Silent Pledge

by Hannah Alexander

  “I can identify. My Saturday shift was pretty rotten, too. Why don’t you tell me about it? I have broad shoulders.” There was a pause. “Well, in a manner of speaking.”

  She closed her eyes and pictured those shoulders, and the earnest expression she often saw on his face, and the light that seemed to enter his eyes when he saw her—not that they saw each other very often anymore. “Yes, you do,” she said.

  “So let me have it,” he prompted. “What happened?”

  She loved his comfortable, matter-of-fact tone, and she longed to be sitting with him now, talking face-to-face. As she told him about Crystal and Odira, Buck and Kendra, she could feel some of the tension from Saturday night finally ease from the muscles of her neck and shoulders. Even with a hundred fifty miles between them she could feel his presence, could sense his attention and caring. Just talking to him helped her realize that nothing was as bad as it sometimes seemed.

  “Mrs. Pinkley wants me to remind you that we need you here.” Mercy hesitated. “I need you here.”

  “You do?”

  And that was when some of her old doubts—fears she’d thought had been eradicated months ago—resurrected themselves in her mind. Don’t push him too hard. Don’t let him know how desperate you are just to hear his voice over the phone. “Yes,” she said. “I’m getting so many walk-ins I don’t get out sometimes until seven, and the calls come every weekend now, every day off. Lots of nights. Knolls is growing. I don’t have as much time with Tedi, and she’s feeling the brunt of it.”

  “Mercy, you can’t do everything. There are other doctors in town. Let them take their share of the overload.”

  She slumped against the armrest. He wasn’t getting the point. Of course, she was trying hard not to make a point. “Some of them do.”

  “But everyone knows you’re a soft touch.”

  She heard the affectionate humor in his voice. “Yes, and so are you, so if you were here we would both be getting the calls, kind of spread the work out a little.”

  Another silence for a few seconds, then, softly, “The E.R. is gone, Mercy. There’s no place for me at the hospital until it’s rebuilt.”

  “Then consider joining me at the clinic temporarily. Estelle says construction is ahead of schedule. She’s hoping it’ll take only another month or so, but I’ll be dead by then if I don’t get some help.”

  “Can’t you refer some patients to other clinics? Or at least convince Estelle that she needs to hire some extra weekend coverage and find a place for a temporary E.R.” There was a heavy sigh over the phone. “Mercy, I signed a contract here.”

  She clutched the phone tighter. “What? But you already have a commitment at Knolls. When did you sign it?”

  “Two weeks ago. It’s short-term, through the beginning of April, so that’ll mean two and a half months more here.”

  He sounded so matter-of-fact, as if that were the only logical thing for him to do. Mercy laid her head back against the sofa cushion. He hadn’t even discussed the matter with her first. Didn’t her opinion count with him anymore? Didn’t she count?

  “Mercy? Look, as far as I knew, the projected completion date for the E.R. was late March or early April.”

  “It was.” She knew he could hear the disappointment in her voice, but why shouldn’t she be disappointed? Herald was a three-hour drive from Knolls. At this rate, with their crazy work schedules, they would never see each other.

  The silence over the line grew tense. “I’m sorry, Lukas,” she said at last. “I’m just surprised. You were getting plenty of temp opportunities closer than Herald, Missouri.”

  “But never in one place, don’t you see? I was driving all over southern Missouri, from Cassville to Poplar Bluff. That gets old in a hurry. This way the only traveling I’ll have to do is across town.”

  The disappointment went deeper. “You mean you’re not planning to come back here for two and a half months?” She heard the plaintive sound of her voice, and she knew he would pick up on it. Stop it, Mercy. Nobody likes a whiner.

  “That wasn’t what I meant. I’ll come down to Knolls, of course.”

  The silence was longer this time, and the tension drew taut.

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, Mercy? You sound tired. Has anybody tried to reach Cherra Garcias? She’s family practice and E.R., and she’s good. She’s scheduled for employment at Knolls in a couple of months, and you might get her to come early.”

  “I don’t want Cherra Garcias. I want you,” she blurted.

