by Chris Zett
Parking wasn’t too difficult, as most of the staff garage was empty on a late Sunday afternoon. Lena sighed with relief after she’d maneuvered the oversized SUV into Jess’s slot.
As soon as the wheels stopped turning, Jess jumped out and strode to the exit. At the steel door, she waited for Lena, rolling back and forth on her toes. Wordlessly, she held the door open, then caught up after Lena passed her, led the way to a back entrance, and opened it with a card fished from her wallet.
Behind the unmarked door, they stepped directly into the emergency room with the unmistakable smell of disinfectant and background beeps and voices.
Jess didn’t stop until she reached a counter where a couple of women in blue scrubs worked at two computers. “Mrs. Jameson. Which room?”
If the two were surprised to see Jess in dirt-stained jeans and a T-shirt, they didn’t show it. The older one glanced at the computer. “Room five, Dr. Riley.”
“Thanks.” Jess strode deeper into the department, past an area with curtained stalls to a quieter side corridor.
Lena tried not to look right or left. She wasn’t squeamish when it came to her own blood, but she didn’t want to know what lurked behind those curtains.
As they rounded one more corner, Jess almost collided with Diana. In blue scrubs and tied-back hair, she looked older and more serious than she had at the café. “Hey, Jess. Lena. Good to see you.” She smiled at both of them.
“How is she?” Jess’s grimace might have been her attempt to smile back.
“Much better. The diuretics are working.” Diana shrugged. “Maybe I called you too soon.”
“No, absolutely not. Aortic stenosis is like that. I’ll go and see her now.” Jess wiped her hands on her jeans, then looked down as if she only now noticed how she was dressed.
“She’s in room five. Maybe you can convince her to stay at least overnight.”
Jess nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. But she’s pretty independent.”
“That’s an understatement.” Chuckling, Diana shook her head. “I hope I’m that feisty when I’m in my eighties.” The admiration in her voice was obvious. “Call me if you need anything. Or want any tests done.”
“I will. Thanks.” Jess turned to Lena. Her gaze flickered over Lena’s face like clouds chasing over a sky. The care and fear Jess had shown in the car seemed muted now as if she was slowly gaining back her control. “Do you want to wait in the coffee shop? Or drive home?”
Her expression was difficult to read, and Lena had no idea what Jess preferred. “If you think it’s okay, I’ll tag along.” And to be honest with herself, she was interested to see Jess’s interaction with Mrs. Jameson.
With a nod, Jess strode toward the room. She mumbled something that might have been “thanks,” but Lena wasn’t sure.
Room five was tiny, with barely space for a gurney, a desk, and a couple of stools. Only the desk light shone, bathing the room in a warm, golden light.
The woman beneath the sheets was frail, and even though an oxygen mask covered her mouth and nose, her complexion was grayish. But her smile was wide and genuine when she recognized her visitor. “Dr. Jess. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with your little one?”
“Hey, Mrs. Jameson.” Jess wheeled one of the stools over and sat at her side. Her voice shook a little. “And shouldn’t you be at home scolding the neighborhood kids? What if they play ball in your yard again?”
“As long as they don’t trample my flowers.” She chuckled, but it sounded a bit breathless. “Who is your lovely companion?”
“This is my neighbor and, um, friend, Lena. We were on our way home from picking apples together when Dr. Petrell called me.”
“It’s good to meet you, Mrs. Jameson.” Lena stepped closer and stretched out her hand.
The older woman’s grip belied her frail appearance. “Take a seat, my dear. Friends of Dr. Jess are my friends too.”
As Lena arranged the second stool next to Jess, she glanced at her from the corner of her eye. Jess’s posture was more relaxed than in the car, but worry lines were still visible around her eyes as she studied the monitor above the bed.
A green EKG was all Lena recognized, but she guessed the other colorful numbers meant much more to Jess.
“Mrs. Jameson, Dr. Petrell told me you want to go home tonight.” Jess’s voice was careful, with a hint of a question.
