Mother's Promise

by Anna Schmidt

  “Thank you, Eileen. Thank you for everything.”

  For the next hour Rachel busied herself getting settled in. She rearranged the supplies to her liking and could not help but wonder if she would ever have enough files to fill up even one, much less both of the file drawers. A volunteer from the hospital gift shop stopped by to deliver a dish garden filled with a variety of living plants. Rachel opened the florist’s card and read the typed message: From everyone at Gulf Coast Medical Center, WELCOME!

  As she worked, she was comforted by the sounds of Eileen attending to her duties. Paul’s assistant answered phone calls, dealt with two or three people who came looking for Paul, and in between seemed to be constantly tapping away at the keyboard of her computer.

  Rachel had started to read through the materials in the folder that Paul Cox had given her during their first meeting when Eileen said, “Call for you, Rachel. I’ll send it over.”

  Rachel stared at the red light blinking on her phone. “What do I do?” she asked.

  “Pick it up,” Eileen instructed. “It looks complicated, but it’s really just a telephone.”

  “Hello,” Rachel said tentatively.

  “Well, hello yourself.” Her friend Hester chuckled. “Are you supposed to greet me with something official like ‘This is Rachel Kaufmann, Hospital Chaplain’ or whatever your title is?”

  Rachel couldn’t seem to stifle the kind of girlish giggle the two friends had exchanged when they’d been roommates. “My title, I’ll have you know, is child life specialist,” she said, keeping her voice down even though Eileen seemed to be completely occupied with her typing.

  “Well, get you,” Hester teased, then her tone shifted. “How’s it really going?”

  “Too fast. I mean the morning has flown by and it’s been a whirlwind of meetings and touring the hospital and getting my office space set up.” She turned to look out the window. “How’s Justin doing? I wanted to call, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to do that yet.” She had lowered her voice to almost a whisper.

  “Justin seems fine. John put him to work in the packinghouse getting everything cleaned up and ready for the new season. He’s a quiet one, isn’t he?”

  He didn’t used to be, Rachel thought. “He’s been through a lot.” She glanced at the wall clock and saw that she had only five minutes before her meeting with Paul Cox. “I have to go, Hester.”

  “Understood. How about I bring Justin and come by to pick you up at the front entrance at five so we can go meet Sharon Shepherd and see the cottage.”

  “Ja, and Hester?”

  “Ja?”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “You don’t need to keep thanking me, Rachel,” Hester told her. “It’s the least I can do after everything you and Justin have been through. See you at five.”

  The line went dead at the same time that Rachel heard Paul Cox enter the office. “Is she in?” he asked even as he bypassed Eileen’s desk and tapped on the metal edge of Rachel’s cubicle. “We’ve got an emergency,” he said. “Want to come along and see how this works?”

  Paul did not wait for an answer as he headed back out the door and then down the corridor toward the skywalk that led to the children’s wing. “I hope you don’t get queasy at the sight of blood,” he added grimly as he turned down a hallway then strode through a set of double doors that marked the entrance to the emergency room for the children’s wing.

  Chapter 5

  Ben took one look at the boy’s arm and knew it was going to take a miracle to save it. At least the arm had not been ripped entirely off. Shark attacks were extremely rare, but when one did strike, the outcome usually always favored the shark. In this case the amazing thing was that the kid still had his arm. Ben was grateful for the team of nurses and specialists surrounding him as he worked to get the boy stabilized so that they could move him on to surgery as soon as possible. Mercifully the kid was pretty much out of it and probably wouldn’t remember all the blood loss and pain he was suffering.

  A man and woman stood in the doorway as if frozen into a state of disbelief. The parents. It was hard to offer reassurance with the better part of his face covered by a surgical mask, but Ben felt the need to make an attempt. He glanced over at the couple, and the father met his look and nodded. Then the man murmured something to his wife. Her wails of panic and fear settled into shuddering sobs.

  “Did somebody call for Paul Cox?” he asked the nurse working next to him.

  “On his way.”

