Lean on Me (Stories from hope haven)

by Leslie Gould

  Ainslee served a tiny sliver of cake onto a pink paper plate and put it on Lindsay Belle’s high chair tray. The little girl poked her finger in the middle and then stuck it in her mouth. “Yum-yum,” she said, and then startled when everyone broke out laughing.

  “Eat it,” Doug said, the video camera glued on Lindsay Belle.

  “O-tay, Dadda,” she said, and poked her finger into the icing. As she tasted it, a big smile spread across her face and she ran her finger through the icing again. As far as Anabelle knew, it was the first time Lindsay Belle had tasted sugar.

  “Oh, isn’t she precious?” Doug’s mom said, leaning toward Anabelle.

  Anabelle agreed as Ainslee asked her to pass out the plates of cake. Anabelle jumped to her feet, realizing she’d been in a Lindsay Belle–induced fog. They all were, except for Ainslee who was doing all the work. As she put cake at everyone’s places, they reluctantly abandoned their cameras for dessert.

  “Don’t you wish you could spend every day with her?” Louise said, her eyes still on Lindsay Belle.

  Anabelle nodded but didn’t point out that if she did, it would probably strain her relationship with Ainslee. A couple of more times a week would be wonderful though.

  If she retired, she could quilt more too. She was looking forward to when she could teach Lindsay Belle to quilt. That would definitely be a highlight as far as being a grandmother.

  “What are you thinking about?” Kirstie asked.

  Anabelle turned toward her younger daughter and wondered how long she’d been staring at Lindsay Belle. “About teaching Lindsay Belle to quilt.”

  Kirstie rolled her eyes. “Good grief,” she said. “Let her be a little girl first.”

  Cam laughed. “What do you think about teaching her?” he asked Kirstie.

  “How to annoy Ainslee,” Kirstie teased.

  “Lucky girl,” Anabelle chimed in, “to have so many people who want to teach her things.”

  They all laughed. Lindsay Belle began to fuss, and Ainslee said they’d better move on to the presents because it was nearly nap time. It was only one fifteen, but Anabelle remembered how things could quickly fall apart for a tired—and sugared up—baby.

  Ainslee took the video camera when they moved into the living room, and Doug sat on the white carpet with Lindsay Belle, away from the coffee table that no longer had a towel clipped to it, and handed her the first gift. It was the outfit from Anabelle and Cameron in a flowery gift bag with tissue paper and ribbon.

  Lindsay Belle pulled on the ribbon and let go of it. She frowned as it sprang back toward the bag.

  “Let’s take it out,” Doug said. He thrust Lindsay Belle’s hand into the bag and she pulled out the outfit with a smile. In a second she had the dress on top of her head.

  It took twenty minutes to get through the rest of the presents. Lindsay Belle held up well, entertaining everyone with her responses. When the last gift in the pile had been opened, Ainslee turned off the video camera and said, “Nap time.”

  “Wait.” Anabelle stood. “There’s one more. We left it on the porch.”

  “Mother.” Ainslee’s old tone was back. “It’s not a pony, is it?”

  Cameron laughed. “We wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Doug had Lindsay Belle on her feet and was holding her hand, helping her toward the front door. Anabelle followed. She could imagine maneuvering Lindsay Belle through the neighborhood with the push handle on the tricycle after she retired, not straining her back because she wouldn’t have to bend over as often.

  Doug opened the door and Ainslee filmed.

  “Cool,” Doug said, helping Lindsay Belle onto it.

  She grinned and gripped the handles.

  Cameron snapped her photo.

  Ainslee lowered the video camera from her face. “Mother,” she said, “this is too much. Our neighbors have one they’re going to loan to us.”

  “But this one is new,” Doug said, looking up.

  “Doug’s right,” Cam interjected before Ainslee could get her dander up. “We bought this for Lindsay Belle because we wanted to. And now you don’t have to worry about any damage that might happen to someone else’s property.” He crouched down beside his granddaughter, who turned the handlebar back and forth, and he tickled her neck under her chin.

