by Leslie Gould
James lowered the bed back down, partway. He’d let Joel rest awhile longer. Maybe he’d had a hard night. As James picked up the PT binder that Polly had left, Joel’s breathing changed. By the time he sat down in the straight-backed chair and began leafing through the notebook, it was obvious the young man had fallen back to sleep. James kept reading and studying the exercise diagrams.
It wasn’t long until Joel began to stir though. A second later he began to thrash around and James put the binder down and stepped toward the bed. Joel’s eyes flew open, wide and scared.
“You okay, bud?” James put a hand on Joel’s good arm.
The young man jerked away and his eyes darted around the room. Then he froze.
“Everything’s all right,” James said, his voice low and steady.
Joel let out a sigh. “I’m home, right?”
“Yep. Safe and sound.”
“I had a dream.”
James waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “Do you have them often?”
Joel shook his head and then pursed his lips. “Actually, I do have them a lot.”
“Are you back in Iraq?”
“Maybe.” Joel inhaled and turned his head toward James. “It’s morning, right?”
James nodded and looked at his watch. “It’s nine twenty. I’m here with you. Your mom isn’t here right now; she has an appointment in town.”
Joel snorted. “You mean my dad has an appointment.”
James raised the bed again, sensing Joel was ready for the day now. “What’s going on?”
Joel’s eyes darkened and then he shook his head. “Hey,” he said, “that PT chick doesn’t have a sense of humor. If she’d stuck around for a few more minutes, I would have done my exercises. But she got all offended and left in a huff.”
“She has a specific job to do. If you’re not going to cooperate, she’s not going to stick around.”
Joel was sitting up now. He opened his mouth as if to say something and then closed it quickly.
“She’s a professional,” James said. “You need to treat her that way.” He was beginning to wonder if Joel had a problem with respect. He wasn’t behaving like a good soldier.
When Joel still didn’t respond, James said, “I’m going to finish up the exercises.” He reached for the notebook.
Joel closed his eyes. “I’m tired.”
“Nope. I already gave you a break. Do you need a pit stop?”
“How about a bedpan?”
“That’s a joke, right?”
Joel shrugged.
James said, “You’re past that. And you’re not going to get one in rehab.” Then he paused for a moment. “You didn’t throw one this morning? At Polly?”
A sheepish look spread across Joel’s face and then he muttered, “I shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t tell me,” James said. “Tell her.”
Joel nodded and then changed the subject as his attention fell on his wheelchair. “I hate that thing.”
James ignored him and positioned the chair for the transfer.
An hour later, as James finished the last of the exercises, Melanie returned home. She stood in the doorway to the living room and watched as James lowered Joel’s leg back down to the bed.
“How was the appointment?” Joel didn’t look at his mother as he spoke, and James detected sarcasm in the young man’s voice.
“There wasn’t an appointment. Your dad didn’t show up.”
“Figures,” Joel said.
“I’m going to go rest for a few minutes.” Melanie turned on her heel before James could say good-bye.
When James was ready to leave a few hours later, after giving Joel lunch and getting him settled back in the hospital bed, he stood for a moment at the end of the hall. Melanie hadn’t been out of her room since she’d returned home. He decided to go ahead and leave. If Joel needed her, she would hear him.
He quietly slipped out the front door. He had no idea what the family’s problems were but obviously more was going on than Joel’s injuries.
Elena pushed through the doors of Rishell Elementary just as the dismissal bell rang. Every couple of days, she liked to pick Izzy up straight from the classroom to see her new artwork and say hello to the teacher. She was determined that every person involved in her granddaughter’s life know how much the little girl was loved. Just because she lived with her daddy and grandparents, and not her mother, she didn’t want anyone to assume Izzy wasn’t well cared for.
As the heels of her boots clicked along the linoleum, Elena looked straight ahead to the kindergarten classrooms in case Izzy slipped out to the hall and toward the other exit. As she neared the room, Elena heard Mrs. Allison ordering the children to be quiet. “You need to follow my instructions,” she was saying, an element of exasperation in her voice. “Give the flier about the fund-raiser to your moms as soon as you get home.”
Elena winced as she stopped in the doorway. It probably didn’t bother Izzy that everyone assumed all kids lived with a mother, but it bothered Elena.
“Now line up at the door,” Mrs. Allison said.
Izzy waved the flier at Elena from the back of the room, and her gray eyes lit up in a smile. She wore her hair in pigtails, each still in the perfect corkscrew curl they had been in that morning, and they bounced against her arms.
Mrs. Allison turned abruptly and startled when she saw Elena. “Oh,” she said.
“Hello.” Elena hadn’t meant to surprise the woman.
“Could you wait for a moment—until I get back from walking the students to the exit?”
Elena nodded.
“I need to talk with you.” Mrs. Allison then snapped her fingers and the last of the children fell into line. In no time they had all filed out of the room.
“Buela!” Izzy wrapped her arms around her grandmother’s middle, her backpack bumping against Elena’s legs.
“How was your day?” Elena pulled back and looked down at Izzy.
“Great!”
“Any new artwork?”
