Best Friend to Doctor Right

by Ann Mcintosh

  She called Kiah early in the afternoon and left a message asking him to call her back, but before he could, she knew she had to make a decision. Charm was excessively sleepy, and now complaining of joint pain to go along with her blinding headache.

  All kinds of horrible thoughts were going through Mina’s head, especially with the memory of the not long past camping trip. Encephalitis, meningitis, the dreaded chikungunya—none of them were off the table, in her mind, and she made the decision to take Charm to the hospital.

  It was only as she was getting Charm dressed that she realized she also had to figure out how to get her there. Should she call an ambulance? The taxi driver the family used on almost a daily basis?

  “Auntie,” Charm said with an air of urgency. “I’m going to be sick.”

  And Mina got her into the bathroom just in time for her to lose what little she’d eaten that day.

  That made the decision for Mina.

  Without thinking too much about it, she finished helping Charm put on her clothes. Then she fetched a basin from the washroom, and, grabbing the car keys and her handbag on the way out, led the youngster to Kiah’s car.

  Just as she had finished strapping Charm into the front seat, and placed the basin on her lap in case of need, her phone rang. She answered it as she closed the passenger door and started around the car to the driver’s side. The relief swamping her, as she heard Kiah’s voice, was visceral.

  “Hey, I got your message. What’s up?”

  “I don’t like how Charm looks. She’s lethargic, with joint pain and a blinding headache so bad it made her throw up. It may just be flu, but I’m taking her to the hospital.”

  “Did you call an ambulance, or Mr. Brown?” he asked, referring to the taxi driver.

  “No,” Mina replied, already sliding into the driver’s seat. “I’m driving her myself.”

  “Jesus, Mina.” The stress quotient in his voice rose a number of levels. “How bad is she?”

  He knew she hadn’t driven since the accident, and wasn’t used to the St. Eustace streets, or driving on the left-hand side of the road. Hearing she was worried enough to even attempt it was making him panic.

  “I’m sure she’ll be all right,” she replied, trying to calm him, even though her own anxiety was through the roof. “I’m just playing it safe.”

  “I’m on my way back, as soon as I find the driver,” he said. “And I’ll pick up Granny, too.”

  “Good,” she said, glad it was a right-hand drive vehicle, so she could adjust the seat without too much trouble. “I’ll call you from the hospital.”

  Thank goodness the car was automatic, as well, so once she’d got it in gear it was just a matter of steering, and remembering to stay on the proper side of the road.

  Charm moaned softly from the seat beside her, wringing Mina’s heart.

  “What hurts, baby?” she asked as she drove through an intersection perhaps a little faster than was wise.

  “My head. The light hurts, even with my eyes closed.”

  “We’re almost at the hospital, okay? We’re going to get you all fixed up.”

  God, she hoped she was wrong, and it was nothing more than a bad case of the flu, but her intuition warned her it was something more serious. Better to be safe, and look like an overly concerned mother, than sorry later on.

  When she pulled up outside of emergency, it was to find that Kiah had called ahead to warn them she was bringing Charm in, and there was an orderly and nurse waiting with a wheelchair. As they eased the girl out of the car Charm vomited again, and the nurse and Mina exchanged worried looks.

  “Don’t leave me, Auntie,” Charm said, holding on to Mina’s arm.

  “I’ll be right here, baby, but I have to move the car, in case an ambulance or another emergency comes in. Go with Nurse Schofield and I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  But it wrung her heart to see the fear in Charm’s damp eyes, and when she’d found a spot to park and was running back to the building, she had to dash away a few tears of her own.

  “Dr. Jonas is in with her,” the head nurse told Mina, once she was back inside. “Go on in.”

  “Dr. Langdon is coming in from Morningside—”

  “I know,” the nurse said, walking briskly and leading Mina to a cubicle. “He told us what was happening, and said he was giving you the power to make any decisions necessary regarding Charmaine’s care until he arrived.”

  Behind the curtain, she found Neil Jonas examining Charm, with a nurse in attendance.

  Mina put her hand on Charm’s shoulder and said, “I’m back, baby.”

  The little hand came up, and Mina grasped Charm’s fingers, watching but not interfering, as the examination continued.

  After Dr. Jonas was finished, he said, “Charmaine, I’m going to step outside with Dr. Haraldson for a few moments, and then she’ll come back in and stay with you, okay?”

  Charm’s fingers tightened almost painfully. “You’re coming back, Auntie?”

  “Of course I am.” Mina leaned down and kissed Charm’s feverish brow. “I won’t be gone long.”

  Seeing Charm like that rattled Mina. She’d become so used to the sassy, irrepressible young woman who seemed older than her years in many respects. Now the child she really was had come to the surface, awakening a deep vein of protective instincts in Mina.

  “It could just be a bad case of the flu,” Dr. Jonas was saying, and Mina forced herself to concentrate. “But are there additional risk factors I should know about?”

  “She went camping over the half-term holidays, up at Justice Peak,” Mina said. “It made me worry about insect-borne viruses, perhaps even causing encephalitis, or meningitis.”