  Ainslee still looked uncertain. “If you insist. But I still worry about your spending so much money on her when there’s a perfectly good tricycle we can borrow for free. After all, you’ll both be retired soon.”

  Anabelle opened her mouth to assure her daughter she had no plans of retiring anytime soon, but the expression on Cam’s face quelled her response…and any Ainslee might have had.

  The party ended after that. Ainslee whisked Lindsay Belle off for a nap and Doug thanked all of the guests and told them good-bye, insisting he didn’t need any help cleaning up. He’d be done in no time.

  On the way home, Anabelle sighed deeply.

  “It’s all right,” Cameron said. “They kept it.”

  “Oh, it’s not that. Well it kind of is.” She stopped, not quite sure how to say it, but she realized that one of the things she liked about work was how affirming it was. There was a protocol to follow. She was able to do things right. People appreciated her and valued her. Sure, Cameron was affirming, but without work, would she feel competent and validated? If she watched Lindsay Belle a couple of times a week would she end up feeling like a failure that many times a week too? Because a couple of times a month were hard enough as it was.

  “If they decide they don’t want it, we can keep the tricycle at our house,” Cameron said.

  Anabelle nodded. That was a perfect solution. And maybe someday Ainslee would trust her enough to let Lindsay Belle come over by herself.

  James sat on the bed beside Fern Sunday evening. “I have some new flexibility exercises I want you to try,” he said. “They should help your balance and coordination.” He’d spent the afternoon researching exercises for Fern and had found a plethora of information. She’d incorporated yoga into her routine and had worked with a physical therapist off and on through the last couple of years, but he decided he should take a more active role. He was the only one who could work with her daily.

  She wore sweatpants, a long-sleeved shirt, and warm, fuzzy socks on her feet.

  “We’ll start with the leg stretches,” he said, grasping her ankle. As he lifted and lowered her leg, he began telling her about the doctorate program in Peoria. He’d done more research and found they had a two-night-a-week program. It would take longer, but it would be doable for him and still allow them to live in Deerford. She seemed to be listening intently but didn’t respond.

  “What do you think?” James asked, lifting her other leg, just as the phone rang. James lowered her leg and answered the phone. It was the evening shift supervisor from Med/Surg at Hope Haven, asking if he could come in for the night shift. He covered the mouthpiece, told Fern, and she nodded. He told the nurse supervisor he’d be more than happy to fill in.

  After he hung up the phone, he returned to the side of the bed.

  “You should get some sleep before you go in,” Fern said, looking at the clock.

  She was right, of course. “Let’s finish the exercises first,” he said.

  Fern sat up on the bed. “We can do them tomorrow. Your rest is more important. You’re not thirty anymore,” she teased as she reached for her walker.

  “That’s for sure.” He looked at the clock too. He had three hours before he needed to leave for the hospital. That much sleep would make a big difference when it came to making it through a night shift. Just before he drifted off, he realized Fern hadn’t responded to his query about what she thought about the PT program.

  At 2:00 am, James was transferred down to ER. “They have a patient coming in,” the Med/Surge night-shift nurse supervisor said, “and since things are fairly calm here, I said I’d send you down.”

  It wasn’t that the ER was busy, it was just under
staffed, and it made more sense to redirect him than call someone else in and pay them overtime, and it meant he wasn’t going to get sent home only three hours into an eight-hour shift.

  James met the ambulance outside in the bay. It was freezing cold, literally, and he rubbed his arms, trying to keep warm, his frosty breath a cloud in front of his face. As he waited for the EMTs to open the back doors of the ambulance, James was surprised to see Cesar striding across the parking lot. When he spotted James, he detoured toward him.

  “Picking up a shift?” Cesar extended his hand.

  James nodded, and they shook hands. “What brings you out tonight?”

  “I was following a late-night lead—which didn’t pan out. But I came across something else.” He nodded toward the ambulance. “Any guesses?”

  A sick feeling swept through James. “Gary?”

  Cesar nodded. “Found him in his SUV in the parking lot behind the post office. Passed out. Empty bottle beside him.”

