Love Finds You in Romeo, Colorado

by Gwen Ford Faulkenberry

  “She said if I could get her in to you, she would.”

  “Did you tell her I’d see her today?”

  “Well, sorta. I told her I knew you would if there was any way you could.”

  “That’s right. You bring her on. I’ll tell Irene to work her in as soon as you get here.”

  “Thanks, son.”

  Stephen studied the schedule a moment longer and then took a deep breath as he exited his office. Ashli met him coming down the hall. Clad in red scrubs that were tight as a snakeskin, she tossed her bleach-blond hair and smiled at him with teeth like a horse. Stephen cringed inwardly as he subconsciously compared her look to the understated splendor of Claire’s.

  “Looks like we’ve got some doozies lined up,” Ashli said, handing him two charts.

  Perusing the first one, Stephen glanced up at her. “What’s this?”

  “Apparently she called the ER and they sent her over here, rather than having you come there. I guess it’s not really super urgent?”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Uh, no. I thought since it was technically an ER case that you could just do it.”

  Stephen studied her a moment as though she were from another planet. Then, deciding against confrontation, he opened the next chart. It was apparently for his first standing appointment.

  “You have talked to this one?” he asked Ashli.

  “Oh, yeah. We had a nice chat.”

  Ashli turned on her heel and then sashayed down the hall in front of him, swinging her full hips from side to side.

  Stephen scowled after her. He took another deep breath before entering exam room one.

  Sitting on the exam table in front of him, kicking her feet, was a young woman who appeared to be about twenty. Her chin-length hair was faded maroon at the tips and dull brown up near her scalp. She had a lip ring that curled around her upper lip in one corner. Like a miniature tusk, Stephen thought.

  The girl was poorly dressed in ripped sweats, old tennis shoes, and a gray jacket. Underneath those layers, however, was the unmistakable protrusion of a pregnant belly. She looked like she had swallowed a watermelon.

  “Hi there. I’m Dr. Reyes,” Stephen said, sitting down on his stool in front of her. “And you’re Brandy. Is that right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, Brandy, what seems to be the trouble? Are you having any problems with your pregnancy?” He glanced down at her chart. “It says here that your due date is next week.”

  “That’s true, but I’m past ready to get this baby out.” She rubbed her abdomen. “When I talked to my momma—she’s out in California—she said to drink some Castrol. That’s what she did with me to get her labor going.”

  Stephen thought he was hearing things. “Excuse me, what did she tell you to drink?”

  “Castrol.”

  Stephen looked at her quizzically.

  “You know. Castrol.”

  It finally dawned on him what she was saying. “Castor oil?” Stephen was aware of the old wives’ tale. He’d heard it many times before.

  “That’s what I said.” She looked at him like he was completely stupid.

  “Okay, but Brandy, I have to tell you that’s just a myth. It doesn’t work.”

  “I know that now. I drank half a quart of it last night and nothing happened.”

  Stephen’s pulse quickened. “What do you mean you drank half a quart of it?”

  “Well, my boyfriend’s a mechanic, and he gave me a quart of Castrol yesterday out of his shop. I drank most of it, but when his momma found out about it this morning, she about had a cow. She’s the one who called the emergency room, but they sent me over to you. She got into a fight with that nurse Carlos. She thought they ought to pump my stomach.”

  Stephen fought hard to retain his composure.

  “Let me get this straight. You drank Castrol motor oil last night to induce your labor, but nothing has happened. No diarrhea, nothing.”

  “Nothing. No labor pains, either,” she added sullenly.

  “Well. Okay, Brandy, I think we’ll just set you up in an observation room for a few hours; how does that sound?”

  “I guess that’s all right with me. I mean, you’re the doctor.”

  His next patient was a woman of thirty-five. She had long, nut-brown hair and small green eyes.

  “Hi, Jennifer, I’m Dr. Reyes,” Stephen said as he entered the room.

  “You can call me Jen,” she told him in an over-friendly manner.