  Neil Jonas nodded, his gaze darting back to the cubicle, before coming to rest on Mina. “I don’t want to play around with this. We’ve had one case of viral encephalitis in the northern side of the island, near to where she was camping, in the last week, so there’s a precedent we have to take into consideration.”

  He took a breath, and Mina’s heart dropped, knowing what he was going to say, even before he said, “I’d like to do a lumbar puncture, to be certain, before I start treating her with drugs she might not actually need.”

  That was when Mina realized it didn’t matter whether you were a doctor, or not. When it was a child you loved, there was no easy way to make a decision that would seem like a no-brainer to the attending physician.

  She turned away, tears filling her eyes, and she pinched the bridge of her nose to hold them back. There was the urge to call Kiah, let him decide, but she knew he’d have the very same reaction she was having right now. He also might not be able to bear the thought of Charm going through such a painful, and potentially dangerous, procedure.

  Yet, Mina also knew Dr. Jonas suspected, as she herself did, that Charm’s illness was serious enough to need medical intervention beyond anti-inflammatory drugs.

  Both encephalitis and meningitis could be fatal, or have long-term effects, if not diagnosed and promptly treated. Mina knew she couldn’t take the chance with Charm’s life and future.

  “Okay,” she said, turning back to face Dr. Jonas. “Do the spinal tap. Will I be allowed to stay with her while you do it?”

  Normally parents were advised not to remain in the room, but she’d promised to stay with Charm, and she wanted to keep that promise. Besides, she wasn’t a parent, and she was a doctor to boot. Surely those things would count for something?

  “You can, if you want to.” Dr. Jonas gave her a knowing look. “You know better than most what’s involved, so if you think you can handle it, then yes.”

  “Of course I can,” she said, with far more confidence than she was actually feeling, and a sinking sensation in her belly, which told her she was a stone-cold liar.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ST. EUSTACE
WAS a small island. The kind that it doesn’t take more than four or five hours to circumnavigate, depending on the time of day, and how fast you drive. But to Kiah it suddenly appeared to have grown to the width of Canada, since it seemed to take forever to get back to Port Michael.

  Mina had called a couple of times, updating them, and Kiah had almost lost his mind when she told him that Neil Jonas had performed a lumbar puncture on Charm.

  He hadn’t said anything untoward, he didn’t think, but even with the knowledge that it had been successfully done, and Charm had been admitted pending the results, he was enraged.

  “Hezekiah, you know Mina would never agree to anything she didn’t think was necessary,” Granny said, but her voice wobbled, showing how badly all of this was affecting her, too.

  “They shouldn’t have done it without my permission. They could have called—”

  “You told them Mina would make the decisions until you got there, and she did as you asked. Do you think it would have been an easy one to make? Would it have been easy for you?”

  But Kiah was in a head space where logic couldn’t touch him, where rage sustained his sanity, keeping all other emotions and impulses at bay.

  When they finally arrived at the hospital in Port Michael, he was a ball of fury, ready to let fly at anyone who got in his way.

  Neil Jonas was at the nurses’ station when he got up to the wards, and Kiah found himself wanting to punch him in the face. When the other man saw him approaching and gave him a solemn nod, the urge only increased.

  “It’s definitely viral encephalitis,” Neil said after a brief greeting. “The lab results just came back, and I’ve ordered treatment. I want to keep her in for a couple of days under observation, but although it’s a bad case, it was caught early enough, and she’ll make a full recovery.”

  “Thank the Father,” was Miss Pearl’s response, but although the news was good, it did nothing to lessen the churning ball of anger in Kiah’s belly.

  When he entered the hospital room and found Mina sitting beside Charm’s bed, not even the sight of her worn, tired face could touch him.

  Only Charm’s wan smile somehow cut through his rage, and he moved to her side, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

  “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

  “A bit better,” she said. “They said the headache should go away soon, but Auntie’s made them turn the lights down for me. And I have to lie still, because of the thing they did to my back.” She looked past him to say, “Hello, Granny.”

  “Why you want to scare an old lady like me, Charmaine?” Miss Pearl took one of Charm’s hands and bent down for a kiss. “My heart can’t take the stress.”

  “I didn’t mean to, Granny. You know I didn’t.” Charm sounded genuinely contrite, and Miss Pearl chuckled in response.

  “I do know you didn’t mean to. I’m just teasing you.”

  “Sit here, Miss Pearl,” Mina said, having already got up from the lone chair in the room. “I’ll see if I can find another chair from somewhere.”

  Kiah hadn’t looked at her, after that first glance, but now he knew he needed to vent some of the ire still filling his chest, and the one who seemed to deserve it most had just walked away.

  “I’ll be right back, Charm,” he said. “Granny, stay with her for me, please?”

  “Uncle, wait.” Charm caught hold of his hand, making Kiah pause. “Can you bring me something to eat? I’m hungry.”

  “Okay, love.” He bent to kiss her forehead again, and then strode out of the room, looking for Mina.

  When there was no sight of her, he went over to the nurses’ desk.

  “Did you see which way Dr. Haraldson went?”

  The nurse on duty pointed toward the door leading to the stairs, and Kiah made a beeline for it.

