Vital Signs

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “They’re not sure—it was fairly major. She was alone when it happened, but somehow she managed to call 911. And guess what?” Karen couldn’t hide her excitement. “There’s a message for you at the desk. You’re to call Melissa Clayton-Burke. I’ll bet you anything she asks you to take over for Margaret.”

  KAREN WAS RIGHT. Melissa asked if Hailey would become acting head nurse on the pediatrics ward.

  Hailey hesitated. She’d turned down opportunities in the past to be head nurse, mostly because the job she loved was direct patient care. As head, she’d spend less time with patients and more on administration. She’d be responsible for all the patients in peds, instead of the ones assigned to her. But if she said no, someone would be assigned who didn’t know the department or the kids. Reluctantly she agreed.

  When she arrived to start her shift, the others all knew, and a cheer went up. It was gratifying to have the support of her co-workers.

  Her heart sank, however, when Mary said, “Brittany’s bad—she had a really difficult night. I called her doctor and he ordered more meds, but she’s still pretty miserable. Her temperature’s up, and she’s struggling to breathe. We called her mom about an hour ago, and she’s taking the early-morning ferry over.”

  They were all quiet for a moment. Each of them knew that Brittany’s disease had spread to her lungs and this relapse meant it wasn’t likely she would survive much longer.

  “She’s fought so hard for so long.” Hailey could feel sorrow like a hard, tight lump, right under her heart. “Maybe it’s time for all of us to let go.”

  The others nodded agreement. Hard as it was, they knew that the time always came when some children needed permission from those around them, from those who loved them, to leave. Sometimes the child’s parents intuitively did exactly that, but more often it became the nurses’ job to gently explain that it was necessary.

  “I’ll speak to her mother when she gets here.” Hailey knew Susan Whitcomb really well; they’d become friendly during Brittany’s many admissions.

  Hailey hurried to Brittany’s room, relieved to find the little girl deeply asleep.

  The first couple of hours convinced Hailey that administration wasn’t where she wanted to spend the rest of her career. In the midst of playing a game with one of the kids, someone paged her because she was wanted on the phone. She was responsible for scheduling tests. Any problems with food trays were hers to sort out, and the constant interruptions began to wear on her.

  When she had time, she checked Brittany again and found the little girl awake.

  “Hey, chickadee, how’s it going?”

  Hailey hid her shock at Brittany’s appearance. Even with oxygen, the fragile girl was laboring for breath. One glance told Hailey that she was nearing the end of her short life. Children often had a clarity about their eyes when the end was near, an otherworldly radiance. Brittany’s gray eyes had it now.

  “Your mom’s coming soon,” Hailey said as she gently did all she could to make the child more comfortable. “Let’s straighten this sheet. It’s all crumpled up under you. Want me to read to you?”

  Brittany gave her head a slight shake. She looked so small and alone in the hospital bed.

  “Want me to hold you?”

  Brittany’s nod and attempt at a smile were heartbreaking.

  Hailey slipped off her shoes and got on the bed, praying there wouldn’t be any interruptions. She gathered Brittany into her arms and rocked her gently.

  “Don’t be scared, honey.” Her voice was thick with grief, but she held the tears back. “When it’s time, the angels will come and get you, and nothing will hurt anymore.”

  “How…will…I know?” It seemed such an effort for her to speak.

  “You’ll hear the music.” For Hailey, the effort was just as overwhelming. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t let herself do that. Not yet, not while Brittany needed her to be strong.

  Brittany whispered, “Mama?”

  “Your mama understands. She knows it’s getting hard for you now. She’ll be okay. She’s a really strong lady.”

  The little girl nodded, and it seemed to Hailey that her breathing eased just a trifle. Time passed, and as long as she could, Hailey ignored the hands on her watch, the tasks that needed completing. At this moment nothing was more important than being here. At last Brittany fell asleep, and Hailey gently, carefully, slid the child out of her aching arms and climbed off the bed.

  The rest of the morning was frantic, and it was past lunchtime when Brittany’s mother, Susan Whitcomb, hurried up to the nurses’ station.