  Ben turned his attention back to his work. He gathered information about vital signs and loss of blood even as he issued orders for what would be needed in surgery. When his colleague and the best orthopedic surgeon in southwest Florida, Jess Wilson, came through the double doors and scanned the chart an aide held for him, Ben let out a breath of relief.

  The pneumatic doors swung closed behind Jess but not before Ben saw three other teens still wet, wearing their T-shirts and surfing shorts. They were sitting on the edge of a row of plastic chairs, their hands dangling helplessly between their knees, their gangly bodies seeming too large for the chairs.

  “How could this happen?” the mother moaned, drawing Ben’s attention back to the job of prepping the kid for surgery. “He was supposed to be at Todd’s house,” she added, her voice dropping until her tone was that of a lost little girl.

  It didn’t take much to put the pieces together, Ben thought as he and Jess worked together. Those boys—high school seniors given the age of the kid on the table—had decided to have one last fling before school started in a couple of days. The high, hot west wind that had been building all night would have been all anyone who loved surfing needed to know that the wave action off Lido Key was going to be great. Ben could almost visualize the four of them heading straight for the beach.

  “Name?” he murmured to the ER nurse working next to him and nodding toward the boy.

  “David Olson,” she replied. “Paperwork is done,” she added with a glance toward a young woman holding a clipboard out to the father.

  Ben pulled down his mask and peeled off his gloves as he approached the parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Olson?”

  They lifted dazed glances before Ben went on, “We’re going to take David up to surgery,” he said even as the medical team unlocked the wheels on the gurney and started rolling it down the corridor. “As soon as there’s any news someone will be down to talk with you, okay?”

  He really didn’t expect an answer. Someone else would take charge of the parents and friends until Paul got there, lead them to the waiting room, offer them coffee, and volunteer to call other family for them. So when Mr. Olson clasped his shoulder, Ben wasn’t sure how to react.

  “Doc? Can you save his arm?” Olson was a large man, overweight in the way of a former athlete who hadn’t kept up with his regimen of exercise. His eyes were full of tears he was fighting to hold at bay, and his voice shook. “See, he’s on the basketball team and several colleges have been after him and …”

  “We’re going to do our best, Mr. Olson,” Ben said as he gently patted the man’s arm. “Just hang in there, okay?”

  With relief he saw Paul Cox and the new chaplain enter the waiting area. Paul moved toward the parents, indicating with a nod that his cohort should check on the other teenagers. The gurney was already halfway on the elevator, and the surgeon was holding the door for Ben.

  “Got this,” Paul said as he stepped between Ben and Mr. Olson. “I’m Paul Cox, hospital chaplain,” he said. “Let me show you folks to our family care area. You’ll be more comfortable waiting there.”

  Rachel approached the other boys as Paul led the parents away. She bent down to their level as if she instinctively knew how best to connect with them. As the elevator doors slid shut she glanced up at Ben. For an instant it looked as if she was pleading with him to make things better—not for her but for those boys who had saved their friend. But he would not offer false hope, and he knew she had read the severity of th
e situation in his expression when she drew in a breath and briefly bowed her head before turning her attention back to the boys.

  “I’m sure you did everything you could have done,” Rachel said to the boy who had broken down completely and was sobbing into his hands.

  “That sucker came out of nowhere,” another boy said, shaking his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. “I mean one minute we were catching a wave and the next the water was red with Dave’s blood and his arm was …” He was pacing back and forth.

  The third friend remained silent. He was the smallest of the three, and in a way his size made him appear more vulnerable. Like Justin. He sat quietly a little apart from his friends and stared at his hands.

  “If Todd here hadn’t hit that shark with his board,” the second boy continued, wheeling around and coming up next to her as he continued his story. “That was amazing, dude. We all froze, but Todd handled it.”

  Rachel slid onto the empty chair that separated the boy—Todd—from his friends. She placed her hand on his bony shoulder. “You quite possibly saved your friend’s life,” she told him and silently prayed to God that his life would indeed be saved.

