Return to Virgin River

by Robyn Carr

  “You can say that again,” Maggie observed. “I can’t imagine what the last few days have been like for him. He must have been terrified.”

  “He look terrified to you?” Frank asked. “He might as well be on a cruise ship.”

  “Tell Stan we’ll take care of him till he gets here.”

  Maggie went about the business of caring for Mr. Gunderson, getting water and a little soup into him while the camper, Cal, chatted with Sully and Frank, apparently well-known to them. When this situation was resolved she meant to find out more about him, like how long he’d been here.

  She took off Roy’s shoes and socks and looked at his feet—no injuries or frostbite but some serious swelling and bruised toenails. She wondered where he had been and how he’d gotten the backpack. He certainly hadn’t brought it from home or packed it himself. That would be too complicated for a man in his condition. It was a miracle he could carry it!

  Two hours later, the sun lowering in the sky, an ambulance had arrived for Roy Gunderson. He didn’t appear to be seriously injured or ill but he was definitely unstable and Stan wasn’t inclined to transport him alone. He could bolt, try to get out of a moving car or interfere with the driver, although Stan had a divider cage in his police car.

  What Maggie and Sully had learned, no thanks to Roy himself, was that he’d been cared for at home by his wife, wandered off without his GPS bracelet, walked around a while before coming upon a rather old Chevy sedan with the keys in the ignition, so he must have helped himself. The car was reported stolen from near his house but had no tracking device installed. And since Mr. Gunderson hadn’t driven in years, no one put him with the borrowed motor vehicle for a couple of days. The car was found abandoned near Salt Lake City with Roy’s jacket in it. From there the old man had probably hitched a ride. His condition was too good to have walked for days. Roy was likely left near a rest stop or campgrounds where he helped himself to a backpack. Where he’d been, what he’d done, how he’d survived was unknown.

  The EMTs were just about to load Mr. Gunderson into the back of the ambulance when Sully sat down on the porch steps with a loud huff.

  “Dad?” Maggie asked.

  Sully was grabbing the front of his chest. Over his heart. He was pale as snow, sweaty, his eyes glassy, his breathing shallow and ragged.

  “Dad!” Maggie shouted.

  If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.

  —MARK TWAIN

  2

  It’s different when it’s your father, when your father is Sully, the most beloved general-store owner in a hundred square miles. Maggie felt a rising panic that she hoped didn’t show. First, she gave him an aspirin. Then she rattled off medication orders to the EMT, though she wasn’t the physician in charge and it would have to be approved via radio. Poor Mr. Gunderson ended up in the back of Stan’s squad car and Sully was put on the gurney. The emergency tech immediately started an EKG, slapping electrodes onto his chest, getting an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

  Maggie was in the ambulance immediately, reading the EKG as it was feeding out. Beau was barking and jumping outside the ambulance door, trying to get inside.

  “Beau!” Maggie yelled. “No, Beau! Stay!”

  She heard a whistle, then a disappointed whine, then the door to the ambulance closed and they pulled away.

  “Maggie,” Sully said, pulling the mask away. “See he didn’t follow. I don’t leave him very much.”

  Maggie peeked out the back window. “It’s okay, Dad. He’s in front of the porch with that guy. That camper. Enid will see he’s taken care of.”

  The driver was on the radio saying they were en route with a possible coronary.

  “The lost guy with dementia?” the dispatcher asked.

  “Negative, we got Sully from the store. Chest pains, diaphoretic, BP 190 over 120, pulse rapid and thready. His daughter is with us. Dr. Maggie Sullivan. She wants us to draw an epi and administer nitro. She stuck an aspirin in his mouth.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “I’m conscious,” Sully whispered. “Maggie. I ain’t quite ready.”

  “Easy, Dad, easy. I’m right here for you,” Maggie said. “Let’s start some Ringer’s, TKO.”

  “Not you,” Sully said. “You’re shaking!”

