In This Together

by Patti Berg

  Cesar wrapped her in his arms, holding her so close she could feel his warmth and the beat of his heart. His mom had died of cancer when he was a teenager, and he hadn’t forgotten her pain or his. “God ignored my prayers,” Cesar had told her once. “He let her die; He took her away from me.” He’d laughed cynically, his eyes, his face, his entire stance filled with anger. “What good does it do to believe, to pray, if everything you ask for is shoved aside, as if it isn’t important to anyone, including God?”

  He’d come around someday. She knew it. She prayed for it.

  Her own faith was probably strong enough for ten people. She could and would share hers with Cesar; but for him to truly know God, he needed to find his own faith in his own good time.

  An hour later, Elena sat in the fourth row of pews, looking over the notes she’d use when she stood up front to speak about the Walk for a Cure. Hopefully her friends weren’t getting tired of listening to her. It seemed like she’d talked about the walk for months. It was her mantra—but the hospital board had asked her to head the walk committee, and she refused to let them down. So…talk about the walk she would. Even here at church, in front of God and everyone.

  The pews were filling up slowly. Of course the service wouldn’t start for another twenty minutes. She was always early, wanting the best seat, wanting time to talk with God all on her own.

  She was just closing her eyes, ready for a chat with the Lord, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Looking up, she saw Albert Varner, Hope Haven’s Chief Executive Officer, and a longtime member of Holy Trinity. They shared a few words about the beautiful morning before Mr. Varner said, “I hear quite a bit of money was made at yesterday’s ball game.”

  “The game was a hit!” Elena couldn’t help but smile. “And the bake sale. We sold out of everything before the game was over.”

  “So I found out.” Mr. Varner grinned. “I wanted to take home some of the peanut butter cookies, but they were long gone before the first half started. I had to settle for some of the Polish pastry which turned out to be not so bad. In fact, I ate three of the angel-wing things before going home.”

  “I think they’re called krusczyki. If you want more, talk to Candace or Heath Carlson about them. Their neighbor Mrs. Kowalski makes them quite often. I think Candace’s entire family pitched in to make the peanut butter cookies.”

  “I’ll do that.” Mr. Varner drew a small, leather-bound notebook from the inside pocket of his suit coat and jotted down a few notes. “By the way,” he added, “I didn’t realize Cesar was such a good basketball player.”

  “One of his many talents,” Elena said. “He coaches the kids at the YMCA and plays quite often with a bunch of other cops.”

  “Well, since I didn’t have a chance to talk to him after the game last night, tell him I said hello. And”—he peeked around Elena noticing how empty the rest of the pew was—“tell him we’d love to have him join us here on Sundays.”

  “I’ll tell him.” Elena smiled and couldn’t help but think how much she’d like him to join her here on Sundays too. Someday, maybe.

  As Mr. Varner walked away—off to don his choir robe, she imagined—the pain hit her once again, nearly doubling her over. She dragged in a deep breath. Perspiration broke out on the back of her neck.

  Dear Lord, she prayed silently, give me the strength and courage to endure this malady. And please, Lord, if You don’t mind my being a bit selfish this morning, thinking about no one but myself, could You please make it all go away? I don’t have time to be sick. She dragged in another deep breath, hoping no one in church saw her. And…this is all starting to scare me. Please, Lord. Help me. Amen.

  Five minutes must have gone by before she looked up again. She took a tissue from her purse and wiped the back of her neck. A hot flash? Menopause? Oh, please, let that be all this is.

  The church bells rang out the hour, the chimes spreading their joyful noise throughout the town for all to hear. Elena never tired of the sound and at that moment, she could almost feel her heart swell with hope and faith.

  The choir marched into the sanctuary. The congregation settled into the pews, most everyone clutching hymnals or their Bible, ready to raise their voices in song and prayer.

  Suddenly, a little girl crawled onto Elena’s lap, taking her completely by surprise. “We decided to come after all, Buela. Well”—Izzy grinned—“Mommy decided for us. She said she didn’t know where Daddy and I got the idea that we’d skip out on church.”

