Wake the Dawn

by Lauraine Snelling

  Ben sat quietly, listening to all the comments. They were all right, no matter which side of the question they were on.

  “Let’s get back to order.” Lars paused until quiet resumed. “Bill here has requested time to share some thoughts he has collected.”

  The frail-appearing, white-haired gentleman stood and removed papers from his briefcase. “I have here some notes for all of you…”

  “Ever the teacher,” someone commented, causing a ripple of chuckles.

  Everyone sure seemed in a good mood, Ben thought as he watched the papers being passed around the table. One contained a pie chart and the other a list and several paragraphs. Leave it to Mr. Aptos to come prepared like this.

  Aptos looked to Esther. “The goals page is based on what you and I talked about that time when we first started dreaming about a modern medical facility. I don’t think anyone realized we would be cut off like that. Were it not for Esther and her crew, more people would have died, and if we had a decent facility here, fewer might have.

  “I know for a fact that attorneys have been calling Roy Abrams and telling him he has a right to sue the town because his wife died of internal bleeding. They are calling it an unnecessary death, and I tend to believe them. ’Course, they’re just ambulance chasers, but the lawyer Roy and Denise used for their wills says the same thing. Denise dying like that was a shock to everyone. I been talking to Roy. He has opted instead to use this as an opportunity to help the town get a hospital. I know that the odds of such a storm as that happening again aren’t real high, but…”

  Someone piped up, “And the chief collapsing like that. Perhaps better facilities would have prevented that, too.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ben caught the shake of Esther’s head. He knew what a struggle she’d been having with that exact question: Had she done enough? Would she refute the comment?

  When she didn’t, he motioned to Lars. “Could I add something here?”

  “Don’t,” Esther whispered.

  He ignored her and stood up. “Just so everyone knows the facts. Chief Harden had a severe coronary occlusion, but it’s an aortic aneurysm that killed him. No one could have saved him, even if he were in an operating room when it burst.”

  Someone interrupted. “Can’t you get a pacemaker?”

  “An aneurysm,” Ben explained, “is a weak spot in the wall of a blood vessel; in Chief’s case, the main vessel leaving the heart. The weak spot bulges out and may, at some unpredictable moment, literally explode. Rip open. In a major vessel like the aorta, your blood pressure drops catastrophically and you die immediately. I’m telling you this because we need to keep the facts straight, or those who think we’re crazy will latch onto a mistake and take the focus off the real problem and solution. We see that going on with politics all the time. Let’s not make that mistake.” He sat down, leery of even looking at Esther.

  “Thank you, Ben. Your comment about making sure our facts are straight is so true.” Lars turned to the rest of those at the meeting. “We all need to be very careful of this so that our efforts aren’t blown apart. We all know the opposition would like to do just that.”

  Bill Aptos nodded. “I stand corrected. Thank you, Ben.” His eyes twinkled. “Guess we taught you well.” He shifted his attention back to the papers he handed out. “As you can see, this plan needs to involve everyone. I figure some of us oldsters can call on our friends and challenge them to take part in this. I plan to contact Burt Humphrey and see about grant money; his company does a lot for our area. Anyone here excellent on writing grants in general? I have a list here of grant opportunities I have researched, but grant writing is a real art if you want to seriously be considered.” He stopped and looked around the table. “Or do you know someone who is good at this?”

  “But grants take forever,” someone said.

  “True, but we’ll need lots of money over the next probably two years to get this up and operating.” He smiled at Esther. “No pun intended.”

  “But it was a good one.” Was Kathy Myers, assistant manager of Lars’s bank, just buttering him? She wasn’t smiling. But then Kathy was something of a strange bird.

  Ben watched and listened to the proceedings, grateful for the lack of animosity that had erupted at the funeral. The next meeting promised to be a battlefield.

  By the end of the evening, a time line and list of volunteer assignments were ready. The coffeepot was empty and the refreshments consisted of half a dozen crumbs on the edges of the plates. Nine o’clock had come and gone. Lars closed the meeting, and everyone rose to leave.

