Children's Doctor, Shy Nurse

by Molly Evans

  “So you think you’re the only one who’s faced this issue? How many cancer survivors are down on their knees every day, grateful to have just one more day with their families and loved ones?”

  Furious, she stormed from the infirmary and ran outside into a rain that neither of them had noticed. Her tears mixed with the rain and dribbled down her face. He was so much more valuable than he knew. Not just in what he could offer someone in support, but in his humor, in his friendship.

  “Ellie, I’m sorry,” he said.

  Surprised he’d followed her, she turned. They were both soaked in minutes. “Don’t be sorry, Mark. Go back to your calendar and start ticking off the next two years, and then you can come out of your cocoon.”

  “Do you think I like this? That I’m enjoying putting any sort of life I might want, any future I want, on hold for two more years?” He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. “Do you think I want cancer more than I want you?”

  “Apparently, you do. You get something out of this or you’d already have taken your life back. You wouldn’t let the cancer win. You’re a coward, Mark Collins. Somehow, along the way to recovery, you left your courage behind.” If he couldn’t see it, then there was nothing for them.

  “I died, Ellie! Everything in me died when I found out that I had cancer. Then it took whatever I had left to find the strength to survive the treatments. I lost my fiancé. I had to quit my job because I could no longer function.”

  “I know, Mark. I know. And now, faced with an opportunity to rebuild your life, to make it better than it was before, you don’t reach out, you won’t take the chance—you simply turn away. When there’s someone who loves you standing right in front of you, you walk away because it’s easier.”

  “Easier! Do you honestly want to love someone, start a family even, with someone who might leave you?”

  “Who said anything about starting a family, or marriage for that matter? Is that all you want? Right now, all I want is a chance to be with you to see where we might get to, and you won’t even take it. There are no guarantees in life, Mark. I could marry someone and have children with him, and he could die in a car accident, or leave me for someone better than me.” That had happened to so many of her friends that she didn’t even want to think about it.

  “There’s no one better than you,” he said, his voice husky with emotion.

  “Then prove it. Take a chance with me, Mark. We have something to build on that I’ve never experienced in a relationship before. I wasn’t expecting to find someone I could love here, and I certainly didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. I care deeply for you.” Her voice cracked. “But I can’t have a relationship on my own. You have to be willing to take a chance on us, take a leap of faith with your future, and reach out for it, no matter the consequences.”

  Stunned into silence, Mark simply stared at her. The rain appeared unaffected by their storm of emotion and continued to pour down on top of them. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You’ve already said it. You’ve won the battle to save your body, but you’ve lost the war and let it eat your heart and your soul. If you can’t take your life back, no one can do it for you.” Calmer now, she wrapped her arms around herself. He’d made his decision, and she’d have to accept it. “I’ll write up a schedule for us to divide the clinics. That way we can avoid each other for the rest of the summer.”

  “I don’t want to do that, Ellie.”

  “Then you’d better figure out what you do want. We’ve got another few weeks of camp to get through yet, and I won’t be able to do my job if we keep on this way.”

  “I know. Me, either. I didn’t expect to find a situation like this.”

  “What do you mean, ‘a situation like this’?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Finding someone I could have loved had the circumstances been different.”

  “Had your attitude been different, the circumstances wouldn’t matter.” With that, she walked back into the infirmary, and Mark let her go.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DAYS passed with Ellie and Mark in a stalemate. They worked together and slept in the same building, but that was about the extent of their interactions.

  Carnival weekend arrived and so did Sam and Vicki for their second scheduled trip to camp. This event was planned for the next to the last weekend before camp ended, that way the kids could have a few days to recover from all the fun before heading home.

  “Well, I’ve never seen two more miserable-looking people in my life,” Sam said. He and Mark had taken a canoe out onto the lake and left the women to the infirmary with Myra.

  “Ellie and I had a bit of a philosophical disagreement.” That was a polite way to put it, wasn’t it?

  “A bit?” Sam barked out a laugh that echoed off the water.

  “Okay, a major philosophical disagreement.”

  “Anything you want to discuss?”

  “Not really.”

  The only sound was of their oars dipping into the water and the birds chattering in the trees at the edge of the water. A red-eyed common loon lazed about in the middle of the lake, but flipped under the water and swam away at their approach.

  “Vicki and I had some trouble over the years, but we worked it out.”

  “I know, everyone has trouble now and then. But you didn’t start out that way. Beginning a relationship with problems only leads to a quick end and pain for everyone.”

  “But you’re crazy about Ellie, I can tell. Being wild about Vicki made me want to work that much harder to keep her with me and happy.” He paddled and paused. “To be able to change.”

  “Yeah. You two were suited to each other from the get-go.” Not everyone had the stability that Sam and Vicki had.

  “That’s possible for you to have, Mark. You’ve got a lot to offer a woman like Ellie.”

  “Sure, illness, caretaking when I’m infirm again, holding the bucket for me when I have to take chemo again.” Not going there.

  “You keep saying again like it’s a sure thing the cancer’s going to come back. Statistics are with you, man. That hasn’t hit you yet?” He paused, then returned to paddling. “You haven’t had any signs have you?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s your worry?”

