by Kris Calvert
Grace stood paralyzed in her shock. It was true. She made it a point to do for others. Grace believed that her own hurting heart gave her the ability to see pain in other people, or so she’d always thought.
“Thank you,” Grace managed. “That’s very kind of you.”
“No,” Matt smiled. “It’s my pleasure.
As Grace opened the door out into the summer heat, she turned for one last look into the face of Matt Trask and wondered if he saw the broken pieces inside of her.
“Drink water,” he repeated.
“I prefer wine,” Grace replied.
“Me too.”
June 23rd
Kitty Clark walked into the nurse’s station and sat in a tired heap. She was pulling her third twelve-hour shift of the week and although she felt like death warmed over, she was still the prettiest nurse in the hospital – whether she’d had sleep or not. At five foot four inches she carried her athletic frame gracefully and many men, including the doctors at the hospital, would have given anything to be close to her Native American sun-kissed skin and long brown hair.
The extra hours didn’t bother her even though she sometimes acted like she was put upon. She enjoyed taking care of others. It gave her a feeling of purpose in the world. It gave her direction – something she’d not always had in her life.
A product of the foster care system, she was told that her mother’s name was Kat, and as a baby she was nicknamed Kitty. It was the one thing Kitty Clark liked about her past. It was her one tie to the Cherokee Indian family she’d never known.
There were of course comments made –mostly from men – about her name and she took some razzing as a teenager. Still, it only made her stronger. She’d survived five foster homes, three abusive legal guardians, teasing about her name and still managed to come out on the other side a loving and decent person. She accomplished it by going into what she liked to call autopilot. She could function and shut out the world around her. It was her defense mechanism but she didn’t necessarily want to live that way.
In the sixth grade Kitty read a quote by Booker T. Washington that hung on the wall of her classroom. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. And so she did. She became a nurse and graduated with honors.
“Good morning, Kit,” sang Dr. Seth Newman.
Seth never called her Kitty, but Kit or Kitten if he really wanted to goad her. And after quite a bit of fuss, Kitty agreed to not call him Dr. Newman in the workplace, but Dr. Seth. It was a moniker the other nurses followed, but Kit knew it was really for her.
Seth and Kitty met while working for Doctors Without Borders in the South Sudan. They were instant friends, giving each other a hard time without exception. It was a stress relief to all the disease that surrounded them. They kept each other going and sane. They had an instant attraction to one another and Seth became the best friend Kitty ever had. He was kind and attentive to her needs. She trusted him. She confided in him. He was the closest thing to family Kitty had ever known.
Three years ago, Seth took the call to come to the very emergency room he stood in to assist after tornadoes destroyed the town and many of its citizens. Kitty soon followed. As the town rebuilt, Kitty and Seth became a part of the new fabric that was rewoven, replacing what was into what is.
“Why am I pulling another shift?” Kitty asked as she looked to the ceiling and a higher power to answer her question.
“You just want to hang with me again today, don’t you?” Seth teased.
Kitty shook her head and stared through Seth, raising a suspicious eyebrow. “I know this is hard for you to believe, Seth, but I’m not one of the doe-eyed girls around here who thinks your shit doesn’t stink. I’ve lived in the middle of a jungle with you. I know it stinks.”
“If Kitten doesn’t get her sleep she shows her claws,” Seth teased as he picked up a chart and gave it the once over. “I’m sorry, Kit. It’s just that I had a really nice weekend and…”
“What’s her name?” Kit chided.
“What makes you think there’s a woman involved?” Seth asked.
“Because I know you. Who is it? Please don’t get involved with another needy respiratory therapist that I’ll have to talk down after you sleep with her and cut her loose because she snores.”
“Seriously, Kit,” Seth smiled. “If you work in respiratory don’t you think you’d know if you needed a CPAP machine at night? Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Seth, you’re wrong in so many ways and you’re not funny,” Kitty droned.
