Wake the Dawn

by Lauraine Snelling

  Her head was spinning. She steadied herself, tried to quell the panic.

  Hannah wheeled forward a couple feet. “I didn’t want to be one to complain, but I was hurting so bad. You gave me something to do, something important, and it helped me get through the night. Thank you.”

  Ansel stepped to the front with Dawn; people moved aside to accommodate him. “Ben was telling me how you managed to start a line in this beautiful baby, in her scalp. That’s next to miraculous right there. You saved her life. Thank you.”

  And beside him, Beth was smiling. “Thank you for delivering my baby in the middle of all that chaos. You called it textbook. I call it miraculous. Thank you.”

  Sarah raised her voice from the back of the room. “Thank you again, Dr. Esther! See you later.” She waved as she walked out, and Dr. Ho smiled as he held the door for her.

  “Bye.” Gary Culpepper waved, left behind Sarah.

  Everything was swirling around like cotton candy in a cotton-candy spinner. One by one they left; Hannah rolled forward and kissed her hands, then let Mr. Aptos wheel her out.

  Gramma Alma parked in front of her, squeezed her arms. “Your father and I have decided that you will never ever please your mother, because she cannot be pleased by anyone, not you, not me, not your father, not even your brother. That’s her problem, not yours or ours, and it’s sad, because she misses out on so much. Follow your heart, dear Chicken Little. You please us all, more than you know.” Gramma walked out and Esther desperately wanted her to stay. But she couldn’t find the words to call her back. She couldn’t find any words at all. The panic was so intense she felt close to throwing up.

  Ben took her arm, led her over to the chair at the table, pulled it out for her. She flopped into it, clunked both elbows on the table, and covered her face. She was sobbing, sort of, but it wasn’t really; it was continual shuddering. “Go away. Please.”

  Chairs clunked as Ben sat down at her right. And there were Dr. Livingston and Dr. Ho sitting down, too. Meddlers.

  “This was an intervention, wasn’t it.” She took a huge shuddering breath. “Isn’t that what they call it?”

  Dr. Ho’s voice purred, gentle. “Not exactly, where people tell the subject how someone’s addiction or alcoholism has negatively impacted their lives. Basic idea, but we changed some things. Like, we know how crowds of people can induce anxiety in post-traumatic people, so we asked that they leave after.”

  She raised her head. “In other words this was all carefully staged.”

  “No, it wasn’t!” Dr. Livingston was emphatic almost to be the point of being angry. “We got them together, explained what post-traumatic stress is and how it has affected you, and asked them to say whatever was on their minds. Whatever was in their hearts. We didn’t know what they would say. No one was directed or coached, except for the leaving part.”

  Dr. Ho smiled. “We are afraid you don’t realize what a positive force you are in this community, so we did this. And these people all care about you.”

  “Did anyone tell you why—” She changed course. “About when this started?”

  “Yes.” Dr. Ho was still smiling, compassion in his eyes. “Hit and run.”

  She gasped. How…?

  He grinned mischievously. “I talked to your brother and father. You claimed your car damage was caused by a deer, but deer don’t leave paint scuffs. They’re certain you hit another car.”

  And rage welled up, burning away the confusion, the fear. Delicious rage. It burst out of her harder than she wanted it to. “So thank you so much, you just ruined my life! I was thinking of getting the full degree sometime. That’s not going to happen now. They won’t take a post-traumatic stress victim. And by the way, I would love to stay out of jail. That’s not going to happen now, either. Hit and run is a crime, maybe you heard, and you just announced it to the whole world!” Curious, her fury in some way was dissipating her terror.

  Dr. Livingston nodded. “So you were going to get past this problem on your own, and when you were stable again, you’d go back to school. Is that it?”

  When he said it, or maybe the way he said it, it seemed foolish. “Yeah. Yes, that’s what I was going to do. Except just a few weeks ago, I met the people I hit. Just by chance, a grandmother and a disabled boy. They were the people in the car I hit. Now I don’t know what…I just don’t know. I don’t have the money to help them or anything, but…I don’t know, but the boy was so…” And words failed her.