  “Okay, Jen, what seems to be the trouble? Ashli wrote on your chart that you’ve been bitten by an insect?”

  “Not an insect, but some insects. Although I’m not sure if they’re technically insects.”

  “Well, where did they bite you?” Stephen stood up from his stool to examine her.

  “All up and down this arm.”

  She held out her arm for him to see, but Stephen couldn’t make out the tiniest mark anywhere.

  “The bites were really red yesterday. I called for an appointment but couldn’t get in until this morning. I almost came to the emergency room last night; they were so painful.”

  “Well, are they hurting today?”

  “On and off—I mean, they’re not really hurting that bad right now, but I bet they will be later.”

  “I see.” Stephen was beginning to wonder if everyone in La Jara had lost their minds.

  “I brought them in, in case you need to do lab work or something on them.”

  “On what?”

  “The woolly worms. The ones that bit me.”

  Jen slid off the table and went to her purse. Opening it, she retrieved a bell jar that had holes poked in the lid, presumably so her assailants could breathe.

  “This is what bit you?” Stephen asked, disbelieving.

  “Yeah. I was sitting under a tree in my backyard drinking tea, and these worms fell on my arm and bit me!”

  Stephen took a deep breath. Looking back and forth from Jen’s face to the three woolly worms obliviously munching a leaf inside her jar, he sat back down to write on his prescription notepad.

  “I’m going to give you something preventative, for the next time you’re outside.”

  “Okay,” Jen said, her smile pasted on like the third runner-up in a pageant.

  Stephen wrote “Bug Spray” on the pad and handed it to her before walking out of the exam room.

  “Irene?” Stephen boomed into the phone when the receptionist answered on the other end of the line.

  “Dr. Reyes?”

  “Yes. Has Nell Patrick come in with Marsha Evans yet?”

  There was a moment’s pause before Irene said, “Well, yes. As a matter of fact they are here.”

  “I’d like to see them in my office.”

  “Your office?”

  “Yes. I’m in my office right now. You can walk them back.”

  “Uh, okay.” Irene was obviously rattled by his request.

  Stephen’s mood changed almost instantly when Nell walked into the room and hugged him. He was as happy to see her as he was sorry to see the shape Marsha was in.

  “Thanks for getting me in today, Dr. Reyes,” Marsha said somberly.

  “Hey—no problem. When Nell speaks, I listen.” Stephen joked with them, trying to lighten the heaviness of Marsha’s situation. “But why don’t you call me Stephen? Or Steve? We’re neighbors.”

  Nell patted the younger woman’s arm. “I’ll just wait outside.”

  “Go right in here,” Stephen motioned to the empty exam room across the hall and then closed the door to his office. Marsha sat down in one of the wingbacks across from his desk, and he sat down behind his desk, leaning back and putting one cowboy boot up on its corner.

  “Tell me about you,” he said to Marsha.

  She laughed uncomfortably. “I—I think I may be going crazy.”

  Stephen smiled at her reassuringly. “You have the right, if anyone does.”

  “I don’t know why I’m here, really, Dr
. Reyes, because I don’t think anyone can help me. My daughter’s death has changed everything, and no one can bring her back. I’m trying to cope the best I know how.”

  Stephen looked at the woman who seemed a shell of the person she’d been. He hadn’t known her well before, but he could see that her honey-colored hair had grown an inch with no attention, and her clothes hung like they were two sizes too big. Her blue eyes stared back at him from their sockets as though from some dark, lonely caves, and a deep furrow ravaged her brow. Stephen was moved by the honesty of her words. “What are some things you’re doing to cope?”

  “Praying, reading the Bible, trying to stay in a routine. But that’s hard.”

  “Does any of that help?”

  “Maybe; I mean, I believe praying and reading the Bible do. But I’ve also come to the conclusion that I can’t pray my way out of this. If I could, it would have already happened.”

  “Is your husband supportive?”

