An Informal Christmas (Informal Romance Book 1)

by Heather Gray

  “Places, everyone!” Rylie’s raised voice carried down the hallway as the young patients from the main floor fell into line, backs straight, hands at their sides, doing their best to please. Bumble bees, princesses, warriors, and…

  “Are you supposed to be toilet paper?” The boy nodded excitedly, his head barely sticking up through the brown cardboard tube at the center of his costume. Sure enough, he was a giant roll of toilet paper. A future proctologist…

  Not all the kids were well enough to participate. The nurses wheeled out anyone who wanted to watch the contest. Even if they weren’t in costume with the other kids, seeing the fun would brighten their day and give them something to talk about with the medical personnel who came in and out of their rooms all day long. As far as Rylie was concerned, the entire day was a win for all the young patients.

  The judges walked up and down the line, chatting with the kids as they marked up their score sheets.

  Zach was a cowboy. He sported worn leather chaps, a lasso at his side, workman’s gloves, and a cowboy hat. Of course, he needed to remove the gloves to use his pen and record scores for the costumes, but the way he tugged them off with his teeth then tucked them into the back pocket of his jeans only served to make him that much more ruggedly attractive.

  He’d greeted her with a quick smile and tip of his hat. Time alone was in short supply, but he didn’t seem to be avoiding her. She would take that as a good sign.

  Rylie hoped that, before the day came to a close, she would better understand the man who had shown up one day to bring toys for the kids and kept coming back. Zach York was a puzzle, and she’d never met a puzzle she couldn’t solve. Until now. So far, whenever she’d asked him questions, Zach had turned the conversation back around and gotten her to reveal more about herself than she learned about him.

  Once judging of the younger patients was complete, the older ones were called to order. Very few stood with the eagerness of the prior group. Instead, they slouched, tucked hands into pockets, and did their best to act as if they didn’t care. They were zombies, vampire queens, hunters, the obligatory Uncle Sam, a sparkling piñata, and more.

  Rylie raised an eyebrow at the piñata. The girl, eyes sparkling, implored, “Please don’t hit me with a broomstick.”

  Rylie set the judges loose and stepped back. The ER doctor was fantastic in her nontraditional clown costume. She wore heels so high they threatened to cause a nosebleed and a fuchsia dress guaranteed to grab onlooker attention with its latex shine. Not ready to stop there, she’d added lime green tights, a bright blue bolero, an oversized red nose, and the curliest rainbow wig on either side of the Prime Meridian. She took the time to talk to each of the kids, too, and even visited with those not participating in the contest. She was a good person, and if the stories about her were true, an even better ER doctor.

  The judging done, Rylie was given the pleasure of announcing the winners. Following Zach’s instructions, she’d come up with a lengthy and creative list of trophy categories.

  “This year’s winner for Most Adorable in our children’s division goes to… Suzie Metcalf and in our teen division… Leticia Velasquez!” The cute little bumble bee from earlier and a dainty fairy both came up to collect their trophies.

  “Our winners for Most Original are… Georgie Whitehall and Samina Abdulla!” Toilet paper and a piñata trundled up to accept their trophies among cheers and whistles. A nurse sidled up to the one teen that seemed determined to cause trouble. The last thing they needed was someone throwing hurtful barbs at their resident toilet paper. Rylie admired Georgie’s sense of humor. There would be no stopping him once he grew into his inner class clown a bit more.

  “Next up, our Ugly But With Style trophy, and the winners are…”

  The unit erupted in cheers as the judges excused themselves and headed on to their next destination – Intermediate Care. These were the kids who needed more attention than average but weren’t in need of intensive care and didn’t belong in Oncology. Some of them suffered from respiratory issues — severe asthma, viral bronchiolitis, or something similar. Others had the types of illnesses that, as a rule, would see them admitted to the regular wing of the hospital, but because of compounding conditions such as muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy, they required extra oversight and ended up in intermediate care.

