by Jaime Maddox
Abby motioned for the surgeon to step aside and speak to her privately. It was time to be the CEO. “Tell me what I’m looking at, Dave. A month? Two?”
He ran a hand across a stubbly chin. “Months, Abby. Three, at least, just to recover from the surgery. Then, there’s the infection, the weight loss, the weakness. And at some point, I’m sure he’ll want that colostomy reversed. That’s another three months. Honestly, at his age, this might be the beginning of his retirement.”
A thousand curse words came to mind, but they stayed put. “Happy New Year,” she said as he turned and walked away.
“Now what the fuck do I do?” she asked the snow that had begun to fall outside the window. Not surprisingly, the snow didn’t answer.
Chapter Four
Anxiety Attack
“Jess, it’s time for us to go home.”
Ward had been waiting for her, on the couch of the old Victorian they’d rented, an opened, unread book in her lap. She had spent her afternoon defrosting in front of the fire after Zeke abruptly ended their day. Contemplating his demands had consumed her thoughts and left little time for relaxing. He definitely wanted Ward out of the picture, freeing Jess to pursue a relationship with a man. They couldn’t stay in Garden under such circumstances.
To say that she was surprised about Zeke was an understatement. After all their time together in the six years of her relationship with Jess, and in spite of all she’d done for Zeke and his late wife in the months leading up to her death, he still didn’t accept her as Jess’s spouse. He wanted a heterosexual daughter and saw Ward as the obstacle preventing that. If the moments they’d shared in the years leading up to this day hadn’t convinced him of her place in Jess’s life, Ward was sure nothing could.
At the sound of the garage door opening, she bounced up and met Jess at the door, taking her briefcase from her as she spoke.
“What? Why?”
“It’s time, honey. We’ve been here almost five months. It’s time to go home. We have a life, we have a house, we have friends. Let’s go back to Philly.”
Jess ran fingers through her shoulder-length red hair and shook her head, shrugging at the same time. “I thought you liked it here!”
Ward couldn’t argue that point. She did like it in Garden. The people were real, and kind, and had manners, from the cashier at the grocery store to the waitress at the diner. Everyone knew each other, and everyone cared for their neighbor, even the ones they didn’t like. Over the years she and Jess had been visiting, she’d come to enjoy the country and the land, kayaking on the lake and hiking in the hills, breaking up the monotony with an occasional round of golf. Living here had caused her to fall in love with the place, and until this day, she could have envisioned growing old here.
Even the medicine was more challenging than she could ever have imagined. After spending a decade with instant access to specialists and imaging studies, she was now forced to be better—to be the best. Because, most often, she was it. She had no consultant to call when a patient was crashing. The scalpels and the tubes were in her hands, and it was a new and exhilarating feeling.
Truthfully, before her trip to the lake with Zeke, if Jess had asked her to sell their Philly home and make this their residence, she would have agreed. The Victorian was for sale, and they could buy it for a song, fully furnished, because the son of the late owner wasn’t the least bit interested in anything once owned by his mother.
That was yesterday. Today, she knew the truth about Zeke, about how he really felt, and she would spend the rest of her days—or his—looking over her shoulder, wondering what he would do to undermine their relationship. Wondering where his gun was pointing. And that was no way to live.
“It’s not that I don’t like it, Jess. Garden’s a nice place. It’s just…your dad wants me to leave, so you can marry Emory Paldrane. He wants you to put an end to your lez bean phase and settle down and have some babies.”
Ward saw the pulse beating in Jess’s neck, saw her swallow. “Ward, stop! He’s just worried about me.”
“Stop? Stop what? He told me to leave, so you can be free. He thinks I’m holding you down. I don’t feel comfortable with that, Jess. I don’t want to stay here anymore!”
“Well, I do! This is my home, and I like it here. Why should I leave just because you want to? Why do you get to decide where we live?”
“Jess, we live in Philly. I didn’t decide that. We did. We worked there, we met there, we bought a house there. We live there. And it’s time to go home.”