“I’m a little funny. C’mon. You know you need me in your life to make things interesting.”
“What I need is a day off, a bubble bath, a glass of wine and a good night’s sleep.”
Seth walked behind her and began to rub her shoulders as several other nurses and hospital staff walked past the station. The women of the hospital were all jealous of Kitty’s relationship with Seth, and yet they didn’t understand it in the slightest. It was true that Seth and Kitty had tried to be more than friends at one point on a lonely and stressful mission trip in the middle of nowhere. But a few minutes into a tipsy make-out session, they decided there was no chemistry. Seth said they were destined to be best friends. To Kitty, they were family.
“Kit…” Seth droned. “I want to talk.”
Kit gave him a heavy sigh. It was seven in the morning. They had the next twelve hours to chat, but she knew what he wanted. They were the only two in the nurse’s station at the moment and Seth wanted to seize the opportunity to talk to her alone while he could. Who knew what the day would bring through the doors of the ER.
“Fine,” Kitty said. “Spill it.”
Seth sat in one of the many rolling chairs in the space and used his feet to wheel closer to her. “I met a woman.”
“That much I figured.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I met a woman who wanted nothing to do with me.”
“You mean someone other than me isn’t enamored by your charms?” Kitty joked.
“This is serious, Kit.”
Seth lowered his voice and moved in closer. Kitty was surprised to see him so excited. It was very out of character for the man she knew to only think in terms of short-term relationships to be so smitten. “She’s in public relations. She’s in charge of media for the Red, Black, White and Blue party next week. This girl looks like she came off the cover of a magazine. I’m mean, she’s stunning,” he said, wide-eyed and lovestruck.
Kitty gave Seth a half smile and whispered so that only he could hear. “Dude, you know once you get in her pants you’ll be through with her, just like all the other notches on your bedpost. You can’t commit.”
The chair creaked as Seth sat back and put his hands behind his head and thought about the words Kitty said. It was true. He’d never been in a relationship longer than six months – something he publicly attributed to being on the move through medical school, residency, and then working for Doctors Without Borders. Privately he knew otherwise. Kitty was the only woman he’d ever really loved and trusted completely.
“What if I want to change that about myself?” Seth asked. “People change every day.”
“Look Seth,” Kitty said as she nodded to him. “I want you to be happy, but you have to care about someone more than you care about yourself to be in a relationship. Are you ready to do that?”
“That’s not fair, Kit,” he muttered. “I care about a lot of things other than myself. I care about you.”
“That’s different. We’re like –”
“Like what?”
“Family.”
Kitty knew that Seth Newman did care. He was a selfless man when it came to medicine and his patients, but when it came to love – it wasn’t that he was selfish as much as he felt unworthy.
Seth Newman’s parents had divorced when he was young and his father took off, never to be seen again. When his mother died of breast cancer when he was fourteen he decided he wanted to be a doctor. He’d learned to d
eal with death, sorrow and all that came with it, but he kept his distance in love. If he didn’t feel, he couldn’t get hurt.
Kitty and Seth were cut from the same cloth – two people who were left behind but moved forward anyway. It was a miracle they’d found each other.
Kitty gave him a love pat on the hand and rose from her chair. “I know you care. I’d just like to see you find someone to love longer than one night.”
Seth shook his head and laughed. “Aren’t we the pot calling the kettle black?”
“What?” Kitty scoffed with a shrug. “I can love. I’ve just never found a suitable man who will put up with my weird hours at the hospital.”
“That’s not true,” Seth whispered in her ear, “and you know it.”
“Really?” Kitty asked. “Please, tell me the truth. I’d love to hear your version.”
“You are just as afraid as I am,” Seth muttered as he watched more of the hospital staff file down the hall for the morning shift. “Admit it.”
“What am I afraid of?” Kitty asked as she looked to her feet, knowing the answer.
“Love.”
“What?”
“Hell yes. You’re scared shitless that you could put your love out there and someone could just…”
“Just what?” she asked.