  “So, in the intervening years, have you been recovering or getting worse?”

  She crossed her arms on the table and dropped her forehead onto them. She was so sad and hopeless, she didn’t even feel like responding.

  Dr. Livingston leaned toward her. “Let me tell you some things, Esther, true things. One, you can recover from this, but not the way you’re going about it. Two, this does not damage your chances to become a physician. Staying ill would. Three, I’ve discussed this with pretty good legal counsel, and this does not mean the end of the world or even jail time.”

  “Legal counsel. I can’t afford a lawyer, at least not a hotshot.” She raised her head to study him a moment. “Who?”

  “I’m married to her.”

  And her brain went zing again. She felt hot tears coming. She didn’t want that. After she had worked desperately for so long to keep her past silent, the world knew her most horrible secrets. She didn’t want that. These powerful men controlled her life and she did not. She didn’t want that. The harder she tried to salvage the future, the worse things got. She most of all didn’t want that.

  Ben gripped her arm. “You wouldn’t talk to me when I brought you home, but you did say enough that I could dig out the old incident reports. The cops file things forever, you know.”

  You wouldn’t dare. You couldn’t! But no use saying that aloud. Of course he could.

  Ben asked, “What color was the car you hit, Esther?”

  She wasn’t expecting that question. “Black. Like the road.”

  “What color car was Clara Holmgren driving?”

  “I don’t know. Black, I…wait.” The woman had said…But how…? “A white one. That she thought ought to show up in the headlights.”

  “There were two hit and runs, Esther, within twenty-four hours of each other. No one ever found out who hit Clara Holmgren. Your father and brother both mentioned that the paint scuffs on your car were black. The car you rear-ended was parked on the asphalt and its owner was half a mile beyond, headed for a gas station with a gas can; he had run out of gas, and he was also inebriated. No one ever found out who hit his car, either, but I don’t think anyone tried hard. Pretty darn stupid, parking out on the roadway.”

  “You mean I…?” Jefferson, Clare, Ben, these men, that intervention or whatever: It was all coming at her way too fast.

  And now Dr. Ho was speaking, his voice mist-like at the edge of her awareness. “As a first step, I want to put you on a serotonin reuptake inhibitor that I’ve found quite useful for my patients. I believe you will be amazed a month from now how much better the world looks. This seems to work better than some others.”

  “I don’t need another antidepressant.”

  “Give it a couple months; if there’s no change, you can go back off it. Now I want you to tell me—if you could do anything in the world, what would it be?”

  “Mom wants me to go into obstetrics in an urban set—”

  “Stop. Pretend for a moment that your mother doesn’t exist; she’s not a factor. Just pretend. You. What would you most like to do?”

  She opened her mouth, closed it again. What did she want? What did Esther want? She had never really considered that. But I don’t know seemed pretty lame.

  She thought about the people whose lives she could not save. Chief. Denise Abrams. And the people for whom she made a difference, sometimes even a life-and-death difference. And the babies. Wriggly little Nathan fresh from his mother’s womb. Sweet Dawn, abandoned, alone, desperately fightin
g a losing battle to stay alive. And this morning, there they were right in front of her, both of them, unable to speak but telling her volumes anyway.

  She drew a deep breath. “I think; I think, if it were just me, I’d like obstetrics anyway. Maybe after I get my loans paid off, obstetrics in a small-town setting. An area like this needs someone who enjoys the work. Or a general practitioner. That’s good, too.”

  She happened to look up at Dr. Ho, the first real eye contact she’d made with the two physicians since all this went down. With these three; Ben sat silently beside her, carefully studying her. Not staring. Quietly, pleasantly studying.

