by Sam Carter
Throughout her career, she’d heard people say not to get attached to patients. Whoever said or even thought that must be a moron. They’d obviously never worked in health care. And above all, they had never met Stacy.
Clara walked by Stacy’s room and stuck her head in to see how everything was going. There was the little angel, resting like nothing was happening and she was just fine.
Over in the corner in his usual spot sat Stacy’s dad. He, on the other hand, didn’t look well. Clara couldn’t see his face because it was buried in his hands, but she was sure if she could it would be the saddest thing she had ever seen. Drenched in tears. Just another long and difficult day for all of them.
Clara didn’t want to stand in the door and stare. Even though it was her job to check in on them, she felt like she was invading their privacy. As if she were witnessing them struggle through a horrible nightmare without an invitation.
As Clara turned to walk back to the nurse’s station, an ear-piercing scream came from right behind her. She turned and began to run into Stacy’s room, but before she could even get close to Stacy, more screams came from the room next door. And almost like they had rehearsed it, all the patients began to scream out in agonizing pain. How could everything be so calm one second and then explode into a million pieces the next? Why had this been happening to these poor children all day?
It didn’t matter how many years of training or how many decades of work nurses had put in, nothing could prepare them for this. Clara felt frozen to the ground, and it appeared all the nurses on duty had the same reaction. Fear gripped their hearts, and it was going to win.
Except Lucy. She was moving with the determination of a nurse possessed. The look on her face and confidence in her stride were things Clara often noticed Lucy had in situations like this.
Even with Lucy on the scene, Clara still wanted to call Harlan to get his advice. To get him to come to the hospital. But he was with his son, and there were more important things to life than work. Even if he would want to know, she couldn’t do it.
Besides, there were other doctors around besides Harlan. None that she trusted as much, but still they were there. And they were good and could do this. Her biggest fear was who was available that night, who was on call. Who were the doctors that were rounding and could be there right away? As she realized her options, the fear once again took over and her heart sank.
There were only two choices: Dr. Alex James or Dr. Diana Baxter. Her hope was that one would get there first and take the lead in the disastrous situation. But, why would that be the case? It was never that easy.
“Clara! Get your fat butt moving and do something. Dr. Allred’s not here to hold your hand tonight,” Dr. James yelled out—his typical way of communicating—as he turned the corner. Perfect. Just the man she wanted to see.
Dr. James was the type of doctor that, if you didn’t know him personally, you would want taking care of your children. He was a genius. More than that, he was a jerk. But because he was invaluable to what they were trying to do at the hospital—on top of the rumors he was shacking up with the CMO—no one said anything about it. Except Harlan.
While Harlan wasn’t one for conflict—Clara was positive he avoided it at all costs—something about Alex caused Harlan to lose his cool.
Clara could clearly remember the day that Alex came storming around the corner, yelling and swearing at the top of his lungs about something one of the nurses didn’t do correctly. It looked like a vein in Harlan’s forehead was about to burst wide open, but he calmly walked over to Alex to remind him where they were, and that there were children around.
Alex smiled and said, with his face as close to Harlan’s as he could possibly get without kissing him, “Did I hurt your feelings, Dr. Hero? Maybe if you had put as much thought into your marriage as you do into the way I talk, you would still have a family.”
It went absolutely silent on the floor. No one could believe it. Alex just stood there with that ridiculous “worship me” smile on his face, and the only thing Harlan did was move a few inches closer until it looked like they were touching noses.
Harlan then whispered in Alex’s ear something that only the two doctors could hear. The grin, that stupid grin, slowly disappeared off Alex’s face. Harlan turned, with his veins still exploding, and slowly walked to his office.
Clara later asked Harlan what he said that seem to scare Alex into needing a diaper. Harlan just smiled and said something about not wanting her to think less of him. Then he winked at her and walked off.
Now, however, Clara had to work with the man. She didn’t want to, but she knew she didn’t have a choice. Especially when she heard the screams coming from Stacy’s room again.
Chapter 13
“Dad! Hey!” Jack called out as he approached the gate where they would enter.
Harlan was unsure if Jack already knew that Masterson would not be starting tonight. He could have heard it on the radio during his bus ride or read it on his smartphone that everyone, including teenagers, had these days. Part of him hoped that Jack already knew. That would make his job much easier.
But the other part of him, the stronger part, was looking forward to the chance to help his son grow. This may be something small—getting over a beloved player not playing in one game—but it would still matter to Jack. And if it mattered to Jack, then it mattered to Harlan.
“Hey, Jack. Glad you made it. 6:30, right on the dot. You’ve got your grandmother’s punctuality,” Harlan said to Jack as he gave him a hug. “So, what are you most excited about for tonight’s game?” he asked, hoping that Jack would spill that he already knew the not-so-happy news.
“I’m guessing you want me to say something cheesy like, to be able to spend time with my daddy!” Jack was laughing as he said this, probably knowing that Harlan would love to hear that. What dad wouldn’t? “I think you know the answer. We get to see history tonight, Dad. Masterson is going to finish the season over .400, and we get to be there to witness it. Pretty freakin’ awesome.”