“Take it.”
Kitty stood from her office chair and took the chart from Seth’s hands. “I’m not afraid someone will take my love and run away with it, Seth. I’m afraid they won’t.”
Kitty walked down the hall and into the supply closet to compose herself before she saw the first patient of the day. Seth was family. He was her emergency contact, her plus one, the only person in the world who cared if she lived or died and she still couldn’t bring herself to be vulnerable with him. If she couldn’t show her weaknesses to him, how would she ever let someone far enough into her heart to even know her?
Banks Bartel regarded the slender woman as she whisked herself into the room with a tiny knock and a sweet “Good morning”.
She hurried herself around exam room two with efficiency, taking two rubber gloves from a box hanging on the wall and casually slipping them on in the blink of an eye.
Banks didn’t say a word as she worked her way around the room. She was all business and he found comfort in the fact she didn’t give him a second thought. He was too tired to talk – he was too depressed to care.
“You’re getting stiches out?” Kitty asked.
“Yes,” Banks replied, finally looking her square in the face. She was beautiful, strong, and yet as she sighed and carefully touched the ten day old stitches, Banks noticed her gentleness.
“How did you cut your arm?”
“Being stupid,” Banks replied.
Kitty stepped away and wrote in his chart.
Banks stared unknowingly as she slowly batted her eyes and cocked her head to one side. “There’s a story in there somewhere,” she said with a smile.
Banks was unarmed for the beauty she possessed. Kitty was as natural as sunshine and fresh air, and each time she moved around his body he caught a whiff of vanilla and he felt a little intoxicated.
“You’re not from here,” Banks remarked, quietly trying to compose himself.
“No.” She shook her head, matching his tone. “How could you tell?”
Banks looked to his hands. “You don’t have the same sad expression on your face everyone else has this time of year.”
“Ah.” Kitty nodded, pulling the chart into her chest as she leaned back into the sink across the room. “No, I came in two weeks after the tornadoes hit. I came in to help and ended up staying for good.”
“For good?” he asked with a smile.
“Yes.”
“No offense, but why would you want to stay here?”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Banks shook his head at her. In his mind there was no way a woman this beautiful and obviously intelligent would deliberately put herself in the middle of a shitstorm. Surely someone, somewhere was waiting for her.
Banks couldn’t hold it in and said exactly what he was thinking. “What?”
“Why did you stay?” Kitty asked.
Banks gave her a half-hearted smile. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Kitty and Banks stared into each other. She knew exactly what he meant and he understood her statement completely. The silence in the room should have been awkward. It should’ve made them both incredibly uncomfortable, but for the first time in a long time, Banks Bartel felt normal and Kitty Clark felt understood. There was more to be said. There were more words that needed to be spoken in that moment, and yet they said nothing – nothing at all.
“How’s it going in here?” Seth barked as he burst through the door. He took a quick look at Banks’ arm and gave Kitty a fleeting glance. “Are you okay, Kit?” he asked. “You look flushed.”
“Yes,” Kit fumbled. “Why?”
Seth took a deep breath and looked to Banks and again back to Kitty.
Kitty gave him a knock it off look and Seth smiled and promptly went back to tending to the patient at hand.
“These look good. Kit can take it from here, no problem. Just keep the area clean, but it looks like it’s healing beautifully.”
“You’re an artist with sutures, Doc,” Banks joked.
“I’m no artist. At least not like you,” Seth nodded. “I was at the last Independence Day meeting at the mayor’s office and it seems as if you’re going to have something pretty spectacular to unveil, huh?”
Kitty looked at Banks as he caught her gaze and held it. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Wait,” Kitty remarked. “You’re the artist doing the sculpture?”
“Guilty,” Banks stated as he motioned his head toward the long line of sutures on his forearm. “It’s how I did this.”
“So that’s the story.” Kitty sighed as she looked to the chart and saw his name, Banks Bartel.