  Dr. Ho had tears in his eyes. They hadn’t bubbled up over the lids yet, but they were there. He wasn’t acting sorrowful or anything. He just…he just had tears. He smiled, glowed. “Esther, you do not know how happy you just made me.”

  This was surreal. This wasn’t really happening.

  Dr. Livingston explained, “Warren and I have had some long discussions about you. There’s a critical shortage of doctors willing to work in rural areas, and yet they’re desperately needed. The fact that you want to borders on the miraculous. We were hoping you would want to, based on your success as a practitioner here in Pineville, but we didn’t know. We need you, Esther.”

  Dr. Ho picked it up. “So we have devised a plan, subject to your approval, of course. You recall we have recently returned from a symposium on just this question—delivering medical service to rural communities. There are a number of grants coming available, and George and I are ready to make up the difference, if your education requires more money than the grants will provide. You will not have to go into debt.”

  “But…!”

  He raised a hand. “Please hear me out. The first step, of course, is to stabilize you emotionally. That can be done. Work on this post-traumatic stress problem. Meanwhile, let’s get you started toward your degree. You can serve part of your residency here, and I can use a resident in Grand Forks, so your future is assured following the course work. Based on your grades when you earned your certification as a physician’s assistant, there should be no problem there, either. When the new facility is opened here in Pineville, you should be about ready to step in.”

  “Why? Why are you two doing this?”

  Dr. Livingston said, “Our interest is strictly self-serving. We desperately need you, we need anyone in a rural setting.”

  Dr. Ho said, “Even more important, you will be a splendid doctor. You have proven yourself. You are worth every effort to save.”

  Dr. Livingston stood up. “We of course will remain in contact, and I will give you the name of a reliable counselor who can work with you. We have several excellent counselors on the base, well practiced with stress disorders. Also, you’re going to have to sit down with my wife and work out the legal ramifications.”

  “I’ve been working with a counselor for several years.”

  “That’s good to know. The ones I am referring to have probably done more work with PTSD than most others. I think they can help you.”

  “Okay, I’ll give it a try.” The legal ramifications. We need you. It all swirled around inside her. She remembered standing and shaking hands with them as they left. She remembered Ben rising and shaking with them also. She flopped back into her chair, still terribly aswirl. Gobsmacked, Granny Alma would say. Nothing less than gobsmacked.

  She looked at Ben, sitting quietly beside her. She wagged her head. “This is all too—weird. Are you responsible for this?”

  “I helped some, since I know the people and the doctors don’t. Helped set it up. And Barbara, she helped. The doctors orchestrated it, worked out the logistics.”

  She sighed a great, shuddering sigh. “Ben? What do you think I should do?”

  “Marry me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Marry me. Five hours later Esther still floated in a sort of shocked daze.

  He’d never even said he loved her. He had never once kissed her. Weren’t marriage prospects supposed to court?

  Did she love him? She cared, that was for sure, but love him as in to marry him?

  “You have a patient in room two.” Barbara still had traces of a giggle in her voice.

  “Would you knock it off?” Esther felt her smile lines crinkle again.

  “All I said was…” There it was again.

  “I know what you said. I’m on my way.” Esther picked up the chart. Marry me.

  She read the name again and glanced down the chart. Amy Klapton, one of her pregnant mommas. She tapped on the door and went in. “Good afternoon, Amy. How can I help you today?”

  A pregnant woman with a little boy at her side waited in the chair.

  “Joey has something caught up in his nose. He can’t blow it out.”

  “I see. He’s not the first little boy to come down with this syndrome. Come on, Joey, let’s get you on the table so I can see better.” She lifted him up so he sat with his feet dangling over the edge. “Now, what did you put in your nose?”

  “A bean.”

  “I see. I’m going to have to look up your nose, so you lie back here and hang on to your mommy’s hand. I know you are going to be a brave little boy, aren’t you?” She nodded while she asked the question so he nodded back. She felt the bridge of his nose; just below that, in the right nostril, was something hard. “You sure did.” Choosing the most delicate of her limited choice of forceps, she shone a light up to see a white dried bean waiting. “This will feel funny, but you lie real quiet and we’ll be done in an instant. You only put one bean in, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated. “The second one didn’t fit.”