  Elena squeezed Sarah’s hand as she and Rafael scooted past her and sat down, and then the choir began to sing.

  Christian, when thy way seems darkest,

  And thine eyes with tears are dim,

  Straight to God, thy Father, hast’ning,

  Tell thy sorrows unto Him.

  Not to human ear confiding

  Thy sad tale of grief and care,

  But, before thy Father, kneeling,

  Pour out all thy sorrows there.

  She had definitely been pouring out her sorrows, Elena thought, and no doubt she’d keep right on doing it. Her faith was so very strong, and she knew the Lord would listen.

  Smiling, she opened her hymnal and joined the choir in song.

  Chapter Four

  GOOD MORNING, BUREAU COUNTY. IN CASE YOU haven’t noticed, the frost is on the pumpkin this morning and the wind is howling up a storm.”

  Elena pulled her dark green Jeep Liberty into a space in the hospital parking lot and switched off the engine, silencing the radio. She didn’t need to hear the weatherman’s Monday morning forecast to know that Indian summer was rapidly giving way to midfall and the coming of winter.

  Grabbing her tote bag and wrapping her scarf around her neck, Elena climbed out of the small SUV, locked the door, and let the wind blow her hair—and her—toward Cuppa Coffee, one of her favorite haunts, a place she, Anabelle, James, and Candace occasionally met before work.

  She tucked her hands into the pockets of her navy peacoat when the first of several maple leaves slashed across her face before scurrying on their way to who knew where. She shivered but wasn’t about to complain about the cold. She loved fall and what it led to—the sights and sounds of the holidays. She couldn’t sing to save her life—that’s why she’d quit the church choir—but that didn’t keep her from singing while she waited at the stop light.

  “‘Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat…’”

  The light turned green, and she rushed across the street, laughing to herself. It’s a good thing the goose was getting fat because she certainly wasn’t. She’d hopped on the scale that morning and had lost six pounds. She was feeling better this morning, though, and seemed even to have a small appetite.

  The wind tore Cuppa Coffee’s glass door out of her hand, throwing it wide open and forcing her to use almost all of her weight to push it closed once she was inside. She peeled a long lock of brown hair away from her eyes and saw James waving her toward the table where he and Anabelle were sitting.

  “Lovely weather,” she said, smiling her almost always bright smile as she dropped her tote bag on the floor beside one of the chairs. “If I didn’t love my job so much, I might have ditched work today to stay home with a good book and a cup of cocoa.”

  “Hard to believe Cam was outside working in the garden after church yesterday,” Anabelle said. “And, weather permitting, he’s going to the nursery today to pick out some new chrysanthemums and marigolds to put in the pots alongside the drive. Evan and Maureen told us they just received a new shipment and that we’ll love the colors.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Elena said. “I’ll have to stop by after work one day this week and take a peek.”

  “They have a lot of cornstalks too, and I made some beautiful bows to decorate them with,” Anabelle added. “Hopefully tonight we can put them out on the porch along with some of the pumpkins growing in his garden. Almost makes me wish I was retired so I could help Cam pick out the mums and work in the gar
den with him.”

  “You’re too young to retire,” James uttered, spooning sugar into his coffee cup and then stirring the dark, black brew. “And if you did retire, you’d still have to meet the rest of us for morning coffee.”

  “He’s right,” Elena said. “Our get-togethers wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  “Well, I’m not about to retire,” Anabelle said, waggling her finger at James. “Not yet. So don’t start thinking about applying for my job.”

  “Me? A supervisor?” James chuckled. But Elena could tell that the idea was actually appealing to her friend. Maybe someday he would take that step, but she also knew how much James loved the day-to-day personal interaction that came with being a nurse “in the trenches.”

  “You two can sit here quibbling, but I’m starved,” Elena said, and without another word, she headed for the counter, waited for the two people ahead of her in line to place their orders and then asked for a hot cocoa with a dollop of real whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkled on top along with a chocolate-iced cream puff, something gooey and sweet that she hoped she’d be able to eat. Though still feeling a tad bloated, she hadn’t experienced any more pain since church yesterday.