“I don’t want to go back, Ward. I want to stay in Garden.”
Ward suddenly felt as if the room was spinning, and she walked into the kitchen. “I need a drink,” she said, and poured herself a Ketel and tonic while Jess stood silently watching. Ward carried it back into the living room and sat on the couch, her drink in her right hand as she ran her left through her hair. She’d taken a bubble bath—mostly to warm up after her day out of doors—but the troubling memories of her conversation with Zeke hadn’t allowed her to relax. The conversation with Jess wasn’t helping to improve her state of mind.
Sipping her drink, she studied Jess. When she’d talked to Zeke that morning, she’d had no question about Jess or her loyalties. Doubts were beginning to creep in now, though, and she gulped the crisp drink and swallowed. Ward met Jess’s eyes, forcing down the bitter question forming on the tip of her tongue. Could Jess be straight? Did she want to date men? The thought was so at odds with everything she knew about her, but Zeke’s words, and Jess’s actions, forced Ward to ask. “Jess, do you want to date Emory?”
Jess shrugged in response instead of answering the question, and Ward’s hand began to shake so badly she could hardly bring the glass back to her mouth.
Focusing on the drink in Ward’s hand, instead of their issue, Jess went on the attack. It was a typical strategy for her lately. Attack instead of defend. Argue instead of debate. “Oh, that’ll solve everything, Ward. Why don’t you have another drink?”
“Jess, tell me the truth. Do you want me to leave? Do you want to be with Emory?” Ward could hardly believe she was asking such a ludicrous question. Yet Jess’s body language, and each passing second, lent it more credence.
After endless moments of silence, Jess sighed. “I don’t know, Ward. I don’t know what I want.”
Ward poured another drink.
Chapter Five
Adverse Reaction
In the typical fashion, patients began to pile into the ER as the change of shift approached. Ward glanced at the clock and then at the stack of charts of patients waiting for her services. Only half an hour left on her shift, and five patients to see. Oh, well. Jess was relieving her, and Ward would gladly stay late to help her clear out the mess. Jess was why she was here. Why go home to an empty house when she could stay and sneak an occasional peek at the woman she loved? Even if that woman was acting a bit strange, Ward still loved her.
They hadn’t said much else the night before, and when Ward had reached for Jess, for the comfort of her arms, Jess chastely kissed her and rolled away. Ward’s night had been sleepless, but in the morning, things had seemed brighter. Jess could have slept in but instead rolled from their bed and made coffee before Ward left for her shift, even packed some snacks to help her make it through twelve hours in the ER. It was the kiss good-bye, though, that had gotten her through the day, and the smile she knew she’d soon see that pushed her to see the next patient.
Taking the top chart from the rack, Ward headed into exam room five to evaluate the man who’d come in for wrist pain.
“Hi, there,” she said. “I’m Dr. Thrasher. Are you Mr. Billings?”
“Well, if you insist that I call you doctor, I insist you call me Tom.”
Ward chuckled. “You got it. What’s going on with your wrist, Tom?”
Tom looked to be in his fifties, and a glance at his chart confirmed that he was, but his mop of unruly hair and the twinkle in his eyes made him seem much
younger. He grinned. “I kinda rolled my quad,” he confessed.
“What?” Ward asked, instantly alarmed. Six-hundred-pound ATVs on top of two-hundred-pound men often proved to be hazardous, causing a variety of life-threatening injuries. He seemed to understand her alarm and made an effort to reassure her.
“I jumped clear of it, Doc. Just landed on my wrist when I fell.”
“Well, that’s a good thing. I’ve seen quads cause too many injuries to count.” In just a few months in the country, Ward had witnessed two fatalities, one irreversible spinal-cord injury, and a host of broken bones. They were dangerous machines, and she wished there weren’t so many of them roaming the woods around Garden.
“Something’s gonna kill me eventually, Doc. If it’s not a beautiful woman, or her husband, it might as well be a powerful machine.”