  She worked the forceps up there, managed to engage the bean, and pulled it out. “You were really brave all right. But I don’t want you to put anything in your nose ever again, hear? Your nose doesn’t like that. It’s uncomfortable, and besides, it wastes beans.”

  He nodded. “Sorry.”

  Amy was obviously suppressing a snigger. “Me, too. Come on, Joey, let’s go home.”

  “Ice cream?”

  “No chance. Not when you did this. No treats.” His mother rose and waited for him to scramble down. “See you for my appointment next week.” Out they went.

  Esther jotted down her notes and handed the file back to Barbara. “That’s it for today?”

  “It is. And what a note to end on. Beans up the nose. How come boys do that more than girls?”

  “Girls are smarter.”

  “Esther, get out of here. Go, get ready for your big date.”

  Esther started to leave and turned. “How did you know you loved Ed?”

  “No fireworks, more a slow burn. But I knew I wanted to be with that man and no other for the rest of my life. The fireworks came later.”

  “Hmm.” Not much help. The weather had been perfect for fall, and it still was. She should have walked to work. The western sky was already catching the flames of sunset. The bundle of clouds gleamed gold around the upper edges, and where they parted, oranges flowed into vermillion, which faded into pinks. She caught the reflections in western-facing windows of the houses on her street. With so many of the old elm trees broken in the storm, the horizon was more obvious.

  Ben had said he would pick her up at six thirty, and he’d called later to make sure she’d understood. He wasn’t taking any chances. On the one hand, a tiny thrill rippled up her back. On the other, she dreaded telling him all that had happened, describing that night. But it wasn’t Jefferson. A burden the size of Fort Knox had been lifted from her.

  In the shower and out so she didn’t have time to ponder the events of the morning. All those people, there just for her. That was the strangest intervention she’d ever heard of. And the message about her mother. Someone else had told her that once, but she’d blown it off. This came from Gramma Alma, and she had never lied to Esther or even stretched the truth. Gramma Alma loved unconditionally, more than anyone Esther had ever known. But she also had t
he gift of insight, a rare combination.

  Instead of her usual jeans or khaki pants, Esther pulled out a black wool skirt and cowl-neck sweater. Then dug into her collection of good jewelry. A three-strand necklace of turquoise and silver, bangly bracelets, and a silver loop belt that hung just below her waist. Earrings finished it off. After fashioning her hair in a French twist, she studied herself in the mirror. She’d pass. Good thing Ben was tall, she thought as she slid her feet into black pumps with two-inch heels. No one would ever convince her that four-inch-and-up heels looked attractive, let alone sensible. She finished with eyeliner and mascara that made her blue eyes even more blue.

  When she opened the door Ben stopped, his eyes widened, and he whistled softly. “Who are you and what did you do with Esther?”

  She laughed and motioned him in. “I clean up fairly well, I take it.”

  He nodded. Maybe he figured sometimes silence was the wiser option.

  He handed her a long, thin box. A single velvety red rose. He shrugged. “A dozen seemed kinda much.”

  “A dozen roses is too much. This is perfect. Thank you!”

  “I hope you don’t mind driving to Grand Forks. I made reservations at the Rogue on the River.”

  So, do we talk on the way down or way back? “Sounds delightful.” She brought her leather coat from the closet and handed it to him. After helping her into it, he cupped his hands around her shoulders and turned her to look in the oval mirror above the half table in the entry.

  “You look stunning.”

  Shivers radiated from under his hands and shot down her arms, ran circles around her heart, and tickled her lungs, making her catch her breath. She felt an urge to turn, put her arms around his neck, and see if his lips tasted as good as he looked.

  “What?” His voice had dropped to a heart-pumping tone.