“I’m sure I’ll sleep much better at home.”
“Home is always best.” Jess tilted her head to the side. “But maybe, just for tonight, you’ll sleep better with oxygen. And wouldn’t it be nice to have some assistance from the nurses if you need to get up in the night?”
“Ah, you’re as bad as all the doctors. You always want to lock people in your hospital.” Mrs. Jameson shook her head, but her voice held no real conviction.
“How about you do me a favor and stay one night, and tomorrow I’ll come back to sign you out if you insist on leaving.” Jess held out her hand. “Deal?”
“You got a deal. But only if you throw in a few pictures of your little girl. I heard she’s called Ella, right?”
Jess laughed. “Yes. Ella.”
Mrs. Jameson shook the offered hand, then kept hold of it and placed it on her bed. “Tell me about her. Is she keeping you up all night? I’ve knitted a few caps and socks, but I don’t have them with me.”
The last of the tension receded from Jess’s shoulders as she held the older woman’s hand and told her about the day Ella had decided to spit at least half her formula over Jess’s shirts with each meal. At the end of the day, she’d run out of fresh clothes to wear.
In the cozily lit room with Jess’s soothing voice, Lena almost forgot they were in a hospital.
Chapter Thirteen
For the first time in too long, Jess woke up eager to start the day before any alarm sounded. When the dawn twilight transformed the shadows into recognizable shapes, Jess allowed herself to get up. She barely recognized this feeling from when she was younger and used to look forward to work every day. Even before she’d gotten pregnant, anticipation had been rare. She’d thought starting a family would help to regain that, but so far it hadn’t worked out as planned.
Snippets from the last couple of days played on auto-repeat in her head. She had enjoyed her time with Lena more than she’d thought possible, and with all the flirting and sparks and accidental touches, it had felt as if they were on a date. But both of them had equally pushed forward and pulled back, and Jess wasn’t even sure what she wanted anymore.
And the only thoughts that could push that confusion to the back of her mind were worries about Mrs. Jameson and her own impending checkup.
Diana soon set her at ease with a text. Mrs. Jameson had improved further overnight and would be discharged later that morning.
Her own health was another matter. Since Lena didn’t need her to drive to the café today, she had rescheduled again while at the hospital. She didn’t need another day of not knowing. Her heart had improved somewhat, but would it be enough to return to work? Would she be able to withstand hours of physical and mental stress for days?
When Jess arrived in the lower garden, it was still empty. She had beaten Lena for once. She waited for a minute, but when she didn’t detect any movement, she bowed to the ground, even if it was silly, and took up a meditative stance, facing east, arms raised as if she was hugging a tree. Hugging. A. Tree. She didn’t think she’d get over that description anytime soon.
At first, worries about her heart raced through her mind. Instead of chasing them, she tried something new. She concentrated on her breathing, in and out, the wakening birds, the first rays of sunshine painting the gray leaves in brilliant green. In and out. She closed her eyes. In and out.
“We can add another move to your form today if you want.” Lena’s voice was close and soft.
Jess opened her eyes and blinked twice against the sunlight. When had Lena joined her? She lowered her arms, only now noticing how heavy they’d become. She’d never before managed to last the full time with her arms up. “Sure. Um, hi. Didn’t hear you coming.”
Lena smiled brightly. “I know. But you had the perfect posture and seemed so…centered? I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Centered. Not a bad word to describe the mixture of calm and energy that glowed somewhere deep inside. Maybe there was something to this finding-your-middle stuff after all. “I could use some of that today.”
Lena held her gaze for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s practice the new move.” She fell into the position where the last movement Jess had learned ended. “I’ll show you once how it’s supposed to look in the normal tempo, then we’ll do it movement by movement.”
“Okay.” Jess watched in awe as Lena’s arms and legs flowed in a complex half-circling movement from right to left and back to center. If she’d blinked, she would have missed most of it. That was more complex than anything they’d done before. If this wouldn’t keep her mind off the rest of the day, nothing would.