  An aide carrying a cardboard tray with cups of orange juice came toward them. “Thank you,” Rachel said as she stood up and distributed the juice. All three boys guzzled it down as if they hadn’t had liquids in days. All three murmured their thanks as they placed the empty paper cups back on the tray.

  “Pastor Paul asked that you bring them to the chapel,” the aide told Rachel. “We’ve called their parents.”

  “Thank you. Come on, boys.” Rachel guided them toward the corridor that led to the chapel and family waiting area. The emergency room was quiet now, and the only sounds were a nurse’s rhythmic tapping on a computer keyboard and the squeak of the boys’ rubber flip-flops on the polished tile floor.

  When they reached the chapel, both Mr. and Mrs. Olson came forward and hugged each boy. Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. She had been afraid that the Olsons might release their own fear by chastising the boys. But when Todd finally broke down and let his tears come, it was Mr. Olson who took him under his wing. “Hey, what’s this?” he said. “From what Brent and Jack told us, you saved the day.”

  “That shark was huge,” Todd blubbered.

  “You did good, Todd. Whatever happens, you saved our boy,” Mr. Olson said as he hugged Todd again.

  Over the next couple of hours the family waiting room gradually filled with other family and friends. The parents of the three friends arrived, as did David Olson’s coach and the pastor of his church. Paul spoke at length with the minister, and the two men exchanged business cards. Then Paul crossed the room to where Rachel was setting up a makeshift buffet of the snacks, sandwiches, fresh fruit, and soft drinks that Eileen had ordered sent up from the hospital cafeteria.

  “Okay,” he said, glancing at a young man in scrubs who had come to the room, spoken with the Olsons and Paul and their minister, and was now leaving. “The good news is it looks like the boy’s going to make it.”

  “But?” Rachel said.

  “They’re working on reattaching his arm and that could take eight to ten hours, assuming they can do it at all.” He glanced over to where the Olsons and the boys were seated in the center of a circle of supportive friends and family. “I think things are pretty well in hand here. Why don’t we go back to my office and have a late working lunch while we go over your new responsibilities?”

  Rachel was reluctant to leave. The truth was she wanted to be there when Ben came from surgery to tell the Olsons how things had gone. Would the surgical team be able to save the boy’s arm? Rachel recalled how the floor of the ER had been littered with bloody refuse when David was on his way to the elevator and the operating room. She had never seen so much blood in all her life. “Eight hours more?” she whispered as she looked at the clock in the hall ticking off the seconds.

  Paul nodded and thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “We’ll check back,” he told her. “This is the way it goes sometimes, Rachel. I assure you that the feeling of wanting to do more when there’s no more to be done never goes away. But these folks clearly have a strong network of support. They’re in good hands.”

  He waited for her to speak with the Olsons, and then the two of them walked side by side in silence across the skywalk on their way back to the spiritual care department. Rachel could not help noticing how blue the sky was, unmarked by a single cloud. She thought about David and his three friends surfing the waves on this perfect day, never guessing that danger lurked beneath the water’s surface.

  She thought about Justin. “There are sharks,” he had argued when she’d told him about the move to Florida.

  “What’s a bull shark?” she asked, remembering that one of the nurses had mentioned that species.

  “It’s a big shark,” Paul told her. “Adults average about seven feet long and can weigh close to three hundred pounds. But the real problem is that a bull shark has serrated teeth, and when it bites, it tears. That’s what complicates David Olson’s chances of coming out with a reattached arm. Hard to put that all back together.”

  Rachel took a moment to digest the bleak outlook for this boy and his family. “Why would the shark attack?”

  Paul shrugged. “It’s not done with malice. Usually the problem is that the water is churned up and sharks have poor eyesight. If they see something moving in the water that they can’t identify as friend, foe, or food they strike first and ask questions later.” He held the door to their offices open for her. “Either way that young man has got a long road ahead of him—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Good that they are people of strong faith.”

  Eileen looked up as they entered, her snow-white eyebrows raised in question.