  With fewer children in this unit, the judging would be done together with no age division. The kids lined up, but the atmosphere was quieter. Zach, walking bow-legged like a man whose entire life had passed with him firmly planted on the back of a horse, stepped over to Rylie and stood by her side.

  “I wasn’t expecting anyone in a wheelchair.” His demeanor gave nothing away, but a person would have to be deaf to miss the strain in his whispered words.

  “Ignore the chairs. Look at the kids and their costumes.” Wheelchairs weren’t inherently bad, but if he wasn’t used to being around them, that’s where his eyes would go. Children who depended on a wheelchair for mobility had a few pet peeves. People seeing the chair instead of them was near the top of the list.

  “I’m not an idiot. I just wasn’t prepared.”

  His words held enough of a bite that Rylie was tempted to glance down at herself and make sure she wasn’t bleeding.

  “It takes time to get used to the equipment. You’ll adapt, but in the meantime, fake it for their sakes.” She was proud of herself for not biting back.

  Rylie sighed. There was a reason she’d dedicated her life to working with children. They were more understanding, sure. They also tended to be more forgiving than adults. And they hadn’t yet learned to take insult at every little word.

  Zach stalked off. At least, that’s what she thought. To the casual observer, his walk probably resembled the lazy stroll of a saddle-sore cowboy.

  If wheelchairs were hard for him, he might not survive the PICU. The schedule wouldn’t allow for any dwelling, though, so Rylie shook her head and gave her full attention to the children.

  Intermediate Care housed ten beds, all of which were occupied at present. Every patient was dressed for the occasion with the wheelchair kids decked out in spectacular fashion. A costume told a lot about how used to the wheelchair a family was. One wheelchair had been transformed into a blue police box, the child its famous occupant. The other was a bathtub with different-sized Styrofoam balls glued together to make the bubbles, its swimsuit-clad occupant sporting a grin.

  There was also a pirate, a surgeon, a red plastic drinking cup, two princesses, a spider, another zombie, and the requisite cartoon character.

  “Howdy, pardner.”

  Among all the sounds in the unit, Zach’s voice was the one that reached Rylie’s ears. He went down the line and interacted with the kids, even suggesting the zombie find himself a good hoedown. If he remained uncomfortable with the wheelchairs, he hid it well.

  The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit was different from all the other units. Each of the judges, along with Rylie, was required to scrub in at the sink. They went room-to-room to judge the costumes of those who were dressed up. Sixteen of the twenty beds were occupied, but only three of those patients were in costume. In many cases, the children weren’t aware enough of their surroundings to participate, and the parents were too overwhelmed to do anything about it.

  The PICU was destined to be the most difficult of the units. She’d given the judges a brief talk about what to expect, but even so, the mayor blanched as they passed a room where a toddler was hooked up to a respirator, a feeding tube, and an external ventricular drain. He didn’t voice the thought, but his face, void of color, screamed it. No one so little should have that many tubes coming and going from their body. He managed to pull on his politician’s face and nod sagely to the weary parents, but the effort cost him, evidenced by the bleak eyes and drooping shoulders that appeared as soon as the door to that room was behind him.

  They judged a pumpkin, a building block, and a hobo. The nurses and other staff filed into the rooms and c
lapped for each patient as they received their trophies.

  Their time in Intensive Care was brief. Rylie was soon herding the judges toward Oncology.

  She’d been looking forward to this all day. If she knew her kids as well as she thought she did, the judges were in for a surprise.

  She hoped Zach and the mayor could handle the unique challenges of the upcoming group. The equipment in PICU was hard to get used to, but most of those kids would recover in due course and leave the hospital. Hers, on the other hand…

  This wasn’t the time to tell her judges that more than twenty percent of her kids would be dead within five years. Or that, among those who survived, sixty percent would suffer a chronic illness. Nor would she explain that the life-saving cancer treatments the young patients underwent would cause life-threatening side effects in twenty-five percent of the survivors.

