Cell phones were banned in the hospital because they could disrupt the myriad patient monitoring equipment in use. It was not uncommon to see employees standing in the parking lot with mobile phones pressed to their ears.
Anabelle returned within minutes. Her beaming smile told the story. “Cam says he’d love to help,” she reported. “He suggested I invite everyone over for dinner tonight so that we can talk about the project.”
Candace and James offered their apologies for not being able to make it. Elena looked delighted. “That would be wonderful!”
“Cam!” Anabelle glanced out the window. “Elena and her family are here!”
Cameron Scott's bushy gray eyebrows rose as he glanced over the top of the newspaper he had been reading. “That's good. You did invite them, remember?”
Anabelle frowned. “Put that paper away. And tuck in your shirt.”
Cam grinned. “Yes, mother.”
Anabelle huffed out a breath. “I just want everything to look nice, that's all.”
Cam folded the paper, placed it neatly in the magazine basket and rose. Stepping behind his wife, he placed his hands on her shoulders and gently massaged. “Relax, honey. You’re way too worked up about a simple dinner.”
Anabelle turned and opened her mouth. Then she halted, took a breath and said, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Cam put his arms around her and hugged her, then moved with her toward the door.
“Hello, hello,” Elena called gaily as soon as he opened it. “You must be Cam.”
“Guilty.” He was smiling as he shook her hand.
“I’m Elena. This is my husband Cesar and my granddaughter Isabel.” Elena handed Anabelle a cookie tin. “These are mint brownies.”
“Thank you!” Anabelle said, lifting a corner of the lid and taking a deep breath. “They smell delicious. I know what I’m having for dessert.”
Elena grinned. “Thank you so much for including Izzy in the invitation. I had completely forgotten it's Monday, and I normally babysit tonight.”
“No problem.” Anabelle knelt in front of the beautiful little girl with long dark curls streaming over her shoulders. The child carried a slightly scruffy stuffed pig under one arm, and over her shoulders rested the straps of a little pink backpack with Disney princesses cavorting all over it. Kirstie had had long dark curls like that when she’d been small. “Hello, Isabel.”
“This is Miss Anabelle, Izzy,” Elena said. “The one I told you had a special name like yours, remember?”
Isabel nodded. “We’re both bells,” she informed Anabelle.
Anabelle chuckled. “You’re right.”
“She's the lady who's making us dinner,” Elena told her granddaughter.
Isabel looked at Anabelle, her striking gray eyes inquisitive. “Did you make something I like?”
“Isabel Anastasia Rodriguez!” Elena was aghast. “That is not using your good manners.”
Anabelle couldn't help chuckling. “It's okay,” she said to Elena. “When you’re four, that's a perfectly legitimate concern.” To Isabel, she said, “I made chicken and mashed potatoes, and I have some green beans and sliced strawberries. And, oh, I almost forgot, some tasty buttermilk biscuits. Do you like any of that?”
“Yes!” Isabel grinned at Anabelle, then looked up at her grandmother. “I like all of that.”
“Good.” Anabelle rose and pointed toward the living room. “There are some dolls in there you might like to see.” To Elena, she said, “I went up to the attic and got some of my girls’ old American Girl dolls. I didn't know what she might like to play with.”
“American Girl dolls. Anabelle, those are quite expensive.” Elena looked worried as she followed her friend and granddaughter.
Anabelle laughed. “They’re sturdy and already well loved. My girls got many years of pleasure from those dolls.” Her smile faded a bit as she and Elena took seats in the living room to watch Isabel examine the toys, and she gestured at Isabel. “I’d give a lot to have my children be that size again. You’re very lucky to have her living with you.”
Elena smiled. “I know. Not everyone would see it that way. I have friends who are thrilled when their kids move out. But I really enjoy having Rafael and Izzy living with us.”
“I would enjoy that too,” Anabelle said. “I wasn't at all ready for Kirstie to move out. This is the third week, and I’m afraid I may not be handling it well.” Anabelle sighed.