  “Thanks for coming, Ben, Esther.” He shook their hands. “Life sure changes at times, doesn’t it?”

  “Thanks for all the information you gave me.” Mr. Aptos snapped the latches on a briefcase that was probably the one he’d used to carry papers back and forth from school. “Big job ahead. Hopefully by next meeting I can guilt-trip some guys into contributing more than they think they should. ’Bout time some of us who’ve lived here so many years, and the town’s been good to us, put our money where our mouths are.” He stopped and rolled his eyes. “My wife would have said I massacred the English language with that sentence. Oh well, you know what I mean.”

  Ben and Esther walked out with him and saw him into his car.

  “Are you sure he should still be driving?” Esther asked as they made their way to Ben’s truck.

  “Most likely only around town here. His mind is still plenty sharp.”

  “True, but not so sure about the rest of him.” Esther shook her head. “If someone had told me he’d be spearheading the hospital drive when we started working on him during the storm, I’d have declared you loco. The human body sure can surprise us all, even the old ones.”

  “Now he has a reason to keep on going.” Ben opened the truck door for her. The voice started up again. Ask her. “Ninety days to pour the footings? Surely he can’t mean that.”

  “We can’t get permits that quickly, let alone plans. I’ve never worked with an architect before, but we don’t even have one yet. Do any architects live in Pineville or nearby?”

  “I’ll ask Jenny; she knows everything. And someone better talk with Mr. Aptos and see if he will change his mind on the qualifications. Losing a million dollars would be sad.” He drove the dark streets to Esther’s house. “Sure seems strange without the streetlights.”

  “A million dollars. And he seems to think there are others that can do the same.” She turned to Ben. “Are there really people in this town with that kind of money?”

  “Probably the ones we’d least expect.” Ask her. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “My mother said a man never lets a woman out of a truck to walk to a dark house by herself.”

  “She didn’t really?”

  He got out and opened the door on her side. “She had rather strict rules on manners.” And besides, I need to ask you a question. They walked to the front door, and he waited as she unlocked it.

  “Night.” Turning back to his truck he called himself all kinds of names, primarily coward. But the bottom line, he’d enjoyed not sparring with her for a change. A welcome change.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Amber and her son Paulie are here.”

  Esther looked up from the paperwork that still hung over her head since the storm. Amber…Paulie…huh? Her brain stuttered.

  “You know, you saved the little boy’s life in the car?” Barbara paused to give Esther time to shift gears.

  “Okay, thanks, sorry for the blank-out there. The death of the medical profession is paperwork. How come they didn’t tell us about this dreadful disease in med school?”

  “No idea, maybe they figured learning to deliver babies and repair bones was more important. Silly them.”

  Esther shoved her chair back; good thing it had casters. Today was proving to be a bit slower than normal, with few appointments and fewer walk-ins, so she was using the ti
me to try to make a dent in the stack. “What is the child’s name?”

  “Paul. Paulie. Named after her father. According to him, just talking to him on some occasion, she was still in the drug scene, but it doesn’t appear that way now. Not that I’ve had a lot of time to observe, but…” Barbara shrugged.

  Esther checked her pockets for fancy Band-Aids and treats, snagged her stethoscope off the hook by the door and looped it around her neck, and followed Barbara to room two, where a file now filled the slot by the door.

  “I had her fill out all the new-patient forms for both of them.”

  “Good, thanks.” Esther forced herself to take a deep breath, let it out, and paste a smile on her face before opening the door. Chief’s daughter and the grandson he never met. Please God, she wasn’t doing drugs when she got pregnant. Hopefully she’d gotten her life straightened out first. “Good morning, Amber, right?”

  The blond young woman sitting in the chair with her son on her lap nodded. “And Paulie. Thank you for saving his life.”

  “One of God’s miracles.”