  She would give the judges a minute to shake off the aftermath of being in PICU before taking them to her unit. Meanwhile, she reminded herself that every day her kids were given a chance to act their age was a day worth celebrating. When she thought about it that way, putting on her happy face became an easy task.

  The costumed kids ran up to Rylie, smiles ringing their faces. Everyone wanted a hug, and she was glad to oblige. The oncology unit housed twenty-four beds. Eighteen were currently occupied. They’d sent two kids home the week before. She’d attended a funeral, too, but she wouldn’t dwell on that.

  The kids lined up, a colorful canvas of creativity, without being told. All eighteen children were in attendance, though some of the younger ones had been chauffeured by their parents in one of the unit’s push cars. One baby was present. He was outfitted as a Dalmatian and looked a bit like a wriggling puppy in his mom’s arms.

  The line of costumed patients continued to grow until Rylie made a production of counting. As she reached twenty-four, she tapped a finger on her chin and turned to Zach and the other judges.

  “Either our children multiplied, or imposters are in our midst. It seems that we’re going to be forced to figure out which of these youngsters belong in the hospital and which do not.”

  “Pin the tail on the cancer kid!” The booming voice of one of the teens filled the whole unit.

  Rylie’s job wasn’t exclusive to the patients. She did her part to make sure their siblings were coping with the illness, too. Brothers and sisters had questions and often didn’t know who to ask. They also harbored worries and fears. The importance of finding them ways to feel useful couldn’t be overlooked. Today would be a good day to play a game designed to do exactly that.

  She glanced at the judges. “Think you’re up for it?”

  The fireman mayor wasn’t yet over the nervous twitch he’d developed while in the PICU. The clown doctor smiled with delight. The pasty-faced cowboy appeared to be in danger of hurling. Not ideal as judges went.

  “Give us five minutes, everyone. Go ahead and line up side-by-side. I’m going to explain the rules of the game to the judges.”

  The kids began to shuffle into place as Rylie headed down the hallway toward the small refreshment room. She punched in the key code, allowed the judges to precede her, then stepped in after them and shut the door behind her.

  Her hands on autopilot, she retrieved three clear plastic cups, filled them with ice, and poured lemon-lime soda into the first. She shoved it into Zach’s hand. He took the drink, his eyes overflowing with misery.

  Directing her question at the mayor, she asked, “What’s your poison?”

  “The same is fine.”

  As Rylie poured, the clown doctor reached behind her, opened the mini fridge, and pulled out a bottle of water. She offered a small salute before saying, “I’m good.”

  Rylie took a deep breath. “Kids who are on this unit tend to be here for a long time, or they come back often. Because of that, we get to know their brothers and sisters pretty well. We do our best to make the illness easier for both the child who’s sick and for their siblings. A few years ago, one of our patients invented a game. He called it Pin the Tail on the Cancer Kid. All our kids loved it, and it became a tradition that’s been passed down from one patient to another ever since.”

  “How does it work?” The mayor drained his soda and set his cup down on the counter with an audible thump. Rylie almost expected the two-fingered brush telling her he wanted more, but he refrained.

  “The patients and their siblings all dress up alike, and you get to guess which one is the cancer kid. You need to understand that there is no right or wrong answer. This game is fun for the kids because they get to try to fool you. What kid doesn’t enjoy pranking an adult?”

  Zach continued to sip at his drink. “The staff around here knows these kids?”

  Rylie nodded.

  “So how often do they get to play this? Don’t most people recognize who’s sick?”

  She cringed. She wasn’t fond of the word sick. But then, neither had she been crazy about cancer kid until someone created a game that made the term synonymous with fun. “These guys delight in messing with the new residents that come in and out of the unit. Anytime there’s a new nurse, too. Sometimes even technicians.”

