Line of Duty

by Terri Blackstock

Ashley quickly got up. “You go ahead. I don’t want to keep you. If my mom was in the hospital I wouldn’t want to deal with people showing up on my porch. I just wanted to come by and tell you . . .”

  Jill took her hand, and looked hard into her eyes. “I told you to call if you needed someone. I’m glad to see you, Ashley. I’ll help you any way you need.”

  Ashley struggled with her tears again, then said, “I just don’t know how to begin.”

  “Begin what?”

  “Burying my mom.” The words caught in her throat. “I don’t even know how to start. What are you supposed to do?”

  Jill couldn’t imagine the depth of the pain this girl was feeling. She remembered the shock and anguish she’d felt when her mother died thirteen years ago. Her father had taken care of everything. She couldn’t imagine being sixteen and having to do it alone.

  Jill touched her cheek. “I’ll go with you to the funeral home. Would that help?”

  “Yes.” Ashley seemed to relax. “I guess I need to go tomorrow.”

  “All right,” Jill said. “We’ll go first thing.”

  Ashley looked up at her. “Are . . . are you sure you can leave your husband?”

  Jill knew it wouldn’t be easy. “He’s in ICU, and I can only visit him every few hours. We’ll work it between visits.”

  Ashley sighed. “Okay.”

  “Meanwhile, where are you staying, sweetheart?”

  Ashley shrugged. “I don’t know. I went to my mom’s house, and she’d left the lights on and the radio playing just like she was coming right back. I couldn’t stay there. It was too hard.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “And then I went to where I’ve been staying with my boyfriend and some other people. They didn’t even know I’d been in the explosion or that my mother had died, and I just couldn’t make myself tell them.”

  “Why not, honey? You needed that support.”

  “Not from them,” she said. “Like I said, they’re idiots. They would make me feel worse. I don’t know what to do, or . . . where to go.”

  “You could stay here,” Jill said. “We have very comfortable guest rooms. It’s embarrassing, really. You can have your pick.”

  Ashley stared at her for a moment. “Really? You wouldn’t be afraid?”

  “Afraid? Why would I be afraid?”

  “Because I’m not exactly the kind of person people take into their homes . . . not without locking up their silver.”

  Jill gaped at her. “Ashley, I saw your character in that stairwell yesterday. I know what kind of person you are.”

  Ashley looked perplexed. It was as if she’d told the girl something about herself that she didn’t know. “If you’re sure.”

  “Of course I’m sure. The only thing is that I was going to sleep at the hospital tonight. You’d be here alone. On the other hand, you could stay up there with me, but I’ll be sleeping in a chair . . .”

  “No, I’ll stay here,” Ashley said. “I’m alone, anyway, whether I mind it or not. After being in that gym all night, it might be good to have the quiet.”

  “Well, it won’t be quiet for long. My mother-in-law is coming from Paris tomorrow.” She led her back to her own bedroom and started to pack the things she had come home for. “I’ve never met her before, but she’ll be staying here, too. Wish I had time to give the house a good cleaning. It’s not really company-ready, but somehow I don’t think you’ll mind.”

  Ashley managed a weak smile. “Looks great to me.”

  Jill pulled open a drawer and got the things she needed for Dan. When her bag was packed, she led Ashley into one of the guest rooms. She turned on a lamp and folded back the comforter, making the bed look a little more inviting. She had gotten Allie to help her decorate the rooms last year when she and Dan had housed some visiting missionaries who needed a place to stay. She turned back to Ashley, saw her sitting stiffly in a chair, staring vacantly at a spot on the wall.

  “Honey, do you have a church? A pastor who could do the funeral?”

  Ashley seemed to shake out of her reverie. “I grew up in church. My mom was real religious. I’m sure the pastor will do it.”

  “Would you give me the pastor’s name?” she said. “I’d like to call him and tell him about your mom. I think he could help us with the arrangements.”

  Ashley gave her the name. “But I don’t want them hounding me. I don’t have the energy for it.”

