by Lyn Cote
“You haven’t been taking your pills.”
“I have—”
Spring leaned closer. “Perhaps you’ve only been taking them every other day?”
After gazing at Spring for a moment, Tía nodded, looking ready to burst into tears.
Marco’s patience cracked. “But you have to take them every day!”
Tía’s face twisted with distress. “How can I, Marco? I need heart pills. I need diabetes pills. I have arthritis. I’m good for nothing, and medicare says Tía doesn’t live here.” The old woman jabbed her thumb at herself. “But here I am! So much for government officials. Some of them remind me of ones I left behind in Cuba forty years ago!”
Marco dropped his blood-pressure and blood-glucose kits back into his bag and snapped it shut. “Tía, I need to take you to the hospital.”
“No, no.” Her voice rose shrilly. “I can’t pay—”
“If I wait any longer, we’ll need to call an ambulance and that will cost even more money!” Marco declared in no uncertain terms.
“Maybe I just wait for the hearse to come for me.” Tía folded her plump arms over her bulky middle. “Then I won’t have to worry about how hard I worked for over thirty years, and now medicare—”
“Tía,” Lupe began, “don’t say—”
Spring stepped to Tía’s side and took her hand. “Please come now. You don’t want to make the EMTs carry you out. Just think of those steep stairs. I wouldn’t want to be carried on a stretcher down them. Do you?”
Tía studied Spring. She sighed. “No, I wouldn’t like that.”
Spring gently coaxed Tía onto her feet.
Tía glanced around. “Have you seen my cat?”
“No, do you want me to look for her?”
“He’s a he-cat, Alejandro.” Tía called the name, but no cat appeared.
“While Marco and I help you down the steps, perhaps Lupe could find Alejandro, turn off your lights and lock up.”
“Sure,” Lupe agreed.
Tía reached for an oversize black purse on the countertop. “That would be good. Lupe needs to get home and cook for her family.”
“Then, we shouldn’t keep her,” Spring said.
Amazed, Marco listened as Spring charmed the stubborn old woman into agreeing with his orders. He’d never guessed at this side of Spring.
“Should we feed Alejandro?” Spring held Tía’s hand in both of hers, as the old woman lumbered through her apartment.
“No, I fed him just before Lupe came.” Still, she scanned the room as though looking for something.
“And he has enough water for the evening?” Spring reached over and took down a sweater from a hook beside the door.
The old woman grunted. “Gracias, I was looking for that.”
Lupe said, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Gracias, Lupita.” As the old woman leaned on Spring, she tottered the last few paces to the door.
Draping the sweater around Tía’s wide shoulders, Spring sent Marco a glance, and he hurried forward to open the door for them.
In a gentle voice, Marco cautioned, “Now, we don’t have to rush down these steps. You set the pace and I’ll follow it. Spring, would you please go down beside Tía? Then Tía can put one hand on my back, while you support her on one side.”
They obeyed him. The three of them connected by their hands made a slow, halting, procession, step by step, down the rickety stairs. The wood creaked with the combined weight of Spring and Tía on the same step. Finally at the bottom, Marco unlocked the back seat door, and Spring helped Tía sit and swing her legs inside.
Tía heaved a loud sigh. “Marco, you’ve found yourself a sweet girl.” Looking drained, she leaned her bulk back against the seat.
The old woman’s words hit a nerve. But now wasn’t the time to tell her that her assumption that Spring and he were a couple was wrong. Better for now to just to let her think what she wished.
His patient’s deteriorating condition needed all his attention. He didn’t like the lack of sweat on her brow.
“I’ll sit in the back with her,” Spring murmured. She followed him to the other side of the car and climbed in.
This accomplished, Marco drove down the length of the alley and onto busy Main Street. As he drove, he observed in the rearview mirror that Spring was taking Tía’s hand. He had never doubted that Spring was a good person, but he’d never imagined she could fit in with people so unlike her. It was a revelation to him.