Elena was praising the near perfect symmetry of Izzy’s purple and blue butterfly when Mrs. Allison came back into the classroom.
“What a day!” She stopped at her desk. “Two students went home sick, plus we had an unexpected fire alarm and a downpour during recess.”
Izzy looked up at Elena. “It was so much fun! The raindrops were as big as cookies, and we all started running toward the building.”
Mrs. Allison laughed. “Isn’t it great to see things through the eyes of a child?”
Elena nodded and put her hands on her granddaughter’s shoulders.
“Isabel,” Mrs. Allison said, “I need a note delivered to the office. Could you do that for me?”
“Of course.” Izzy’s voice sounded like a professional’s. She took a slip of paper from her teacher and then, looking at Elena, said, “I’ll be right back.”
“I had a phone message from Isabel’s father, from yesterday,” Mrs. Allison said as soon as Izzy was out of earshot.
“Good,” Elena said.
The teacher frowned and then said, “I’m afraid he isn’t taking Isabel’s reading problem seriously.”
“I think he’s a little confused about it. She’s reading really well at home.”
“And it seemed she was starting to read here at school too, but now she only recognizes a few of the letters on handouts. I thought she knew the ones above the chalkboards earlier in the year, but now I’m thinking she memorized them.” Mrs. Allison pointed to the letters crowning the room. “And when I give her a worksheet she won’t do it.”
“Won’t?”
“She stuffs it in her desk and says she’s lost it.”
“She reads to us at home.…” Suddenly Elena felt unsure.
“She probably has those books memorized too. There’s no doubt she’s smart, but her pre-reading skills are lacking. In fact, it seems like they’re getting worse. I don’t remember her acting this way at the beginning of the
year.”
Elena paused and then asked, “What do you recommend that we do?”
“Work with her more. Read to her every night.”
“We do,” Elena said.
“Flash cards.”
“Is there someone here who can test to see if she has a learning disability?”
“Not without her father’s cooperation.”
“I know Rafael would cooperate. He wants what’s best for Izzy.” Elena heard her granddaughter’s footsteps in the hall. “We’ll figure this out.”
Mrs. Allison seemed relieved. As Elena and her granddaughter left the building it began to rain again. Izzy squealed as she rushed toward Elena’s Jeep Liberty. Elena remembered Izzy’s pointing out letters in the hospital room. She knew her granddaughter knew the letters of the alphabet. Why would she pretend she didn’t?
Candace turned on the projector in the hospital conference room and inserted her USB flash drive into the computer and checked to see that her PowerPoint presentation uploaded properly. It was the first session of her spring birthing class, but tonight she wanted nothing more than to be at home, curled up on the couch with Heath.
Six expectant mothers, all first timers, had signed up for the class, five with their husbands and one with her sister. She’d had as many as ten moms and their labor partners at a time, but six was a good number. Any fewer than that, and it tended to make the participants a little more self-conscious.
At five minutes to seven, her students began to arrive, coming in with their pillows and their questions. Candace had arranged the chairs in a circle in front of the table.
Just after seven, two of the couples still hadn’t arrived. Her students were usually very punctual, but Candace decided to wait a few more minutes. At ten after, as the chitchat grew thinner, she decided to go ahead and start the class, giving her introduction spiel. The first class would cover an overview of pregnancy, the development of the baby, and basic nutrition. Later classes would cover the stages of labor and delivery.
She started by introducing herself and citing her years of experience as an obstetrics nurse, ten at Hope Haven, and adding that she was a certified childbirth instructor. Then she had the couples go around and introduce themselves. The mother-to-be and her sister hadn’t arrived yet, so all of the couples were women and their husbands. Their ages ranged, Candace guessed, from twenty-two to thirty-seven, and they were all in their third trimester.
She smiled as she looked around the room at the four bulging bellies. For the first time in four years she surprised herself by thinking that perhaps she still might have another baby. She was thirty-nine, probably a little older than the oldest mother in attendance.
After the introductions, she started the presentation that showed the development of the fetus. There was nothing more spectacular or amazing. At four weeks, the baby’s brain and spinal cord had begun to develop, along with the baby’s heart and the buds that were the beginnings of arms and legs, even though the embryo was only four to six millimeters long. As Candace spoke, she glanced at the door occasionally, expecting the other two couples to arrive.
By eight weeks, fingers and toes had formed and all of the internal organs were developing. Candace was pretty sure all of the mothers in the group had read enough about their developing babies to already know the information she was sharing, but from experience she knew that many of their partners hadn’t educated themselves about the growing fetus. The presentation emphasized the humanity of the baby from the beginning and what a miracle the entire process was. No matter how many times she taught a birthing class or how many babies she helped deliver, she was wowed every time by the miracle of pregnancy.
She continued with the slide show. By twelve weeks the baby’s nerves and muscles were working together and he or she could make a fist. By twenty weeks, the gender of the baby could be identified. “How many of you know whether you’re having a girl or a boy?” Candace asked.
Three of the mothers raised their hands.
“We don’t want to know,” the fourth mother said. She was the oldest in the class.