“I imagine it seems very quiet around here without her. If Rafael and Izzy ever move out, I know our place will seem terribly empty.”
Anabelle smiled, watching Isabel work a dress over a red-haired doll's head. “I bet. She's adorable.”
“She's a good little egg,” Elena said. “Most of the time, she's extremely pleasant and helpful. Although I do occasionally get tired of answering the question, ‘Why?’”
Anabelle chuckled. “I remember those days.” She looked up as Cam entered the room with Cesar.
“I’d like to show Cesar the garden, if we have time before we eat,” he said.
She nodded and rose from her seat. “You do. I’ll call you when the meal is ready.” To Elena, she said, “I need to take care of a few more things in the kitchen. Isabel is welcome to bring the dolls in there if she likes.”
“Could I set the table for you?” Elena walked to the table in the adjacent dining room as soon as Anabelle showed her into the kitchen.
“Sure.” Anabelle indicated the counter. “I’ve got most of the dishes laid out already.”
“Oh, Anabelle!” Elena said as she picked up some of the cutlery. “This is lovely.” She placed a reverent hand on a table runner in summer prints of lemon, leaf, peach and strawberry that graced the center of the long table. Matching place mats lay in front of each chair.
“Thank you.”
“Did you make these?”
Anabelle nodded as she began draining the potatoes. “I’m in a quilting club. Dr. Hamilton's wife Genevieve is also in the group.”
Elena was still looking at the place mats as she set the table with a summery set of clear glass plates, bowls, and glasses with a small flower design stretching along one side. “Someday when I have time—and I’m done making costumes and a little girl's clothing—I’m going to learn to quilt.” She finished placing soft linen napkins at each place setting and then turned to look at her friend.
“Buela?” Isabel tugged at Elena's hand. “Will you hold this baby?”
“Of course.” Elena knelt and smiled as Isabel very carefully handed her a doll, adjusting Elena's hands so that she was cradling the toy.
“She needs a mommy,” Isabel told her. “So does this one.” She picked up the second doll and held it against her shoulder. “Everybody needs a mommy.”
“Izzy.” Elena's face looked stricken as she quietly said, “Maybe we should talk about something else.”
“But, Buela, she does need a mommy,” Isabel insisted.
Anabelle quickly joined them and smiled at the little girl. “Are you going to be her mommy? I bet you’d be a good one.”
Isabel nodded. “I am, but sometimes I don't know what mommies do ’cause I don't have a mommy.”
Anabelle's heart contracted at the innocent statement. “I know. But you have your abuela. What kinds of things does she do for you?”
Isabel twisted her little body back and forth, making her eyelet lace–trimmed dress swirl around her body. “She makes me pretty clothes. Like this dress.”
“It's a beautiful dress.” Anabelle smoothed a gentle finger along the eyelet lace. “What else does she do for you?”
“She makes me eat my vegetables.” Isabel made a face and giggled. “An’…an’…an’ she reads me stories an’ she listens to my prayers.”
“My goodness!” Anabelle infused her tone with wonder. “It sounds like your abuela does all the things I did for my little girls.”
Isabel considered that for a moment. “You’re a mommy?”
Anabelle nodded, a soft smile curving her mouth as she thought of the enjoyable years when her children had been small. “I am. But my little girls and my boy are all grown up now.”
“Like my daddy.”
“Exactly like your daddy. But guess what?”
“What?” Isabel patted her doll.
“I still know how to be a mommy. And so does your abuela. So you’re very lucky. You have someone who loves you who can do mommy things with you.”
Anabelle could almost see the gears turning as Isabel tried to find a flaw in her logic. But finally, the child said, “My Buela's not my mommy, but she's like my mommy.”
“Yes, she is.” Anabelle rose, stroking a hand over the little girl's glossy dark curls. “And I’m pretty sure she loves you just as much as a mommy could.”
The men came back into the house then, and Isabel ran shouting for her grandfather.
Elena threw Anabelle a grateful look, her expressive face unusually sorrowful. “Thanks for smoothing that over. She's a happy little girl, but she does feel the absence of a mother, no matter how attentive I am.”
