Second Opinion

by Alexander, Hannah

  At the sound of his older brother’s voice, Cody turned from his television cartoons. His face brightened. He leaped from the sofa and raced after Levi.

  Both children ran past Archer and Mrs. Walker and rushed to the door. They stopped and looked back at Archer. “Where’s Mama?” Cody asked.

  “She’s on her way to the hospital where they’ll take good care of her.”

  Levi pulled open the door and stepped to the screen to peer outside. Cody stepped up beside him. They stared at the empty porch and the empty sidewalk then looked back at Archer.

  “Why was she kicking the kitchen floor?”

  “What happened to her eyes?”

  “Will she be okay?”

  “Can we see her?”

  Their voices competed with each other, getting louder with each word until Mr. Walker came rushing into the room from the kitchen, dish towel in one hand and spatula in the other, to join his wife.

  He placed a hand on Archer’s shoulder to get his attention. “Pastor, is she going to be okay? I was just baking some cookies with the children to keep them occupied but they can’t stop worrying about their mother.”

  “I don’t know anything yet.” Archer knelt and reached out to the children. They hesitated, as if sensing by his actions and the lack of an answer that news about their mother was not forthcoming. Levi stepped into the invitation of his arms and Cody imitated his brother. Both fell silent, eyes wide, obviously haunted by the things they had seen and the fear that had attacked them far too often these past few weeks.

  “Did you see the ambulance when it came a few minutes ago?” he asked them.

  Mr. Walker gestured to Archer and shook his head. “We had the television turned up. We were afraid the sirens would scare them.”

  “Your mama’s on her way to the hospital to see Dr. Sheldon. You remember him from last time don’t you?”

  Levi nodded.

  “He’s going to take good care of her but he might want her to spend the night at the hospital to make sure she doesn’t get sick.”

  “Can we go see her?” Levi asked.

  “We want to see Mama.” Cody’s voice was hushed, still fearful.

  Archer swallowed. “Your mama wants you to stay here and help Mr. Walker bake cookies and then when she starts to feel better you can visit her.” He could promise no more than that. He wanted to tell them their mother would be home first thing in the morning as good as new but he would not lie to them.

  He hugged the children and kissed their soft cheeks and said another prayer for their mother and for them. When he released them, Levi took his little brother by the arm.

  “Mom wants us to be good, Cody. We have to sit down and eat cookies and do what Mr. and Mrs. Walker tell us to.”

  “You know what?” Mr. Walker rested a hand on the top of Levi’s head, “I think our first batch is almost ready to come out of the oven. Why don’t you help me do the taste test.” He led the way and the children followed while he explained that the cookies couldn’t pass the taste test unless they’d been washed down with milk, so they had a lot of work to do.

  Archer silently thanked God for answering one of his prayers. The children were in good hands with loving people.

  He made arrangements with the Walkers to take care of the children overnight. She had a key to Gina’s house and would go over later to collect some of the children’s clothing and toys.

  “Mrs. Walker, thank you for helping Gina.”

  “Of course.” She smiled up at him. “But you’ll have to start calling me Agnes. Gina has taught Levi and Cody to call me Miss Agnes.” Her smile radiated across her face. “They’re special children. Levi wouldn’t let us go over to the house to check on Gina. He insisted that the preacher was taking care of her and nobody else should be there. Cody was in tears, so we obeyed orders and stayed with the boys.”

  After he left the house he pulled out his cell phone and hit Lauren’s number. He knew he should call Natalie but Gina would want to see Lauren first. As he listened to the telephone ring, he prayed that Gina would be alive to see Lauren when she arrived—and to see her children again.

  Voicemail picked up and he heard Lauren’s voice, light and clear and filled with her typical vitality as she left precise instructions for the caller.

  He left a message and started to worry about her as he punch speed dial for Natalie.

  Chapter 28

  Sharp pain streaked across Lauren’s forehead. She opened her eyes but couldn’t lift her head from the forest floor. The pain grew worse. She recognized the familiar thrust of a sinus headache and almost welcomed the reminder that she was still alive. She vaguely recalled the continuous nausea broken by vomiting and then blackness that had attacked her for what seemed like endless hours.

  How long had she been unconscious this time? The haze in her mind cleared enough for her to think coherently but she didn’t have her watch on and she’d left her cell phone in the truck. Had she been here for an hour? Longer? Twilight surrounded and confused her as she opened her eyes once more. Could she have slept all night?

  Where were Mr. Mourglia and Mr. Rosewitz? Was it possible they had come and gone without seeing her?

  She braced herself, anticipating another sharp stab of pain that didn’t come. She managed to raise her head from the pillow of leaves and looked up into the sky, where the vivid pink of a Missouri sunset shone past the grasping fingers of two leafless sycamore branches, ghostly white in their deadness. Why were they dead at this time of year? And why hadn’t she noticed them sooner? At least she hadn’t been here as long as she’d feared.

  Some strength returned to her arms and she sat up. The forest spun around her but more of the fuzz cleared from her mind. She gradually grew aware of the sounds around her, the peep of frogs, the rustle of some nearby nocturnal rodent. Most important, she heard the muted splash of water in Honey Creek.

