by Judy Baer
I eyeballed him. “He doesn’t look all that happy.”
“He’s the new nursing supervisor.”
“No kidding? That’s a big deal. Now you are in charge of making the nursing schedule.”
“And interviewing applicants for Nurses’ Services. He’ll be the one checking up on the nurses’ work, too.”
“Administration and paperwork,” Tony grumbled. “It will cut down my opportunities for direct nursing care.”
“There must be a pay raise in it for you,” I pointed out.
“And he has Wanda to thank for it.” Lissy looked particularly amused by this.
“She put in a good word for you?” I dealt out paper plates and dug in a drawer for napkins.
“Let’s just say she motivated him to success.” Lissy opened the pizza box and took the first slice.
“I know I haven’t been around Bradshaw Medical for a few days but things must be changing rapidly.”
Tony slumped lower in his chair and stared gloomily at a sliced olive lying on the table.
“He was so busy avoiding her that several patients commented to the administrator how attentive he was. He quit taking breaks so as not to be caught in the lunchroom with Wanda. With all the extra time on his hands, he turned into über-nurse. By trying to hide from her, he made himself stand out from everyone else. Hence—” Lissy gave a little curtsy “—he’s the new nursing supervisor.”
“What’s so bad about that?” I gave Hildy a bit of crust from my plate as she sat on the floor next to me. Her style of begging is to sit at my feet and look emaciated. That’s a difficult stunt for an eighty-five-pound dog, but somehow she manages it.
Tony sank deeper in his chair. “Now I’m going to have regular office hours and she will know where I am at all times. And I’ll have to oversee her work as her supervisor. I’ll never be able to get away. I’m trapped.”
“She’s a professional. She won’t monopolize your time.”
“No? She will be waiting outside my office door to pounce every time I leave the office.”
“I’m sorry you are so cute and charming, Tony,” I said. “Because you are my friend I wish you were short, stooped and balding.”
“And had a lisp and a twitch,” Lissy added helpfully.
“But no such luck. You’ll just have to deal with it.”
“You’ve heard me say it before. ‘Love sought is good, but giv’n unsought is better,’” Tony quoted. “Why can’t Wanda figure that out?”
“You mean that if Wanda waited for you to give her your love, it would be more meaningful?”
“That would be a long wait,” Lissy rejoined. “Probably until the end of time.”
“Let’s say grace,” I said as I put a slice of Canadian bacon, pineapple and pepperoni on my plate.
After two slices of pizza, I licked my fingers and studied Tony. “Scripture says we’re supposed to give thanks in all circumstances. There must be something good about your promotion.”
“He’ll be privy to Dr. Reynolds’s thoughts about you,” Lissy pointed out.
No wonder Tony is depressed.
I’m ambivalent about the good doctor and he’s even more unsure about me.
“How’s your sister?” I asked as I cut into the cake.
“I tried to tell her what you said about the train set but she wouldn’t have any of it. She doesn’t listen to anyone these days. It takes time away from her obsession with getting pregnant.”
“Hope deferred isn’t necessarily a denial of what we want. It can be a postponement.”
“Try telling her that,” he groused.
“I know another benefit of Tony’s new position,” Lissy said, attempting to change the subject. She had a bit of chocolate ice cream on her chin, which Tony leaned forward to wipe away.
“And that is?”
“He heard at a meeting that someone wants to make a documentary at Bradshaw!”
I leaned forward, feeling sick in the pit of my stomach. “What documentary?”
“I don’t know much about it.” Tony shrugged. “Just that some team of moviemakers wants to film a documentary in the hospital.”
“Do you know what the documentary is about?”
“Yeah, what is so interesting at Bradshaw over any other hospital?” Lissy asked. “Bradshaw is small. How’d they even find out about the place?”
Say it isn’t so. Say it isn’t so!
“I didn’t get the whole story,” Tony said absently, absorbed, as usual, with his food, “but it sounds like someone invited them to Bradshaw.”
It can’t be.
“Weird,” Lissy concluded and dismissed the topic. “I have to go home, guys. Tony, you drove. Are you ready?”
I saw them to the door and waved cheerfully as they backed out of the driveway. Then I shut the door, leaned against it and sank to the floor. Hildy came over to lick my face.
I was in trouble now, more trouble than for anything I might have done in a birthing room. I’d opened a Pandora’s box that was going to cause an unimaginable amount of turmoil.
Chapter Twenty-One
Don’t invite trouble.
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
Pretend it isn’t there and maybe it will just go away.
I recall playing hide-and-seek with Caboose when he was only two years old. Instead of actually hiding, he would stand right where he was and cover his eyes. His logic was that if he couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see him, either. Right now, it’s the only game I can think of to play.
A documentary being done at Bradshaw Medical. What foolhardy soul would invite someone to do that?
Someone with more enthusiasm than common sense, more passion than practicality and more zeal than prudence. In a word, me.
I’d started the snowball rolling months ago, long before Clay was a blip on Bradshaw’s screen. It hadn’t been much of a snowball, either, just a note to a small production company that had done some of the videos used in birthing classes. Feeling clever, I’d whipped up a brief letter and sent it to the name and address of the production company from the backside of the video’s box.