  “She’s sleeping—she’s slept most of the morning,” Hailey told her, hugging Susan and drawing her into the nurses’ lounge, thankful that it was deserted.

  “Brittany’s bad, isn’t she?” Susan’s eyes were wide and fearful, and her hands were trembling around the coffee mug Hailey handed her. She looked drawn and terribly strained.

  In answer to her question, Hailey nodded. “Yeah, she is.”

  Susan’s eyes welled up with tears and her voice wobbled. “Is it…is it time?”

  “Almost.”

  Susan moaned in agony, and Hailey got up and took the other woman in her arms.

  “I think she’s holding on for you,” Hailey explained. “I think it’s time to let her know that it’s okay to go when she’s ready.”

  “God, Hailey,” Susan sobbed. “I’m not sure I can do it. It tears me apart, I…I love her so much.” When the tears slowed, Susan blew her nose hard. “You know, I was only fourteen when she was born.”

  Hailey tried not to reveal her shock. Susan looked much older than twenty-six.

  “I was a wild kid. My boyfriend was an older guy, all of seventeen.” Susan attempted a smile, but tears leaked steadily from her tired eyes. “He ran away when he found out, and everyone said I should give her up for adoption, that I was too young to raise her. I was going to, but then when she was born, I held her, and she looked up at me as if she knew me, and I just couldn’t do it, you know?”

  Hailey felt hot and then icy cold. She thought of David, of Shannon. She really didn’t want to hear this, but she couldn’t walk out on Susan. Besides, Susan’s situation was totally different from Shannon’s, wasn’t it? Susan was a conscientious mother. She’d never have deserted her baby.

  “It was so hard, learning how to take care of her,” Susan was saying through her tears. “She had colic. I couldn’t have done it without my mother and grandmother—they were both there for me. I remember a couple of times when I ran out the door and left them with Brittany when she was screaming.” She blew her nose again and stood up. “I’ll go down to her room now and see if she’s awake. And—” her voice faltered “—I’ll tell her it’s okay.”

  “You’ve got my cell number,” Hailey said, holding back her own tears. “You call me if you need me, Susan, anytime, day or night.”

  Susan nodded. “Thanks. Tom’s coming tonight. His mother’s staying with the boys. He’ll be here with me.”

  Hailey worked an extra hour that afternoon, doing her best to finish everything her new position demanded. By the time she was ready to leave, she was both exhausted and frustrated.

  She stopped by Brittany’s room. Susan was sitting on the bed, cradling her daughter. Hailey gave them each a kiss and wearily made her way down to the parking garage.

  She was near her truck when it hit her full force. She’d just advised Susan to let her daughter go, because it was best for Brittany. But what had Hailey done for David, for Shannon? She’d allowed her own overwhelming need to obscure the truth—that David really did need to be with his mother. The truth was bitter and agonizing, and she bent double with the pain. But even pain didn’t last, and after long moments it ebbed into a kind of weary acceptance. Her hands trembled as she searched for her keys.

  As she unlocked her truck, she gave in to the nagging little voice in her head. Cursing her conscience, she
locked the vehicle again and went back into St. Joe’s. She took the elevator up to intensive care, wondering just what the heck she was doing and why.

  “She’s improved somewhat since this morning—she’s conscious and aware,” the nurse at the station told Hailey when she asked about Margaret. “You can go in for a few minutes. She doesn’t have any other visitors.”

  Hailey had only intended to find out how she was. Something made her ask, “Has anybody else been in to see her?”

  “Melissa Clayton-Burke. Hers was the only emergency number Ms. Cross had listed. There was one next of kin, but it turned out to be an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s in a rest home in Victoria. We didn’t know who else to call. Is there anyone you know of?”

  Hailey shook her head. How terribly lonely it must be not to have anyone to call in an emergency except the hospital administrator. Damn, she hated feeling sorry for Margaret, but she just couldn’t help it.