Ward couldn’t help but laugh again. “Can I check you out, anyway? Just for my own peace of mind?”
Reluctantly, he agreed, and Ward went over him from head to toe. He seemed fortunate to have escaped a near-catastrophe with just a wrist injury. It was badly deformed and Ward suspected a fracture. “Did they x-ray it yet?” she asked.
When he nodded, Ward pulled it up on the computer screen on the exam room’s wall and showed him the crushed bone fragments in his wrist. They continued to chat as she numbed his wrist, tugged on it to realign the bone, and applied a splint to hold the pieces in place. While she worked, he kept her laughing with stories and jokes.
“Where do you ride?” she asked.
“It’s getting harder to find places. Mostly, my buddies and I just keep to Towering Pines. Didn’t I see you up there last fall?”
Of course, in this small town in the center of this small county where she was dating the sheriff’s daughter, everyone knew who she was and where she’d been. His question was a formality.
“Oh, was that you the day Jess and I were kayaking?”
“Yep, that was the day. Must have been a weekend. A bunch of us go out every weekend.”
As Ward recalled, it was quite a large group, and they’d been an impressive sight as they came out of the woods, one after another, spreading out as they reached the flat lands near the lake, then disappearing into the woods on the other side. Ward told him her thoughts.
“Let me give you my number,” he offered. “In case you ever wanna go out ridin’.”
He must have sensed her hesitancy. “Your reputation’s safe with me, Doc. Marla and I have been happily married for almost forty years.”
“All right, then,” Ward agreed, just to keep the peace. She entered his number into her smart phone and saved it as Quad Tom Billings. One day, when she was scrolling through her contacts, she could laugh as she recalled her encounter with this funny man.
After escorting him to the discharge area, Ward walked back to the nurses’ station and smiled with delight as she saw Jess putting orders into the computer. “Hello, gorgeous,” she said, and she thought that, perhaps, the corners of Jess’s mouth turned up in a smile.
“How was your shift?” Jess asked. “Busy, huh?”
It wasn’t a particularly busy day, but a few time-consuming patients had slowed her down. One needed a spinal tap, and she’d had to sedate another to reduce a dislocated shoulder. The most harrowing part of her day hadn’t been playing the part of doctor but that of daughter-in-law. Zeke had stopped in to visit her and inquired about her discussion with Jess. He was none too pleased to learn she hadn’t yet started packing.
Ward needed to sit down with Jess and talk about this, really talk, because she feared it would only get worse. Maybe Zeke was suffering some kind of psychosis induced by his wife’s death. Or perhaps it was early dementia. Whatever the diagnosis, something had to be done. Ward didn’t feel comfortable with the sudden pressure he was putting on her, and for whatever reason, Jess didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned. She’d said she didn’t know what she wanted! What did that even mean?
Yes, they needed to talk. About Zeke. About their future. Ward was on the schedule for the next two days, and Jess was on her first of three consecutive nights, and then they’d have a few days off. Together. “Why don’t we go to Philly when we’re off?” she suggested.
Jess didn’t even bother to look up. “I can’t. I have meetings, and then I have a GYN appointment.”
“What?” Ward asked, confused. Why would Jess schedule her appointment here, instead of with her doctor in Philly?
“It’s just easier to do it here,” she said.
“Oh. Okay. So any chance you can reschedule that, and we can do something together?”
Now Jess did look up, and Ward wished she saw something in her eyes to give her reassurance. A little laughter, or warmth, or love. All she saw was irritation and impatience, as if the answer was obvious, or she’d explained it a hundred times already and wasn’t in the mood to do it again. “No, Ward. I can’t.”
“Do you want to tell me what the problem is? Or should I just start guessing?”
Jess looked around to assure herself that no one was listening. “Now isn’t the time.”
Grabbing the chart on the desk, Jess picked it up and walked away. Ward followed with her eyes, wondering what the hell was going on, because, until the day before, she hadn’t even suspected there was a problem.