To whom it may concern,
I am a birthing coach (doula) who recommends your videos to my clients. Doulas, professional birth assistants, support not only the laboring mother but also the father and hospital staff. The origins of this tradition are thousands of years old yet it is relevant and contemporary for today’s world. I thought you might be interested to know that statistically, women who are attended through labor have shorter labors, use less pain-relief medication and have fewer Cesareans. I attend women from early labor to delivery and am a support partner, freeing the parents-to-be to focus on the birth of their child. I thought you might be interested…
I’d never heard a word from the company and had assumed it ended up in the round file at the base of their desk—just more garbage. Until now.
Just the idea of a video informing the public about doulas would make Clay apoplectic. If the hospital board wanted to use Bradshaw for the taping, Clay would have to be put in restraints to keep from bodily chasing the production crew off the premises.
How was I to know back then that someone as rigid as Clay would become the voice of Bradshaw? It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.
I grabbed Hildy and buried my nose in her fur. “Oh, Hildy, girl, I’m going to be in big trouble if Clay ever gets wind of this and discovers I’m behind it. What was I thinking?”
Hildy put her big paw on my knee and whined sympathetically.
“I’ll just act dumb. I’ll never bring it up. No one at Bradshaw would agree to it anyway.” I’d seen how carefully everyone listened to Clay’s opinions. He’d probably never even hear about it. Nothing to worry about, I told myself as I headed for bed. No use wasting sleep over this. A request like this would get lost in administrative paperwork. It was purely an accident that Tony even heard the gossip.
By the time I went to bed, I’d convinc
ed myself this was an insignificant blip on my radar screen.
In reality, I should have been worrying. Or looking for a new state in which to live.
“Candy?” Mattie B. Olson offered me a large box of Godiva chocolates as we sat together in her room at River’s View with Hildy at her side.
I took a chocolate hazelnut truffle. “Where did you get a box of candy like this? It’s enormous.”
“I’m one of the lucky ones in here,” Mattie said. “My family is very attentive. Unlike some of the residents who are alone, I have people who stop by often—and bring me fattening gifts.” She patted her stomach. “Even though they know I want to keep my girlish figure.”
“Are you hinting that we should go visit someone more in need than you?” I teased gently. We’d already made the rounds, Hildy and I, and we’d saved Mattie for the last.
“I certainly am not!” She smiled at me and her blue eyes danced with light and youth that belied her age. “Fortunately, one of my nephews is a gerontologist and he has educated the family on how important it is to ‘keep me in the loop,’ so to speak.”
“Even if your nephew were a mechanic, everyone would keep you in the loop. I’m sure you are a delight at a party.”
“Sadly, I am known as the party girl in my family. When surrounded with a bunch of somber surgeons trying to save the world, anything is better than a discussion of the benefits of laparoscopy versus standard surgery. Even in my father’s days of practicing medicine, he and my brothers would have conversations as interesting as watching paint dry.”
Mattie looked at me with amusement, her face, though lined, still beautiful.
“Your family isn’t like that, is it, Molly?”
“Mine? No. Compared to yours we look like a three-ring circus complete with a dozen clowns. Which reminds me…”
“Yes?” Mattie leaned forward, curiosity in her expression.
“We’re having a party next weekend. A Cassidy bash. That means every relative within traveling distance will be there. The in-laws, the out-laws and everybody in between. After a bash one year, it took us two weeks to sort out that a stranger had wandered in, eaten dinner, partied with us and wandered out again. Each of us assumed he’d come with someone else.”
“Oh, my.” Mattie looked delighted. “Tell me all about it.”
“The bashes pretty much happen on their own now. Someone puts out the word that there’s going to be one and the rest of the family burns up the phone lines telling everyone else. Since it’s at my parents’ house this time, Mom’s in charge of the food. Dad cleans the garage and the basement because we need the extra room. Liam and Caboose are always in charge of setting up the backyard for the kids—horseshoes, badminton, a full sandbox—and cleaning our old playhouse.
“My uncle Kenny is a musician so he gets together a little family band. Anyone can play. If someone doesn’t have an instrument, Mom hands them a pair of spoons. Staying in tune has no special merit in Cassidy music. It’s all about the noise and the fun. We eat, tell wild stories, sing and generally carry on like fools into the wee hours of the morning. My uncle Matt retreats to the corner to sing ‘My Wild Irish Rose’ to Hildy, who is the only one who will listen. Then we hug, kiss, promise to do this again soon and say goodbye. My family spends the next week recovering and cleaning up the mess. Then someone gets the bright idea to do it all over again.”
“Mercy, me!” Mattie clapped her hands. “It sounds wonderful! I wish I could give an infusion of your family’s energy into mine.”
“You’re welcome to come to our party, Mattie. I’d come and get you if you like.”
She put her hand over mine, and I saw tears flooding her eyes. “Just being asked is enough, my dear girl. I’m not up to so much fun, I’m afraid. It would be a shock to my system, but thank you for being so generous.”
I leaned forward and kissed her white head. “Whenever you’re ready, Mattie, let me know. We’ll have a bash just for you.”