  Jill sat down at the foot of the bed and studied the girl. “Hounding you about what?”

  “About Jesus and all that. They’ll think this is some kind of opportunity, you know? Hit her while she’s down and all that.”

  Jill sat there a moment and turned that thought over in her mind. So often when someone faced a crisis, she had prayed that it would be an opportunity for them to discover the Lord. But she’d never thought of them taking it that way.

  Jill dug into her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “I don’t have much food in the house. Why don’t you go get yourself something to eat and bring it back here? Tomorrow I’ll get one of my friends to run to the grocery store for me and stock the refrigerator for you and Mrs. Nichols.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ashley said. “I’ll be fine. I just need a place to crash, that’s all.”

  Jill set down the money, hoping she’d use it later. “I feel like I’m abandoning you again.” Jill hugged her.

  “Well, you shouldn’t. You’ve got to get back to your husband. What else can you do?”

  “I could call one of my friends to come get you and you could stay with them. I have some great friends. You could stay with Allie or Susan Ford, or Aunt Aggie. Oh, she’d be perfect, and she’d love to have you.”

  “I’m not up to being with new people right now,” Ashley said. “I promise I won’t bother anything.”

  Jill touched her chin and made her look at her. “I’m not worried about you bothering anything. I just want to make sure your needs are met too, and you’re going through a really awful time. It doesn’t seem like you should be going through it alone.”

  “I have my car,” she said. “If I need anybody, I can go find someone. I really just need to sleep.”

  As Jill headed back to the hospital, she prayed that God would watch over the girl and offer her the arms she needed to fall into as she grieved her dead mother.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jill slept in an ICU waiting room recliner that night, covered with a hospital blanket. Others slept in chairs around her, all of them wanting to be no more than a moment away from their critically injured or ill loved ones. In the hours that she’d been here, she’d gotten to know many of them. Some, like her, were here because of the Icon bombing. Others had unrelated catastrophes.

  All had impending grief and precarious hope in common, and each of their lives revolved around their fifteen-minute visits every few hours.

  Morning dawned like home at the end of a dark journey. Thankful for an end to the discomfort of night, she got up and showered in the locker room–style facility they offered to families.

  There was no change in Dan when she visited him at 7:00 A.M. Feeling her hope fading, she returned to the waiting room and waited for Ashley. She dreaded leaving the hospital for any reason, least of all to plan a funeral. But she couldn’t abandon the girl now.

  Her own mother’s death loomed freshly over her again as she thought through the tasks she would walk Ashley through today.

  Jill’s mother had been forty when she had Jill, and her father even older. Her mother had died at sixty of a massive heart attack that no one had seen coming. Her father had only made it another five years before he, too, was dead. For his funeral, Jill had been the one to make all the arrangements. Just out of law school, she’d been mature enough to deal with it, but she’d still wept like a child with every decision she’d had to make.

  Ashley got to the hospital just after seven, clad in a pair of bell-bottom jeans and sandals and a wrinkled Miller Lite T-shirt. The only concession s
he’d made to the temperature drop was a hooded zip-up sweatshirt hanging open.

  The funeral home sat on a lake in a lush garden that overlooked the cemetery behind it. It seemed like such a place of peace, but Jill knew that the anguish that came into these walls each day was anything but peaceful.

  There was a run on funerals today. The waiting room was full of grieving next-of-kin, waiting like Ashley for a meeting with the director. Ashley sat rigid in a chair next to Jill, coughing intermittently, chewing gum, and staring into space. Jill looked around at the other faces. Any day now, she could be in a room just like this to plan another funeral. The latest body count was over a hundred, at least a third of them firefighters.

  The air in the room seemed hot and stagnant, as if someone had cranked up the heater to accommodate the cooler weather. Jill coughed too, still struggling with the damage the smoke had done to her lungs. She felt as if she might faint if she sat here any longer, so she got up and walked toward the door. Ashley looked up at her with dull, red, questioning eyes. Jill opened the door, letting the cool air rush her face. “It’s hot,” she said. “Just needed a little air.”