  When he opened the door, he didn’t hear footsteps, but there was a soft, almost imperceptible sound echoing in the stairwell. It seemed to be coming from above him and so, although the rising staircase led only to the roof access, which was always locked, he went up, instead of down. Turning the corner on the landing, he could see her, sitting on the top step, her hand to her face, rocking back and forth.

  She must have heard his footsteps, because she looked up, but her tear-stained face and reddened eyes couldn’t melt the icy fury in his heart.

  It must have shown in his eyes, or expression, because she got up, the tears still rolling down her cheeks.

  “Kiah, please don’t be angry with me right now. I don’t think I could stand it.”

  She sounded so defeated, so sad, and it was then he realized: he wasn’t angry with her.

  All the fury inside was aimed squarely at himself.

  He was the one who’d put her in a position to make the heart-wrenching decision about the lumbar puncture, who’d caused her the pain so clearly etched on her face.

  “I did what I thought was right, for Charm.” The words came out in little bursts, in between her sobs. “You know I’d never do anything to hurt her, if I could h-help it.”

  He wanted to tell her he knew, and understood, but all the old terror and agony he’d carried through the years clogged his throat.

  All the fear came back, beating at him, as though to break him. Swamping him, until he thought he might drown.

  Suddenly he was twelve again, watching his father die, impotent to help. Having his mother blame him, although he’d done the only thing he’d known how, which was call for an ambulance. And then he was thirty, getting the call about Karlene and Roy, learning he’d failed to give them the help and support they’d needed to get through the toughest of times.

  And now, he’d put the responsibility of Charm’s care on Mina’s shoulders, instead of taking it on his own, the way he should. Making Mina cry, in a way he’d only seen her break down once before, at the loss of her hand.

  Then, to make it worse, he’d gotten angry, when it was all his fault.

  How could he do that? Cause so much pain, and translate that into the kind of rage that made him want to punch the walls, shout at the top of his lungs? It was all he could do to close his eyes, stand motionless, lock his knees, so as not to kick and scream.

  “Kiah—”

  Mina’s voice broke through the bombardment of his thoughts, and he realized she was holding him, her arm around his waist, her hand cupping his cheek, her worried gaze searching his.

  She was holding him, as if he was the one in need of sympathy, of reassurance.

  Once more he’d failed at doing the right thing.

  Unable to speak, to articulate everything swirling and snapping in his chest, he bent and kissed Mina’s forehead, his heart breaking all over again, as tears filled her eyes once more.

  “Kiah, she’s going to be okay. That’s what’s important.”

  But he couldn’t hear that right now, not with any kind of equanimity. All he could do was ease out of Mina’s embrace and walk away, hoping to get some kind of control over himself, before he did any more harm.

  * * *

  Mina made it as far as the ladies’ room before she lost it again, hiding in a stall to shed some more tears, although they made her feel worse than before.

  Damn Kiah. Damn him straight to hell and back, for making her feel as though she hadn’t done her best. As though she had somehow failed him and Charm.

  She couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive him. Not yet. Maybe never.

  All the years of friendship and understanding, the connection they’d shared, had been shattered, because he apparently didn’t trust her to do right by a little girl she loved, probably almost as much as he did.

  How else could she interpret his actions, the anger she’d seen in his expression?

  While staying with Charm as she had the lumbar puncture, hearing her cry and trying to soothe her, she’d hardly been able to stand it
. The love she had for Charm was so strong it almost rivaled that which she had for Kiah himself.

  Had he forgotten all she’d been through with his niece, or not understood how special it was to her? Not recognized Mina would never, ever do anything to harm the little girl?

  She’d thought she’d been hurt before, but somehow this was bigger, more painful than even the loss of her hand. And she wasn’t sure how she was going to face Kiah, after how he’d made her feel.

  How could he have placed so much trust in her in the past, and lost confidence in her when it was a matter of life and death? Charm’s life or death?

  His lack of faith gutted her, made her feel hollow and bereft. Without his trust, could they even maintain the friendship they had?

  And now she realized making love with him had been an even bigger mistake than she’d suspected. It had tied her to him in ways she could never truly undo.

  Well, the joke was on her, wasn’t it? She’d made the mistake of falling for her best friend, only to realize the relationship, even the friendship, wasn’t what she’d thought. She’d always love him, but had to accept they were at the end of the road.

  Grabbing some more tissue from the dispenser, she mopped at her eyes and blew her nose.

  She’d put off making a decision about her future for too long, and now she had a clear direction.

  There was no way she’d stay on St. Eustace and potentially see Kiah every day. If she were being brutally honest with herself, she’d been leaning heavily toward staying. She loved it here, loved being around Charm and Miss Pearl, and felt she could do a lot of good, professionally, on the island. Real work that would make an impact on those around her, and maybe even for years to come. The thought of going back to the rush and scurry of Canada hadn’t held much appeal, even with the prestigious job on offer.

  She was a different woman from the one who’d have jumped, just over a year ago, at the deputy chief position and worked herself into the ground to be successful at it. Now, if she did decide to take it, she had to be assured she could still maintain a healthy balance between the job and the life she knew she wanted.