  “You want me to do it, Sully?” the young EMT asked.

  “Better you than her. Look at her.” Then he moaned.

  “We need morphine,” Maggie said. “Get an order for the morphine and ask for an airlift to Denver. We have to transport to Denver stat. Gimme that IV setup.”

  She got the IV started immediately, so fast the EMT said, “Wow!”

  A few years ago Walter, her stepfather, had suffered a small stroke. Stroke. That was her territory and she handled him with calm and ease. He was treated immediately, the recovery was swift, his disability minor and addressed in physical therapy in a matter of weeks. A textbook case.

  This felt entirely different.

  “Gimme your cell phone,” she said to the EMT. She didn’t have hers, of course, because it was back at Sully’s in her purse. The young man handed it over without question and she called Municipal Hospital. “This is Dr. Maggie Sullivan. I’m in an ambulance with my father, en route to you. I don’t have my cell. Can you connect me with Dr. Rob Hollis? It’s an emergency. Thank you.”

  It took only a moment. “What have you got, Maggie?” her friend Rob asked.

  “My dad—seventy-year-old male,” she said, running through his symptoms. “The EMT is running an EKG and we can send it.” She looked at the EMT. “We can send it, right?”

  “Right.”

  “If we get a medical airlift from Timberlake, we’ll be there in no time. Will you meet me?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Try to stay calm.”

  “I’m good,” she said.

  “She’s a wreck,” Sully muttered. “Airlift. Gonna cost a goddamn fortune.”

  “I gave him nitro, oxygen and morphine. He seems to be comfortable. EKG coming to the ER for you.”

  It was not like this with Walter. With Walter, whom she’d become close to once she’d passed through adolescence, she was able to be a physician—objective, cool, confident. With Sully, she was a daughter clinging to her medical training with an internal fear that if anything terrible happened to him she would be forever lost.

  Sully was not experiencing terrible pain once the morphine kicked in; his breathing was slightly labored and his blood pressure remained high. Maggie watched over him through the transfer into a medical transport helicopter and stayed with him while he was taken into the emergency room where Dr. Hollis waited.

  “Jesus, Maggie,” Rob said, his stethoscope going immediately to Sully’s chest. “Nothing like making an entrance.”

  “Who are you?” Sully asked.

  “Rob Hollis, cardiac surgeon. And you must be Sully.” He picked up a section of the EKG tape, glancing at it almost casually. “We’re going to run a few tests, draw some blood, bring down that blood pressure if possible and then, very probably, depending on the test results, go to the OR and perform a bypass surgery. Do you know what that is?”

  “Sure I do,” Sully said, his voice tired and soft. “I’m the last one on my block to get one.”

  “Maggie, this is going to take a while even though we’ll push it through with stat orders. Maybe you should go to the doctor’s lounge and rest.”

  “She should go grab a beer and find a poker game but she don’t need no rest,” Sully said. “She’s plenty rested.”

  “I’ll stay with my dad,” she said. “I’ll keep out of your way.”

  “You’re going to be bored,” Rob said.

  Not as long as he’s breathing, she thought. “I’ll manage.”

  * * *

  Maggie knew almost everyone in the hospita
l, in the ER and the OR. Because of her stature as a surgeon, she was given many updates on the tests, the results, the surgery. She even thought to ask one of her friends, an operating room charge nurse, for the loan of her car once Sully was out of recovery, out of danger, and resting comfortably in the coronary care unit. Here she was in Denver with no vehicle, no purse, credit cards, phone, nothing, but there was a spare key to her house under the flowerpot on the back patio and she could write a counter check at her bank for cash. There might even be a duplicate or extra credit or debit card she didn’t keep in her purse. In her closet there would be something to wear. In fact, there were drawers full of scrubs, if it came to that.