  Everyone nodded. Thankfully, some of Zach’s color had returned. He’d done a fair job of holding his own until they’d crossed the threshold into Oncology. As soon as they’d stepped through those doors, he’d gone from merely uncomfortable to downright green… and not a cowpoke kind of green, either. With each passing second in the refreshment room, though, he returned more to his old self. Hopefully he could maintain it for the rest of the day.

  “Remember, this isn’t about how well you guess which one has cancer. It’s about how well they can hide it.”

  Rylie led her judges back to where the kids were gathered. A quick glance told her they were in position. First in line was a group of three firemen. Well, two firemen and one firewoman. One of the early rules they’d implemented was that, to make the game fair, the siblings had to dress alike. These three, with their helmets on, made a challenge of telling who had hair and who didn’t.

  The judges quickly went down the row, made their determinations on paper, and then came back to a central location. The kids without brothers or sisters hung back. They would step forward again during the actual costume contest.

  “Alright, I need my firemen front and center.” At the sound of Rylie’s voice, the three costumed children advanced.

  Rylie glanced at the ER doctor, who shook her head. “I actually know this one, so I’m going to abstain.”

  “Number three.” The mayor indicated the boy whose helmet was now coyly tipped back enough to show a hint of baldness underneath.

  Zach’s eyes narrowed at the quick grin of the number three. “Hm. I was going to say three, but I think I’ll go with two.”

  All three kids burst into giggles. “I told you Sally! They fall for it every time.”

  The little girl whose strawberry blond hair was in two braids grinned, showing dimples and a hole where a matching pair of teeth had recently vacated the premises. The boys, numbers two and three in the judging, swept off their helmets, baring their bald heads, while Sally first pulled off her helmet, then removed her wig. “I’m the cancer kid,” she said with a slight whistle, “and you couldn’t tell!”

  The trio ran back to their parents, and the boys began tugging off the hot vinyl costumes.

  Next they came across two adorable pigs, curly tails and all. The judges got it wrong again.

  The next costumed duo was a tricky one. The patient had an IV and didn’t want it to give him away, so the nurses had helped dress his twin brother up with all the proper accoutrements until he looked like he, too, was on an IV. The pair was outfitted as…

  Rylie laughed at their ingenuity. Dressing up as cancer kids would have been too easy, so instead they were women in labor. Fake hair, fake bellies, and fake… She raised an eyebrow. Hospital gowns usually hid people’s shape, but these two had given themselves visibly hea
lthy endowments north of their pregnant midsections.

  Next up came two Dalmatians – the baby from earlier and a matching toddler who clung to her mom’s leg and regarded the four of them with big blue eyes. The judges were about to make their pronouncement when the mom’s phone sounded an alarm. She blushed and excused herself, taking the baby with her. The toddler, who had at long last released her mom’s leg, batted her eyes at them and whispered loudly, “Chemo pee,” before chasing after her mom on chubby little legs covered in faux Dalmatian fur.

  The clown doctor opened her mouth, but a nearby zombie – which was apparently the theme this year – piped up first. “Chemo pee burns your skin. Not a big deal at my age, but if you’re in diapers, you can get scarred up real bad from it. Juju’s parents put a sensor in his diaper. Whenever it gets wet, their phone alarms so they can change him.”

  Rylie couldn’t help but grin at Zach. The day’s festivities were over, and the kids had loved every minute of it. Except for a few moments when her non-medical-professional judges had struggled with being out of their depth, everything had gone smoothly. Now her cowboy judge helped to box up the last of the unused costumes in the Child Life office.

  “If they’ll fit, stick them in your storage closet and keep them for next year.”

  She winced. The Vault wasn’t all that big, but she would find a way to make it work. “You made a difference to those kids today.”

  As was the standard, he shrugged.

  “Are you at least glad you got to meet some of the patients? Your contributions matter…” Her words faded between them.

  He blinked it away, but not before she saw the glint of pain in his eyes. Had he lost someone? All his actions – from the donations, to his usual avoidance of the kids, to his reaction upon first walking into Oncology…