  There was a heavy sigh at the other end. “Mercy, I…I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would get so hectic for you. If I’d known…Anyway, I’m really sorry.”

  She relented a little. “Well, I guess I could give Cherra a call. I hope she didn’t sign a contract anywhere. Get ready for fireworks, though, because you obviously didn’t tell Estelle about your new contract, and I don’t think she’s going to like it.”

  “Oh, well, cheer up. I could get suspended here before long. It seems that’s one of the favorite pastimes around here, suspending and firing people.”

  Mercy suddenly forgot her own disappointment. “Don’t tell me you’re in trouble again,” she blurted, then bit her lip. This was not a good time to remind him of problems he’d had in the past.

  “Nothing bad, just a little disagreement. Our administrator thinks he can rewrite COBRA law and pick the time and circumstances under which we transfer patients. He forced me to hold a patient with a near-amputation until the company doc had a look at it, purely for the purposes of insurance. And do you know that he even called and delayed the arrival of the ambulance for transfer? Seems the company has worker’s comp, but it won’t pay as much if the company doc doesn’t make a visit to the E.R.”

  “And did he?”

  “He came in pretty fast. He has a practice in town, and when I called him myself and explained the situation he drove right over. The patient was out in ten minutes from the time Dr. Jeffries came in. I don’t like the delay it caused. COBRA law specifies that the transfer must take place in a timely manner. What if Jeffries hadn’t come so quickly?”

  “Then, knowing you, you would have made other arrangements.” Mercy had always admired the patient advocacy Lukas displayed. She wished he was as passionate about making more time to see her. “You could just go straight to the watchdog and call COBRA.”

  “I hope that won’t be necessary.” Lukas had experienced his own legal nightmare during a trumped-up investigation by the government agency that regulated hospital emergency rooms.

  When he remained silent, she changed the subject. “Something else happened Saturday night,” she said. “Delphi Bell disappeared. Abner’s looking for her. He came to me in the hospital when I was making rounds yesterday morning and accused me of hiding her.”

  “Do you think she finally ran away?” Lukas asked.

  “I hope so.” She thought of Abner’s anger, his accusations. Could it possibly have been some kind of an act? What if something even more sinister had taken place? “I hope she’s out of state.”

  Mercy filled Lukas in on news from Knolls, about Ivy and Clarence and their bickering, about the changes taking place at the hospital, and about some of the changes in her own life. “Tedi seems to be enjoying the visits with her father, and so we’ve started meeting twice a week instead of just once. He comes over and helps her with her math homework on Tuesday nights. He’s always been good with math.”

  Lukas felt his hand tighten on the receiver with an automatic surge of emotion. He sat up in his chair and swallowed. Theo was seeing Mercy twice a week? “That’s good.” He waited for Mercy to elaborate. She didn’t. He prompted. “So Theo’s doing well?”

  “Yes. He’s been attending his AA meetings faithfully, and he’s having counseling sessions once a week with our new pastor. He’s a completely different person from a year ago.”

  “That’s good.” Lukas knew he was repeating himself, but Theo’s progress was good. He wanted Tedi to
be reconciled with her father, and he wanted Theo to grow in his new faith—the faith Lukas himself had almost inadvertently led him to last fall. But the battle Lukas continued to fight in his heart was the Mercy-Theo relationship. It told him more than he’d ever wanted to know about his own selfish tendencies. Jealousy. That’s what it was. Mercy had loved Theodore enough to marry him ten years ago. Theo’s alcohol and cruelty and desire for other women had taken him from her. Now, with Theo claiming a new life in Christ, would she see in him the man she once loved?

  In God’s eyes, wasn’t that the way their relationship should be…for Tedi’s sake?

  “That’s good,” he said, and realized he’d said it for the third time.

  “Yes, it is.” There was a pause. “Well, I’m sure Estelle has Cherra’s number. I’ll give her a call and see if she’ll help us out.”

  Lukas frowned at the sudden change of subject. He wanted—no, he needed—to hear more about this growing friendship with Theo. The all-too-human part of him wanted her to say, without his asking her to, that she was only meeting her ex-husband twice a week for the sake of her daughter.