  She wasn’t bored and she’d had plenty of sleep before Sully’s medical emergency, but by the time she stood at his bedside in the CCU at five in the morning she was so exhausted she could hardly stand up. She had the wiggles from too much caffeine, looked like bloody hell and hadn’t had a shower since leaving Denver for Sullivan’s Crossing. It reminded her of some of those days in residency when she stayed at the hospital for over forty-eight hours with only a catnap here and there. This time it was all stress.

  She went home in her borrowed car to freshen up. She located an old wallet and purse, found a credit card she didn’t often use in her file cabinet and was back at the hospital by eight. By nine they were rousing Sully.

  “Maggie, you gotta get me out of here,” he rasped. “They won’t leave me alone.”

  “There’s nothing you can do but be your charming self,” she said.

  “They got some breathing thing they force on me every hour,” he complained. “And I’m starving to death. And it feels like they opened my chest with a Black & Decker saw.”

  “I’ll ask for more pain meds,” she offered. She lifted a hand toward the nurse and got a nod in return.

  “Maggie, you gotta go run the store...”

  “The store is fine. I called Enid an hour ago, gave her a progress report and checked on them. Frank stayed with her yesterday till closing, they took Beau home with them and they should be opening up about now. She’s going to call Tom Canaday and see if he has any extra time to help out. It’s all taken care of.”

  He just groaned and closed his eyes. “’Bout time Frank worked off some of that coffee he’s been freeloading. What about you?” he asked.

  “What about me? I’m here with you.”

  He opened his eyes. They were not his usual warm or mischievous brown eyes. They were angry. “I’m not good with hospitals. I’ve never been in one before.”

  She thought for a moment because surely he was wrong. “Huh,” she finally said. “Never? That’s something, Sully. Seventy years old and never spent a night in a hospital.”

  “Turns out I knew what I was doing. Look what happens. They have a tube shoved up my—”

  “Catheter,” she said.

  “Get it out! Now!”

  The nurse arrived with a syringe, putting it in the IV. “You should feel a lot better in just a few minutes, Mr. Sullivan.”

  “How long do I have to stay here?”

  “In the care unit? Just a day or two.”

  “Then I can go home?”

  “That’s a good question for the doctor, but it’s usually anywhere from three to eight days.”

  “I’ll do two,” he said without missing a beat. “That’s all I got.”

  “There’s recovery time involved after heart surgery, Dad,” Maggie said.

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to stay with you. Take care of you.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “God help me,” he whispered.

  We’re going to need a lot more drugs, Maggie thought.

  * * *

  A great deal of maneuvering was required for Maggie to get her affairs in order, so to speak.

  According to Enid, Tom Canaday, their handyman and helper, was going to adjust his schedule to spend more time at Sully’s. Tom had a lot of jobs—he drove a tow truck, worked on car repairs in a service station, drove a plow in winter and did roadwork in summer, which kept him on the county payroll. He did a variety of handyman and maintenance jobs around the area. He’d do just about anything if the money was right because he was a single father with four kids aged twelve to nineteen. Sometimes he’d bring one or two along to help him or just to hang out with him. And now, when Tom couldn’t work, he could send his oldest son, Jackson, the nineteen-year-old.

  Maggie asked Enid if she could come to Denver to pick her up, drive her back to Sully’s where she would get her own car and some incidentals like her cell phone, purse, extra clothes, makeup and the like. Also, she would get some clothing and a shaving kit for Sully, who was not going back home soon, a subject she was not looking forward to discussing with him.

  Enid said she’d be at the hospital in the morning. “Can I see him when I get there?” she asked.

  “You don’t want to see him, Enid. He’s a huge pain in the ass. He’s been complaining and trying to get out of here from the minute he arrived and the fact that he can hardly get out of bed hasn’t deterred him one bit.”

  “Well, I could’ve told you it would be like that.”

  * * *

  Maggie was waiting outside the hospital’s front entrance for Enid when who should pull up in a banged-up old red pickup truck but Frank. Maggie sighed. Just what I need—two hours held captive by Frank.