  “Very. At first he was so deep down in a hole himself that he couldn’t support anyone, but these last few weeks he’s doing a lot better. It’s strange.” Marsha fiddled with her hands in her lap. “Seems like the worse I get the better he does. I mean, he’s worried about me now and all, but he’s doing better with his own grief for Sydney. He even got saved.” A hint of a smile touched her lips before sadness resumed its position on her face.

  “Hmm.” Stephen pondered for awhile. Then he asked, “Have you considered grief counseling?”

  “I’ve talked to my pastor.”

  “Has that been helpful?”

  “I guess. As much as anything. It’s like I just don’t have any energy or taste for life.” Marsha looked soulfully into Stephen’s eyes. “I know everything happens for a reason. I know it’s a sin to second-guess God. And I feel guilty about it. But I can’t help it. I need my daughter back.”

  It seemed as if her eyes poured out buckets of tears. Stephen handed her a box of Kleenex, and she wiped the tears away.

  “Marsha, I want you to be honest with me. Have you thought about taking your own life?”

  Her silence filled the room. Then, after a moment, she said, “I’ve thought about it, but I wouldn’t ever do it. I don’t think I could go that far. I know God cares—and He’s there. I just wish sometimes He would let me go to sleep and not wake up.”

  Stephen removed his foot from his desk and sat up in his chair.

  “Marsha, I believe your feelings are completely normal, and the way you’re dealing with things is better than many people. This is a healing process that is going to take time, but I want you to know that you do have a future and a hope.”

  “I believe that.”

  “I’d like to see you take an antidepressant to start building up some good chemicals in your brain. Sometimes when we have a traumatic experience, the good stuff gets suppressed and that makes it harder for us to go through the process of grieving and healing. Just a minute, okay?”

  Stephen hurried down the hall to one of the clinic’s medicine cabinets and pulled out several samples of Lexapro. Stepping back inside his office, he handed them to Marsha.

  “This is six months’ worth of medicine, and that may be all you need. Our brain’s chemical makeup can be like a diabetic’s, whose body doesn’t produce enough insulin, and so she has to take insulin shots forever. Or, what seems likely in your case, that chemical makeup can be thrown off by an extreme experience, and medicine can help us over a hump until our bodies get back to producing what we need on our own.”

  Marsha nodded, like she was trying to understand.

  “Why don’t you take this for a few months, and let’s see if it helps you get back on your feet. Then we’ll monitor and adjust if we need to.”

  “I never thought a Christian should need anything like this,” Marsha admitted.

  Stephen smiled at her. “I hear that a lot,” he said. “And medicine shouldn’t be anyone’s first option. But when a person is truly depressed, I believe it’s a physical condition. It’s not really about what we can do or not do to change it. God can use anything He wants—including medicine—to help us live our lives to the fullest.”

  Marsha rose to her feet and, for the first time, Stephen thought he read a little bit of hope in her expression. He opened the door. “Nell?” he called. No answer. “Nell?”

  Finally Nell appeared, sleepily, at the door of the examination room. “I just about took me a little nap,” she said with a yawn and a grin.

  Stephen ushered them to the back entrance near his office, which he always used.

  “Why don’t you two go out this door, and don’t worry about doing anything up front.”

  “Backdoor guests are best,” Nell said, winking at him.

  “Thank you, Dr. Reyes,” Marsha said. “Thank you very much.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Claire was excited—maybe even giddy, at least for her—about the prospects of the evening. It was two days before Christmas, and she and Abuelita had invited Stephen over for an early Christmas dinner. Instead of the traditional American menu of turkey and dressing and all of the fixings, which they’d do on Christmas Day, they decided to do something a little different. They were going to make Mexican tacos and chicken taquitos—Graeme’s favorite.

  “Graeme! Come help me with these lights!” Claire called up the stairs.

  They had set up the four-foot tree—his own personal tree—in his bedroom. The day after Thanksgiving, when he was still on break from school, they had kept the tradition started when Rob was alive of decorating a “Graeme Tree.” The Graeme Tree was an artificial Scotch pine flocked with fake snow and pre-lit with hundreds of tiny colored lights.