“What story?” Seth chimed in. But as Kitty and Banks stared at each other, it was clear the story wasn’t for Seth.
“Okay then. Kitty?”
“Yes?”
“Can you get Mr. Bartel fixed up and out of here with some instructions?”
“Yes.”
As Seth shut the door behind him, he gave Kitty a goofy face. She ignored him and turned her back, hoping Banks hadn’t noticed.
“So your name is Kit?” he asked as she pulled the scissors out of their sterile and protective plastic.
“Actually, it’s Kitty. Seth…Dr. Newman calls me Kit.”
“And what do you prefer?”
“Um…either is fine, I guess,” Kitty stuttered. “My mom’s name was Kat, so I got the name Kitty.”
She didn’t know what was happening to her, but each time she looked into his chiseled face and beautiful brown eyes, she forgot everything she was supposed to be doing. Kitty forgot how to speak, she forgot how to breathe, she forgot herself. She was stunned by the rugged man with sandy-blonde hair and piercing brown eyes.
“Where does your mother live?” Banks asked with a wince as she pulled a stich from his arm.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she discovered herself locking eyes with him again.
“No,” Banks muttered. “I’m sorry. I…I don’t…”
“I never knew my mother,” Kitty confessed. “I mean…I grew up in foster homes mostly. Until I went to college.”
“I understand.”
“Really?” Kitty droned as if there was no way he could understand the life she’d had unless he was a foster kid too.
“Kind of,” Banks continued. “I was adopted at the age of four from an orphanage in Russia. I had a great life with my adoptive parents, but I’ve never forgotten what it was like there. Ever.”
Banks winced again as she worked out another stich. “Just relax,” Kitty assured him. “I’ll have you out of here in no time at all. I’m sure you’re really busy with the dedication
of the new town square coming so soon. It’s a…” she paused as she caught him watching her closely. “Big deal.”
“No,” Banks confessed. “I think it’s me. I just don’t know…I mean…”
“Really,” Kitty replied. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m almost done.”
As Kitty clipped the last stich in his arm, she ran her gloved hand carefully over the scar that would now grace his muscular forearm for evermore. “All done,” she said as she stepped away from him.
Banks sat on the hospital exam table and gripped its edge straining the muscles in his arms as he dangled his feet off the side nervously. He wanted to say something, but he had no idea what it should be.
Kitty pulled the gloves from her hands one by one, balling them together before tossing them in the trash and began to speak on wound care.
Banks heard nothing she said as he watched her long brown hair brush across the shoulders of her green scrubs. He found her interesting, and as she adjusted the stethoscope around her neck nervously, he realized she was just as confused as he was and yet neither knew what to make of it.
“That’s it,” Kitty finished as she handed a stack of papers to Banks. “You can check out down the hall and call if you need anything.”
Banks smiled at her as he hopped off the exam table.
“I mean, call if you have any problems.”
“Are you coming to the dedication?” Banks asked, just as he began to open the door.
“I hadn’t really thought about it, I guess,” Kitty replied as she looked to her shoes for an answer.
“Think about it,” Banks replied before he walked away.
Kitty wanted to watch him stroll away, and resisted the urge for a hot second, only to find herself in the hallway watching him make his way out of the building.
“Damn…” she muttered.
June 25th
Grace Bartel rushed around The Seller in a panic. Because of the upcoming holiday, she was having open reading night in the tasting room on Wednesday and Friday this week – it was, at least, the story she told everyone. The real reason was she was working like hell to hold her business together. She needed as many patrons as she could find in the next couple of weeks in the hope that she could pay the back note she owed to the bank. She was late and they’d threatened to foreclose on her business loan. Grace knew she could ask her brother for help, but she didn’t want to. She’d always relied on his help in the past, and after she lost her entire shop and its inventory in the storm, Banks had helped her to make up for what the insurance company wouldn’t cover. Unfortunately, it was a lot. This time she wouldn’t take money from him. No way. No how.
