Emily Mayfield, part 14: School of Veterinary Medicine

Vet school is demanding, all-encompassing, Emily’s entire world. She immerses herself utterly in her studies, to the exclusion of everything else in her life. The only exception is Sunday afternoons at 4:00, when her parents call her on the phone. Emily is most surprised by her own sexual frustration, which she didn’t think to expect. It just makes her work harder.

Spring comes, and with it Emily’s emotions become more than she can deny. She realizes how much she misses Stuart, especially as her best friend and confidant. At her wit’s end, Emily calls Stuart’s aunt to find out how to get in touch with Stuart. The aunt, surprised at this call, is reluctant because she doesn’t want Stuart tempted by Emily. In the first direct, woman-to-woman conversation that these two have ever had, Emily is able to reveal herself to the aunt as a genuine and caring person who really does wish the best for Stuart and wants to reconnect with him as friends. Still reluctant but feeling a bit better about it, and secretly knowing the agony that Stuart has suffered at the loss of HIS best friend, the aunt gives Emily Stuart’s address. Emily sends a card. Stuart phones her. The reconnection is painful and sweet and awful. Finally Emily can control her anger no longer.

“If God was calling you,” she asks furiously, “why did you lead me on all those years?”

His answer is kind but firm. “God was calling me, Emily, but I couldn’t hear Him through you.”

They make peace at last, albeit an uneasy peace, and agree to talk once a season. It’s spring. Things start anew.

Emily accepts a date with a senior vet student at the school. She dates regularly during her second year at vet school. By the spring of that year, her conversation with Stuart is easier for both of them. He hears about diseases he’ll never have to deal with, and she hears about religious devotion she’ll never have, period.

In Emily’s third year of vet school she meets a large-animal specialist in practice in Roswell, Georgia, who comes to the vet school regularly. They begin to date. Steven Lloyd Morrow is enchanted by Emily’s intensity and brilliance; Emily is drawn to Steve’s quiet confidence. He respects Emily, and at the same time is charmed by her youthfulness. Emily and Steve are good for each other. They work hard and play sweetly.

Emily tries to interest Steve in opera, but it doesn’t take. He compensates by being great in bed. That does take. Steve has a grand wide-open exuberance for life. He lightens Emily, opens her to life, and expands her heart and her vision of what life can be.

(continued)