She held Tía’s hand all the way to the hospital. He pulled up at the emergency doors and parked. Spring hopped out of the car without his assistance and met him at Tía’s door. With his arms under hers, he helped the old woman out of the back seat and into a wheelchair outside the door.
“Do you want me to help her inside while you park the car, or should I park the car?” Spring asked.
“My reserved space is just around the corner. I’ll park and meet you inside.” He walked briskly to the car and drove off.
By the time he entered the emergency doors, Spring had already piloted Tía to the counter and was speaking to two nurses. One held a clipboard and pen. The other gripped Tía’s wrist as she took a pulse.
He hurried to them. “Let’s get this patient on an IV drip of 0.45 normal saline. Get me a current weight, and I’ll have the insulin order for you in a second—”
The nurse with the clipboard said, “Of course, we’ll treat her immediately. But she says she has no insurance or medicare. You know we have to put down some guarantor—”
Spring leaned close to the nurse and whispered just loud enough for the nurse and him to hear, “I’m sure my aunt, Geneva Dorfman, will take care of this.”
“Oh.” The nurse’s eyes widened. “Of course, then.”
The other nurse said, “Her pulse is weak and thready.” She took the wheelchair over from Spring. “Señora, I need to weigh you, then start that IV.”
“She looks like she’s lost weight to me,” Marco observed.
“I don’t want to get weighed. I know I’m too heavy,” Tía grumbled, as the nurse pushed her away in the wheelchair.
Spring turned to him. “Is there anything else I can do?”
He held her upper arms. She’d helped this emergency call go so smoothly. He didn’t know how to thank her.
She put one hand on his and nodded. Her tender expression twisted something inside him, and a rush of emotion flowed through him. Suddenly, he wanted to kiss her. He turned abruptly away and went to his patient.
Over the next few minutes, Marco concentrated on treating and stabilizing Tía Rosita. Finally, he helped heft her onto a gurney, which would take her up to a room. He walked beside it toward the elevator.
“But, Marco, I don’t have any money for this!” Tía complained once more.
“Don’t worry.” Spring trailed along on her other side. “We’ll sort this all out in the morning.”
The old woman’s face crinkled up, ready to cry. “But—”
“Tía, you don’t have a choice.” He started to give her a good scare. “Neither of us wants the alternative. Let’s just get you on your feet—”
Spring interrupted him. “Don’t you think God is capable of providing for you?” She grasped Tía’s hand again. “You must trust in God about this. He loves you and He will see that you are taken care of.”
The panic drained away from Tía’s expression. “I’m a forgetful old woman.” She shook her head. “God has brought me through much.”
Spring squeezed the gnarled hand. “Then, don’t doubt Him now.” She quoted, “‘God is able to provide exceedingly beyond what we ask for.’ Don’t forget that. Now just rest and do what the nurses tell you to. I’ll come and visit you in the morning, and tonight I will include you in my prayers.”
Tía’s face puckered with tears of gratitude. “God bless you, señorita.”
Marco echoed this silently.
The orderly wheeled the gurney onto th
e elevator. Stepping inside, Marco took the last bit of room. “Spring, do you mind waiting here? I’ll be right down to take you home.”
“Of course. Buenas noches, Tía.” Giving a warm smile, she waved.
About ten minutes later, after clarifying his instructions, Marco found Spring chatting to two nurses near the emergency doors. The nurses looked up at him with peculiar expressions and funny little smiles. What did that mean? Did they think it odd that someone like Spring would be hanging around with him?
Looking unconcerned, Spring rose and wished them goodbye. With a polite nod to them, he escorted her to his car. “I’ll take you home now.” Taking her home had been his goal since late morning. Now he could do it, but why was his mood sliding to somber?
She glanced at her watch. “We missed dinner. Why don’t we stop at the Greek restaurant again?”
Marco heaved a long breath. He had to get her home before he did something that would betray his interest in her. She’d been so caring, so wonderful today, his feelings for her had grown way beyond what was appropriate. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m just too stressed to sit in a restaurant.”