A few patients later, Ward said good-bye to the staff and left for the night. Jess didn’t seem to care that she was leaving, and her attitude truly bewildered Ward. They’d never had a problem in their relationship—nothing major, anyway. They were happy. They liked the same food and movies, enjoyed their friends, and were good company for each other. Yeah, their sex life wasn’t what it once was, but Ward figured that was because of Jess’s stress level. The year of her mom’s illness had been a bad one for her. They’d get it back though, as soon as Jess felt better.
It was just after eight, and instead of pointing her SUV toward home, she drove to the local pub. They grilled a great burger, and it was often a stop-off for her on the way home from work when Jess was at the hospital. It was a small place, with a friendly bartender and a cozy fire blazing in the corner fireplace.
“You’re late,” George, the bartender, said as she hung her coat on the stool at the bar.
“What?” she asked, puzzled.
“You usually get her by seven thirty or so. It’s after eight. I didn’t think you were coming.”
“What made you think I was coming at all?”
“Well, you usually eat here when Jess’s working the night shift, don’t you?”
She pursed her lips. “If you know so much, smarty, I don’t have to tell you what I want.”
George smiled as he pulled a clean glass from the dishwasher tray. “Your burger’s already on the grill.” He handed her a beer, and as she took a sip, a man screamed from the doorway.
“Call an ambulance!” he said.
Ward was on her feet instantly, running toward the door and whoever needed her.
*
Emory Paldrane wasted no time. He still wasn’t entirely sure if he liked this idea, and he was absolutely sure it was illegal, but the sheriff wouldn’t allow him to get into trouble. After all, it was Zeke’s idea.
As soon as Ward and George headed for the front door, where his brothers Elliot and Edmund were causing a racket, he bolted from the bathroom and headed toward the bar. He might have had misgivings, but they weren’t going to slow him down enough to get caught in the act.
He was able to calm himself with the knowledge that he was doing the right thing. It was a good deed, even if the way he went about it wasn’t. Jess was unhappy with Ward Thrasher, and he could make her happy. Emory remembered the way she’d looked on the night of their junior prom, so beautiful in a blue dress that matched her eyes, carrying the roses he’d bought for her with his grass-cutting money. She’d been happy back then, on that one and only date they shared. She’d told her parents she was a lesbian, and she’d been living with Ward down in Philadelphia, b
ut didn’t the fact that she was back here in Garden say something about that? She was unhappy, and he was going to help Zeke make her happy again.
Emory had been successful in his landscaping business, so he’d be able to provide for Jess. She’d want to give up her career once they began having children. His home was almost paid for, and he owned both a pickup truck and a car, all paid for with the profits of the company. Two crews worked for him, cutting grass and landscaping in the summers and plowing snow in the winter, and he was so respected in the county that he was on the commissioners’ advisory board.
With the thought of Jess’s smiling face in the back of his mind, he poured the powdery substance into Ward’s drink and then followed her out the door.
*
Ward shook her head in disbelief as she sat back down at the bar. A man had passed out in the snow and after regaining consciousness refused to go to the hospital. The episode might have meant nothing, but it could also have been a harbinger of something ominous. Without further testing, she couldn’t tell what was happening, but she had been unsuccessful in her attempts to persuade him.
“I’ll check on that burger,” George said, and as he headed through the swinging doors leading to the kitchen, Ward tilted her glass back and swallowed a mouthful of beer.
A minute later he returned and, glancing at her near-empty glass, offered her a refill as he placed her plate of food before her. “Just some water, George. I have to drive home.” She didn’t say anything to him, but she suddenly didn’t feel well. Her peripheral vision was becoming blurry, and she had difficulty focusing as she squeezed ketchup onto her burger and fries. Perhaps the food would fix her problem. She was plagued by the occasional migraine, and skipping dinner could certainly trigger one. Not to mention the stress she was under with Jess. The weird things happening with her eyes certainly seemed like a migraine, and the sooner she ate and went home to bed, the better off she’d be.