Shoot. He hadn’t heard yet. Time to give him the news, and he finally knew how to do it. He would take a page out of his father’s playbook. He was going to treat Jack like a man.
“Can I see your phone for second?”
“Um, sure. I guess. What for?” Jack seemed puzzled but handed his new, sleek smartphone to him. Harlan unlocked the phone and found the starting lineups for tonight’s game and handed it back to his son. Jack scanned through the lineup once and then again. He then looked up at Harlan with a puzzled look in his eyes and then back down to his phone and scanned it one more time. Harlan could tell he was hoping beyond hope that he was reading it wrong.
“Why? Why wouldn’t they start Masterson tonight, of all nights?” Harlan wanted so badly to give him all the reasons why, but he knew that Jack needed to walk through this one on his own.
After what seemed like ten minutes, but was probably more like ten seconds, Jack appeared to have figured it out. “The playoffs are much more important than this game. What if he slips rounding first base and tears his ACL or something? We would be lost. Plus, he will still end the season on top. I guess that means we have been witnessing history all year.”
Awesome, Harlan thought. Pretty freakin’ awesome. Not only did Jack get it, but he got it much better than Harlan had.
“Exactly, my man. Exactly. And they will probably bring him out at the end of the game for some sweet ceremony. Maybe there’ll be some fireworks to go with it.” Jack was a fan of fireworks, but who wasn’t? Loud explosions and bright lights in the sky: that’s how you know something special has happened in America.
“Awesome! Now let’s go in or we won’t get our food before the first pitch. Can’t break tradition or something bad will happen tonight.” Jack was not smiling when he said this and neither was Harlan. Superstitions for sports fans were serious business, and if they missed out on their pregame ritual, they both feared they would be the sole reason the whole
season blew up in one night.
They got to their seats in plenty of time with all their food: peanuts, two hot dogs for each covered in ketchup and mustard, and a box of Cracker Jack to share. And to wash it down they got something healthy to balance out the heart attack they had just ordered—thirty-two ounce root beers. Nothing quite like father/son bonding time to ensure that you will both die at an early age.
By the end of the third inning, they had both polished off their hot dogs and were about done with their peanuts, too. It was usually about this time at every game that Jack, having the bladder of a pregnant woman, needed to head to the bathroom. And it was usually about this time Harlan would check his Twitter to see what everyone was saying about the game.
Tonight he was hoping to get some more news about Masterson and why he was out of the game. Maybe there would be something more about a planned ceremony for him after the game, too.
He scrolled through his Twitter feed and came across a tweet from @SamsoniteTimes—the Twitter handle for John Samson, one of the most respected sports journalists in the country—which made him take pause.
Hearing Masterson is not even at the game and hasn’t been seen all day. Not surprising, if you ask me.
Not even at the game? Why in the world would Masterson not be there? And why wasn’t this surprising to Samson? Harlan decided that drastic times called for drastic measures, so he was going to do something he rarely did—send out a tweet. He hit the reply button and sent a message hurling through cyberspace, hoping that Samson would respond.
@SamsoniteTimes Not surprising? Why do you say that? Seems like Masterson would want to be here for his big night.
He pressed send and waited. He figured that Samson got hundreds of tweets, so there was little chance he would even give Harlan’s tweet the time of day. Just as the Mariners turned a huge double play to end the inning, Harlan’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He would never get used to that strange feeling. Ever. But it got his attention, so he would live with it.
Harlan took his phone out of his pocket figuring it was an email, or maybe a text from Jack saying he was getting some more food, only to be surprised to see a tweet, directed to him, from @SamsoniteTimes. He read it, paused, and then read it again.
@DocAllred Hard to explain, but Masterson is a bad seed. I’ve never seen anything like him in all my years. Always all about him.
Bad seed? Nothing like him in all his years? Always about him? Masterson seemed like a solid, upstanding citizen who really cared about the fans. He thought about all those times Masterson visited the hospital and spent a great deal of time with the kids. He wouldn’t only walk around and take photos for some sort of publicity stunt. No, he would sit and talk to each child. He’d find out why they were there and how long they had been there. He would talk to them about their dreams and how they would reach them once they got home. He would tell stories about his childhood in Australia with all the wild animals and the kids would eat it up. He was their hero. He was everyone’s hero.
He didn’t merely take time with kids, but he visited with the whole staff. In fact, Harlan remembered the time Masterson spent with different members of the hospital staff about nine months ago. Not just doctors or administrators either. It was everyone from a janitor mopping the floors to a CNA exhausted from a twelve-hour shift to a phlebotomist who needed a break from drawing blood from the sickest of the sick.
It was an amazing sight to see a star athlete take time like that. And now he was hearing that Masterson was some sort of villain from the mouth (or the fingers) of his favorite sports writer? He wasn’t sure how to take this all in. He decided to see if he could find out anything further from Samson.
@SamsoniteTimes What makes you say that? Anything specific? Sounds different than the guy we all see each day. Really strange.
This time a response came less than a minute after Harlan sent his tweet.
