Second Opinion

by Alexander, Hannah

  He’d also been wonderfully surprised when he walked into his prospective place of employment for the first time a month ago and saw the state-of-the-art facilities. Mr. William Butler, the sixty-year-old administrator of Dogwood Springs Hospital, had announced with pride that they’d completed the final touches to this ten-bed emergency department about six weeks before and would soon be considering the addition of mid-level providers to help the ER docs.

  Except for the present lack of nurse practitioners or physician assistants, staffing at the hospital was great. This administration wasn’t stingy with payroll. Tonight, only thirty minutes into his second shift, Grant already felt as if he’d come home for good. They hadn’t seen a gunshot wound here in months according to Mr. Butler and that had been nothing more than a flesh wound from a hunting accident. No more knife and gun gang emergency work for Grant Sheldon. This was a great town for raising a family.

  The ER secretary turned and waved to get his attention. “I have a call from a man who’s on his way here with his son. He suspects a drug overdose.”

  Grant stopped. The elation slipped away. “Did he say what drug, Becky?”

  “Speed.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Let me know when he comes in.” He glanced at the chart holders on the far wall where files for six patients waited. An eleven-year-old boy was in radiology being x-rayed for a possible broken wrist from a bike wreck and he needed sutures. His mother had already fainted twice at the sight of his blood. Now she was a patient herself. Her husband had asked for their pastor to be called. RN Lauren McCaffrey had done so just a few minutes ago.

  Three patients—all with similar intestinal flu symptoms—were stable. It was a little late in the year for an epidemic and that concerned him. He’d seen two patients last night with the same symptoms, so he couldn’t rule out some kind of community-acquired virus. Tests didn’t show influenza. Perhaps Mr. Butler would speed up the process of hiring midlevel practitioners if the department remained this busy.

  Grant pulled out a chart and studied it. He stepped into the patient exam room and introduced himself to eighty-eight-year-old Mrs. Cecile Piedmont while Lauren jotted down vitals.

  The sharp-eyed lady sat up in the bed and gave him an appraising glance. Her white hair was only slightly ruffled from the nasal cannula oxygen tubing hooked over her ears. Though she appeared pale to him, he had no way of knowing if that was her normal coloring.

  After a few seconds of silent study, she nodded. “Hello, Dr. Sheldon. I’m not really having any pain right now.” Her voice didn’t waver. “I hope I’m not wasting your time. Sounds to me like you have other patients who need you.”

  He pulled the exam stool next to her bed and sat down. “Why don’t you tell me how you feel?”

  “I’m only here because my children ganged up on me. They’re always doing that.”

  “When did the pain start?”

  Again, that thoughtful pause. “I felt a couple of twinges this afternoon but I didn’t think much about it.” Her dark eyes studied him while she spoke. “You’re new in town aren’t you?”

  He couldn’t help smiling at the lady. “I worked my first shift here last night. Do you remember what you were doing when you first felt the pain?”

  “I was out picking up some tree limbs in the front yard. When I stepped out the front door this morning I could have sworn half my trees had dropped their branches from last night’s storm.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Don’t tell my son. He’s been after me for months to hire someone to do my yard work for me.”

  “Is he the one who brought you here?”

  She nodded. “I shooed him out to the waiting room. He makes me nervous with all his fussing. Family is wonderful, Dr. Sheldon, but if I let all five of my kids smother me like an old woman I’d never get anything done. I hope the rest of the tribe doesn’t come racing here before you release me.” She frowned at him. “You are going to release me aren’t you?”

  “We’ll see.” Grant reached for his stethoscope.

  A frantic voice reached the room from the central desk. “Someone help us! My son’s been overdosed!”

  Grant quickly excused himself and stepped out to see if there was a life threat. A balding man stood at the patient window with his arm around the shoulders of a skinny teenager.

  The boy had his arms wrapped across his chest, as if he thought his body might fly apart. His frightened gaze darted about the room and bounced from Becky to the desk to Grant and back to Becky.