“I think that's only natural,” Anabelle said. “The important thing is the first part of that sentence. She is a happy child, Elena. And that's due to you.”
Chapter Eight
CANDACE WAS BECOMING CONCERNED.
She was fairly certain Robin had avoided her last Thursday evening in the childbirth class, walking out of the room deeply engrossed in conversation with several other women. Andrew had looked back at Candace helplessly, mouthing, “Sorry.”
He had nothing to be sorry for, she thought. She sensed the young father was as concerned as she was about her friend's indecision. How could she fail to understand how critical time could be with a malignancy? But she also knew how fiercely protective mothers were; and when a stance was taken, little could be done to sway them.
She picked up the phone on the desk, looking up Robin's number in her cell phone directory. After she called the number, the phone rang and rang. Three times, four, five…didn't the Overings have an answering machine? She was on the verge of hanging up when a breathless male voice said, “Hello?”
“Hello, Andrew, it's Candace Crenshaw from—”
“Our childbirth class,” he finished for her. “Hello, Candace.”
“Is Robin home?” she asked. “I wanted to see what she's decided regarding a treatment plan.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Andrew said, “She hasn't decided or made any kind of plan.” There was bitterness in his voice. “I’ve started calling her an ostrich.”
The last thing Candace wanted to do was get into the middle of a marital tiff, even if she did sympathize completely with Andrew. “I had hoped to talk to her Thursday, but she left before I had the chance.”
“She didn't want to talk to you,” the young man told her sadly. “She knows you believe she should treat her cancer, and she just doesn't want to hear that right now.” He sounded completely dispirited. “I don't know what to do.”
“Support her,” Candace said quietly. “Just try to support her. You can disagree with her, but she needs you, Andrew. And I know time is in short supply here, but I believe she’ll work through it. At least, that's what I’m praying.”
“I’ll do my best,” he told her. “Thank you for listening. I appreciate the sounding board.”
“It's all part of the extra-special Hope Haven service,” Candace said, trying to lighten the tone of the conversation. “Enhanced by a little ‘former-babysitter’ concern.”
“Well, it's pretty doggone amazing.” His voice was warm. “Thanks again. I guess I’ll see you at class Thursday if not before. I’ll tell Robin you called.”
“Okay, Chrissy, it's time to push!” Candace encouraged a laboring young woman in the delivery room as the mother-to-be gritted her teeth and bore down. Her husband, Shaun, stood near her head holding her hand; Candace sent him an encouraging smile as the obstetrician gave additional directions in a calm, steady voice.
Minutes later, the obstetrician held the baby. While another nurse attended to the remainder of the birthing process, Candace scored the infant's Apgars. It was a boy, healthy and already squalling. Candace wrapped him in a clean blanket and slipped a tiny blue knit hat on his nearly bald head. “What hair there is, is blond,” she reported.
Shaun laughed. “My brother and I were both bald as bad tires when we were born.”
Candace carried the wee one to the new mother and showed her how to begin breast-feeding while Shaun looked on.
“Shaun, go tell everyone he's here,” Chrissy said warily.
Candace smiled to herself. Shaun was too ecstatic, with dazed delighted eyes, to be torn away from the baby right now. “Oh, look,” he said. “He's got a little birthmark just like mine!”
“Would you like me to go out and let them know?” she offered. “Then you can take your time in here.”
Chrissy shot her a grateful smile. “That would be great. Thank you.”
Candace left the young couple in the birthing suite and walked to the visitors’ lounge. She stepped into the room and said, “Is the Carlson family here?”
Immediately, a whole crowd of people leaped up and came rushing toward her. There appeared to be two sets of grandparents and several assorted younger adults. One of them was a man in a set of blue scrubs with curly, golden blond hair who looked to be roughly her age. He wore a Hope Haven Hospital ID around his neck, and he sent Candace a warm smile as she announced the baby news. As other members of the family drifted away, chattering excitedly among themselves, he stepped forward and offered a hand.
“Hello. I’m Heath Carlson from Radiology.”