  “If I had just gone the ten miles farther out to Sven’s Crossing and the main road. But that would have taken at least twenty minutes longer, plus there was a tree blocking and they hadn’t gotten to it yet, but I knew about that back road, and…”

  “My father always told me that we can’t change the past, only the future. I’ve learned he was right.”

  “Sounds like something my dad would say.”

  “I probably heard it from him, too.” Fighting to keep the tears from flooding back, Esther smiled at the boy. “How you feeling, Paulie?”

  He nodded and looked up at his mother.

  “You can talk with her, she’s our doctor now, just like Dr. Peters.” Amber looked up at Esther who had stood up again, with a crackle in her knee. “I’ve taught him he can’t talk to strangers.”

  And today I feel like a real stranger. “Good.” Esther leaned against the examining table. “Which of you am I seeing today?”

  “Paulie. We’re out of his asthma medications, and we need a new prescription.”

  Esther flipped to the page in the file and read off the meds. “How long has he been on these?”

  “He was diagnosed two years ago, after he had pneumonia and then bronchitis.”

  “Do you smoke?” At the head shake, Esther continued. “Any regular smokers in your house?”

  “No. When I turned my back on my former life…” She paused. “Were you and my dad friends?”

  “Yes, good friends. Your mother helped me feel at home here in Pineville and after she died, we kept up the friendship. So, yes, I think the question you are really asking is how much did your dad, and in this case your mother, too, tell me about you?”

  Amber nodded and stared down at her son’s dark hair. “Knowing everyone knew me, and what a mess I’d made of my life, made coming back here even more difficult. But I wanted Paulie to grow up knowing his grandpa, that he had a family.” She wiped the tears from her eyes with one finger.

  “I come from a small town, too. Ya gotta love ’em or they’ll drive you crazy. Too many long memories.” Esther quelled some memories of her own, then nodded and smiled at Paulie. “Well, young man, how about if I listen to your chest? Afterward, if you like, you can listen to your heartbeat with my special earphones.”

  He nodded but shortened the small distance between him and his mother. “My grandpa’s gone to live with Jesus.”

  “I know that, and I know he is very happy there. Can you unbutton your shirt for me?” As he did that, she warmed the scope’s bell and diaphragm in her hands while she watched him fight the buttons. Normal gross coordination for a child that age. Good sign. “Okay now, you breathe in real deep and blow it all out.”

  She checked all four quadrants in back and moved to the front, asking him to breathe deeply again each time, then removed the earpieces from her ears. “You want to hear now?” At his slow nod, she put the earpieces in his ears and pressed the diaphragm over his heart. A grin split his face.

  “I’m going thump, thump.” He deepened his voice to sound like a heart.

  Esther took the stethoscope back and slipped the bell into her breast pocket. “You sure are, and you have a good strong heart.” She checked his pulse, the lymph nodes in his neck, and then his ears and throat, introducing her equipment each time. “One other thing.” She went to a drawer and pulled out a clamp. “Let’s check your oxygen levels, too.”

  She put the clamp on her own finger to demonstrate. She put the clamp on Amber’s finger. When she slipped it on his finger, his eyes grew wide as the red numerals glowed. Good attention, normal reactions; also good signs.

  Esther recalled Amber saying in the car that Paulie had been good for weeks, so she saw no reason to second-guess the medication levels.

  “Anything else, Amber?”

  “No, I can’t think of anything.”

  Esther wrote the same prescriptions Paulie had been taking and gave them to her.

  Amber looked a little harried—no surprise there—but she smiled. “Thank you. Is Don’s drugstore still there? I haven’t had a chance to go down that street.”

  “It is, but it’s not a Rexall anymore. And it still makes killer malted milks. Paulie might like to try one.”

  “So would I.” Amber stood up and helped Paulie button his shirt.

  Esther almost didn’t do it, but her better self prevailed. She pulled a business card out of her pocket and handed it to Amber. “If you want someone to talk to, call me. We’ll get together. That’s my personal cell.”