  As Grant expected, tonight’s second RN and a tech rushed out the door and came back in guiding father and son to an exam room. RN Muriel’s voice carried well as she calmed them. Grant would check on the boy as soon as he made sure Mrs. Piedmont wasn’t in immediate danger of cardiac arrest.

  “Doctor, you go ahead and see about those people,” the lady said when he returned to her bedside. “That’s a real emergency.”

  “Trying to get rid of me?” He checked her chest with his stethoscope.

  She watched Grant as he listened to her chest and studied the monitor. A wealth of warmth suddenly glowed from the creases around her eyes. “Do you have a family, Dr. Sheldon?”

  He suppressed a grin. She obviously wasn’t as worried about her health as her children were. “I have sixteen-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. They’re at home getting settled in.” He wasn’t sure he’d convinced them they were doing the right thing by moving out of the city. Especially Brooke.

  The door opened and the EKG tech came in pushing her portable machine.

  “Mrs. Piedmont, here’s the person we were waiting for,” Grant said. “We’ll get more information with more plug-ins to your system. While she’s doing her thing I’ll give you some privacy but I’ll come back and check the results.” He squeezed her arm and left her in capable care.

  The sound of beeps reached him from across the ER where Muriel had connected the overdosed teenager to the monitor. That rhythm was too fast. Grant stepped into exam room eight to find the fifteen-year-old boy lying in the bed, attached by electrodes to the machine that relayed his elevated heart rate with the beeping. Muriel, an experienced nurse in her late fifties, had already dressed him in a gown. His respirations were double what they should be, his eyes obviously dilated. The father’s extra-high forehead was furrowed with concern.

  Muriel prepped the patient’s arm with iodine swabs and picked up an IV needle. The boy watched her movements with strange intensity.

  Grant cleared his throat and both father and son turned toward him. “Hello. I’m Dr. Sheldon. I understand we have a possible overdose problem.”

  “Thank goodness.” The man rushed to Grant’s side. “I’m Norville Webster and this is Evan.”

  “Ow! That hurts!” the boy cried out and jerked back as Muriel inserted the needle.

  “Just relax. The pain won’t last long.” She braced her arm against his and continued her work as she gave Grant the boy’s vitals.

  “My head’s killing me,” Evan complained. He reached up and massaged his forehead, his long slender fingers shaking.

  Grant stepped up to the bed. “Evan, what kind of drug did you take?”

  “It’s speed,” the teenager said. His words were choppy, irritable, and his voice grew louder with each word. “That jerk gave me some pills but he didn’t tell me they were speed. I thought they were legal, like maybe some caffeine. I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin.” His movements became more agitated and he nearly pulled the IV from his arm before Muriel could secure the catheter. “Do something!”

  “He came running into the house crying and shaking and rubbing his arms,” his father said.

  Grant gave Muriel orders then turned back to Evan. “Can you tell me how much you had?”

  “All I had was two stupid pills! How could I have known the jerk would trick me into taking speed? I’ve never done drugs in my life and now I’ve ended up in the hospital? How could this happen? Can you stop this? I feel lik
e my heart’s going to bust through my ribs.”

  “We’ll need a urine sample and then we’ll be able to give you something to calm you down.”

  “Hurry. Please.”

  “How long ago did you take the pills?”

  Evan glanced around the room in confusion. “About an hour or so. Maybe two. I don’t even know what time it is.”

  “Probably a little over an hour,” the father said. “It couldn’t have been thirty minutes from the time he left the house to the time he came bursting back through the door. He was supposed to walk down and meet his friends at the theater.” He glared at the floor. “Some friends.”

  Evan stared down at his own shaking hands. “I only took two pills.”

  “I wish I could tell you illegal pills were regulated,” Grant said. “One never knows what to expect with them but you did the right thing by coming here.” Two pills could easily pack enough punch to kill. Evan didn’t need to know that yet. His heart was already under enough strain.

  “Charcoal, Dr. Sheldon?” Muriel asked.

  Evan’s eyes, already wide with fear, got wider. “You’re going to ram a tube up my nose?”