  James groaned.

  “He’s out cold,” Cesar said.

  “One stomach pump coming up.” James stepped closer. It was Gary all right. His face was ashen gray and there was vomit on the front of his jacket.

  Cesar slapped James on the back. “Have fun.”

  “What’s next for him?” James asked.

  “I’m going to book him this time on public intoxication. I should have done that the very first time—and would have if he’d been driving, but since driving wasn’t involved in any of these incidences…” His voice trailed off. “Still, I feel like a fool for giving him two chances. Guess the third time isn’t quite so charming in this situation.” Cesar glanced at his watch and then at James again. “I have another lead to follow. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. He should be conscious by then, right?”

  James nodded, wondering what toll the detective position was taking on Cesar—and on Elena. It had to be a stressful job. He turned his attention back to Gary, wondering if the man could comprehend how lucky he was not to be dead.

  Gary didn’t come to until after they finished emptying his stomach with the gastric lavage. With the tube still down his throat he couldn’t speak, but his eyes said it all. He was clearly surprised that James was caring for him—again.

  James didn’t say anything as he removed the tube and got Gary out of his clothes, cleaned up, and into a hospital gown.

  As he covered Gary with a warm blanket and then piled more on top, the man curled up into a fetal position and closed his eyes. James patted his shoulder and left the room to find a plastic bag for his clothes.

  An ER nurse motioned him to the nurses’ station. She tipped her head toward the curtain that hid Gary and said, “His wife called looking for him. Of course I couldn’t tell her that he was here, but she guessed.”

  “Is she coming in?” James asked.

  The nurse shook her head. “She said he could figure things out on his own this time.”

  James wanted to say good, but refrained.

  “Is he going to be all right?” the young woman asked.

  James nodded. “In the short run, yes.” Who could know about the long run? That was up to Gary.

  Checking the IV, hooking up another bag of fluids, charting what he’d done, and checking Gary’s blood pressure, temperature, and pulse regularly kept James busy over the next couple of hours. In no time, Cesar was back, pulling open the curtain.

  “Can I take him to the courthouse?” he asked.

  “You’ve got to ask the doc,” James said. “I don’t make those decisions.”

  An annoyed look settled on Cesar’s face and he walked away. He came back a few minutes later with Dr. Weller in tow.

  “Well, well.” It was the doctor’s on-call night, and he’d been summoned for another case an hour before. “How’s our repeat patient doing? Is he as bad as last time?”

  “No,” James answered. “His temperature and pulse are normal, and his blood pressure is up to 120/90.”

  “You must have gotten him in sooner,” the doctor said to Cesar.

  “I do my best, sir,” the police officer stated, his voice thick with sarcasm.

  Gary opened his eyes and groaned.

  “He’s all yours,” Dr. Weller said.

  “I’ll get the discharge paperwork started.” James moved so the young ER doctor could move past him out of the room.

  Cesar stepped closer to the bed and clasped his hands behind his back. “You have the right to remain—”

  Gary held up his hand. “Please—”

  “—silent.” Cesar continued.

  James pulled the bag of Gary’s dirty clothes out from the cupboard, then stopped. He couldn’t bear to take them out of the bag, but he wasn’t about to call Melanie and ask her to bring a clean pair into town. Maybe Gary could wear a pair of scrubs to the courthouse.

  Cesar finished reading the man his rights.

  “I need to talk to my lawyer.” The man lifted his head.

  “Fine,” Cesar said. “You can call him from the jail after you’ve seen the night-court judge.”

  James slipped past the curtain on his way to the nurses’ station for the discharge paperwork, but the sight of Rev. Wiltshire stopped him. The chaplain had a pair of scrubs in his hands. “Dr. Weller called me,” he said.

  Relief washed over James. “Could you talk to Mr. Morris?”

  The pastor said he’d hoped to and followed James down the hall.

  Cesar said he’d get a cup of coffee and be back in ten minutes. James handed Gary the scrubs and then finished the discharge papers while the man changed. As soon as he was done, Rev. Wiltshire came into the room.