  Ashley nodded and coughed again.

  Jill gazed out at the sunny day. Christmas lights and holly decorated the lampposts in the parking lot. It looked like a day of hope. She yearned to dash out of this building and get as far from this place as she could. But then she looked back at the girl.

  Ashley looked so small sitting in that chair, like some kid who should have been left at home while her parents took care of business. It was clear she hadn’t rested last night. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and she looked so pale and thin that Jill wondered if she’d even eaten in the last two days. Her cough sounded terrible. She needed to see a doctor. Jill never should have left her alone last night. She should have insisted that she stay at the hospital with her.

  Jill closed the door and went back to her seat, patted the girl’s knee. “You okay?”

  Ashley stopped coughing but didn’t answer.

  The office door opened, and the director walked out with a weeping couple, speaking to them in a soft voice. What a horrible job, Jill thought. He seemed like a decent man. When he went home tonight, would he prop up in a recliner with a chicken potpie, or would he curl up in fetal position in some dark room?

  When he’d said a gentle good-bye to the couple, he looked their way. “Miss Morris?”

  Ashley looked up, as if not certain he was speaking to her. Jill got up, and Ashley slowly followed.

  Jill put her arm around her and walked her into the office. The room was comfortably appointed, with plush easy chairs angled toward a desk with a gentle lamp glowing, softly lighting the room. They might have been applying for a loan instead of planning a funeral.

  As the director asked Ashley questions, and she answered chewing her gum like it was a pacifier she couldn’t let go of, Jill felt a surge of love. She suspected that everyone who saw the girl made judgments about her. But God saw her raw, gaping wounds, and he loved her enough to make Jill love her, too.

  She felt very special for being chosen to care for this child.

  They set up the funeral for Friday, to be held in the funeral home’s chapel unless the church offered to host it. Ashley agreed to contact the preacher.

  “Now we need to talk about payment,” the man said.

  Ashley’s big eyes filled up, and she shot Jill a look. “I don’t have any money. I . . . can I, like, get it on credit or something?”

  Jill took her hand. “I’m a lawyer. I’ll take care of her estate and make sure that you’re paid. You have my word on it.”

  He studied Jill for a moment. “And if she doesn’t have enough money?” he asked.

  “Then I’ll pay it.” Jill handed him her card. He looked it over and found it satisfactory.

  Ashley cried softly as Jill drove back to the hospital. “I’m sorry you had to offer to pay. I know my mom had some money. She was real smart that way.”

  Jill rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. She probably had life insurance, if Icon didn’t let that lapse too.” She looked out the window. Just days ago, she had been filled with righteous indignation over her laid-off clients’ plights. It was ironic that every one of them probably counted their blessings now. Being let go may have saved their lives.

  When they reached the hospital, Jill expected Ashley to go straight to her car. Instead, she followed Jill in. Clearly, the girl didn’t want to be alone. As they went up, that pall of dread fell over Jill again as she shifted her heart from Ashley to Dan.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Jill stepped off the elevator and saw the crowd around the receptionist’s desk. Susan and Allie stood among them, and she could hear Aunt Aggie’s voice rising above them.

  “Ain’t no use creatin’ a commotion now! Dan ain’t gon’ get any better because o’ your yellin’!”

  Jill froze. Had something happened?

  Ashley touched her arm, as if she sensed it, too.

  “I have the right to see my son!” a shrill voice declared over Aunt Aggie’s admonitions. “I’ve come from Paris, and I intend to see him now.”

  Dan’s mother. Jill stepped into the crowd of her friends.

  “There now. Jill’s here, see?” Aunt Aggie cried. “Y’oughta be ashamed, raisin’ your voice like that when there are sick people up in here. I don’t care how much money you got, they oughta throw you out.”

  Clara Nichols gasped and stared at the old woman. “I will have you know—”

  “Mrs. Nichols?” Jill burst forward and got between the two of them before it came to blows. Aggie had been known to pack a wallop with her purse.

  The woman spun around to her. “What?”

