“All he’d have to do is look at me, and I’d leave my man in a second and move in with him,” a woman named Maybelline who’s wondering if she’s got a smoker’s cough and cancer or a regular cough and strep throat tells me during her exam.

I give her one of the Z-packs in Johnny’s left behind medicine crate and ignore her just like I ignore all the other coupled-up old ladies who’ve told me the same thing.

But at least she does hair and pays me with some desperately needed hair products. She even offers to swing by to handle my weave in a couple of weeks when she’s feeling better, and after “you come to your senses and move in with Waylon.”

I’m grateful for the offer, even if I have no plans to move in with Waylon or fall into his bed like so many of the old ladies seem to think I should.

Quite a few of the actual old lady visitors insist on telling me that Meemaw’s upset that I’m upset.

“You really shouldn’t hold what she did against her,” a taller older lady tells me while I’m listening to a wheeze she’s worried about with the stethoscope Johnny left behind. “You don't cross Waylon, you know. Not ever. That man’s crazier than both Crazytown’s put together. Everybody but Dr. Johnny knows that—and believe me, he probably would’ve been a lot nicer to you if he hadn’t been half-drunk. You can't blame her for taking Waylon’s side, knowing him like we do.”

I mean, I totally can blame her for that. But I have to admit, my heart is starting to soften toward the little old lady.

She looks so sad every time I make myself my own breakfast and lunch before going to the medical trailer in the morning. And Waylon, perhaps getting the message the first couple of times I walked right past him out the door, has stopped coming over for the breakfast date I never agreed to have with him in the first place. I think she might miss daily company and cooking for somebody else.

But I can’t bring myself to let her make me dinner when we get home from my temporary job like I’m not still pissed off.

Luckily, a few patients feel so guilty about not paying me that they bring over casseroles. That means I have dinner for days.

Casseroles aren’t half-bad, actually. Not bad at all. They come in an endless range of starch and meat combinations. And they're also weirdly comforting. I can see why they're a staple of the Midwest.