He watched Gwen Sheldon struggle with the rusty can opener she’d had for at least fifteen years. “Mom, why don’t you use the electric opener we got you for Christmas last year?”
“I never could remember to use that thing. I donated it to the senior center.” She flipped the lid into the trash and dumped the can of cream of chicken soup into the skillet without draining the grease from the hamburger—just the way he liked it when he was eleven and skinny and had never heard the swear word cholesterol. Smoke billowed through the kitchen. Mom stirred, unconcerned.
Grant got up and opened the kitchen window then turned on the overhead vent above the stove before the smoke alarm could go off. “Does Mrs. Scott still clean your house every week?” Judging by the windows and floors, the answer was—
“No.” Tight-lipped. Disapproving.
“But I’ve been sending her a check every month.”
“I can clean my own house.” Her voice sharpened. “I send her to Mr. Lewis. He’s getting old and can’t take care of things like he did. I’m not that old yet.”
Grant sank back into his chair with a sigh. He loved his mother. That was why she frustrated him so much. She had been set in her ways for as long as he had been aware that there were ways in which one could be set. She’d grown up poor and didn’t believe in many personal luxuries.
To the despair of Grant and his sister, however, Mom had also failed to recover from yet another big catastrophe in her life—when her husband left her for another woman. The fact that his relationship with that woman had fizzled barely six months after it began had been no comfort. Mom’s bitterness had formed an immovable core of deep anger that occasionally manifested itself in the form of depression that cast a pall over the whole family.
When Dad apologized and asked permission to return, she allowed him back into the house but she made it obvious that she did so only for the sake of Grant and Rita. Her lingering resentment soon formed a wall between her and Dad that blew them apart years later. She never allowed him to forget what he had done.
While Mom had developed a habit of complaint, Dad had developed a drinking habit. As teenagers, Grant and Rita avoided both parents. Because of that—or perhaps in spite of it—they developed a close relationship.
Mom set a glass of milk in front of Grant with a plate of hamburger gravy on toast. She went back to the stove and returned with a pan of fried okra, crisp with tempura batter. She set it on the table with a little flourish.
“Mom, you can still work that stove like a magician.” He hoped he’d put enough enthusiasm in his voice.
She allowed a small, pleased smile to touch her lips as she took off her apron. “It’s probably been a long time since Annette fixed this for you.”
Grant gave his mother a sharp look then dismissed the remark. He said silent grace over his food. He’d never been able to convince her that Christianity was not just some secret weapon Annette had used to steal his heart from his mother when she needed him most.
“How is Annette doing?” Mom persisted. “She hasn’t called me in a long time and I’m always afraid to call you down there. With all those night shifts you work, I don’t want to take a chance of waking you up in the daytime when you need your sleep.”
Grant ignored a little jab of surprise and reached for another napkin. “You mean Brooke, don’t you Mom?”
She frowned. For a few seconds her gray eyes studied him in silence. The thick lenses of her glasses gave her an appearance of confusion. “I might be a little forgetful lately but I don’t think I’ve gotten so absentminded that I would forget my own daughter-in-law’s name.”
A chill of disbelief froze Grant. He steadied himself against the edge of the table as he looked up into his mother’s innocent gaze. While she waited in apparent mystification for his reply, he floundered in confusion.
“Mom, are you feeling well? Have you been sick recently? The flu seems to be—”
“Nothing wrong with me but a few aching joints. You haven’t answered my question.”
“Has your doctor changed your medications?” he asked on a surge of panic.
“Why are you so worried about me all of a sudden? I’m fine.” She reached for the small plate she had prepared for herself and carried it around the table to take her customary seat. “Eat your dinner before it gets cold.”
He picked up his fork, still puzzled.
She fixed him with a steady gaze of concern. “You’re not having marriage problems too, are you? It seems like everybody is these days.”
It was a misunderstanding. It had to be.
“Mom, I’ve never had marriage problems but ... Annette’s dead.”
Shock transformed the look of concern on her face to one of horror. Grant felt a reflection of that same horror in his heart.
***
Lauren pressed her knee against the faucet control at the sink and soaped her hands. She was reaching for paper towels when Dr. Caine’s voice echoed through the department—spiked with annoyance.
“Nurse.”
She looked around to find him bearing down on her in the hallway. She switched off the faucet with her knee and dried her hands.
“I need you to explain something to me.” He stopped well within Lauren’s personal space—a favorite tool he used for intimidation.
“May I help you?”
“I want to know why you placed all the blame on me for the neglected instructions to Mrs. Lindeman last night.”
“I didn’t.” It would do no good to try to justify herself to him.
“Then why did she just blame me for her headache? She said you told her it was from a spinal leak.”
“I also told her she had received a discharge instruction sheet with the information she needed. I suggested that it might be a spinal-leak headache and that a simple procedure—”
“I’ll thank you to leave the diagnoses to me in the future.”
“So it wasn’t a spinal leak?”
“That isn’t the point. I’ve given her pain meds and she’s scheduled for a blood patch in the morning but she’s already warned me that she will refuse to pay the bill and that she will call administration and complain about the substandard treatment she received here, thanks to you.”
