Lakeside Hospital Box Set

by Cara Malone

  As they walked out of the lab, Darcy said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Anything,” Krys said.

  “I know we’ve only been going out a short time, but I told my dad about you and he wants to meet you. So does my brother,” she said. “We eat dinner together every Sunday night and I was wondering if you would join us next week?”

  “Meet the family?” Krys asked.

  Darcy found herself holding her breath as she waited for Krys’s answer. She really did want Krys to meet her dad and brother, but she also wanted to know if she was right about Krys rebuilding her walls in this awful moment.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’d love to.”

  “Good,” Darcy said, letting out a long, silent breath and sliding her hand into Krys’s.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “You know the chances of you having active TB are really slim, right?”

  Darcy nodded, but her heart was still beating too fast.

  Krys squeezed her hand and said, “You’ll be fine.”

  It sounded like something designed to reassure both of them equally.

  Darcy couldn’t go to any of her upcoming clinic shifts and Krys couldn’t afford to skip any of hers since they were down one volunteer, so they didn’t get to see each other much that week. Darcy texted Krys whenever she thought of her throughout the day and they had begun to spend more and more of their nights together, even if they didn’t get to see each other until late at night after Krys’s clinic shifts ended.

  During the days, though, Darcy got bored.

  She couldn’t justify exposing her meet-up group to a potential case of TB, so she took Harvey to the dog park a lot, texted her brother when Krys wasn’t available to talk to, and got the okay to attend her physical therapy session as long as she wore a paper mask.

  Miss Blackburn didn’t seem the slightest bit fazed to see Darcy walking into the room with her face covered, but she did notice her gait right away.

  “You look so much stronger than the last time I saw you!” she said. “Where’s your cane?”

  “I left it in the truck,” Darcy said, her voice slightly muffled through the mask. “I underestimated how much walking I’d do around the clinic and I think it’s really helped me rebuild strength in my thigh. Unfortunately, it looks like I’ll be taking a couple weeks off there so I’m trying to do a lot of walking with Harvey to stay strong.”

  She explained the TB exposure and the fact that she’d have the results of her chest x-ray by the end of the week, and then Miss Blackburn led her over to a mat on the floor to do a few warm-up stretches for their session. Miss Blackburn complimented Darcy on her muscle tone as they worked and gave her a few more at-home stretches she could do to make sure she continued seeing improvement.

  “I think you’re getting very close to the end of your stint in physical therapy,” she said as she helped Darcy off the floor. “What do you think of that?”

  Darcy looked down at her leg. She was wearing shiny basketball shorts and she pushed them up over her thigh to look at the incision site where she’d had her surgery. There was still a slight divot in the skin where some muscle tissue had to be removed because it was too damaged to repair, and her leg would never look totally whole again no matter how many at-home exercises she did.

  She pushed her shorts back down and said, “I wish it hadn’t meant the end of my military career, but I’m happy to no longer be tethered to that cane.”

  “Do you know what you want to do for work now?” Miss Blackburn asked.

  “Not really,” Darcy said. “I’m certified as an EMT – maybe I’ll be a paramedic. One of Krys’s friends does that and she seems happy with it.” Then she snorted and added, “Probably wouldn’t make my mother any more content with my life choices, though. She’d much rather I sit behind a desk all day and die of boredom.”

  “Does that matter to you?” her therapist asked gently as she handed Darcy a therapy band to loop around her legs.

  “I guess not,” Darcy said. “We haven’t talked in ten years – why start now? Hey, does everyone use you as a therapist, or is it just me?”

  Miss Blackburn smiled and said, “You’d be surprised what people are able to work through mentally while they’re also working on their physical issues.”

  “Does it bother you?” Darcy asked.

  “Not at all,” she answered. “I can’t provide any answers but I don’t mind listening.”