  Water.

  Though she was not thirsty and didn’t know if she could keep fluid down, she had to try. She was alone. Her fishing buddies apparently had not come and there was no one to help her.

  Alone.

  Lord, have I been abandoned? Are you even there?

  Still taking controlled breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth, Lauren pushed herself to her knees. A little more strength permeated her body, almost as if in answer to her one-line prayer.

  After a moment of rest, she tried to rise to her feet but stumbled back to her knees. Her hand came into contact with a fallen branch covered with leaves and stems.

  “Help me.” The faint rattle of her voice alarmed her. She squeezed the limb with all the strength she could muster. There wasn’t much.

  Her body needed fluids.

  Alone.

  But she was never completely alone.

  She wasn’t was she?

  It took great effort to stand upright even with the support of the branch. Twilight hovered ever nearer, hiding the trail from view, yet somehow Lauren avoided tripping over brush or stumbling into briars. The untrimmed branch gave her enough support to keep her on her feet. She followed the wet chatter of the creek until she saw the glimmer of dancing water as it reflected the bare glow from the sky.

  She sank to her knees in the rough gravel of the creek bed and laid the branch next to her as she reached toward the water. The icy sharpness cleared her head and slapped away the clinging remnants of nausea. She would drink slowly, cautiously, and replenish some of the fluids she had lost. She would use the water to wash away some of the filth that clung to her. Then she would try to get home.

  ***

  Grant met the attendants as they wheeled Gina from the ambulance.

  She wasn’t seizing but the whiteness of her face concerned him. Her eyes were slightly open but glazed. It looked as if it was only the sheer force of her will that kept them open at all. Her paper-white skin strobed red and blue from the lights across the roof of the ambulance. The paramedic had established an IV and attached a monitor
.

  “She was seizing when we reached her, Dr. Sheldon,” Christy said. “The seizures began at least twenty minutes ago, probably longer.”

  “Archer called me from her house.”

  “Status epilepticus,” Christy said. “Dangerous.”

  “We’ve already called for an airlift.” He gave orders for an anticonvulsant drug. There was a high incidence of mortality related to seizures of the magnitude Gina had experienced and they could have been brought on by a number of things.

  “Her blood sugar was 31 when we were finally able to get a finger stick,” Christy said.

  Grant felt a surge of excitement over the low number but he controlled it just as swiftly. Hypoglycemia often did a sneak attack then disappeared before tests could pinpoint the source of the problem but the low sugar count could also be a symptom of a more malevolent opponent. He couldn’t pin his hopes to a simple answer this quickly, especially not in light of the normal blood sugar test results she’d received previously.

  Christy finished giving report. Grant thanked her and turned to Eugene, who hovered nearby. “I want a stat CT of the abdomen and a c-peptide level.” He turned to the secretary. “Becky, did you alert the hospital to my concern about Mr. Mourglia’s mercury poisoning?”

  “They have an antidote on hand.”

  “Good. Call them back and tell them we’ll be sending them another patient, though she might not have the same thing.”

  Muriel Stark looked up from her charting at the other end of the work counter. “You don’t think Gina’s been poisoned?”

  “I’m taking no chances. They need to check for everything.”

  Mercury had shown up on x-rays of other patients, so he guessed if Gina had any mercury in her system they would find it. Even if it didn’t prove conclusive he wanted treatment available immediately. He could only pray that if there was poisoning involved, the mercury had not yet undergone an ionic conversion to methyl mercury. There was no effective treatment for much of the damage that could be caused by that kind of poisoning but there was a good chance they could eventually control the outcome for all the patients involved—as long as they caught it in time.

  This was the first time in Grant’s life he had actually hoped to find a benign tumor in a patient; the alternative for Gina could be much more destructive.

  He led the way into the exam room they’d cleared and helped Christy transfer Gina to the bed.

  “Archer Pierce told us he tried to put some sugar under her tongue,” Christy said. “I don’t know how much he gave her but he sure did scatter it across the floor. I slipped on it and nearly fell when we were loading her.”

  “Did he say if it helped?”

  “He thought it did.”

  Gina gasped and her facial muscles tightened.

  “Muriel.”

  “Getting the drug on board now.”

  “Also get a repeat fingerstick glucose,” he said. “She’ll seize again if her sugar is still low.”

  The older nurse nodded, using spare quick movements to complete her task.

  Gina’s face relaxed again and her breath came like a sigh. She moistened her lips with her tongue, swallowed, opened her eyes, then winced and closed them again. “My boys?”

  “The pastor has them, Gina.” Christy disconnected the ambulance monitor from the leads on her patient’s chest and replaced it with the hospital monitor.

  Gina frowned. “Did I hear someone say mercury?” Her eyes came open again and she studied the faces around her until she found Grant.

  “There may be some contamination in the area,” he said.

  “What area?”

  Grant didn’t want to alarm her and take a chance on another seizure. “Part of the town’s water supply. I want to run some tests on you.” He checked to make sure Muriel added the anticonvulsant through the IV tubing. “Try to relax until I can get some tests taken.”

  “But my children.”

