Free Broken Lion by Devon Hartford

in your way.”
    “Mom,” Daniel said, “Can I get an autographed picture too?”
    I sighed, “Of course.”
    Lion signed another one from the stack in his lap and handed it to Daniel while chatting with the teenager in the #TeamLion shirt about his last fight. As soon as Daniel took the photo, I made sure he said thank you and I ushered him out the door.
    I didn’t want to spend any more time with Lion because I was afraid I might start to like him more than I already did.
    And that was far more than a doctor should.

Chapter 8

    BRIGID

    My phone vibrated in my lab coat pocket several days later while I was at the hospital.
    Donald: Can you take Daniel this Saturday? I have a business thing I can’t get out of.
    Me: On Saturday?
    Unlike me, his job was Monday thru Friday and he had relatively normal hours. I depended on his normal hours, especially having his weekends free because mine rarely were.
    Donald: Yes. Is that a problem?
    Me: I’m on call all day Saturday. You know that.
    Saturday was also the only day I had to go grocery shopping, pay bills, do laundry, clean house, etc.
    Donald: Can you change your schedule? Just this once?
    Me: You know I can’t.
    Nobody ever wanted to cover a Saturday shift. I was usually the one covering it for everyone else.
    Donald: Please don’t give me any grief about this. I need to do this business thing.
    Me: I’m not giving you grief.
    Donald: I don’t want to argue about it. Can you please take Daniel tomorrow to his karate thing?
    Not surprisingly, Donald had readily agreed to signing Daniel up for classes. He cared about his son, and Daniel desperately wanted to do it. The only thing I didn’t like about karate for Daniel was that it kept me tied to Lion Maxwell. If I had to be the one taking Daniel to class, how was I going to avoid the man? There was always my neighbor Heather. She was a stay at home mom who had kids Daniel’s age and babysat for me all the time. Maybe she could do it. I hated passing the buck, but I needed to steer clear of Lion.
    Me: I’ll see if Heather can take him.
    Donald: Can you please make it work? For once?
    I scowled at my phone. I could hear Donald’s haggard tone in my head. It was the tone he used so often toward the end of our marriage. The one that made me feel like an absentee mother.
    Donald: Let me know ASAP. If you can’t, I’ll ask Mom and Dad to cancel their trip to Palm Springs. I don’t want Daniel missing his first day of class.
    He wasn’t trying to make me feel guilty. His parents Ronald and Linda did more than their fair share of helping with Daniel. They were like second parents and they had made it possible for me to get through four years of medical school and then residency with a young son. So my guilt was genuine and I deserved it.
    Me: I said I’d ask Heather.
    Donald: Please make it happen. For your son.
    Ouch. That stung.
    Anyone who ever said women could have it all—a career, a happy marriage, children, and a sex life—were absolute liars. Being Super Mom sounded good in fantasy land, but in reality it was impossible. Someone was always disappointed: your husband, your children, your boss, you, your patients, or your bank account. In my case it was all of the above.
    Had someone told me in advance this would happen, I never would’ve gone to medical school. I absolutely loved Daniel. He was my world. My life. With the help of Ronald and Linda, which had included living with them rent free, becoming a doctor and raising a son had seemed completely doable. Add to that the fact my mother was the primary breadwinner in my family (she was a Nurse Practitioner), and I had wanted to be a doctor since I was six, and getting my MD seemed inevitable. Sadly, I had been in denial about how demanding the hours of med school and residency would be on my marriage. Something always had to give. For me, it had been my marriage. I wasn’t able to give it the time it deserved. I thought I had, but Donald thought