by Cara Bristol
“Creek’s Crossing H-h-h-hospital Medical Center.” Mila’s sobs came harder.
Creek’s Crossing had an excellent cardiac care center. Or so Dana had heard. She’d find out now if that was true.
“I’ll meet you there. Take a deep breath, Mila,” Dana ordered in an even tone. She heard the girl inhale and exhale. “Again.” As much as she loathed her ex-husband’s girlfriend, she empathized with her panic; it clawed at the edges of her own composure. As young as she was, Mila didn’t have the resiliency honed by experience to handle an emergency like this.
At the thought of Mila’s youth, Dana remembered her daughter. “Did you call anyone else? Katie?” she asked.
“Just you. And 9-1-1.”
“Okay. Keep breathing. I’ll be at the hospital in a few minutes.” Dana ended the call and rang Katie’s cell. Dana swore at the sound of voice mail. Katie was probably at work and was unable to take calls, but Dana couldn’t leave a message about Roger.
“Katie, it’s important. Call me immediately. Please,” she said.
Dana buzzed her administrative assistant, delivered a brief rundown, instructed her to notify her staff and Claire, and dashed out of the office.
She beat Mila to the hospital, checked in at reception, and learned Roger had arrived moments before. Dana signed the treatment consent form and gave the hospital Roger’s insurance information. She’d just taken a seat in the waiting area when Mila ran in.
Her reddened eyes and nose appeared prominent against her ashen face, and she clutched a handful of sodden tissues. Her arms and legs jerked, and her gaze darted around the ER lobby. Dana could see wheels spinning in Mila’s head as she tried to figure out what to do.
“Mila!” Dana stood up.
The girl’s face sagged with relief, and she rushed over. “Is he okay?” Mila asked.
Having her cheating ex-husband’s bimbette seek reassurance and answers from her heightened the surrealism. “I don’t know anything yet.” Dana touched Mila’s arm. “Why don’t you sit?” she suggested before the trembling girl toppled over. How even more unreal that Dana would comfort the bimbette who’d capsized her marriage.
Mila collapsed onto a padded hospital chair, and Dana took the adjacent seat. “I just got here. I filled out the admissions paperwork. Be prepared to wait.” Behind closed doors, hospital staff might have been operating at a hare’s sprint, but to family members hovering outside, time crept slower than a lame tortoise.
“Can you tell me again what happened?” Dana spoke quietly. She didn’t want to disturb Mila’s fragile control, but she needed details.
Mila wiped her nose with the ball of soggy tissues. “He wasn’t feeling well all morning. I told him to stay home from work. I tried to get him to go to the doctor, but he wouldn’t.”
That sounded like Roger. Why were men so stubborn?
“I offered to stay home with him, but he insisted I go to work. Things got busy at the store, so it was late before I could get a break. I called him, but he said he was feeling better.”
Dana nodded and pursed her lips. Roger probably had lied through his teeth so Mila wouldn’t worry.
“B-but he d-didn’t sound good.” Mila started to cry again.
Dana extracted a packet of tissues from her handbag and pressed them into Mila’s hand. As if dealing with a child, she pinched the soggy ones between her thumb and forefinger and deposited them in a nearby trashcan, again noting the absurdity of tending to Mila.
“Thanks.” The girl sniffed when Dana returned to her seat.
“Go on,” Dana said.
“He sounded, you know, like, out of breath when I talked to him. So I grabbed a couple of garden burgers and ran home to check on him. He didn’t want to eat, and th-then he col-col-collapsed in front of me!” Tears streamed down Mila’s cheeks.
“I screamed, and I yelled his name, but he didn’t move. I thought he was dead. I called 9-1-1 and performed CPR.”
Dana almost fell out of her chair. “You know CPR?”
Mila nodded. “I worked as a lifeguard at Lake Eversome one summer during high school. I kept my CPR certification.”
Dana covered her mouth with her cupped hands and exhaled into them and reassessed Mila. The girl wasn’t such a ditz after all. She’d kept her head enough to perform CPR. Dana lowered her hands to her lap. “You saved his life.”
