cat, a mountain lion who attacked a hiker. That almost never happens and Sully got in so much trouble! Took him forever to work through that. But maybe the most important thing he does—he creates relationships with people. Unforgettable relationships. They write him, send him pictures, mention him in their writing, their blogs, long after they’ve gone. They hang out at the store and he listens to their tales from the trails. He gives them tips, does little favors, lets them charge up their phones and stuff so they can make contact with friends and family. He tells jokes, encourages people, praises them, and most of that without anyone knowing that’s what he’s doing. He lets kids’ organizations come out and camp for free—he’s partial to the autistic kids. Sully relates to a lot of them and I have no idea why. He doesn’t know why, either. He plows in winter—he clears our road and then he goes out to the neighbors who are snowed in and clears theirs. He’s the third generation—his grandfather built the store and Sully didn’t get a son to run it. All he’s got is me. What’s going to happen to this place when Sully can’t run it anymore? Will the next owner carry on that legacy? You have no idea how much Sully is loved. Needed.”
It was still and quiet for a moment. The sound of night birds and crickets and the occasional splash of a fish was all she heard.
He tightened his arm slightly, pulling her a bit closer. “What a lucky man,” he said softly.
“I never looked at it that way, as Sully being the lucky one. I always thought it was the rest of us who were lucky.”
“It’s the rest of you, too. One of the things I think about a lot when I’m alone is what makes a life well spent? It sounds like you described one.”
“Yeah, Sully is very happy. I’d say he’s good at making relationships with everyone. Well, except maybe me. He never tried very hard to make a relationship with me.”
“You? I thought you two were very close.”
“We are, I guess. Except my mother took me away from him. And of course he never came after me. He said I was better off.” She shrugged. “I guess I should get over it by now. Huh?”
He gave her shoulders another squeeze. “Some things stay with us a long time,” he said. “No one knows that better than me, the boy raised on the road by Jed ‘Looney Tunes’ Jones.”
* * *
Maggie had a new friend. The days around the store and grounds were busy but in the evenings, when things were quiet, she wandered down to the lakefront or over to Cal’s campsite. One night she invited him to meet her on her front porch at the house. They talked about their lives, even though she wasn’t sure how much of his was true.
“Did I mention I’m being sued?” she said.
“No. No wonder you don’t want to go back to work!”
“Oh, I’ve been sued before. It might settle or just go away but if it doesn’t it could drag on. There was no malpractice. We did everything humanly possible. It really took its toll on me—it was a hard one. A terrible accident involving teenagers. We all did what we could, but were so helpless. I’ve lost patients before—in my business it happens too often. It was awful.”
“I’m so sorry. Are you worried about the lawsuit?” he asked.
“I worry about everything,” she admitted. “But when I’m in the moment, in surgery, I’m not worrying, I’m performing and thinking hard. Before and after, I worry too much.”
* * *
On the weekend, the park began to fill up with campers. The weather was outstanding—sunny and warm spring weather. Tom and his oldest son, Jackson, came to the property to help Maggie finish putting in the garden. She had several flats of flowers and vegetable starters. Cal dug in and helped while Beau did his job chasing the rabbits into the woods, and Sully watched over everyone, giving plenty of advice.
“Like I’ve never put in a garden before,” Tom said.
“What haven’t you done, Tom?” Maggie asked.
“Never