She returned glare for glare, resisting the powerful urge to point out that his abusive behavior toward the nurse had been the inciting factor for the patient.
“Some nurses get reported for this kind of thing,” he said.
“What kind of thing?” She refused to be intimidated.
“Practicing medicine without a license.”
“I’m a nurse and I practice nursing with a license. To whom would the report go?”
A muscle twitched in his jawline. “To the state medical licensing board.”
“Feel free.” He would be laughed out of the state if he pulled such a stunt.
He made an about-face and stalked away.
“Whoa, girl,” Becky said from behind her. “He’ll get you back for that.”
“For speaking the simple truth? Let him try.”
“I’ve learned he doesn’t mean most of the things he says.”
“I know but I didn’t sign up for verbal abuse.” She gave Becky a quick grin. “I’ll try to keep my mouth shut if it’ll make you feel better.”
Part of Lauren’s job, she knew, was to boost staff morale when a doctor or patient got testy. She couldn’t help wondering who was going to boost her own morale when Caine stepped over the line too many times in one night.
***
Grant listened to the contrast of the silence in the house against the discordance of traffic outside on the busy street. He watched the flicker of headlights reflect through the leaded panes of Mom’s living room window and door and travel across the wood grain of the paneling. He sat in the dark room and tried to tell himself his imagination was working overtime, tried to convince himself that anyone could make that kind of mistake.
But not about her own daughter-in-l
aw.
Pots clattered in the kitchen. The aroma of grease smoke lingered. As had been all his life, Mom would not dream of allowing Grant to help with the dishes. At least that part of her memory remained steady.
Other things had changed.
Still, it could be a fluke. Something that would never happen again. A little glitch.
He switched on the lamp beside his chair and found himself staring at a picture of Beau with a smile that spread across his features and lit his dark gray black-lashed eyes with joy.
But that couldn’t be. There were no recent pictures of Beau’s smile. Grant checked the photograph more closely and realized it was a picture of him. For a moment he allowed himself to forget the problem with Mom and concentrate on the awe that surged through him.
How could he never have realized how much Beau resembled him? It filled him with pride. And then it plunged him into despair. Beau would never have his smile.
Another light came on in the room and Mom stepped in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dishtowel. “I found that in our old picture box. It looked so much like your grandpa and Beau.” She sat down in the wingback chair opposite Grant. “I just wish Beau...” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I hope they can fix his face someday.”
Grant blinked at her. Now she remembered. “I don’t think he’ll want to try again, Mom.”
She didn’t seem to hear him as she took the picture from him and wiped at a smudge in the top left corner then hugged it to her chest and leaned back. “There are times I just want to wipe the whole scene from my memory but somehow it always comes back.” She sighed and held the picture out again. “Those gray eyes run in the family.”
Grant exhaled a breath and leaned back on the sofa. Maybe everything would be okay.
Chapter 13
Sometime after midnight on Wednesday morning, Lauren leaned back in her chair at her section of the central desk and looked at the computer screen. The evening rush didn’t look as if it would let up for the rest of the night. She and Muriel had not taken a break since they’d arrived at work and her stomach reminded her of that at every opportunity.
“I’m well aware you were sleeping, Dr. Morris,” came Dr. Caine’s soft growl through the open doorway of Grant’s office. “May I also remind you that you refused to allow the hospitalist to care for your patients, so you’re on call.”
Muriel turned and rolled her eyes at Lauren, the top edge of her lower teeth peeping out from between her lips. “Do you know how many times he used to chew other docs out for calling him in the middle of the night?”
Lauren raised a hand to shush her before the doctor could hear.
Muriel stood up and flexed her shoulders. “Time to check on my baby in six. Lay low while His Majesty is on his rampage.” She walked away, muttering under her breath, “If all doctors had his attitude there wouldn’t just be a nursing shortage, there’d be a nursing stoppage, and I’d be one of the—”
“Lauren.” Becky stepped up behind her and gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “There’s a call for you on line three. I think maybe you should take it back in the break room where it’s more private.”
“What?” Lauren frowned and looked around at her. “Why? Who is it?”
Becky leaned closer. “It’s your mother.”
Lauren automatically looked at her watch. It was one o’clock in the morning. She caught her breath and rushed to the break room. This couldn’t be good.
When she answered she heard a watery sniff and the sound of a quavering sigh.
“Mom?” Lauren clenched the receiver.
“I can’t believe this...” There was a shudder of breath and a moment of silence.
“What’s happened?”
“Oh Sweetheart, it’s...Hardy. He’s...there was an accident.” Her voice dissolved to soft broken cries.
Lauren stiffened. “Mom, what? Where is he? How badly was he hurt?”
There was a shuffle of the receiver at the other end and the deep bass sound of a man clearing his throat.
“Lauren.” Her father’s voice sounded shaky.
“Daddy? What about Hardy? Is he okay?” She knew already that he was not. It had to be bad for her parents to be so upset.
“Lauren, punkin’, your brother’s...he’s gone.” Daddy’s voice went hoarse.