“I don’t know. It may not have been enough.” Mila shook her head. “I called you because I thought you’d want to know.” Mila shredded the tissue in her hands. “And because I had a feeling there might be forms and stuff that I couldn’t sign.”
Dana narrowed her eyes as she scrutinized Mila. The girl had recognized that Roger wasn’t feeling well and probably was lying about it, had come home from work to check on him, had performed CPR, then had the wherewithal to call the one person who could make medical decisions. No, not a ditz. And she cared for Roger.
For the first time, Dana got an inkling of what her ex saw in Mila. Maybe he hadn’t been doing all his thinking with his little head. If he intended Mila to be his trophy second wife, she didn’t fit the mold. The girl was cute, but her mousy brown hair was cut in a style that did not enhance her features, the best of which were her chocolate brown eyes, which were probably quite pretty when they weren’t bloodshot from crying. Mila had gained weight since Dana had last seen her when she was stuck to Roger like a limpet in the swimming pool. Mila wasn’t fat yet, but if she didn’t watch it, birthing a couple of babies would push her from pleasingly plump into unpleasantly overweight.
Dana realized she was staring and tore her gaze away. She scanned the large waiting room, occupied by a half-dozen worried-looking family members and a few patients who awaited treatment for injuries deemed non-life-threatening. A man held his right hand wrapped in a bloody towel. A young woman, her face scrunched in pain, hugged herself and rocked while her mother patted her knee and frowned with concern.
The girl didn’t appear much older than Mila or Katie. At the thought of Katie, Dana remembered she hadn’t gotten a return call yet—or hadn’t heard the ring. Dana checked her phone and found no missed calls or new messages. She speed-dialed Katie but disconnected when she got voice mail. She dropped her cell back into her purse pocket.
Ten minutes later, she jumped when her purse started playing. Heart pounding, she scrambled for the phone. Katie’s number flashed across the screen.
“Excuse me,” Dana said to Mila, flipped open her cell, and moved through the double emergency-room doors to the outside.
“What’s up?” Katie asked.
“I have some bad news.” Dana paused to allow her daughter time to prepare, not that one could in a situation like this. “Your father had a heart attack this afternoon.”
“Daddy?” Katie burst into tears. “Is he…is he—”
“He’s alive.” Dana hoped it was true. She hadn’t heard anything from anybody official since she’d arrived. “We’re at Creek’s Crossing Hospital.”
“Who’s we? You and that guy?” A hint of animosity rang out through Katie’s sobs.
“Mila and myself.”
“I’m coming down.”
“I think that would be wise. We’re in the emergency-room waiting area now; I don’t know where we’ll be when you arrive. In fact, I’d better go in case we hear something.”
Back inside, Dana plopped into the seat next to Mila again. “Katie is on her way. She straightened in the chair and inhaled, then concentrated on the exhalation, visualizing her breath moving down her spine the way she’d learned in yoga class. She wondered if anyone would notice if she slipped into the downward-facing dog. She focused on a picture of a sailboat on the opposite wall and took another cleansing, relaxing breath.
She snapped to attention with the crispness of a marine saluting when a green-scrub-suited man pushed though the emergency-room doors. Beside her, Mila stiffened as well.
“Mrs. Markus?”
She and Mila bolted out of their chairs
. Dana feared she might need some cardiac emergency treatment with the way her heart spasmed.
“I’m Doctor Aaron Beech. You’re Mrs. Markus?” He shook Dana’s hand.
“Yes.”
He glanced at Mila. “You’re Roger Markus’s daughter?” He shook her hand as well.
“She’s his girlfriend,” Dana said before Mila could respond.
The doctor blinked, but he covered his surprise with a mask of professionalism. “First of all, Mr. Markus is doing well, due in large part to the prompt CPR he received.”
Relief drained the strength from Dana’s limbs. She felt as limp as a linen suit on a hot, humid day.
“Thank God.” Mila choked on a sob.
“He did have a myocardial infarction, a heart attack. He’s been given clot-busting drugs and is responding well, but he has two blocked coronary arteries. We’ve scheduled him for surgery later in the week.”
Dana hadn’t doubted Mila’s account but had hoped that it wasn’t Roger’s heart, that he had had a bad bout of acid reflux or food poisoning.