  Claire had been so excited about that tree—much more excited than Graeme had been the first year he had it. She had found it on an after-Christmas clearance sale the year she was pregnant with him. During her pregnancy she had whiled away many evening hours cutting out and decorating little ornaments for him, many times joined by Rob who lovingly poked fun at her nesting instinct. By the next year, the oblivious four-month-old had a Christmas tree in his nursery, full of ornaments that documented his incubation and birth.

  In the years after that, they added to the box of ornaments with mementoes from family excursions and tiny framed pictures of the three of them, which they hung on the tree with ribbons. There was one of Moira in a Santa hat and another of Rob’s parents in a frame that announced “Proud Grandparents.” Graeme’s grandparents had also contributed a tiny set of bagpipes and a miniature Eilen Donan castle from their family reunion in Scotland. All of these had been converted to ornaments for the Graeme Tree collection.

  The year Rob died, Claire didn’t put up a tree—not even Graeme’s. She felt bad about that. As much as she tried to keep Graeme’s life and routine as normal as possible through that time, Christmas had been something she just couldn’t face. Moira, as always, had picked up the slack by shuttling them back and forth between her house and her parents’ and showering Graeme with gifts, but the truth was that none of them had really felt like celebrating. The memory of it stung her.

  But this year was different.

  “Graeme! Are you coming?”

  “Just a minute, Mom!” he called from somewhere upstairs. He had disappeared that morning with the tape, his school scissors, and a roll of wrapping paper that Abuelita freely turned over to him.

  Claire went to work stringing the lights on Abuelita’s tree by herself. Opting away from the traditional tree they had when Claire was a child, with giant Easter-egg-type lights, Abuelita had somewhere along the line gone with a more southwest approach. She usually paid someone to do it, but this year Claire had the honor of stringing one thousand red chili-pepper-shaped lights on a seven-foot fir that had been delivered that morning. It was a job.

  “What can I do to help, Mom?” Graeme finally appeared, with his hands behind his back.

  “What’s that behind your back?” she asked him.

 
“Oh, nothing.” He leaned toward her. “You can’t peek!”

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  “Promise you won’t peek!”

  “I won’t! I promise!”

  “Okay. These are yours and Abuelita’s Christmas presents. When we’re done I’m going to put them under the tree.”

  He set them on the coffee table for the time being, and Claire admired his handiwork. “My, what excellent wrapping you’ve done, Graeme.”

  The boxes were each a mass of crinkled paper and excessive tape.

  Graeme beamed up at her proudly. “I did it myself.”

  When they finished the chili-pepper lights, Claire checked in with Abuelita, who was rolling taquitos in the kitchen. The smell of green peppers and onions filled the air, and Claire inhaled appreciatively. “Yum.”

  “How does my tree look?” Abuelita looked up from a homemade corn tortilla and grinned at her.

  “Beautiful—finally. What’s next?”

  “I want you to go to the storage area under the stairs—the same place you got the lights. I have a special surprise for you and Graeme.”

  “What is it?” asked Claire.

  “You’ll know when you see it. It’s in a blue box with your name on it, on the top shelf.”

  Claire obeyed and ducked back under the stairs to fetch the box. She hadn’t noticed it before since it was high above where the lights had been stored, but, using a stool, she got it down. She remembered it instantly. It was the box of ornaments from the Christmas trees of her childhood. Carrying it into the living room, she placed it on the couch and then sat down beside it, inviting Graeme to sit down with her.

  “What are these?” he asked.

  “These were mine. Abuelita and I used to put them on our Christmas tree when I was growing up.”

  “Cool!” Graeme, said, digging into the box. The first thing he pulled out was a medal. It was faded now, but the ribbon had been red, white, and blue, like something from the Olympics. The faux-gold medallion was engraved. “What’s this for? Did you win a race?”

  “Well,” said Claire, “let’s look at it.” Turning the medallion over, she showed Graeme where it said “Geography Champion. Caspian, C.”