He eyes me. “Well, I guess I’d be the fool to not take you up on the offer of visits. My wife has been fighting the arthritis for a while now, and it ain’t gettin’ no better.” His eyes go to my belly. “But, you be careful on those roads, missy. I may be a cranky old country boy with no education and less sense, but I know bouncin’ around back roads like that ain’t good for th’unborn.”

I rub my belly, six months rounded. “Thank you for the concern, Mr. Crenshaw. I’ll be careful.”

Mr. Crenshaw writes out a misspelled I-O-U for several pounds of bacon and pork belly as value in trade for my services, along with a detailed map of how to get to his property.

The rest of the day is slow. The baby kicks, hard, and often, but I’m grateful for it, even when it hurts; being over forty, it’s a minor miracle that I could conceive.

There’s a young man skipping school who comes in for stitches after crashing his four-wheeler, and an elderly woman with a respiratory infection. There is, technically, a doctor in attendance—Dr. Oscar Gutiérrez—but he’s older than dirt and prone to long naps in his office, and he’s perfectly content to let me do things my way. And once I have my MD, which I’m trying to finish before I have the baby, he’ll officially retire and the community practice will be mine.

At closing time, I rouse Dr. Gutiérrez and send him home, and then head home myself.

Nathan is in his workshop, of course; the cabin which was his home when he first arrived at this little lakeside paradise of ours has been transformed into his workshop. Better lighting, more ventilation, less furniture. The bedroom is now an office, the kitchen is still a kitchen with the same antique appliances, but the rest is open-plan, with a workbench and all his tools. He’s a craftsman, now, an artisan. He has a little shop in town where he sells his handmade bookshelves, dining room sets, sideboards, end tables, desks, and anything else he takes his fancy to craft, as well as his now-trademark and locally famous wildlife carvings. Which are, I’m proud to say, garnering attention beyond our little community. There’s even been talk of a few places in Atlanta giving him shelf-space.

Mainly, he just likes working with wood. Making things. Letting the wood tell him what it wants to be and helping it become that. He loves doing it, and he’s amazing at it. And the beautiful fact is, he’s doing well enough at it that he can almost entirely support us with his woodworking business.

Which, of course, we don’t need. He had quite a bit saved from his career as a Hollywood set builder, as well as a few real estate investments a friend once convinced him to buy into which have panned out profitably. And I have the massive windfall Adrian left me, which I’ve invested so we’ll be comfortable for the rest of our lives.