  “It’s like walking around with a guillotine around my neck, just waiting for it to drop. I can’t relax or make plans until I know for sure that my life is my own again.”

  “It’s already your own, you’re just too afraid to see it.”

  “Dammit, it’s not mine to share. Ellie deserves someone who can give her what she wants, what she needs, someone to love her the way she should be loved. Not someone with one foot in the grave.”

  “No one would love her the way you do.”

  Mark let the pause between them hang. “That’s why I have to let her go at the end of the summer.”

  “Sounds like you’ve already let her go.”

  “I guess I have. It’s better this way.” Didn’t mean it wasn’t tearing him apart on the inside to do it.

  “I respectfully disagree with you, Mark. When we were here a month ago, you were both excited and happy. You were on the verge of discovering what was between you. There was magic in the air around you. Vicki and I both felt it.”

  “I was deluding myself at the time.” Severely.

  “About what? Being happy?”

  “Yeah. That’s what Ellie said, too.” The heaviness in his chest grew more dense. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to have worked out in his life, but this was what he had gotten. He was just lucky to be alive, and although he immensely appreciated that fact, he wasn’t free.

  “Think we might be right?”

  “No. It’s not that I don’t have the right. It’s just that what happens if we work it out, if we make a good thing between us, then I get cancer again?” He sighed. “I couldn’t live with myself if that happened and I died, leaving her to fend without me. If I start something, I i
ntend to finish it.”

  “Statistics are with you, my friend. I thought you did some research on this.”

  “I did. I did.” Over and over and over.

  “You don’t believe the research?”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe it—I’m afraid to believe it. What if I’m the odd statistic that doesn’t stand up to the research? It does happen and people do die from this, no matter what the statistics read like.”

  “Then you face life the way the rest of us do, man—no guarantees. You take your chances and grab life with both hands, and you don’t let go.” Sam half turned in the canoe to face Mark.

  “Sometimes having a friend who’s a psychiatrist is a royal pain in the ass.” Mark jerked his oar forward and splashed Sam a good one.

  Sam laughed and shook his head like a wet dog. “I’d have to agree with you on that one.”

  Mark left the conversation at that point and focused on paddling the canoe, one stroke at a time.

  “Guess we ought to head back. They’ll be ready for the carnival to start soon and something unexpected always happens,” Sam said.

  Mark followed his lead, and they turned the canoe back to the camp.

  Before the carnival got into full swing, Ellie and Vicki set up a first-aid clinic on the porch of the lodge in readiness for the flurry of bumps and bruises and minor injuries they were sure would occur.

  The mail arrived while they were waiting for little customers, and Ellie accepted the giant mail sack from the postman, as well as a small package addressed to her.

  “Oh, this is for Bear,” Ellie said after opening the box containing an order of her new essential oils. “He wanted some lavender oil for the kitchen to put on burns right away.”

  “How is his?” Vicki said.

  “It’s nearly invisible. At first I was really surprised that it worked so well, but I really shouldn’t be. Lavender is such a great oil.”

  “You did a good job with that. He could have had a serious scar.”

  “Thanks. I was just surprised that Mark went for a complementary therapy. Most docs I know wouldn’t have. Too alternative, not scientific enough.” She’d heard that argument for years, but it hadn’t stopped her from trying the oils on herself and her friends who were open to new ideas.

  “Mark’s full of surprises.” Vicki grabbed a bottle of water from the ice-filled cooler beside them. Though they were in the shade, the humidity made the air feel hotter.

  “Yeah, I know.” He’d surprised her in so many ways in the past few weeks, she couldn’t keep track. The last surprise she could have lived without.

  “Let’s sit for a while. The relay races are about to start, so that’s pretty benign unless someone wipes out at the finish line.”

  “Okay.” Ellie huffed out a sigh and reached for a bottle of water.

  “So, how are you and Mark doing?” Vicki asked the open-ended question.

  “We aren’t.” It was as simple as that. Though they had connected for a while, that connection was now broken in a way that couldn’t be mended.

  “This is just an observation, but you both look pretty unhappy.”

  “I can’t speak for him, but I’ll be glad when camp is over, and we can go our separate ways, get back to what I’m familiar with.” Away from the heartache. Although coming to Maine had seemed like a good idea at the time, it had obviously been a mistake.

  “What happened? Things were okay when we were here last.”

  How much should she tell Vicki? Not that she wouldn’t guess anyway, so she might as well spill it. “We made love.”

  “What? What!” Vicki leaned forward, intent on hearing everything. “Was it that bad?”

  Tears pricked Ellie’s eyes, and she gave a sad smile. “No, silly. It was wonderful. That’s what makes the situation so bad. We had a wonderful few days, maybe a week, as lovers, then Mark decided that he was more into protecting me than being with me.”

  “Oh, Ellie, I’m so sorry. Did you tell him he’s an idiot?” Vicki placed a comforting hand on Ellie’s shoulder.

  Tearful, Ellie gave a watery laugh. “Basically. But he doesn’t want me to get too attached to him, then have something horrid happen, like his cancer return.” She took a gasping breath, still unable to see the logic in his thinking. “He can’t see the benefit of being together even if something bad happens in the future. He doesn’t see that I could help him, that I would support him, that I would love him no matter what.”