  “Lukas, did you hear me?”

  “What? Yes.” A movement caught the edge of his vision, and he looked up to see the front door, which he had not bothered to close in his rush to the telephone, easing open slightly. Darkness spilled in with the cold air from outside…and kept on coming in the form of the largest black cat Lukas had ever seen.

  “What are you doing here?” Lukas asked the animal.

  “Lukas?” Mercy said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, I think so. A cat just walked in the front door.”

  “A what?”

  Then he heard a loud call from outside. “Kitty, kitty, kitty!” The sound was not the cajoling entreaty one traditionally used to entice a cat to come out. It was a strident command. Lukas couldn’t fail to recognize Tex’s strong voice.

  Meanwhile, ignoring her call, the cat peered around the room as if it were his own personal boudoir.

  “Lukas, are you still there?” came Mercy’s voice.

  “Yes, sorry. I just figured out who the cat belongs to. You know Tex, Lauren’s cousin? She lives in the other half of this duplex. I’ve heard her talking about Monster. That’s the name of her cat, and now I see why.”

  “Tex. Is that the paramedic Lauren’s always talking about?”

  “That’s her. Not only is she a paramedic, she’s a med student or something.” He cast another glance at Monster, who regally marched through the doorless entryway to the small kitchen.

  There was a pause, and then Mercy asked quietly, “Is she as pretty as Lauren?”

  Even Lukas recognized a loaded gun when he had one pointed at his head. How was he supposed to answer that one? If he said no, then Mercy would think that he thought Lauren was pretty. If he said yes, he’d be lying. Pretty, to him, encompassed the words petite and feminine. Although Tex was in no way masculine, she was not what most people would call traditionally pretty like her cousin. She had an attractiveness about her prickly personality that one could find appealing…but not the way Mercy meant it.

  “Tex is fine. She’s a good paramedic, and even more outspoken than Lauren.”

  “So she’s a talker?”

  “That’s right.” He heard Tex drawing closer in her search for the missing cat, and then he heard the sudden thump of something hitting the floor in the kitchen. “Uh, just a minute, Mercy. I think the cat’s up to something.” He covered the mouthpiece of the phone and called, “Tex, your cat’s in here!”

  There was a sigh at the other end of the line. “Want to trade? Lauren’s working for me until the E.R.’s finished.”

  “She is? And you haven’t killed her yet?”

  “I’ve learned to tune out her chatter, and she’s been a lifesaver.” She paused. “Lukas, I need you here.”

  He shrugged away the sudden surge of elation her words gave him. What she needed was time, whether she realized it or not. She needed time to sort through her feelings and find God’s will in her life. And Lukas knew that he, also, needed time. He knew it intellectually. Emotionally, he wanted so much more, so much faster.

  “I miss you,” she said.

  “You do?” Yes, she did. He could hear how she felt in her voice. And he missed her, too. And he thought about her so often….

  “Lukas, I—”

  “Knock, knock!” came Tex’s cranky voice from the front door. She didn’t wait for an answer but pushed on inside, wearing baggy gray sweats and an old pea-green coat. “Did you say my cat was—Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were on the phone.”

  Lukas waved at her. “I think your cat was in my trash in the kitchen.”

  Mercy fell silent, sighed, cleared her throat. “I guess I should hang up now. You have company.” She sounded disappointed.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Lukas was disappointed, too. “Guess I better rescue my trash.”

  “Lukas, isn’t there any way you can break that contract?” The words came swift and sudden, and before Lukas could reply she continued. “Okay, I know that isn’t fair. I’m sorry. Still I need to talk to you. If you have some time off, would you at least come down for a visit this weekend?”

  He would love to see her this weekend. “I work Friday night and Sunday, but—”

  “Got him!” Tex came back in from the kitchen, her curly blond mop falling in her face, lugging the giant black Monster under her right arm with a strut of triumph.