  Darcy nodded. Miss Blackburn helped Darcy position the band around her knees and then she moved her leg out to the side a few times, stretching the band. The move never failed to start her thigh muscle burning after a few repetitions and she clenched her teeth as she forced her way through a few more.

  Then she took a break and said, “I just don’t understand how she could marry an Air Force pilot but when her daughter follows in his footsteps, she just cut all ties.”

  “Do you think she was afraid for your safety?” Miss Blackburn asked.

  “Maybe,” Darcy said grudgingly. “Still, it would be nice to hear from her now that I’m home – a simple glad you’re not dead would suffice.”

  Miss Blackburn crouched and removed the band as Darcy let it drop to the floor, then they went over to a balance board for a little while. Darcy concentrated hard on it, determined not to sway or make her therapist reach out to catch her.

  Then she said, “Oh well – I’ve got my dad and my brother, and an amazing girlfriend. And I probably don’t have tuberculosis. That’s enough for me.”

  17

  Krys

  Krys picked up a few extra shifts at the hospital and the clinic that week.

  It meant less time to be with Darcy, which was unfortunate, but when Russell asked her to cover a shift so he could go to a family event, she couldn’t refuse. It would mean leaving the clinic short-staffed and they’d have to close early for the night if there was no doctor on call. And when Dr. Whitmore needed a volunteer to pick up a night shift in the ER, Krys volunteered for that, too.

  Darcy still hadn’t heard back about the results of her chest x-ray and Krys found it easiest to keep herself busy with work rather than harping on the possibilities. Every time she thought about it, her mind went to the sick boy who’d been knocking on death’s door when his mother brought him to the free clinic.

  She couldn’t think about Darcy that way – not after the amazing time they’d been having together over the last few weeks – so she poured her energy into the patients in the emergency department instead. Besides, she was used to being the star of the ER and she thought it was about time to make sure her reputation was still intact after she’d allowed herself to be distracted by Darcy.

  It was always chaotic in the evening hours, just like the clinic always picked up speed right after everyone got off work and their kids came home from school. The waiting area was filled with patients and Krys slipped easily into her work, zipping around from patient to patient as fast as she could.

  There was one other doctor on call and a handful of nurses, and Krys ordered them all around, orchestrating the dance she loved so much.

  Veronica, one of Krys’s favorite, most skilled nurses, came onto the floor for her shift about an hour after Krys and asked, “Where do you need me?”

  "Bed three," Krys said. "It's Malik and his mom – he needs a breathing treatment."

  She would prefer to do that herself – she’d been caring for Malik for a long time now and she always liked to spend a little extra time with him – but there were too many more patients in the ER who needed to see doctors more urgently.

  “What’s he doing here?” Veronica asked. “Doesn’t Chantal normally take him to the clinic for breathing treatments?”

  “Yeah,” Krys said. “I haven’t seen him yet – someone else must have triaged him.”

  “I’ll go check it out,” Veronica said.

  “Thanks,” Krys answered, slightly out of breath as she yanked off a used pair of gloves and pulled on new ones befor
e going over to her next patient – a man presenting with what appeared to be food poisoning and who was badly in need of fluids.

  It was five minutes, one bag of IV fluids, and another set of fresh gloves later when Veronica found Krys on her way to the next bed in line.

  “You better come check on Malik,” she said quietly.

  “What’s wrong?” Krys asked. Setting up a nebulizer to deliver Malik’s medications would present no challenge to a seasoned nurse like Veronica.

  “Just come, okay?”

  “Okay,” Krys said. “Give me just a minute.”

  She took a deep breath and felt a weight settling on her chest. Why would Veronica need her, and why did Chantal bring Malik to the ER? Krys had seen him deteriorating before – that was the nature of cystic fibrosis, and she knew it would happen again.

  But it couldn’t happen today.

  Not to Malik, and not when she had so much else weighing on her.