  “Thank you.” Amber glanced at it and slipped it into her purse. She took a deep breath and asked, so painfully casually that it was obviously not casual, “Say, do you happen to know if Ben James is thick with anyone at the moment; you know, dating?”

  “I know you two dated in high school.” And right now he’s all in love with a month-old baby, but you’re not going to know about that. “I don’t know what his status is right now; I don’t hear too much scuttlebutt.”

  “Just curious. Like you say, we used to see each other, but that was long ago.”

  Not long enough. What was wrong with Esther that she suddenly got this ridiculous jealous streak? She pasted on the old smile and saw them to the waiting room.

  “Back to the paperwork,” she told Barbara. “You know, I still haven’t sorted out the mess from the first storm. Any word about the soft-drink and junk-food dispensers?”

  “Not since the email message that he’d be here in a day or two.”

  “That was last week.”

  “We’re not one of his bigger accounts. I have candy bars in my desk drawer if you get desperate.”

  Esther smiled. “I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.” She crossed to her office, closed the door, and locked it. Why did you do that, silly? She flopped into her chair, leaving the door locked. Chief Harden’s grandson and daughter. Treating them was a lot tougher than she would have expected. Chief insisted his daughter had not cleaned up the booze and drugs, but so far Paulie showed no obvious signs of fetal alcohol syndrome.

  She leaned way back, scooting her butt to the front of the seat, stretched out in the chair, closed her eyes, shut herself away. So much ugliness was happening, ugly with little streaks of light. Not all bad but hardly any good, and most of it not—

  The phone blared. She jumped, every nerve in her body vibrating. She should have asked Barbara to hold calls. Maybe she had; she couldn’t remember. Picking up the phone as if it might jolt her with a bezillion volts, she said, “Hello?”

  “Ben James. You sound sleepy. Did I just wake you up? I’m sorry.”

  “No.” Ben James, for heaven’s sake! He never calls. Why…? “No, you didn’t wake me. Not at all. I’m working on the records yet, still working on that miserable storm and trying to reconstruct records. It’s horrible. No, you didn’t wake me up.” And just for emphasis, she added another, “No.” She was babbling. What was
wrong with her?

  “I can imagine it’s horrible. If you want sometime, we can sit down and sift through each other’s memories, see who we come up with.” Ben’s voice sounded a little tentative. “I probably know more people by name than you do.”

  “That might be helpful. Uh, what can I do for you?” Shock. That’s what it was. She was just plain shocked that he should call.

  “Well, two things. First one. I apologize for dragging you along to that meeting. Even the best meetings are dismal, and that one was a real moaner. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the more I thought about it afterward, the worse it sounded. Anyway, sorry.”

  “Oh, please don’t apologize!” In an odd way, his apology charmed her. “I’ve been going to these meetings for years, and it was good that I went to this one. Keeps me in the loop. I appreciate that you took me.”

  “You’re gracious. Number two, I’d like to make up for it, at least in part, by taking you along to the football game tonight. The Loggers, also known as the mighty Pineville Eleven, versus Bemidji North’s semi-fierce Wolverines.”

  She found herself laughing. When was the last time she’d truly laughed?

  “Home game,” he continued. “We can walk over to the high school.”

  “I really should try to get a grip on this backlog.”

  “Hasn’t it been gripped enough for a day?”

  Why was she hesitating? It promised to be interesting, sort of—she wasn’t into football, didn’t even understand it, but a diversion might be helpful. Help her get her wildly flailing emotions back under control. “All right, if you like. Sounds fun. When?”

  “Ansel says he might come. Beth is staying home, but she’s sending along a picnic supper. Tailgate party preceding the game. I’d come by your place around five thirty, we meet Ansel, eat, get our adrenaline running as the mighty Pineville Eleven defend their turf.”

  Barbara rapped on the door. “Patient in three.”

  Esther had forgotten it was locked. She raised her voice, “Coming,” lowered her voice, “Sounds good. Thank you, Ben!”