Lauren caught her breath then pulled a chair out from the table and eased herself into it. For a moment she couldn’t respond. She heard the baby cry out as Muriel gave him the injection and she heard Dr. Caine issue an order to the secretary out in the ER proper. The room felt as if it had suddenly been depleted of oxygen. Gone. That was the euphemism her parents always used for…. No. It couldn’t be.
She squeezed her eyes shut. No!
Her father’s voice continued after a moment. “...accident at work. You know he was working night shifts at the foundry so Sandi could work at the bank and one of them would always be with the girls.” His voice continued to wobble. “Some fool made a mistake with the metallurgy mix and there was an explosion. Hardy rushed to help and he got caught in a second blast. They took him to the hospital but...Dr. Bower pronounced him at midnight.”
Lauren’s hands trembled. Her brother died an hour ago.
There was a sob at the other end. Her father’s voice wobbled and failed. The sound of it undermined Lauren’s strength. She pressed her forehead to the table and waited to awaken from the nightmare.
“This is the first time since you moved that I was glad you weren’t here,” he said at last. “I can’t imagine you bein’ on duty when they took him in.”
Tears stung the backs of her eyelids. Oh, Hardy.
“We probably should have waited until morning to call you but your mother didn’t want to take a chance that you would hear about it over that ambulance radio.”
“I’m glad you...” Lauren’s throat closed. It couldn’t be possible.
“Do you have Archer Pierce’s telephone number? He and Hardy were...good friends.”
“I’ll call him in the morning.” Oh, Hardy. Hardy! This can’t be! “Don’t wake him tonight. He’s overworked as it is.” And she didn’t want him to come to the hospital tonight—which he would do—and make it more real.
“I don’t like the idea of you going home to an empty house in the morning.”
“I won’t.” She swallowed and forced herself to remain as calm as possible. She couldn’t fall apart now. “Remember? I’m staying with Brooke and Beau Sheldon while Grant’s in St. Louis.” She had work to do. People needed her.
“Honey, are you going to be okay?”
“I will be. Did Dr. Bower say what did it?” She suddenly sensed that she wasn’t alone and she turned enough to see from the corner of her eye that Dr. Caine was stepping toward her from the doorway. She didn’t look up or acknowledge his arrival.
“Head injury,” Daddy said. “I don’t think you want the details. I know I didn’t.”
“H-how are Sandi and the girls doing?” The thought of her young nieces, Faith and Sierra, facing childhood without their father...
“Pretty broken up. They’re staying with us tonight and I—”
“Lauren.” Dr. Caine’s irritated voice intruded into the room like buckshot. “I need—”
Lauren held her hand up for silence. “What, Daddy? I didn’t hear you.”
“Nurse!”
She jerked around and glared at him and a flicker of surprise entered his eyes.
“Did you hear me, Lauren?” Her father’s voice came clearly into the room. “I said don’t you even think about trying to drive here without any sleep.”
She turned her back on Dr. Caine and pressed the receiver close to her ear to deflect the conversation from the doctor’s listening ears. “I won’t. I promise. Can I call you in the morning?”
“You call any time. I don’t think we’ll be getting much sleep tonight anyway. You...you be careful now, you hear?”
She swallowed fresh tears. “I will,” she whisper
ed. “Thank you for calling. I love you.” She said goodbye and disconnected. Her hands shook visibly.
“We have patients waiting.” Dr. Caine bent forward with the fingers of his right hand splayed across the table. “If you can’t keep up the pace then you can find your way to the time clock and we’ll get a replacement.”
The roll of emotions quickened within her with white heat and she clenched her fists in sudden anger. “Sounds good to me. Why don’t you do that?” She said the words without conscious forethought and it surprised her how good it felt to say them. She slid from beneath his looming shadow and stood up, keeping her back to him. She wanted to quit.
She opened the door to her locker and reached for her coat and purse, knowing with every movement that she should not leave but receiving dark enjoyment from the sense of freedom it gave her, if just for a few seconds, to pretend that she was. A sense of retaliation stirred her.
Yes, the anger felt good. It soothed the pain for a few seconds to behave totally out of character for Lauren McCaffrey, even if it was just make-believe.
She gripped her purse with shaking hands and turned toward the door.
“Lauren!”
She pivoted back and glared at him. “What!”
This time shock froze his expression as he straightened from the table. “What are you doing?”
Time to back down. Time to stop pretending. “If you want to fire me and bring in a replacement, feel free.” She’d lost control of her tongue and she realized tears trickled down her cheeks.
The low hum of fluorescent lights filled the room and the chatter of the ER spilled through the open doorway. Reality seeped past Lauren’s barrier of anger and stiffened her shaking arms and legs. The telephone rang and Becky answered. Lester raced past the doorway in response to a patient’s call.
“I did not fire you.” Dr. Caine stared at her face and his voice suddenly softened a few decibels. “I merely reminded you of your—”
“I heard what you said. I’ve been hearing you all night. Who could avoid hearing you yell at anyone who irritates you in the slightest?”
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