His reply daunted Spring. She’d felt them drawing nearer to each other, and his words made her feel as if she’d been pushed away. Forcing herself not to slip back inside her shell, Spring considered how Doree or even Hannah would handle this. She stiffened her resolve and suggested, “Why don’t we go to your place and order in?”
Entering Marco’s town house, Spring looked around at the stark interior. It’s nearly empty!
He must have read her mind because he explained, “I haven’t had the time…or the inclination to decorate.”
Her mother always said single men only “camp out” in a place. It took a woman to make a home. Spring said with a positive lilt, “You have a good amount of space to work with.”
Scanning the layout of the first floor with its narrow entry hall, great room and small eat-in kitchen, she tried to imagine it with furniture. She walked to a lawn chair that sat facing out the sliding glass doors to the darkened backyard. “I should come over and place some pots of flowers around the patio for you. At least you’d have something cheerful to look at when you got home at night.”
Marco didn’t know how to reply. He’d never brought anyone to his apartment. How had she gotten him to bring her here? The answer came to him, but wasn’t what he wanted to hear. After spending all day and into the evening with her, he’d been loath to take her home. Spring’s cheerful presence exerted a power over him that had grown and strengthened, just as he had feared. Her sensitivity had been so helpful, so unanticipated. She even made his forlorn town house look better, just standing in it. He no longer wanted to take her home.
“Tía will be all right, won’t she?”
Grateful for this safe subject, he nodded. “She should be. She’ll have to be in the hospital a few days, so I can get her blood-sugar levels stabilized. How did you guess she had been taking only one pill every other day.”
Spring sighed. “It’s the kind of thing people of her generation do. They don’t understand how not taking medicine correctly will affect their medical condition, and they think they will save money. But in Tía’s situation, she had an understandable motive—her frustration over her medicare glitch.”
She moved closer to the sliding glass doors, gazing out at the pools of light illuminating the path between the town houses. He couldn’t take his eyes from her.
She glanced back at him and smiled. “But my father had to deal with older parishioners, some who had plenty of money and medicare, and they still couldn’t bring themselves to spend the co-payment for their medication. Father explained to me that it wasn’t just surviving the Depression.”
“What is it, then?” he asked.
“The seniors of today were raised at a time when doctors had few effective drugs available. I mean, sixty years ago penicillin was just in its infancy. In our grandparents’ youth, medicine was more of an art than a science. It’s our generation that expects medical miracles and sues if we don’t get them!”
“I’d never thought of it that way.” And it was true. Her explanation made some frustrating conversations he’d had with older patients comprehensible.
She grinned at him. “I’m hungry. What should we order?”
Shouldn’t he suggest they go to a decent restaurant, after all? It was so hard to figure out how to handle this newly discovered Spring. “What do you want?”
“I’ve been longing for pizza!” She spun around and faced him. “My aunt’s only failing is that she doesn’t like pizza. Again, ordering pizza wasn’t an option when Aunty was growing up.”
“Pizza, it is, then. How about Antonio’s on Canal Street?” He opened the Yellow Pages. “What do you like on your pizza?” This seemed a surreal conversation. Ordering pizza with Spring Kirkland in his unfurnished town house. What did she think of that?
“What do you prefer?”
“The works,” he said firmly.
“Just the way I like it, too.” She lowered herself gracefully into one of the lawn chairs.
Sitting down on a nearby lawn chair, he handed her the phone and let her give the order. He felt himself grinning but couldn’t stop himself.
When she was done, she smiled back at him.
He swallowed a huge, dry lump in his throat.
Spring ran her fingers lightly through her hair. “We’ve had quite a busy day.”
To say the least! He wondered if her hair would feel as soft as he imagined. “I’m sorry to take up your—”
“I didn’t mind. I needed a day away from Matilde and Aunty. I love them both, but having two mother hens clucking around me all day for several weeks…” She gave an exaggerated shrug.