  “Uh . . . I’m Jill. Dan’s wife.”

  Mrs. Nichols’ chin came up, and she gazed down her nose at her.

  Jill felt suddenly exposed, and somehow inadequate.

  Clara Nichols looked like an older version of Ivana Trump, with her hair pulled up in a smooth French twist and diamonds dangling from her ears. She looked as if she’d just come from a beauty salon or one of those ritzy spas in the south of France.

  “So you finally showed up, huh? My son is lying in there, hanging by a thread for his dear life, and you’re ... what? Sleeping late?”

  Jill felt the heat climbing her cheeks, and she opened her mouth to speak. But nothing came out.

  “Mrs. Nichols, Jill was here all night.” It was Susan, coming to her rescue again. “She just left for a little while this morning.”

  “And you think you’re so classy!” Aunt Aggie snapped. “Comin’ up here like you own the place and slappin’ around them accusations. She was out helpin’ her little friend plan her mama’s funeral. You proud o’ yourself now?”

  It was getting worse. Jill glanced back at Ashley and saw the girl staring at her feet. She put a protective arm around her shoulder. “This is my friend Ashley,” Jill managed to say. “Aunt Aggie’s right. I was helping her plan a funeral.”

  “I see.” Clara seemed to grope for the proper comeback. “All I know is that when my husband was on his deathbed, I didn’t leave the hospital for four days.”

  Jill didn’t know anything about that. Dan had told her that she hadn’t even called him until his father was already gone. She might have been there during her husband’s dying days, but she had never been there for her son. Dan hadn’t even laid eyes on her in ten years.

  But she didn’t say that now.

  “Mrs. Nichols, we’re all under a lot of stress. If you’ll just come in here and sit down, you can come in with me at the next visitation time.”

  “I have no intention of waiting until then.” Clara spun back to the nurse’s desk and pointed a vicious fingernail in the young nurse’s face. “I told you to get the administrator on the phone. I will talk to him now. I will see my son.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the girl said. “If you’ll just wait in the waiting room, I’ll have him come u
p and speak to you.”

  The woman huffed out a sigh and started toward the waiting room, her high heels clicking on the floor. Allie caught Jill’s eye and mouthed an apology. Jill shook her head as if to say it wasn’t anyone’s fault. She caught similar glances from Susan and Celia.

  It might have been funny at another time.

  She gave Ashley a concerned look, but the girl didn’t look upset. This was a fascinating diversion for her, Jill suspected.

  The crowd of friends left the seats on either side of Mrs. Nichols free. Jill had no choice but to take one. “Mrs. Nichols,” she said as she lowered next to her, “visiting time is in half an hour if you could just wait.”

  “Why should I have to wait?” she snipped. “He’s lying in there with nothing to do. It’s not like he’s in surgery. It’s barbaric keeping a dying man from his family.”

  Jill’s face tightened. “He’s not a dying man, Mrs. Nichols. Please don’t say that.”

  Clara looked disgusted at the rebuke. “So, you’re his wife.”

  Jill felt as if she’d just been insulted. “Yes, I am.”

  “The lawyer.”

  “That’s right.”

  Clara examined a long, manicured nail. “So, Jill is it? What exactly have you done for him, Jill?”

  Jill didn’t know what she meant. “I’m sorry?”

  “Have you demanded the best doctors? Looked into having him transferred? Or have you simply left it all to chance?”

  “Mrs. Nichols, he’s getting phenomenal care. This is a wonderful hospital.”

  “Just as I thought.” The tone was dismissive, and she sprang up, ending the conversation. Jill didn’t know whether to press for more or to be thankful for the reprieve.

  “What is taking that woman so long? That’s the problem with these university hospitals. They’re staffed with nothing but incompetents. You should have taken him to Oschner’s, or we could have helicoptered him to Johns Hopkins. But to leave him here is the height of negligence in my opinion—”

  Aunt Aggie burst out of her seat again. “You accusin’ my girl Jill of somethin’? If you are, you better say it straight out.”