  “No news yet,” Paul said. “Rachel, call your son. I expect he’s on your mind right about now.” He walked into his office and closed the door.

  “He needs a moment,” Eileen explained. “The young ones always hit him hardest.” She shook her head and fell silent for a long moment before going on in a quiet voice, “His daughter drowned in a freak swimming accident when she was ten. It’s been twenty years, but he still grieves.”

  “And yet he does this kind of work?”

  “Paul feels that it’s his calling. In some ways he honors the memory of his daughter by offering comfort to others.”

  Rachel nodded, understanding all too well how the man felt. “Let me know when he’s ready,” she said as she sat down at her desk and dialed Hester’s number. “Hester? Could I speak to Justin?”

  Ben had to give Jess Wilson credit. The man was cocky and abrasive but he was the best surgeon Ben had ever worked with. After six and a half grueling hours, he had secured the final stitch to reattach David Olson’s arm. Then he’d snapped off his gloves and pulled down his mask. “He may lose that arm yet, but tell them I’ve done my best,” he said wearily and left the operating room, leaving it to someone else to go and talk with the parents.

  The Olsons and their son’s friends had been understandably relieved at the news, but it worried Ben that they had also been almost hysterically happy. Ben had tried to caution them that David had months of therapy ahead of him. He doubted that they had grasped what he’d tried to tell them about rehabilitation and the possibility that the boy would never have the full range of motion he had enjoyed before. At least the family’s minister seemed to understand that this was only the beginning of a long journey for David and his family.

  Due to the length of the surgery, Ben had had to cancel his plans with Sally. Still, he decided to stop by his sister’s house. He was bone tired, but even the shower he’d taken in the doctors’ locker room had done little to calm him. The intensity of the surgery had left him wired, and he doubted he would be able to settle down to sleep for several hours yet. It was a beautiful night, and sitting around the pool under his sister’s screened lanai listening to Sally talk about the upcoming s
chool year would be exactly what he needed.

  But when he got to the impressive estate his brother-in-law and sister owned, the bright orange van with the logo for the fruit co-op that Malcolm and Sharon supported and the Steiners managed was parked on the circular drive. Ben wondered if perhaps Malcolm’s brother, Zeke, had stopped by.

  Zeke worked at the co-op—when he worked at all. He and Malcolm could not have been more different. While Malcolm had taken over the family’s multiple business ventures, Zeke had served three tours of duty with the Marines in the Middle East. When he came back the third time, he’d abandoned the comforts of his family’s wealth for life on the street. Ben knew that Malcolm had decided to fund the fruit co-op run by Hester and John Steiner in part because it was one way to get Zeke into a situation where he wasn’t living hand-to-mouth. Frankly Ben didn’t understand Zeke’s nonchalance when it came to where he might sleep or get his next meal. Yet Ben couldn’t help but admire Zeke—and sometimes he even envied him. After the day he’d had it would be nice to have “no worries,” as Zeke was fond of saying.

  “Hello?” Ben called as he walked into the front foyer and kicked off his shoes. His sister had white carpeting in the two main downstairs rooms, and she was adamant about the removal of shoes—especially his.

  “I don’t know what you’ve been standing in all day,” she would say with a shudder. “All those germs.”

  He had tried pointing out that at the end of the day he always showered and switched to sandals but to no avail. Ever since Sally was first diagnosed with leukemia, his sister had become obsessed with protecting her only child from any danger of infection.

  “Hello?” he called out again as he followed the sound of distant conversation through the formal living room with its high ceilings and wall of french doors that opened out onto the expansive deck. For all of Sharon’s attempts to make the house and its furnishings formal, there was an open feeling to the place. A lightness that Ben had long ago decided was less about the trappings and more about the people who lived there. Malcolm and Sharon were people who appreciated the many blessings they had received—financially, from Malcolm’s father and grandfather as well as his own business astuteness—and they lived by the dedication that with such riches came great responsibility to “share and care,” as his sister said so often.