“C-can I see him?” Fresh tears streaked Mila’s cheeks.
“Shortly. He’s being moved to the CCU. Once he’s settled, you can go in. The nurse will let you know when he’s ready.”
The doctor narrowed his eyes and glanced pointedly from Dana to Mila. “Don’t upset him.”
“No, of course not,” Dana answered. She couldn’t blame the doctor for urging caution or thinking the situation was strange. Never could she have imagined she would one day convene in a hospital with Roger’s mistress and discuss his health—not when she’d fantasized ripping off Mila’s arm and beating him in the head with it.
The doctor departed, and for a long moment, Dana and Mila stared at each other across a chasm of swirling emotion. Her nerves jittered and her muscles trembled; Dana wanted to collapse, but she had to stay strong.
“Oh my God,” Mila breathed.
“Yeah,” Dana said. “Yeah.” She massaged her temples and then straightened her shoulders. “I’d better let Katie know.”
Her daughter answered on the first ring. “Is Dad all right?”
“He’s doing well, the doctor said. He did have a heart attack, but he’s going to be okay,” Dana reiterated. “They’re moving him to the cardiac care unit, so when you get here, that’s where you should go.” Dana omitted the information about surgery, not wanting to further upset Katie if she was on the road. “Are you in your car?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way.” She spoke hurriedly, her words almost blending together.
Dana imagined Katie speeding through town, running red lights. She didn’t need another family member arriving at the ER on a gurney. “Drive carefully. I’ll see you when you get here.” She snapped her cell shut.
Dana and Mila checked the hospital wall directory for directions to the CCU. As they silently made their way to the third floor, Dana’s thoughts shifted to Lon, who was working somewhere in the hospital. She needed him to hug her and tell her everything would be fine. Not because he was a doctor and she would believe him, but because he was her man and she relied on his strength.
But she wouldn’t interrupt. Lon was busy, probably saving someone else’s life. She stole a glance at Mila. Besides, too many ex-spouses and their lovers had converged on one location. Dana sighed.
Her head down, she didn’t notice the man waiting to board the elevator until she bumped into him as she exited. “Excuse me.”
“Dana?” the man asked.
She raised her head at the voice and recognized the face. She squinted, scanning her memory banks to recall how she knew the man in the white lab coat. “Oh, Joey,” she said as she placed him outside the restaurant. He was Lon’s doctor friend.
Joey moved into the doorway of the elevator to keep it open. “Are you here to see Lon?”
“No.” She wished she was. Wished she could. “I’m visiting someone.” She exchanged a glance with Mila. “A patient.”
“Oh. I see.” His tone lowered with understanding. “Well, I’ll let you go.”
Dana nodded. “It was nice to see you,” she said for lack of something better. Etiquette didn’t cover all situations.
Outside the CCU, Dana used the wall phone to inform the cardiac nursing staff they had arrived for Roger. Then she and Mila hunkered down to wait.
Chapter Ten
When the nurse notified them they could see Roger, Mila sprang out of her seat and sprinted into the CCU.
“Please, keep it brief,” the nurse instructed Dana.
She nodded and proceeded at a normal pace. So it was Mila who reached bed nine first, located in a small, glass-fronted room on the perimeter of the nurse’s station. The privacy curtain was tucked aside, allowing Dana to observe Mila as she flung herself atop the bedridden man and uttered a strangled, “Oh, Roger!” She caught his surprised but tender, “Don’t cry, honey.”
Once, the intimacy would have devastated her, but the sense of betrayal and feelings of inadequacy had dissipated, enabling her to view the scene from a dispassionate distance. Dana stepped into the room and drew the drape around the bed, screening them from outside view.
Mila buried her face against Roger’s shoulder, and he patted her back. He looked at Dana, and a guilty flush stained his pale face. His heart rate, revealed on the monitor, blipped. “I didn’t expect this,” he murmured.
His affection toward Mila didn’t shock her; his condition did. “It’s all right,” she said and transferred her energy into hiding dismay at Roger’s diminished capacity. No wonder Mila was weeping.
