He starts to shrug but then thinks better of it with the needle still in his skin. “No ring. And I heard some of the guys talking about the cute new nurse practitioner who’s also single.”

“That’s really none of their business.”

“Hey, you were the one who must’ve told one of them you’re not married.”

He’s right, of course. The first thing Dorothy warned me was not to share any personal information, but I got careless. To be fair, a lot of these men don’t look like criminals. They just look like harmless old men.

“And you have a kid,” he adds.

Now I’m really going to be sick. I’m such an idiot. What am I supposed to say when a patient asks me if I have a child? None of your damn business? Well, that probably is the right answer, but it’s hard not to talk about my son when I’m away from him the whole day. I’m learning this lesson the hard way.

“Anyway, congratulations,” Shane says. There’s no bitterness or anger in his voice, which is a relief. “How old is he?”

I cringe at this question. Like Tim, he’s not stupid. If I tell him I have a ten-year-old son, he will figure it out. But unlike Tim, he has no way of finding out the truth on his own. “He’s five.”

He flinches slightly as the needle passes through his skin again. “I always wanted kids. Guess that’s never going to happen.”

I don’t reply to that. I just quietly tie off the suture.

“I can’t believe you’re living out here again,” he comments. “I figured you would be gone for good. Except maybe to visit your parents.”

“My parents died in a car accident,” I blurt out. I shouldn’t have given him any more information, but this seems like the most innocuous thing I’ve told him. I want him to know that I’ve had other tragedies in the last decade that have not involved him. That what he did hasn’t defined my existence.

He frowns. “I’m so sorry, Brooke.”

“It’s okay,” I mutter. “We weren’t close.”