  “Part of his resistance may be because of his former fiancé.”

  “Another thing we have in common. He told me about her, and I told him about Alan. I think he’s over the hurt of that breakup, but not the fear, and that’s something only he can conquer.”

  A camper with a splinter interrupted their conversation and, from then on, their time was filled with little bits of this and that.

  When Vicki dispensed the first aid, Ellie gave a kiss to the cheek of the injured camper. When Ellie treated, Vicki gave a kiss, and they applied a red, red lipstick for each one. Soon there were campers all over the place with lipstick imprints on their faces. Some kids began to fake injuries in order to get another dose of loving from the nurses.

  “This is turning into a kissing booth,” Vicki said and kissed another cheek.

  “We should start charging.” Ellie laughed and started to give kisses to anyone that came by.

  “Charging for what?” Sam asked as he and Mark approached the first-aid station.

  “Kisses,” Vicki said and gave Sam a smooch on the cheek.

  “Sounds good to me,” he said and smooched her back.

  They were so good together. They were more comfortable and happy than Ellie had seen them in years. Their lifestyle adjustments had paid off for them in happiness, and she was thrilled that their marriage and friendship had survived the rocky times. As Ellie watched, envy twisted in her, and she glanced at Mark, who also watched their friends. The expression on his face mirrored what was going on inside of her. If she could only convince him to take a chance…

  Sudden screams rent the air and the hairs on Ellie’s arms stood straight up. She rose and looked around for the problem. Mark’s energy reflected that his system was on high alert, too.

  Together they stepped off the porch, and Mark reached for her hand. Somehow Ellie had an emergency pack in her hand before she became consciously aware of it.

  “Help! We need help over here.” A counselor raced over to the lodge and waved for them to follow.

  “What’s wrong?” Mark asked as he and Ellie ran behind him.

  “Ricky’s choking.”

  Oh, no, Ellie thought. One of her worst patient scenarios. If they didn’t clear the airway in a few minutes, a child could choke to death right in front of them.

  They arrived at the scene to find a crowd of campers gathered around a boy of about ten years of age. Immediately, they could see that this situation was serious. The boy had already lost consciousness, his face a ghastly blue.

  “What was he eating?” Mark asked as he shot into action and dropped to the ground beside Ricky.

  “Hot dogs.” The counselor shoved his hands into his hair and paced back and forth. “We were having a contest.”

  “Bad idea. Ellie, send someone for the oxygen tank.”

  “I’ll go.” The counselor raced away.

  Mark didn’t waste any time. She’d never seen such focused intensity in him. She assisted Mark to turn the boy onto his back and began a series of chest thrusts to try to dislodge the object occluding the trachea.

  She looked into the boy’s mouth for anything, but nothing had loosened. “Again,” she said, trying to control the anxiety surfacing in her. The boy was turning a dreadful shade of bluish gray now.

  Mark again thrust on the boy’s chest. “Come on, kid. Come on!”

  “Turn him,” she said and again checked his mouth. “Nothing.”

  “Dammit,” Mark ground out. “We might have to do a tracheotomy right
here.”

  “Can Sam help you?”

  “Yeah, but I’m better at the quick-and-dirty stuff.” He cursed nonstop under his breath.

  Sam arrived with the oxygen tank, the anxious counselor trailing behind him. “Vicki’s calling 911 right now.”

  “We don’t have time to wait,” Mark said. Sweat poured out of him from his efforts.

  “I’ll go get the trach kit,” Sam said and ran to the infirmary just a few short yards away.

  “Come on, Mark. You can do it. Just one more time,” Ellie said, urgency, anxiety and somehow hope pouring out of her. “You can do it. I know you can.”

  The glance between them took a split second, but in that time, Ellie gave every confidence, every desire, every spark of powerful energy, she had to Mark. He clenched his jaws together and performed another series of five chest thrusts.

  Hands shaking, knowing this was the deciding moment, Ellie looked in the boy’s mouth. “Turn him more, there’s something there, but I can’t get it,” she cried. Mark turned the boy to his side, and Ellie scraped out the remnants of a half-chewed piece of food with her fingers. “Oh, you did it, Mark!”

  They eased him back and place the oxygen mask over Ricky’s face. Ellie’s joy turned to fear. “He’s not breathing.”

  “Bag him.”

  Quickly she switched oxygen devices and pushed oxygen into the boy’s lungs with the ambu bag. “You can do it, Ricky, you can do it,” she whispered with each squeeze of the oxygen bag. “Come on, buddy, breathe.”

  Sam returned with the kit that was now unnecessary. “Wow. Good work. You got it.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not breathing on his own,” Mark said and reached for Ricky’s arm. “Pulse is really fast, but at least he has one.” Sweat dripped off of Mark onto the ground.

  “Where’s that ambulance?” Ellie asked, not looking up from her task, and she took up Mark’s cursing under her breath.

  “Easy, Ellie. You’re doing great. His color’s improving, too,” Mark said and applied the oxygen monitor to Ricky’s finger. “Slow down, take your time and give him good breaths.”