  “I didn’t get a chance to meet you last week,” he said.

  “But you heard about me?” Gary slipped his feet into his shoes.

  Rev. Wiltshire nodded.

  “Yep.” Gary sat up. “I’m the mess-up with the kid injured in Iraq. I’m the jerk that can’t seem to stop drinking.”

  “That’s not what I heard,” the pastor said. He smiled. “Not the ‘mess-up’ part. Nor the ‘jerk’ part. I heard about your boy—and that you’re a guy with a lot going for him.”

  “Oh yeah. Well, that wouldn’t be me. Lost my job. Lost the son I used to know. Most likely lost my wife with this latest binge.” He snorted and then rubbed his neck. “No, I’m the guy without a thing going for him. I’m the guy who’s ruined everything.”

  Rev. Wiltshire pulled a chair nearer the bed and sat down. “I agree, you have messed up. But you still have a lot going for you, so let’s talk about what you’re going to do next.”

  “Get booked and then talk to my lawyer.”

  “Sounds like a start. And then?”

  “Look for a job…”

  “What about your wife?”

  Gary shook his head as tears filled his eyes. “She’d be stupid to stay with me.”

  The pastor nodded his head. “I agree.”

  James looked up from the computer in time to catch Gary’s look of surprise.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I went through rehab a few years ago.”

  “And how did that work for you?”

  “Good.”

  Rev. Wiltshire’s voice rose. “Then why are you here?”

  “Well, it worked until Joel got injured. Then things went downhill.”

  “So you need something more local.”

  “Oh, I see what you’re getting at: AA.”

  “And Al-Anon for your wife.”

  Gary turned his head toward James. “That’s what this guy recommended.”

  “It’s what the judge will recommend too.” The pastor drew closer to Gary. “Could I pray for you? Ask God to give you wisdom and help you break your addiction?”

  The man nodded, just slightly, but he bowed his head as Rev. Wiltshire said, “Dear Lord, I lift up Gary to You…”

  James slipped away and almost bumped into Cesar on the other side of the curtain. The detective put his f
inger to his lips and both men stood still until the chaplain finished his prayer.

  “I almost hate to arrest him now,” Cesar whispered, clearly touched.

  “It’s the best thing for him,” James responded.

  Cesar nodded. He knew that, of course. James went to find Dr. Weller to sign the discharge paperwork and found him in a darkened equipment storage room about to fall asleep on the cot set up for the nighttime on-call attending physician. James hated to disturb him and slipped out quickly after obtaining the signature.

  When he returned to the curtained area, Cesar finished off his coffee and dropped the paper cup into the garbage. “Let’s go,” he said to Gary, his voice rough and tough again.

  James watched as the two men shuffled through the double glass doors and headed toward the unmarked police car, and he was surprised to see the brightness of the morning sky. He looked at his watch—almost seven o’clock, meaning his shift was about over.

  After James finished cleaning up Gary’s room, he headed out the back way to the staff parking lot. As he reached his van, Anabelle’s Ford Fusion pulled up beside him, and she swung open her door.

  “James!” she stood quickly. “Did you get hired back?”

  “Nope. Just helping out in the ER.”

  “Are you still doing your home health stint?”

  James opened the door to his van. “For a week or so more.”

  “Then what?” Anabelle pushed the door to her car shut.

  He shrugged. “I’ll see what God provides.”

  “Candace, Elena, and I are going to get together this afternoon and pray. We’re meeting by the Wall of Hope.” She looked skyward, and then added, “Weather permitting.” Then she turned back to James. “We’d love to have you join us. It would be just like old times.”

  James felt a woeful smile cross his lips, but he was too tired to stop it. “I’d like that,” he said.

  “We’ll be meeting as soon as day shift ends.”

  He thanked her, said good-bye, and climbed into the driver’s seat, feeling ancient. He was getting too old for night-shift work. He was glad he’d left a message for Melanie last night, saying he’d be at their house around noon. He’d be able to get a few hours of sleep.