  Grant grinned at him. “If we can convince you to drink it for us we’ll forgo the tube. It should help neutralize anything that’s left in your stomach. Muriel, I’ll be in three.”

  He left the room. The respiratory tech should be finished with Mrs. Piedmont’s EKG by now and the police needed to be notified about the illegal drug. He shook his head as he battled disappointment. An overdose of an illegal drug on his second shift in Dogwood Springs. What disturbed him the most was that Evan appeared to be the victim in this case, a clean-cut healthy teenager caught unaware.

  It could have been Brooke or Beau. Grant realized that the only way to keep himself, his own children, and his patients safe was to remain a cynic even here in Hometown USA.

  He stopped at the central desk. “Becky, I need you to call the police to report some illegal drug activity.”

  The forty-something secretary turned from her computer keyboard and peered up at him over the top of her reading glasses. “Dr. Sheldon, Evan Webster’s mother and I belong to the library club. I called her and told her he was here and she’s on her way in. If I call the police on her kid, she’s going to bust my head.”

  “Blame me, then. Catching a dealer is more important right now. I’ll be in three.”

  When Grant entered Mrs. Piedmont’s room he greeted her and read the EKG printout. It wasn’t good.

  Mrs. Piedmont’s face reflected his frown. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to have to keep me here, Doctor.”

  “I don’t think this is just a pulled muscle. Would you mind describing the pain you felt?”

  “Oh, I had those twinges and then kind of a cramp in my chest that didn’t want to let up for a while.”

  “Did you have cramping or pain anywhere else?”

  Mrs. Piedmont’s gaze remained steady on his face. “My left arm felt like somebody was squeezing it after I picked up that last big old dead branch and piled it up on the stack. It’s fine now, though. I didn’t hear anyone mention your wife. I’m on a greeting committee at church—we Baptists like to stick everybody on a committee—and I’d like to call on her with some of my homemade rolls.”

  Grant was touched. “Thank you for offering. I’d love some homemade rolls but I want to get you feeling better before you do any more work in the kitchen or in the yard.” He paused. “And I’m a widower. Tell me, have you had these pains in your chest before today?”

  Her smile dimmed. “I’m so sorry. I lost my husband when my children were young, too. How long has your wife been gone?”

  “Two years. We were in an automobile accident.” Her sincere interest didn’t feel intrusive but again he needed to refocus the conversation. “Mrs. Piedmont, tell me more about your chest pains recently.”

  She considered that. “Haven’t had any that I can recall. I was hoping it might be indigestion. You know, you’ll want to get your children into a church youth group. Our own Lauren, here, helps keep those teenagers occupied. And she has a way with the young ones, too.” Mrs. Piedmont beamed at Lauren, whose long blond hair was pulled back in a serviceable ponytail and whose delicate features held only the barest traces of makeup. “Soon as she joined our church this spring, she pitched right in and started volunteering to help. She’s good with the kids and she teaches Sunday school.” The lady hesitated for less than a second. “She’s single you know.”

  Lauren looked up from her work again, her green eyes sparkling with laughter. The healthy color of her complexion deepened a shade. “Mrs. Piedmont! Would you please let Dr. Sheldon do his job? How do you think he’s going to feel if you keel over before he gets a chance to treat you?” She shook her head and her smile widened. “That’d be a shame.”

  Grant placed a hand on his patient’s arm. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to humor me and eat hospital food tonight.”

  Her face quieted with the seriousness of his expression. “I overdid it this time, didn’t I?” She laid her head back against the pillow. “My kids are going to tie me to my rocking chair.”

  Chapter 3

  Gina Drake came to herself in the heaviness of evening, shivering as a gust of cool wind puckered gooseflesh down her legs. She raised shaking hands to her face. The sharp teeth of pain bit into her feet and she realized they were bare.