  Krys cleared her mind and snapped into doctor mode, then went over to bed three where Malik and his mom were waiting with Veronica. He was sitting in the hospital bed, looking small in the middle of a mattress made for an adult. His skin was clammy and his eyes were red, and Chantal stood beside him, clutching his hand. Krys could hear the mucus filling his lungs with each labored breath.

  Don’t cry.

  "Hey, buddy,” she said as she came to the bedside. “How are you feeling today?"

  Malik looked at her, then let his head flop back on the pillow.

  "He's not good," Chantal said. "He stayed home from school and his brother watched him because I couldn’t miss another shift. He's been having trouble breathing all day. This was the soonest I could get him here."

  She put her hand to her mouth as she looked at her son and Krys squeezed her shoulder. Then she grabbed an oxygen mask from the cart beside the bed and looped it over Malik’s head, removing the cannula from his portable oxygen and tightening the strap so the full-sized mask would stay in place. She put the back of her hand on his forehead.

  "He's burning up," she said. "How long has he had a fever?"

  "He felt a little warm before we left the house," Chantal said. She leaned over Krys to put her own hand on her son’s forehead. She looked worried and added, "He wasn't that hot, though. Is he okay?"

  Krys’s heart was pounding in her chest as the answer became clear to her. No, he was not okay. She glanced at Veronica and it was obvious by the look in her eyes that she saw it, too. Malik was wheezing with each breath, his chest rising and falling very little as he struggled against the fluid in his lungs, and Krys could feel the tears rising in the back of her throat.

  She never got this emotional about a patient – she didn’t allow it because as an ER doctor, she’d seen her fair share of tragedy. But Malik was different. He was just a kid, and even though he’d gotten his CF diagnosis as a toddler, she’d never seen him look this sick.

  “I’m just going to page Dr. Thomas and find out if she’s on call tonight,” Krys said, doing her best to sound reassuring. “And I think she’ll probably want to move Malik up to the intensive care unit.”

  The look on Chantal’s face was heartbreaking. Krys asked Veronica to make the arrangements to move Malik upstairs, and in the meantime, Krys looked over his chart to see if there was anything she could do. Veronica had taken his vital signs when he arrived – his fever was a hundred and two and his pulse was weak.

  Krys retrieved a few ice packs and placed them on Malik’s forehead and neck to alleviate his symptoms, and when she saw the helpless, frightened look in his mother’s eyes, she stopped what she was doing and gave Chantal a hug. She wanted to provide some words of comfort – I know it’s hard or we’ll do everything we can to keep him comfortable – but nothing sounded right. What could she say to comfort the mother of a dying child?

  “We’re at the top of the lung transplant list,” Chantal said weakly after Krys released her. “It could be any day now.”

  “I hope so,” Krys said.

  Veronica came back a minute later and said that Dr. Thomas was on her way to the hospital. She’d been Malik’s primary physician through all of this and she would take his deteriorating condition just as hard as Krys was taking it.

  The orderlies appeared a couple minutes later to transport Malik up to the intensive care unit, where Dr. Thomas and the rest of the team would do their best to clear his airways and break his fever. Even though there was a whole emergency department full of patients waiting to be seen, for a moment Krys had to sit down on the empty bed that Malik had just left.

  “Are you okay?” Veronica asked, pulling the curtain to give her a little privacy.

  “He didn’t seem like himself at all,” Krys said. “I’m afraid he’s getting a lot closer to the end than his mom realizes.”

  “I think she knows,” Veronica said softly. She put her hand on Krys’s shoulder, taking a moment to think about Malik, and then she pulled Krys off the bed. “Come on – there are people here who need you.”

  “Darcy might have tuberculosis,” Krys said. She hadn’t given voice to that fear yet and now it just sort of slipped out of her mouth. “Her skin test came back ambiguous and we’re still waiting for the results of a chest x-ray.”

  “She’s going to be fine,” Veronica said. “Even if she has the active form of the disease, they will have caught it early and she’ll make a full recovery. There’s no reason to worry about it.”