  “We’ll test them as soon as possible.” He took her hand and checked for a pulse. Good and strong. A little fast. He needed to reassure her. “Don’t you live near the school?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s good. You’re nowhere near the affected area.” He pulled a penlight out of his pocket and shined it into her eyes. Her pupils were equal, briskly reactive, wide open with concern.

  “Do you ever eat fish that has been caught locally?” he asked. “Maybe Lauren has given you some of hers in the past few weeks.”

  “My boys don’t like fish and I don’t take the time to fix it just for myself.”

  “Where does your babysitter live?”

  “A block from the school.”

  This was getting better. “I’ll have someone call your sitter but it sounds less likely that your children are affected. Have you or either of your boys felt any nausea recently?”

  “No.”

  “Do you ever get bad headaches?”

  “Some.” She was beginning to sound drowsy again. “Not as bad now.”

  Grant relaxed a little more. “Just a few more questions and then I’ll let you rest for a few minutes okay?”

  She nodded.

  As he continued his neurological assessment, he prayed silently. The comfort of that fresh connection with God gave him a peace he had been missing since the wreck. Two years of grief and spiritual starvation had done their damage but God had the power to restore everything. All Grant prayed for now was Gina’s life.

  ***

  Darkness had begun its attack on the sky and the chilly air bit into Lauren’s skin. She’d made the mistake of trying to wash some of the evidence of sickness from her shirt and arms. Now the cold combined with a heavy lethargy to seep past her wet clothes and skin to set up camp around her bones. She should have known better.

  If she didn’t get up and move she could quickly develop hypothermia, especially in her weakened condition. Her old fishing jacket and a blanket were in the truck. She had to get back to the truck.

  Using the branch once again for support, she pulled herself to her feet and caught her toe on a stray stem from the branch. She lost her grip and pitched forward into the gravel. She fell hard on her shoulder and cried out with pain.

  The sound of the water overwhelmed her, pressing her down as the gravel dug into her exposed flesh. It was impossible to ignore the specter of death as it loomed in the deepening gray around her. There was no way to fight it. Not alone. Depression and fear attacked without mercy. For countless moments she lay in the gravel overwhelmed by weakness.

  Somehow she retained her consciousness this time. Perhaps it was the pain and cold. Never had she felt so far from human contact and yet in so much need of it. Even living alone she had never been far from the sound of a human voice.

  Until now she had never been truly alone. Shame followed this realization. So many times in the past couple of years she had complained to God—and to anyone else who would listen—that she was lonely. She wanted a life mate, someone with whom she could connect, someone with whom she could share everything.

  How must her complaints have sounded to God? As if He wasn’t enough for her?

  “Lord, forgive me,” she whispered. Earlier she’d been praying for God to send someone to help her. Mourglia and Rosewitz would have been nice. But where was her faith?

  “If I truly believe in you then all I really need is you. And if I don’t believe that then my life has been a lie. Your will be done.”

  She waited for another moment then tested her strength. She would move forward until she could no longer move at all. And she would trust God with every step.

  She reached for the branch. As she shivered, she felt along the sides of the limb and used all her strength to tug the excess leaves and stems from the base of the stick. She wouldn’t trip again.

  ***

  Activity in the emergency room had dwindled from frantic to merely hectic as Dr. Caine gave orders and handled patients like a drill sergeant. Grant left him to it and stepped
back into Gina’s room to find her smiling weakly at her children, whom Archer and the Walkers had brought in moments ago.

  Some pink had returned to her cheeks and though she was still weak from the seizures she was obviously putting forth all her energy to spend these few minutes with her children while she had them.

  Grant checked her most recent vitals on the chart and noted that her sugar level was up to normal. It was looking more likely that blood sugar was the only culprit in this case. After the harrowing seizures and the mercury scare that was now swarming across the town, however, he wasn’t taking any chances. She was on her way to Springfield as soon as her flight arrived.

  While Levi and Cody kept their mother occupied, Grant stepped out of the room and found Archer in the waiting room.

  “How’s she doing?” the pastor asked.

  “Good. You did the right thing with the sugar. I was concerned about mercury poisoning but that’s looking less likely.”

  “Mercury poisoning?”

  “We suspect that’s our epidemic. Beau figured it out and now the police are on it. We stumbled onto it while you were occupied with Gina.”

  “Who is it affecting?”

  “Whoever gets water from the Honey Spring water supply.”

  “What about the fish?”

  “That too.”

  The sounds of an approaching helicopter interrupted them. Gina would be on her way shortly.

  ***

  Lauren felt her way through the shadowy woods. At some point she noticed she’d stopped shivering and peaceful warmth permeated her body. Though the nausea hovered, it did not attack.

  Somewhere in the midst of her prayers she thought she understood the word picture God had given her when she first picked up the branch that helped support her. She’d pruned it so it wouldn’t trip her again. Perhaps she was being pruned.

  Her passion for a family of her own had driven her to humiliation more than once in the past year. She released it. She prayed for the willingness to remain single the rest of her life if God so desired. And she prayed that God would help her find joy in that condition.

  And if her life lasted for only a few more hours, or even a few more minutes, that too, was in God’s hands.