  She blinked and stared around her at squares of illumination from nearby homes. In the deepening gray of late twilight, she recognized the outline of the elementary school and then looked down at the merry-go-round where she was sitting. She’d found herself here before. Some of the fog cleared from her brain. Tonight she’d run here in a panic, unable to control her terror or recognize her surroundings.

  Her breath caught when the truth hit her. She’d left her children alone. “Levi. Cody.”

  She jumped up. Gravel dug into the flesh of her bare feet. She stumbled to the grass and braced herself, gasping with pain. She had to get to the boys. It was dark. They’d be scared wondering where she was. She tried to ignore the pain as she limped across the playground. She was still weak and shaky and she shivered as the dew-soaked grass stung the cuts and bruises of her broken flesh.

  “Stupid, stupid,” she muttered at herself as frustration and fear shadowed her. How much more afraid must her children be?

  “Don’t be scared,” she whispered to them. They had to be okay. They were good boys and Levi always watched after his little brother. He was so mature for a six-year-old.

  But her fear mounted as she reached the sidewalk and limped through the shadows beneath the overhang of the building. What was happening to her? The terror that had overcome her had also blocked out pieces of time. The terror was more than just a panic attack. Wasn’t it?

  She thought of Aunt Bridget’s problems and black helplessness nearly overwhelmed her. Levi and Cody needed her. She was all they had.

  Gina’s head ached and her heart felt as if it were being squeezed into a tiny space. She couldn’t keep leaving her own children frightened and alone. The last time she’d done this, Levi had been in tears when she returned.

  Bad dreams. It had to be nightmares. Something was frightening her and whatever it was had been so horrible her mind refused to recall it. She remembered in vivid detail the horror all those years ago….

  Gina welcomed the pain in her feet and the ache in her head. She deserved the pain. What kind of mother ran out of the house and left her children alone?

  Her throat swelled with tears of frustration and self-loathing. Trying to ignore her shaking legs, she broke into a stumbling run on the uneven sidewalk. Fresh pain sliced up her calves from her wounded feet. Had to get home, had to reach the boys, had to comfort them, make sure they were okay, try to explain one more time why she’d left. If only she knew.

  As she caught sight of her house up ahead, with lights shining from every window, Gina
felt another tug at her heart. Levi hated the dark. The abundance of lights reproached her. She reached the front sidewalk and saw a square of white against the solid oak darkness of the front door. A quickly scrawled note struck her with accusation: Levi has been hurt. I’m taking both boys to the emergency room. Agnes.

  ***

  Lauren McCaffrey felt a slight wave of nausea as she pierced the paper-thin skin of Mrs. Piedmont’s right arm with an IV needle. She ignored the distraction and took care not to cause her patient any more pain than necessary.

  The lady didn’t even flinch, didn’t glance at Lauren but continued her conversation with Dr. Sheldon as if Lauren hadn’t touched her. Success.

  “I suppose I should have told you this before, Doctor,” Mrs. Piedmont said, “but I had a brother who died suddenly of a heart attack when he was forty.”

  Lauren completed the IV and her nausea passed quickly. She didn’t have time to wonder about it as Grant continued to question Mrs. Piedmont.

  “You don’t smoke?” he asked.

  “Not since I was twelve. My brother and I tried to smoke one of those roll-your-own cigarettes out in the barn. My brother got sick and upchucked on my good shoes. I dropped the cigarette into a pile of hay. I nearly caught the barn on fire before we could put the silly thing out. We both got our butts paddled and that put an end to my cigarette smoking.” She leaned toward Lauren. “How about you, Lauren, did you ever smoke?”

  “No, ma’am, I never did. I chewed tobacco once, though.”

  Dr. Sheldon grinned at her. “What happened?”

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to spit. I got the same results as your brother, Mrs. Piedmont.” Her stomach made it known that this topic was not good subject matter in its present condition.

  She was once more checking the monitor for vitals when someone knocked at the exam room entrance. She glanced up to make sure Mrs. Piedmont was properly covered, then went to the door and pulled it open to find Pastor Archer Pierce standing in the hallway. He grinned and stepped forward, his kind eyes calm and reassuring as always.