I thought about my elderly friend all the way to my place. When I arrived, my door was open and Lissy had made herself at home inside.
“What’s your ideal man like, Molly?” Lissy was curled into the corner of my couch eating coffee ice cream directly from a pint-size cardboard carton. She waved her teaspoon in the direction of the magazine lying open next to her. “This article says that if you don’t share the same values as the man you love, you will have a difficult time making it as a couple.”
“I agree with that.” I picked up the magazine and looked at the long list of values to choose from: honesty, integrity, success, fortune, ambition, loyalty, perfection, faith, family, career, love, safety, fame, power, nature, beauty, service, compassion… The list seemed endless, all the things someone might hold dear.
Long as it was, I knew immediately what my choices would be. “Faith, family, service and stewardship.” I glanced at Geri, who was plopped in front of the television seeming to watch a rerun of Green Acres. “Stewardship of the earth and the animals God gave us.”
“Then those are the things you should look for in a partner—someone who believes as you do, thinks family is a priority and is nuts about weird animals.”
As Lissy said it, I imagined a series of zookeepers knocking on my door, all hoping to make a match with me.
“Tony is all about food and family, faith and education and the poetry. Until he finds a woman who has his values, he’s not going to be happy,” I commented. “What are your values, Lissy?”
She stared at the ceiling, thinking hard. “Family is a big one. I’ve missed mine terribly since I moved here from Denver. Faith goes without saying. Something I value but don’t get enough of is beauty—design, art, music, those kinds of things.”
“I didn’t realize…”
“You wouldn’t. I used to play the guitar and do ink and charcoal sketches, but there’s no time anymore.” She sounded wistful. “I’ve made a lot of poor choices in men. Maybe if I’d looked at their values first, I wouldn’t have had so many disappointments. Unfortunately I have an internal clock of my own ticking away, reminding that I’d better get busy or I might not find someone to love.”
A question skittered into my mind. What were Clay Reynolds’s values? I could guess—father-hood, healing, new life, success, achievement, safety. The things he held dear all coalesced in the birthing room.
“You have an odd look on your face,” Lissy observed. “What’s that about?”
“Nothing important.” I bounced to my feet. “Want to watch a movie? There wasn’t much left to choose from at the video store so I got a comedy. Slapstick always cheers me up.”
“I didn’t know you needed cheering.”
“I don’t, but there’s nothing like preventive medicine.”
I was glad Lissy turned toward the television set and away from me. A realization had hit me like a sledgehammer during my conversation with Lissy. It’s no wonder that Clay and I can’t get along at the hospital. I bring to the table everything his values are not. I’m messy, impulsive, touchy-feely and impetuous—perilous things to a man of science.
Then again, it doesn’t really matter. There are plenty of hospitals and plenty of men out there. I don’t have to care what Clay Reynolds thinks.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Shades of Tony.
I tiptoed down the hall of Bradshaw Medical at one o’clock in the afternoon, hoping to make myself invisible. It wasn’t Wanda that I was hiding from, however, but Clay. I have to see him sooner or later, but my preference is definitely for later.
Emily Hancock had called at noon to say her labor had begun and asked me to meet her at the hospital.
“Dr. Reynolds told me I should come in right away,” Emily had said. “You know how overprotective he is. This baby won’t arrive for hours, but he wants to monitor an old woman like me more closely.”
“You aren’t an old woman. Forty is the new thirty, haven’t you heard? He’s equally cautious with everyone.”
�
��I know. It’s probably because my husband, Charles, is out of town that he wants me to come now.”
“You’re alone? I thought he’d come home from the mission trip.”
“He did. Charles had a meeting in Boston today. He’ll be home as soon as he can get a flight.”
“Why didn’t you call me? I would have come immediately.”
“Dr. Reynolds took me by surprise. I didn’t expect him to tell me to come right in, so I asked the gentleman who lives next door to drive me.”
“A neighbor? Emily, you have a much bigger support system than that.”
“My friends and mother have been so difficult. They’re all better off hearing of the baby after it’s born. I don’t want naysayers around me right now. The last thing I need to hear is ‘I told you so,’ or ‘You’re too old for this.’”
“I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
“You are a gift from God, Molly. I mean that.”
I didn’t argue with her. God gave me the skills I have for a reason, and I’m willing to use them in any way He chooses, no matter what Clay Reynolds thinks.
By the time I arrived, Emily had already checked into a deluxe birthing suite with a big-screen television, easy chairs, thick drapes and a refrigerator filled with sodas and juice for thirsty family members.
“Nice digs,” I commented as I entered. “You deserve it.”
The bright smile she’d greeted me with began to waver.
I studied her features. “Scared?”
The cheery facade weakened even further. “What if Charles doesn’t make it in time? I can’t do this by myself.”
“You don’t have to. You have a great doctor and staff. And you have me.”
She reached for my hand. “Don’t leave my side, Molly. Promise?”
“I, ah…”
“Promise!”
“Okay, but what if Dr. Reynolds doesn’t want me?”
“He’ll listen to me.” She said it with such assurance that I almost believed her.
If he does, she’s a better woman than I am.