  All the way back to Sullivan’s Crossing, Frank droned on and on about the evils of government in every conspiracy theory ever imagined, including his belief that commercial jetliners were spraying the atmosphere with enhanced jet stream in an effort to lower the temperature of the earth to combat global warming. “Of which there ain’t no damn such thing anyhow.”

  By the time they got back to the crossing, she was exhausted all over again. “I can’t believe you did that to me,” she said to Enid.

  “You find him a little talkative, Maggie?” she asked with a teasing smile. “He got there, didn’t he? We’re a little shorthanded around here, you know.”

  Maggie hurried to gather up what she needed and asked Enid to make her a sandwich.

  “Already done, cupcake. Turkey and swiss on whole grain. And I packed up a box of cookies and muffins for Sully.”

  “I’m afraid his cookie and muffin days are over for now. Listen, Enid, we can put a sign on the door. Close up for a while. You and Frank just can’t handle the whole place on your own.”

  “We’re getting by all right, honey. People understand about stuff like this. Tom’s been here with his boy. That camper with the pop-up trailer has even been pitching in. Nice fella, Cal.”

  “Oh, Enid, he’ll probably steal the silver! If we had any.”

  “Nah, he’s a good enough fella. He’s got that spot and asked for a weekly rate. I offered him the house for his shower but he said he’s doing just fine.”

  “He’s probably homeless,” Maggie said. “You know we don’t really know these people.”

  “Tom offered to try to spend some nights around here, but we don’t hardly have anybody in the park anyhow. And besides, we got Cal here if there’s trouble, which there ain’t likely to be. Cal’s got a cell phone.”

  “He’ll probably break into the store and clean us out the first night and—”

  “Maggie, the first night’s come and gone and he’s still here, helping out. You’ve been in the city too long. That isn’t gonna happen, honey. And for sure not in March! No one’s passing through in this muck and mess.”

  But there had been times when the police or sheriff or ranger had to be called, when a few campers had a little too much fun, too much to drink, got aggressive. Sully had a baseball bat he took with him if he went out to see what was going on late at night. There was a domestic once when Maggie was young—some man knocking around his woman and Sully just couldn’
t resist. He decked him, knocked him out. Maggie had been stunned, not just that her dad would do that but that he was that strong. Plus, even though she’d always been told, we never hit, no matter what, she had adored him for it.

  It was true the crossing was mostly peaceful. But they were isolated, especially from November to March, and from time to time had a little trouble. They didn’t have any paid security like some of the bigger or state-operated campgrounds. Just Sully. Maggie could count on one hand the number of nights Sully had spent away from the campground. Her graduations, her wedding.

  “Was it awful?” Enid asked of Sully’s heart attack.

  “I was terrified,” Maggie whispered back.

  * * *

  Maggie went back to Denver, to a hospital she knew well, and commenced what would become three of the longest weeks of her life. Sully was healing nicely and making great progress...and he was incorrigible. He sulked, he didn’t follow explicit instructions, he got very constipated and it riled him beyond measure. He began speaking abusively to the nursing staff. He went from stonily silent to loud and abrasive; he wouldn’t eat his food and he was moved to a private room because Maggie couldn’t bear the effect he had on his roommate.

  “What is the matter with you?” she ground out.

  “Besides the fact that my chest was ripped open and I haven’t had a good shit in ten days? Not a goddamn thing!”

  “You haven’t been here ten days, but I’m going to get you fixed right away. And you’re going to be sorry you complained to me.” She put two residents on the job; she told them to use any means available and legal, just make it happen. She said she didn’t want to know how they did it but they were to see to it he had a bowel movement by morning.

  When she came in to see Sully the next day, he was smiling. And he was passably pleasant most of the day.

  After seven days in the hospital she took him home to her house where she was cloistered with him, fed him low-sodium and low-fat foods, took him to rehab every other day and listened to him bitch for another thirteen days.