“Repeat it after me.” Lena started again at the beginning, this time in slow motion. “And don’t forget to breathe.”
Jess inhaled deeply and let her hand follow Lena’s example as she exhaled. With each new breath, they continued the movement until they’d made it through the whole sequence.
Lena led her through it a second time, then a third. The fourth time she did it all on her own, and the thrill of achievement flushed her cheeks after she’d finished without tying a knot in her arms.
“Great. Now repeat the form from the beginning, adding the new movement.” Lena smiled and adjusted position so she could do her own form, much longer than Jess’s.
When they finished, sweat had soaked Jess’s shirt, and she sensed her muscles where they’d stretched in unfamiliar ways. But she wasn’t tired or out of breath. Instead, the weird ball of energy still buzzed, filling her with confidence. What had Lena called it? Centered?
The high lasted through her shower, through changing a particularly nasty diaper, and through the drive to the hospital.
But as the automatic doors opened to her almost-home for the last several years, the smell of fear assaulted her, muting the glow. She dragged herself to the cardiology wing to meet up with Wendy, her favorite technician.
“Good morning, Dr. Riley.” Wendy nodded politely and entered data into the ultrasound machine without bothering to tell her to undress or how to lie down. The fifty-something woman with the short, no-nonsense hair was Jess’s favorite exactly because she didn’t waste time trying to fill silences.
As Jess positioned herself on her left side, goosebumps erupted on her skin that had nothing to do with the fact that she’d ignored the paper gown that would have to be removed in another minute anyway. Her heartbeat accelerated in anticipation of the exam. Shit. That wouldn’t do. The picture quality worsened with tachycardia, plus it sent the signal she wasn’t back to her old self again. If only the calm from this morning could be harnessed and brought into the exam room. But if she got up to perform tai chi, Wendy would probably call for a psych consult.
Sometimes when I need strength or calm, I close my eyes and do the form in my mind. Jess had dismissed Lena’s statement as a weird, new-age, pseudo-hippie thing, but what did she have to lose?
As Wendy stuck the EKG leads to her chest to synchronize the pictures with her heartbeat, Jess closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She pictured raising her hands in front of her body and pushing downward with the exhale. In and out. With each breath, she led herself through the short form she’d learned so far.
“Ready?” When Wendy’s voice pulled her from her mental exercise, Jess fixed her gaze on the monitor and the display of her heart rate.
Sixty-eight beats per minute. Normal. Phew. “I’m ready.”
“Hey, Jess!” The greeting stopped her as she was leaving the hospital.
She stepped back from the automatic door to keep it from opening. Dr. Rock Chick, of course. She smiled. “Diana, hi. Good to see you.”
“You too. You look great.” Diana nodded in the direction of the cardiology ward. “Did you visit Mrs. Jameson?”
“Yeah. Thank you for keeping me updated. Her daughter is driving her home now.”
“That’s nice of you to come and visit her again this morning.”
“I promised.” Jess was sure she could leave it at that, and Diana would skip to a new topic. Jess had never shared personal details at work. But Diana was becoming a friend. “Actually, I wasn’t just here to visit. I had my checkup, and everything has improved. I’m almost back to normal.”
“Wow. Congratulations.” Diana enveloped her in a hug that was over before Jess could decide whether she liked the display of friendship in the hospital’s main entrance hall or not. “Does this mean you’ll be back at work soon?”
“Yeah. I had a talk with my boss, and we decided to play it safe and give me another couple of weeks to recuperate. But then I’ll be back to torture residents again.”
“I’m looking forward to that.” Diana grinned and pointed to Jess’s cheek. “And who did you fight in your free time?”