  As she made her way past the line of beds, she hoped the former head nurse would be asleep, but she wasn’t. Margaret turned her head and looked up at her. Strange, Hailey thought, to see the woman without her cap. Her hair was matted down, there were oxygen plugs in her nose and IVs in her arm. She looked old and sad and very sick. Again, Hailey felt a pang of sympathy.

  “Hi, Margaret.” Hailey managed a smile. “I just wanted to say hello. Everyone on peds says hi. We’re all hoping you’ll be better soon.”

  It wasn’t strictly true. Hailey had heard the other nurses talking, and there wasn’t much affection for Margaret in what they said.

  “Is there anything I can bring you? Anything you need or want?”

  “No. Thank you.” The words were breathy and faint.

  “Okay.” Damn, this was awkward. “Well, then, you just concentrate on getting better, okay?” She turned to go.

  “Wait.”

  Hailey longed to pretend she hadn’t heard, but she just couldn’t do it.

  “I’m…sorry.” Margaret’s speech was labored. “Wasn’t right…of me. But the boy…needed his…mother.”

  Hailey could only nod. Why did every single person feel it necessary to tell her the same damn thing? Maybe because she’d needed to hear it a number of times before she could accept it.

  “You’re…a good nurse, Hailey.”

  For a moment, Hailey thought she was hearing things. She gaped at Margaret. Why was she telling her this now?

  “I’m having a tough time being a good nurse these days,” she finally said. “I miss David something awful.” Roy, too, but she couldn’t say that.

  “You’d make…a good mother.” Margaret closed and opened her eyes. “But…I couldn’t stand…that boy crying for her…like he did.”

  “Yeah.” Hailey’s sigh was deep and sad and healing. “I know. I guess I couldn’t stand it either.” She’d finally admitted what she’d known all along, what everyone had been trying to tell her. Roy had done the right thing, the only thing. She didn’t blame him any longer. She had to tell him so.

  “I’ll come by and see you in the morning before I go on shift, Margaret. But right now, I gotta make a phone call.”

  WHEN HE WALKED into the apartment that evening, Roy’s phone was ringing. He wasn’t about to answer; he wanted to go for a run. He’d been running more than he had since he was on the high-school track team. It wasn’t making him feel any better, but at least it tired him enough so that he slept at night.

  The ringing stopped, and his machine clicked on. A woman’s tense, high voice said, “I need to talk to Roy Zedyck right away. It’s Tonya Cabral. It’s about David.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ROY SNATCHED UP the receiver, and his stomach knotted as he listened to what Tonya had to say.

  “I was out,” she told him, “and the message was on my machine when I got home. It was Shannon asking me to keep David. She was on something when she called—I could tell by her voice. I went over to her place, but she’s not there. Neither is David.”

  He called the police. Then he raced out to his car. It took him twenty-five horrible minutes to get to the apartment hotel where Shannon had been living. A police car was at the curb when he arrived. Inside, the door to Shannon’s apartment was open.

  The young constable there shook his head at Roy, confirming what Tonya had said. “No sign of the kid here.”

  “Was there an address book, a number scribbled anywhere beside the phone, any indication of where she might have taken the baby?” Roy found it an effort to keep his voice even.

  “Nothing. There’s food in the fridge, milk, bread. I talked to the neighbors. Nobody has any idea how long she’s been gone.”

  “She’s being supervised twice daily—someone from Social Services would have come by mid-morning.” He dialed Marty on his cell phone to get the number of the social worker. When Roy reached her, he could tell by her voice that she was ill. She said she had the flu, that she’d asked someone else to go by and check on Shannon. Roy punched in the relief number she gave him, but no one answered.

  He called Tonya Cabral and got a meager list of other people Shannon might have asked to baby-sit. With the constable’s help, Roy found their addresses. By the time he’d located all of them, it was long past midnight, and the effort had been fruitless. They all said they hadn’t spoken to Shannon for days.

  Roy couldn’t think of anything else to do but wait.

  Please, God, don’t let it be too late for David. The prayer was a desperate litany. There was one more call he had to make. Feeling sick and scared and responsible, and knowing she had every right to say I told you so, he called Hailey.