@DocAllred He doesn’t show it often or to many people, but I saw this other, dark side. Read tomorrow’s article for more information.
Wow. Harlan wasn’t often interested in gossip magazines or TV shows, but he was interested in this. He was interested in reading what Samson’s article would say that would give more details into this dark side of Luke Masterson. He had never read an article by Samson that wasn’t backed up by proof and 100 percent accurate. Samson wasn’t some hack who wanted to dirty the reputation of any of Seattle’s athletes to further his career. Whatever it was, Harlan guessed it was awful and factual.
As Harlan was about to get lost in this thought and what this all meant, Jack returned to his seat with some fries for them to share. They watched the rest of the game together, just enjoying the atmosphere. There were lots of high fives, jumping out of their seats at big hits, and hugs all around.
But there was no more talk of Masterson, and there was definitely no post-game ceremony to celebrate his season. It was, for almost everyone in attendance, anticlimactic.
But it wasn’t just that for Harlan. Yes, it was a difficult game to witness because of what everyone was expecting. It was much more than that now for him. He guessed it was a difficult thing for him to know that come morning, when he opened his computer, Samson’s article would prove everything he thought he knew about his and Jack’s sports idol was a lie.
Harlan dropped Jack off at his mother’s home after the game. As always, he got out of the car and gave his son a hug and let him know he loved him. Jack declared he loved him, too, words that meant more to Harlan than anything in the world, and thanked him for a “freakin’ awesome night!”
“It’s been a fun regular season, Dad. Seriously, I am so glad you’ve got season tickets,” Jack said as he opened the house door. “Thanks for taking me so many games. Now just eleven more wins and Seattle gets that championship! So pumped about that!”
“Me, too. It will be tremendous to have front row seats for the whole thing. Well, not front row, exactly. But they are still pretty good.”
“Front row, back row, box seat, I don’t care. It’s just been fantastic to finally spend more time with you, Daddy.” Jack was smiling as he said it. It was a little sarcastic, alluding to their conversation before the game, but it also seemed sincere.
At least one thing went right for Harlan that day, because everything else was a disaster. Although he had no idea what to expect from tomorrow, he did know one thing. He was glad that this long, complicated, and heart-wrenching day was finally over. But when he finally pulled into his driveway, Harlan was no longer sure if his day was over after all. He looked up and saw the shadow of someone snooping around his front windows, and it made him freeze as fear ran through his veins.
Chapter 14
Harlan slowly got out of his car and tried to think back to all the cop shows he had watched throughout his life. How did they move gradually so the person they were tracking couldn’t see them? Did they roll around on the ground to avoid detection? He was sure they did, but he was also unsure if that worked in real life. Plus, he didn’t have a gun. He looked around for something, anything, he could use to protect himself from his would-be attacker. He had nothing. Seriously, nothing to use at all. He was done for, and he knew it. Turns out this day could get worse.
“Whatever you want, you can have it. Take my car, I don’t care. Just please let me live,” Harlan yelled out in hope that maybe this shadow would spare him.
“Wow. I haven’t heard someone whine like that since I took the last pudding cup during lunch in the fifth grade,” laughed Cole Panunzio, Harlan’s best friend since they were seven years old. It was not some robber, here to take all of Harlan’s valuables and end his life; it was Cole. Harlan, not for the first time in his life, felt like a fool. Maybe he should stop watching cop shows. Then he wouldn’t let his imagination run wild with every tree branch breaking or creak he heard in his house late at night.
Harlan had met Cole during recess as they both were vying for the same swing when they were just first graders. To say that
it was a “bromance” at first sight would be completely accurate.
Cole was an absolute genius. Harlan was a relatively smart guy himself, but Cole was always the smartest person in the room, and it usually wasn’t close. This incredible intelligence was both a blessing and a curse for Cole. A blessing because school was easy for him; he could remember every single fact he heard and have a discussion with anyone about anything at any time.
It was a curse because Cole couldn’t control it, and at times, it overpowered him. He would lose sight of what was important and for days at a time lock himself in his room, unable to face the pressures of all the expectations around him. For Harlan, this was difficult to watch because Cole always wanted to go at it alone, and too often this desire just made things worse.
During the fall of their junior year of high school, the majority of their class was in full prep mode for their upcoming SATs, the stupid standardized test that only tells you how well you test and not how smart you are. But because of its importance for getting into college, students and high schools still overemphasized its importance. And it wasn’t any different at Everett High School, except all the pressure was squarely on Cole.
Everett High had never had a student obtain the perfect score of 1600 and everyone, seriously everyone, expected Cole to finally be their first. Harlan remembered thinking the pressure was stupid even then and Cole felt the exact same way, until Ms. Bridges, their AP American History teacher, changed everything about one month before they were to take the test.
“Who knows the main causes of the Civil War?” she asked while scanning the class for someone to raise their hand to volunteer. When no one did, she did what most teachers did to get an answer. She called on Cole.
“Sixteen hundred? What do you think?” Everyone in the class turned to Cole, who seemed to be oblivious to the fact that she was calling on him.