Jess’s hand rose to cover the faint scratch she’d discovered as she looked in the mirror this morning. It must have happened during the fall. Heat flooded her face as she thought of Lena in her arms. “When we came here yesterday, we were on our way home. I, uh, I picked apples with Lena…um, to make jam. Lena was planning to do a new batch to sell. She sells them at the farmers market. Only the blackberries are missing. The blackberries we found were brown and dry, and she was really devastated she had to reschedule and look for another good place to pick.” Whoa. Why was she babbling all of a sudden? That had never, ever been her problem. Maybe the relief that she got a clean bill of health had addled her brain.
Diana’s eyebrows had slowly risen, and now the corners of her mouth twitched. “So you picked apples, but now she needs some blackberries to make jam?”
That’s what she should have said. “Basically, yes.”
Diana grinned. “I have the perfect solution. Emily inherited this beach house, and we have way more berries than we can ever use this summer. It would be a shame if it all went to waste. You could even make a weekend vacation out of it. Stay a night or two.”
Jess couldn’t picture it. She’d have to take Ella, of course, with all her stuff to change and feed. Sharing a cozy cabin with Lena? Her mouth was dry, and she had to swallow twice before she could get a word out. “Overnight?”
“Yeah. It’s a nice house with two bedrooms. We can’t get away at all next month because of our work schedules, so you can take the keys and go whenever you want.”
Oh, two bedrooms. Jess didn’t know if she should be relieved or disappointed. “Thanks, but…I don’t know.” Going to a beach house sounded nice. She’d been off work for over two months, but that was nothing like a vacation. Her mom’s garden was lovely, but a change of scenery sounded like the perfect getaway before she started work again. “Maybe.”
“Let’s go and get the key from Emily, and you can decide later.” Diana briskly walked toward her partner’s office, who was a senior attending in the ED.
Jess followed, grateful Diana had chosen the back route. She wasn’t in the mood for the curious gazes of the staff.
After knocking twice, Diana hesitated for a fraction of a second before opening the door. Emily Barnes sat ramrod straight behind her desk and looked up with a stern expression. When she saw Diana, a smile softened her features.
Jess marveled at the transformation of her usually icy colleague. How these two had ever kept their relationship a secret for even a minute was beyond her. “Dr. Barnes.”
Dr. Barnes’s eyes widened as she realized Diana hadn’t entered alone. She
cleared her throat. “Dr. Riley, good morning.”
“Oh, no.” Diana sighed. “This is a strictly private visit, so you two should shed your alpha doctor routines and call each other by first names like all other mortals.”
Jess would have never talked to her senior attending this way when she was a resident, but then, she’d never been so stupid as to enter a workplace relationship, especially with someone higher in the hierarchy. She usually was all for maintaining a healthy distance from her colleagues since most of them annoyed her. Meeting Diana privately had been one step, but should she take the next? She glanced at Dr. Barnes to judge her stance on this and met a gaze that contained the same mixture of puzzlement and annoyance she was feeling.
But why not? Jess grinned. “I wouldn’t call it alpha routine, but okay.” She walked over to the desk and offered her hand. “Jess.”
“Emily.” The other woman rose and shook her hand with an even grip. “What can I do for you both?”
“I’ve found the perfect solution for our blackberry problem. Her friend needs a lot of them, and I offered the beach house for the weekend.”
Emily blinked twice and looked from Jess to Diana. She held the gaze of her partner for a moment before she nodded and smiled at Jess. “That’s a great idea. I’d hate for them all to go to waste, and we can’t find a free moment to drive up there.” She walked around the desk to open a locker, removed a set of keys from her bag, and separated one from the rest. “Here’s the key. We have tons of sheets and towels at the house and some nonperishable food, coffee, wine. Help yourselves to anything you want. When we decided to keep the place, we’d planned to open it for friends, but everyone is working these days. It’s a shame to have such a beautiful house when no one gets to use it.”
Jess grinned and put the key in her pocket. This was the longest not strictly work-related statement she’d ever heard from Emily. She was obviously as uncomfortable as Jess was with Diana’s let’s-all-be-friends approach but was working hard to overcome it. “Thank you.”