  “Okay, Lukas. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Mercy sounded hurt, which was exactly what he’d wanted to avoid. She hung up before he had a chance to respond. He watched Tex lug the animal toward the front door.

  “Dr. Bower,” she announced over her shoulder, “since you’ve already met the bane of my existence, I’ll just stick him in my apartment. Nothing’s broken in your kitchen, and I picked up the trash—all empty frozen-dinner cartons. Don’t you ever cook?”

  He replaced the telephone receiver and tried to paste on a pleasant expression. “Why cook when I can buy Healthy Choice down at the local grocery?” The frozen meals had been Mercy’s suggestion.

  Tex snorted, opened the front door and lugged the cat out. He heard a door slam, and then she stepped back in.

  She glanced around the small living room. “I told the landlady she ought to paint this place before she rented it out again, but hey, it’s cheap.” She walked over and plopped down onto the secondhand floral print couch. She pushed back the dark blond hair falling across her forehead into her eyes and blew some tendrils away from her nose. “You don’t go in for decorating much, do you?”

  “I don’t plan to be here long,” he said dryly.

  She glanced around at the bare walls, and her gaze fell on the one piece of decoration he had brought with him—a handmade Psalm Twenty-Three plaque Tedi had given him for Christmas. In the top right corner was a picture of a dove in flight, signifying the Holy Spirit. Lukas needed that connection to home right now.

  He gestured toward the plaque. “A young friend of mine drew that.”

  Tex averted her gaze from the plaque, as if she’d just witnessed something that made her uncomfortable. She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. She had a firm chin, and her jawline was square, especially when she approached argument mode—Lukas had learned that much about her during the few shifts they’d worked together. Her forest-green eyes, unadorned by makeup, were wide spaced and inquisitive. Intelligent. As had happened before, Lukas received the impression that her tough attitude and cocky slang were a disguise for a keen mind and a tender heart—but he might be imagining things. Still, she had a good, caring attitude with patients.

  “You’re a churchgoer, huh?” she asked at last, sounding awkward.

  “Yes.”

  “What persuasion?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What flavor? You a dunker or a sprinkler, a shouter maybe?”

  “If you’re asking my deno
mination, I’m Baptist.”

  She grimaced and nodded knowingly. “Aha.”

  Lukas frowned at her. Aha what?

  “Heard you got screamed at by Mr. Amos today.”

  The sudden subject change kept his thoughts out of balance. “Yes.”

  “Guy’s a jerk,” Tex said. “He tries to make everybody think he’s got a degree in godhood from some eastern university. Still, I’ve got to try to get along with him. I don’t want to lose my job. It’s too far to drive elsewhere every shift.”

  Lukas sank down in the chair across from her and studied her suddenly grim expression. “But if you’re just renting here anyway, and you’re a medical—”

  “Did you know three nurses have lost their jobs in the E.R. in the past two months?” She obviously didn’t want to discuss her professional status. “And they haven’t been replaced. Mr. Amos trumped up some lame excuse about work performance, but everybody knows it’s because of the sellout. He’s scared he’ll lose his job if he doesn’t cut the budget. The only reason I’m still here is because I’m a paramedic and I don’t cost as much as an RN. You can bet Quinn would try to undercut me in a minute if he knew how much I made. He thinks I’ve got a cushy job.”

  “What sellout?” Lukas asked.

  She gave him a pitying look with her green cat’s eyes and put her feet up on the scarred coffee table in front of the sofa. Her old running shoes held a minute crust of Missouri mud, some of which crumbled onto the wood. She didn’t notice. “The Brandt Project, an HMO up in Kansas City, bought us out two months ago. They’re supposed to be a good company, but I’ve heard rumors that they like to send their own people in and do a quality check, and they haven’t done that here yet. Our brilliant administrator thinks quality means finances. Did you know the man didn’t even have medical or hospital experience when he came here? The old company hired him off the street because he had a CPA license. I bet he couldn’t even find work anywhere else. That’s why this hospital’s in the mess it’s in now. Poor guy doesn’t have a clue. He just tried to make people think he does, with that fake accent and twenty-dollar words and elevator shoes.”