  Maybe she could swallow a few bites if not all of her pastry. A sugar rush was better than no rush at all.

  Could not wanting to eat be a sign of perimenopause? She remembered her thought at church yesterday. She didn’t think so, but she’d had several hot flashes. Her mood had shifted a lot lately too. But the pain and bloating didn’t sound like the first signs of going through the Change.

  Somehow, even with all she had to do for the walk and her usually hectic workday, she needed to find time to look up the symptoms. She might have been a nurse for over twenty years, but women’s issues had never been one of her specialties. And truth be told, she’d never wanted to think about menopause. She was too young, wasn’t she? Only forty-nine. She had too much life left to live.

  The glass door blew open again, nearly sending her cream puff flying from her hand as she sat down at the table. Candace breezed into the coffee shop. Her wavy brown hair, shot with copper and gold highlights, was wind-tossed, and the gift bags she carried nearly blocked the bundled-up obstetrics nurse from view.

  “At long last,” Candace said, plopping down in a chair, “I can finally give you the souvenirs Heath and I picked out for you during our honeymoon.”

  Candace placed a colorful, Caribbean beach–print bag stuffed with bright tissue paper in front of each of her friends, and Elena was struck—not for the first time—with how beautiful and alive Candace looked. She’d suffered so much after her first husband passed away from a sudden brain aneurysm, somehow carrying on with her job in the Birthing Unit while raising two young children. And then she’d met Heath. The courtship had been slow but steady, and now…she was truly happy once again.

  That’s what Elena wanted to concentrate on. Her friends—and how they were always there for each other.

  “I would have given these to you sooner, but in all the hustle and bustle of disembarking, I somehow managed to leave them on the ship.” Candace shook her head, chastising herself with a laugh. “Thank heaven they ended up in the lost-and-found closet; and the cruise line shipped them to me—at a cost, of course.”

  Elena weighed the bag in her hands, wondering what could be inside. Souvenirs were usually lightweight, a small snow globe, a spoon with the name of the destination engraved on it in some artistic way, or a magnet. Souvenirs were usually something easily tucked into a suitcase, but—

  “Stop thinking so much.” Candace laughed at her friends. Like Elena, Anabelle and James had been studying the pretty packaging. “Just open them. I can’t wait to see what you think.”

  Tissue paper crunched as gifts were pulled from the bags. This is a nice prelude to Christmas, Elena thought. A speck of her present peeked out of its wrapping. Batik? Elena ripped the rest of the paper away to reveal at least several yards of folded fabric, hand printed in emerald, cobalt, sapphire, and teal. She fingered the soft cotton, imagining herself sitting at her sewing machine, creating summertime dresses for herself and Izzy. And maybe Sarah too.

  That would be lovely.

  “It’s beautiful,” Elena said, hearing her words echoed in Anabelle’s voice.

  Anabelle, a quilter extraordinaire, hugged the fabric close to her chest, her eyes bright behind her reading glasses. “How did you know I’ve been searching for a fabric just like this, something soft in all the colors of a morning sunrise?”

  “There were so many choices in the fabric shop we visited in Saint Kitts. This piece”—Candace fingered the material Anabelle was holding—“was draped over an old surfboard and it had your name written all over it.”

  “And this shirt?” James asked, plastering the island print in greens, bronze, and a few splashes of turquoise up to his chest, nearly hiding his red Chicago Bulls sweatshirt. “Did it have James written all over it?”

  “You were a little harder to buy for than Elena and Anabelle. I couldn’t find any books to add to your collection. For some strange reason”—she grinned at James—“they didn’t have anything written in Old English or Greek in the island bookstores. And since I know you don’t sew, and you already have dozens of Tshirts with advertising printed all over them, the tropical shirt will have to do.”

  “Fern’s going to insist on taking a cruise when I show this to her,” James said, his big hands skimming over the fabric, the colors highlighting the blue of his eyes.

  “If anyone deserves a cruise,” Anabelle stated, “Fern does.”