“Well, you’ll be going home soon, won’t you?” The words clouded his mood and rang an alarm inside him. Spring is only here on a visit. Get used to it.
“I don’t know.” She frowned. “I know you’re not supposed to give out information about patients.” She glanced at him. “But I’m concerned for my aunt. How serious is her condition?”
Rising, he turned his gaze to the night, which had closed in around them. “You’re right. I can’t tell you that unless she’s given you medical power of attorney.”
She nodded. “I won’t press you, then.”
“Why did you say your aunt would take care of Tía’s medical care?”
She looked surprised, as though he shouldn’t have to ask this. “She’s done that on and off over the years, both here and up north. Often, my father or mother would call her and she would send a check to our church benevolence fund, which would then pay for needed medical attention for some person without insurance.”
“I never knew.” Though he should have guessed. After all, the generosity of the members of Golden Sands had benefited him. It was a debt of honor he’d never be able to repay.
“Oh, Aunt Geneva has a big heart. You know she paid for all my operations.”
“Operations?” This startled him, and he turned to her.
“Yes, I was born with a clubfoot.” She motioned toward her trim ankles. “Aunty paid for all the operations so I could walk. I forget how many surgeries I had before I was five. But it took many years before I was able to walk into a hospital without experiencing real panic.”
He tried to process this. He’d never thought of Spring as a person born with a serious handicap. It didn’t fit her. “Your parents didn’t have health insurance?”
“Of course, they had some, but my operations were so costly we had to have help. I told you that you didn’t really understand my family. The fact Aunt Geneva is wealthy has nothing to do with the rest of us.”
He took a step closer as he tried to adjust his thinking.
She moved toward him. “Then, just when I got done with all my operations, I came down with asthma. Since I have the type of asthma that is worse in cold weather, I spent several winters here with Aunt Geneva and
Uncle Howie. Fortunately, I outgrew it, but that’s why Aunt Geneva and I are so close. She has been a second grandmother to me. And, of course, Matilde is like an aunt to me.”
Her nearness worked on him like mesmerism. “So your family isn’t wealthy?”
She chuckled. “You’re a slow learner, Doctor. Now do you understand the kind of family I came from? It probably isn’t very much different from your family.”
This he did not believe, but he didn’t say so. The fragrance of gardenias drew him to her. She glowed like burnished copper in the low light. He couldn’t stop himself. He took another step closer to her.
“Isn’t there a free clinic here?”
Spring’s out-of-the-blue question rendered him speechless.
“Is something wrong?” She leaned nearer.
“Why would you ask that?” He had trouble getting the words out.
“Because after what happened with Tía Rosita tonight, I think there should be one. Would you talk to some other doctors about starting one? Often if several health-care professionals band together in an area, they can get one off the ground. It has a positive effect on a community.”
Her question had sliced his chest open and bared his heart. He could barely speak. “That’s been my dream.”
She stood right next to him. He stared at her rich golden-brown lashes. She was close enough to kiss. He tilted his head.
She gazed at him. “Really?”
The pizza delivery boy chose that moment to knock on the door. Marco turned, putting aside the chaos Spring’s nearness and her innocent question had unleashed. A few minutes passed while the transaction—money exchanged for pizza and soft drinks—took place.
“Mmm. This smells delicious. I’ve been so hungry today! Usually I have very little appetite.” Spring surprised him by carrying the pizza out onto the patio. “Bring out the chairs. Let’s eat al fresco.”
Still bemused by her presence, he carried out the chairs, and they sat down in the dim light and popped open their soda cans. Spring lifted a huge slice of pizza loaded with everything on it, smiled at him, then took her first bite.
Entranced, he followed suit. The pizza woke his empty stomach with a jolt—just as Spring had charmed his stressful day. Spring, you are more wonderful than I knew or ever guessed. He couldn’t say anything at first. He could only chew and gaze at the beautiful and sensitive woman in the shadows beside him.