  SHE’D JUST FALLEN ASLEEP when the phone rang.

  “Mmm?” She couldn’t wake up.

  “Hailey?” It was Susan Whitcomb, and her voice was thick with tears. “Hailey, please, could you come? I’m at St. Joe’s, and Brittany—I know she’s going now and, oh, God, I…I don’t know what to do. I can’t stand this.” The words ended in a desperate wail.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  The moment Hailey hung up, the phone rang again, and she snatched the receiver, thinking it was Susan calling back.

  “Hailey, it’s Roy.”

  The tense and somber tone of his voice sent fear shooting through her.

  “Shannon’s disappeared, and we can’t locate David. She called Tonya, wanting her to baby-sit. Tonya was out, the machine took the message. Shannon was high when she called. I’ve notified the police. I’ve tried to locate people who know her, but I can’t find him. I’m calling you because you love him, because you have a right to know.”

  Fear, stark and terrible, washed through her like icy water, and she knew he was expecting her to say I told you so.

  It took all she had to reassure him while her insides wound into knots.

  “Roy, you’ll find him, and he’ll be fine. She loves him. She’ll have left him somewhere safe. Look, I have to go to St. Joe’s right now—one of my patients is dying. Can you meet me there in about an hour in the coffee shop?”

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  The drive through Vancouver’s deserted streets was eerie. The long hot spell had finally broken and it was sheeting down rain. Hailey stared out at it as she drove, thinking of David, of Brittany, of Roy. Would he forgive her for being so single-minded, so selfish, so blind to everything he was?

  And David. Where was he? Let him be safe. Please let him be safe.

  She raced up to the pediatric floor and made her way straight down the quiet hallway to Brittany’s room. The nurse on shift was just coming out of the room, and she shook her head at Hailey, tears brimming in her eyes. Hailey could hear Susan’s keening cries as she opened the door, and she knew that Brittany was gone.

  Susan was cradling her daughter’s frail form against her breast, rocking back and forth, her face ravaged with tears, tendons in neck and arms standing out. Her husband, Tom, stood beside the bed, his face twisted with grief.

  “She won’t let go,�
�� he said. “She won’t put her down.”

  Hailey went to Susan, slipping her arms around her and Brittany. She held them both silently until the storm of awful grief quieted and the frantic grip Susan had on the child finally eased.

  “Look how beautiful she is,” Hailey said, gently taking the girl from Susan’s arms and laying her on the bed. “She’s at peace, Susan. She’s not in pain anymore.”

  For the next half hour Hailey quietly related all the memories she had of Brittany, her wide smile, her love for Stephen King novels, her sense of humor, her bravery, and at last Susan calmed. She allowed Hailey to lead her from the room to the nurses’ lounge. Tom followed and Hailey made them both a cup of hot, sweet tea. At last, Susan turned to her husband for comfort, and Hailey watched as the two of them embraced. Susan had told her of the goodness of this gentle man, how hard he worked to support their family, how much he loved Brittany.

  When they went, arm in arm, to say a final goodbye, Hailey went into the washroom. She closed the door to a cubicle and sobbed out her own grief for the girl she’d loved and nursed for so long. When the storm of tears was over, she washed her face and then made her way down to the coffee shop.

  Roy wasn’t there. The man behind the counter knew Hailey, and he beckoned her over.

  “Mr. Zedyck say, please go to emergency, Miss Hailey.”

  They must have found David. Heart hammering with a mixture of hope and dread, Hailey tore down the corridor and burst through the doors into the ER.

  She saw Roy standing outside a treatment room, and she hurried over to him. His green eyes, filled with weariness and remorse, met hers, and at the last moment, she kept on moving, flying straight into his arms.

  “Hailey, thank God you’re here.” He gathered her close, and she could feel the tension in his body.

  “I love you, Roy. I’m so sorry for being selfish.” It needed to be said before anything else.

  When she looked up at him, his face was ravaged with emotion. There was moisture in his eyes. He let her go reluctantly, and when she could breathe again, she said, “Is David okay?”