Roger had more wires attached to him than the back of her TV set. A nasal cannula wrapped around his ears piped oxygen up his nose, an IV line punctured the crook of an elbow, and a blood-pressure cuff encircled a bicep. Dana noted other wires and tubes, one of which led to the bleeping heart monitor.
Roger had aged a decade since Dana had last seen him. His comb-over flopped to one side, and the hospital lights glinted off his shiny, bald head. His sagging jowls etched grooves at the corners of his mouth. Old enough to be Mila’s father, at that moment, Roger looked more like her grandparent.
Mila’s face was still hidden in Roger’s shoulder, her tears dampening his hospital gown as Roger attempted to console her.
“You certainly know how to cause a stir,” Dana said lightly.
“Sorry.” He grimaced. He must have changed the nature of his patting hand, because Mila stood. “It’s going to be okay.” He peered up at her. “Why don’t you sit down, hon—Mila.” He cut off the endearment before it slipped off his tongue.
Obediently, Mila sank into an armless chair beside the bed.
“There’s another one there.” Roger glanced from Dana to a stool in the corner.
It seemed wrong to have the ill man play host and attend to their comfort. Would he offer them coffee next? “I’m okay. I’ve been sitting too long as it is. How are you feeling?”
“Better now that the elephant got off my chest.” His gaze darted to Mila. “I didn’t mean you, honey.”
She sniffled. “I know what you meant.”
A heavy silence descended on the room.
“This is a bit awkward,” Roger said.
“Just a little,” Dana agreed. If the scenario had been a movie, it would have been billed as a farce or a black comedy. How else could one account for the convergence of so many different players? Any moment now, Katie would arrive and add to the drama. Dana pressed her lips together to contain a giggle wrought by stress. She’d once laughed herself to tears at a funeral and had no wish to repeat the embarrassing experience.
“The doctor says I’m going to have to lose weight and go on a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet after the surgery when I get out of here.” Roger patted his paunch and sighed. “No more rib eyes.”
“I’ll help you,” Mila offered.
“Mila is a vegetarian,” Roger explained.
Kismet. What were the cosmic odds a confirmed meat lover would fal
l for a vegetarian who could help lead him back to health after his heart attack?
Before Dana could respond, Katie burst into the room. “Daddy!” She launched herself toward the bed.
“Careful!” Dana warned.
“Oh my God! I was afraid you were going to die.” Katie planted herself on the shoulder vacated by Mila moments earlier.
“Nah. I’m too tough to surrender without a fight.” He patted his daughter’s back the way he had Mila’s.
Katie lifted her head. “Why is your hospital gown wet?” Her gaze ping-ponged from Mila sitting bedside to Dana standing at the foot. “Oh!” Katie widened her eyes with belated awareness before narrowing them to slits of dislike. She curled her lip as if she’d eaten something bitter.
The doctor’s warning not to upset the patient compelled Dana to utter a silent prayer. Please, Katie. Don’t cause a scene. “Your father’s going to be fine,” Dana said to shift Katie’s focus from Mila to her father’s health and recovery. “He’ll be having coronary bypass surgery later this week.”
“Surgery! Oh God, Daddy.” Katie turned back to Roger.
“I’m going to be fine, Sugar Pea.” Roger squeezed her hand. “Seriously, the doc told me because of the CPR and getting to the hospital so quickly, the damage is most likely minimal.”
Dana exhaled a sigh of relief.
“I was so worried about you,” Katie said.
The nurse who’d shown them into the CCU poked her head around the curtain. “Just five more minutes, please. We don’t want to overtire Mr. Markus.”
“But I just got here.” Katie glanced from the nurse to her father to Dana. She shot a jealous glare at Mila.
“Perhaps we could give Roger a break and come back a little later?” Dana asked.
“That would be fine,” the nurse agreed and left.
“Let’s go to the cafeteria and get a cup of coffee,” Dana suggested.
Katie scowled. “You know I don’t drink coffee.”
“All right, iced tea, then. Or water. Work with me, Katie, okay!” Dana’s patience snapped under the stress and Katie’s stubbornness. She understood her daughter’s feelings, but this was not the time or place to express them.