  Krys nodded. There was a reason Veronica was her favorite nurse – she knew what she was talking about and she knew how to be reassuring even in the face of emotional turmoil. Krys wasn’t completely comforted, but she did feel strong enough to get off the bed and go help the rest of her patients.

  “Thank you.”

  Krys pushed past the end of her scheduled shift. She was supposed to get off work at midnight and she had plans to go to Darcy’s place because her dad was on a red-eye flight to Florida. But she asked Dr. Thomas to keep her updated on Malik’s condition, and he just kept getting worse throughout the night.

  Veronica went home to her family. The next set of ER staff showed up for their overnight shifts. And when Krys saw Malik’s dad and his two brothers coming through the ER doors, she knew things weren’t good.

  “Where is he?” Angelo asked when he spotted Krys.

  “He’s in intensive care,” she said. “I’ll take you.”

  She escorted Malik’s family upstairs, partly because the more stress patients were under, the more labyrinthine the hospital became. And partly, it was because she needed an excuse to check on the boy. Krys found him in a private room in the ICU, his breathing still labored and shallow beneath a child-sized oxygen mask.

  Chantal got up and threw her arms around her husband as soon as he stepped through the door and Krys stood back, trying not to get in the way. Malik’s brothers went to his bedside and took his hands, and a moment later, Lily was at Krys’s side.

  “How is he?” she asked. She wasn’t sure she was ready for the answer.

  “We’re still working on finding a match for an emergency transplant,” Lily said, “but he’s very sick. It might be too late to risk surgery.”

  “How long does he have?”

  “I’m hoping that he makes it through the night,” Lily said, then she sighed deeply, taking her full lung capacity for granted as she watched Malik’s family gather around him. “We knew this day was coming. He’s already outlived his life expectancy twice.”

  “It’s not fair,” Krys said, tears building in her eyes. “He’s just a kid, and he has so many people who love him so much.”

  Lily took Krys gently by the elbow and pulled her away from the doorway. Malik’s family didn’t need to see his doctors crying over him and Krys couldn’t hold her tears back anymore. Lily brought her to the nurses’ station and wrapped her arms around her.

  “We’ve done everything we can for him,” she said. “If the transplant doesn’t come through, all we can do is make him c
omfortable and be there for his family.”

  “I know,” Krys said. She wiped the tears from her eyes and steeled herself. Darcy sure had done a number on her ever since they met, because a couple of months ago, she never would have let her walls down enough to cry in front of a patient’s family. “I’m going back down to the ER. Call me if anything changes, okay?”

  “I will,” Lily promised. “Get some rest.”

  Krys just shook her head and went back to work.

  18

  Darcy

  Darcy found Krys sitting on a bench outside the emergency department. It was five in the morning and her hands trembled against the steering wheel the whole way over to the hospital. She’d woken up to her phone ringing and the sound of Krys sobbing on the other end of the line. As she crossed the nearly empty parking lot now, she plucked a rose off one of the hospital’s rosebushes.

  As she sank down on the bench beside Krys, letting her right leg extend because it was always a little stiff in the mornings, she held out the rose to her. Krys took it silently, then melted against Darcy’s shoulder.

  "Malik was a good kid," Darcy said as she put her arm around Krys. She’d only met him once, but it wasn’t simply a platitude – she believed it.

  Krys exhaled raggedly and Darcy could tell she was on the verge of tears again. It tore Darcy up to see her like this, but she was glad to be the one Krys called when she needed comfort. She did her best to provide it, hugging Krys to her chest.

  “You did everything you could for him,” she said. Now that was a platitude. It sounded like what the Army doctors used to say to her when she brought someone in from the field who was too far gone, and it never took the sting away from losing someone.

  Especially a friend.

  “I could have gotten him up to the ICU sooner,” Krys said. “The ER was so full, I figured he could wait a few more minutes for his breathing treatment.”