Candace affirmed the responses. “We didn’t want to know with my first, but we found out ahead of time with our second,” she added, noting that she’d used plural pronouns. We. Candace and Dean. Actually he was the one who had really wanted to know whether they were having a boy or a girl when she was pregnant with Howie.
Candace gave up on the other two couples’ arriving. She couldn’t help but be curious as to why they hadn’t, though. She’d confirmed all six of the couples earlier in the week. Usually a mother-to-be would call the hospital at the last minute if she couldn’t come.
When she reached the description of the baby at thirty-two weeks, she began wondering if the rumors around town about the hospital cutbacks had discouraged the two couples from attending.
After the slide show, Candace passed out information about nutrition, emphasizing that the third trimester was when the baby began storing iron and calcium and it was as important as ever for the mother to eat an extra healthy diet.
Next Candace talked about exercise. “Labor and delivery are physical events,” she said. Several of her students laughed. “Of course we don’t want you running a marathon, but stretching exercises, walking, swimming, and light aerobics will make the end of your pregnancy more comfortable and keep you strong for the work ahead of you.”
She ended the class with the couples getting down on the floor on mats to practice relaxing techniques. She emphasized relaxation in each of the classes, hoping that by the time labor began the couple was proficient at working together.
It was eight forty-five by the time the last couple left the conference room. Candace wondered if it was too late to call the couples who didn’t attend and then decided to anyway.
The first call went into voice mail, and Candace left a message, saying she was wondering if the couple planned to attend the remaining classes.
A woman answered the second call after the fourth ring. “Oh, I should have let you know,” she said, her voice cheery. “We decided not to attend—my sister and I. My husband travels a lot.”
“Do you mind if I ask why?”
“My aunt is Emmaline Palmer, a board member at Hope Haven. She said they might shut down the Birthing Unit, so I’ve decided to deliver at the Princeton hospital.”
“Those rumors are unfounded.…” Candace’s voice trailed off.
“She is a board member,” the woman responded.
Candace knew exactly who Emmaline was. She leaned against the conference room table, dumbfounded. “Well, good luck,” she said.
“Thanks.” The woman’s voice was still cheery. “To you too.”
Looks like I’m going to need it, Candace thought as she hung up the phone.
Chapter Eleven
THURSDAY MORNING ANABELLE CHECKED THE staffing schedule before report and found a note thatMarie had called in ill because she was home with a sick child. Anabelle was sorry the child was sick but thankful she could put off letting the woman go a little longer, unless Leila pushed her to call and do it over the phone. She really hated dealing with people that way, though.
With the increased workload, Anabelle’s day passed more quickly than usual, and in no time, it was the end of the shift. She scrambled to reconcile the meds and give report. Before she left, she remembered Leila had asked her to check in, so she hurried down to HR—only to find Leila gone. She left a note on the woman’s desk that she’d stopped by.
By the time she left Hope Haven she was worn out, but she’d told Cameron she’d pick up milk and bread on her way home. In the middle of the grocery store parking lot, someone called her name. She turned around and moving toward her two rows over was Donald Armstrong, his John Deere baseball cap securely on his head.
“Anabelle,” the mayor of Deerford called out again, “how are you?” He joined her, chatting about the sunshine they’d had all day and how it was too bad the clouds had rolled in during the las
t hour.
“I’ve been at work all day, so I didn’t realize I’d missed such a fine spring day.” She mustered up a smile for the mayor.
His voice lowered and he leaned closer. “How’s the advisory committee coming along?”
Anabelle shrugged. “It’s slow going, but I hope that will change. We meet again tonight.”
He glanced around, looking as if he expected someone to be spying. “Could I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“Sure, but I have a few groceries to pick up.”
“Can you meet me at the Parlor?” he asked.
“I’ll see you soon,” Anabelle said. The Parlor was farther from the hospital than Cuppa Coffee or the Diner on the Corner, so it made a good place to meet if the man wanted to talk about Hope Haven. If he had questions for her, he was going to be disappointed, because she didn’t have any answers.
As it turned out, Donald didn’t expect any. His objective was to relay information, and he wanted Anabelle to share what he had to say with the advisory committee. “I already called Albert Varner about it,” he said, his hand on the bill of his hat that rested on the tabletop. “But…well, he didn’t seem very sympathetic.”
“He’s overwhelmed,” Anabelle said.
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Donald said. He wrapped his hands around his coffee cup and glanced around the restaurant. It was practically empty. “This is strictly confidential,” he said, “except I do want you to share it with the committee.” He went on to say that a small manufacturing company had been looking at Deerford as a place to open an operation that would employ thirty people. “Not a huge deal but definitely significant.”
Anabelle nodded. It felt like a huge deal to her. Thirty new employees could mean over a hundred new people in Deerford when family members were counted. That was definitely significant.
“But,” Donald continued, “the company’s worried about the hospital here. They’ve heard the rumors about cutbacks and maybe a possible closure. They can’t open up a shop in a place with inadequate health care. If they do, their insurance premiums will go up and they won’t be able to afford to expand. Plus employees don’t want to transfer to a town without a hospital.”