“Candace Crenshaw.” She smiled and took his hand briefly. “I guess you already know I work in Labor and Delivery.”
“I thought you might.” His grin invited her to chuckle along with him. “Shaun, the new dad, is my brother. This is my parents’ first grandchild, so everyone's excited.”
Candace instantly remembered the day that Brooke had been born. “My daughter was the first grandchild on my husband's side of the family. It was quite an exciting time for all of us.”
“And how old is she now?”
“Eleven.”
“Just on the edge of adolescence.”
“Yes, and I’m already beginning to notice flashes of moodiness.” Candace gave a small sigh. “I remember my own teen years. You couldn't pay me enough to be that age again.”
“I know a lot of people who say that, although I don't remember it as being a particularly traumatic time.” Heath's eyes crinkled, and Candace noticed how vividly blue they were. He was quite attractive.
“Maybe it's easier for boys,” she said. “I’ll let you know in a decade or so, when my son is a teenager. He's still only five and very excited to be starting kindergarten in the fall.” Her eyes met his and she smiled. “Do you have children?”
Heath sent her another gentle smile, and deep dimples creased his cheeks. “No. I’m not married.” His gaze slid to her left hand.
Candace felt the warmth of a blush stealing up her neck and into her cheeks. Oh heavens. She gestured toward the doorway. “I have to go and do…things. I have things to do.” An unexpected bubble of something akin to panic rose in her chest.
Heath's smile widened, and his blue eyes sparkled. “It was nice to meet you, Candace.”
“You too.” With hurried strides, she fled back down the corridor toward the Birthing Unit. At least, it felt like she was fleeing, although she deliberately slowed her steps to a moderate pace.
She had barely thought about relationships since Dean's death. Between the children and her job, it was easy to avoid facing the fact that she was a single woman now. A widow. How she hated that word. I’m a widow. A lump rose in her throat. Glancing around and seeing no one, she ducked into an empty room and pressed herself against the wall. Oh, Dean, I miss you so.
Heath Carlson had been gentle and warm, and she�
�d felt herself responding to his smiling gaze with smiles of her own. The way her breath had caught for just a moment had reminded her of the first time she’d met Dean. They both had been undergraduate students at the University of Illinois' Chicago campus. Dean had studied business; she was a nursing student.
She had dropped a folder as she walked to class one day, and several papers had fallen out. It was windy, but she’d managed to grab them all but one. As she’d chased it across a grassy area, a tall boy with hair so blond it almost looked white reached down and snagged it. He’d been laughing as she had rushed up, and she could still remember the zing she’d felt when their eyes had met. Neither of them had dated anyone else from that day forward. They’d loved and laughed, and she’d imagined them growing old together.
Then came the day she’d gotten the frantic call from Dean's friend saying he’d been rushed to the hospital. By the time she’d met the ambulance there, a brain aneurysm had taken away the man she loved.
She squeezed her eyes closed and took deep, calming breaths. She rarely gave in to these bouts of grief anymore. Only at night, in the privacy of her own room, did she mourn.
Help me, Lord, she prayed silently. Carry me and this burden during those moments when it's too heavy to bear.
She prayed for several minutes, gradually feeling herself calming. The tension in her throat eased. Finally, with a small smile just to prove to herself that she could, she pulled open the door and stepped into the hallway again.
She was a nurse; people needed her.
Elena climbed out of the passenger side of Cameron Scott's truck after they pulled into a parking spot at the monument company. A variety of headstones with different carving effects were distributed in front of the building. Cluds’ Monuments of Dee-stinction, read the sign that fronted the road.
“Dee-stinction?” Elena said, grinning as she pointed to the misspelled sign.
“It certainly makes it dee-stinct,” Cam said with a chuckle.
“I can't thank you enough for volunteering to help me with this,” she said to him as they started into the building. She glanced down at the notebook she carried in one arm. “Without you, I never would have known what type of brick would make a good memorial wall, and I certainly wouldn't have known where to go to get the best prices.”
The Best Medicine Page 8