  James folded the shirt, staring at the fabric, as if deep in thought. After tucking the gift back into its bag, he looked at his friends, his eyes clouded with concern. “Fern and I have an appointment with her neurologist at two this afternoon.”

  “I thought she was feeling better.” Elena frowned, remembering how good Fern had looked at the game. “Did something happen yesterday? She hasn’t had another setback, has she?”

  “No, no setbacks. She had some tests last week and we’ve been waiting for the results.” James took a swallow of coffee. “The doctor usually calls to tell us what’s going on, but this time Dr. Chopra’s nurse called and asked that we both come in to see her. And, yeah, I’m worried.”

  Anabelle put a hand on top of James’s. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”

  “I tried not to think about it over the weekend. You know, you’ve got to go on with your life. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been praying almost constantly since the nurse called,” James said, “but—”

  “You know the Lord is listening,” Elena stated. Like Anabelle, she didn’t want her friend thinking the worst.

  “And your faith is strong,” Anabelle added. “Don’t lose that faith now—or ever.”

  “The past few years have been tough, but I’ve never lost faith.” James took another swallow of coffee, staring at his friends over the rim of his cardboard coffee cup. “But do me a favor. When the clock strikes two, say a little prayer for Fern and me. We could use a few cheerleaders when we face the doctor.”

  “How’s Mr. Lawrence?” Elena asked Gloria Main, the RN who’d been on duty all night in the ICU. She’d thought about the man she’d given CPR to during the weekend, hoping he’d stabilized enough for surgery. Gangrene was dangerous—life threatening—which meant the doctors couldn’t put surgery off too much longer.

  “We took him off the ventilator about eleven last night, and he’s managed to breathe on his own since then,” Gloria said, taking a sip of the cocoa Elena had brought her from Cuppa Coffee. “His blood oxygen was good and everything else was stable, including his blood glucose; so, fortunately, he was taken down to surgery about half an hour ago.”

  “Thank heaven.”

  Elena hung her coat and scarf in a small closet, draped her stethoscope around her neck, and stood at the sink, washing her hands.

  Gloria took another sip of cocoa and then gathere
d up sheets and pillowcases from another closet. “I was just getting ready to clean Mr. Lawrence’s room. Want to help?”

  “Why don’t you go on home.” Elena glanced quickly at the board on the wall in the nurses’ station and saw there was only one other patient in the ICU. “I can handle it on my own, as long as it’s quiet.”

  Gloria yawned and nodded her head. “Sounds like a good idea,” she said, closing the closet door and continuing to give Elena a briefing on the patients.

  “Mrs. Bryce was touch and go when she came in with pneumonia on Saturday night, but she’s stable now and resting comfortably. You’ll probably get orders to move her to the Med/Surg ward before the day’s over.”

  “What about family members? Anyone here for Mrs. Bryce? And what about Mr. Lawrence’s wife?”

  “Mrs. Lawrence said she’d wait in the cafeteria.” Gloria handed the fresh bedding to Elena. “I told her that her husband would be in surgery most of the morning and that she should think about going home to rest, but she wanted to stay here. And Mrs. Bryce’s husband has been here off and on. She’s a tough cookie, and so is he. You won’t have to do much hand-holding.”

  Too bad. Hand-holding was one of Elena’s favorite parts of this job.

  Marge Matthews—all five feet ten inches of her—was a few minutes late, rushing into the ICU with her short curly brown hair—definitely dyed to keep it that color—blown here and there. Elena could probably count on one hand the number of times Marge had been late to work in all the time she’d known her.

  “Sorry I’m late. The wind blew my trash can down the street and my garbage was strewn all over at least half a dozen front yards.” Marge shook her head in frustration. “Now all of my neighbors will know Fred and I have a penchant for chocolate-and-peanut butter ice cream, brownies, and onion dip and chips.”

  Elena laughed, picturing the full-figured woman running down the street, her normally calm demeanor nowhere to be found. “What about the Hershey’s Kisses? You keep a bowl full on the desk. Don’t you eat them at home too?”