Mother's Promise (8 page)

Rachel and Paul had connected almost on sight. Darcy had never in her life known that kind of instant connection—not with school friends, not with her college roommates, not with co-workers, not even with her own family.

Rachel's first day on the job was flying by. After her meeting with Darcy and Paul, Eileen had guided her to the Human Resources department where Mark Boynton had taken her through the details of being an employee at Gulf Coast.

“There's a dress code,” he had said at one point, and then he'd looked up at her and his cheeks had turned a fiery red. “You'll be fine,” he amended before turning his attention back to the employee handbook that he had insisted on going over page by page.

There were papers to sign followed by a tour of the entire facility that left her head spinning. So many corridors. So many people coming and going in all directions. So much suffering on the cancer wing and then utter joy when they walked through the maternity wing. There she witnessed a man in the midst of a throng of well-wishers in the waiting room as he held up his phone to show pictures of his newborn child. They passed two hospital rooms occupied by mothers nursing their babies.

“Children's wing is across this skywalk,” Mark told her. “Patients who come here as well as friends and family have their own separate chapel.” He opened the door to a small room that took her breath away.

The chapel he'd shown her in the main part of the hospital had been generic, with stained glass windows in a geometric design that lined the two side walls. The front of the room was furnished with a small lectern and a simple wooden table that held a vase of fresh flowers. The rest of the carpeted room had been furnished with three rows of chairs—four chairs per row to each side of a center aisle. The low-level lighting created an atmosphere of peace and quiet, a haven to escape the noise, bright lights, and fast-paced activity outside the double cypress doors.

But, although it was also a small room, the children's chapel was filled with natural light from a trio of frosted skylights above and windows that looked out onto the manicured grounds of the medical center's campus all around. The floor was tile interrupted by two circles of bright-colored square cushions.

“The children who are able to do so will sit on the cushions,” Mark explained. “Those gaps in between are for children in wheelchairs. Those chairs against the walls are for times like Christmas when we might have a special program, or they could be used for a memorial service if necessary. The room will be used for multiple purposes.” He pointed to a second door. “In there is a room where family and friends can get away if they need to cry or pray or simply escape the clamor,” he explained.

“It's wonderful,” Rachel told him. “Thank you so much for taking the time to show me around.”

Mark smiled. “Hey, from what I hear this is where you're likely to spend a good amount of your time.” He led the way back into the children's area and opened a narrow door concealed as part of the wall. “Locked storage for whatever you might want to keep here,” he said, taking out a plastic bag that held a clown's red rubber nose and a chartreuse frizzy wig. “Pastor Paul's,” he explained. “He sometimes wears them when he's on his rounds.” He placed the items back in the closet and closed and locked the door before handing her the key.

On their way out, Rachel couldn't help but notice a small silver plaque that read C
HAPEL OF
H
OPE
: A G
IFT OF
M
ALCOLM
, S
HARON, AND
S
ALLY
S
HEPHERD
.

“There's an activity room across the hall here.” Mark pointed to an open door, beyond which Rachel could see an area set up with a quartet of computers, an area for crafts, and some colorful plastic toys geared toward toddlers.

“And that's pretty much the grand tour,” Mark said. He glanced at his watch. “Oops. I promised to have you back fifteen minutes ago. Eileen wants to get you set up in your office.”

Mark made one more stop at the nurses' station and introduced Rachel to the staff on duty. Then as they retraced their steps back through the corridor lined with patients' rooms, they couldn't help noticing that most were empty. “They'll fill up,” Mark said as if she had asked. They rounded a corner, and she glanced into a room where a child was watching cartoons. The boy, who could not have been more than seven, glanced over at her, and Rachel smiled and waved at him.

As they approached the entrance to the skywalk, they passed a room where the window blinds were closed. When she looked closer Rachel saw the silhouette of a small body lying in bed surrounded by a network of tubes. The child was linked to a series of machines blinking their neon signals and wheezing their rhythmic codes. She could barely make out the form of a woman sitting by the bedside, her head resting on her hand.

Rachel's longing to stop and offer the woman some comfort was huge, but Mark was already several steps ahead of her. The one thing that Rachel had grasped after the two hours she had spent with this young man was that a hospital this large had rules and routines—
protocol
, Mark called it. It would not do to start following her instincts—at least not until she had learned those guidelines.

Back in the spiritual care department, Eileen showed her to a small cubicle next to the reception desk. There was already a nameplate on the cloth wall of the divider that read R
ACHEL
K
AUFMANN
, C
HILD
L
IFE
S
PECIALIST
.

“That's your new title,” Eileen explained when she saw that Rachel had paused to study the sign. “Human Resources seems to have this need to keep reinventing labels for what people do around here. Pay it no mind. When the rubber meets the road, you are a chaplain, just like Paul Cox is.”

“But Pastor Cox is an ordained minister and board certified.” Rachel remembered the neatly framed degrees and certification documents she'd noticed on the wall of Paul's office.

“Thus his position as senior chaplain. The bottom line is that we all work from the same basic creed—you, Paul, and even me.” She pointed to a framed poster on the wall, entitled O
UR
M
ISSION
.

Rachel stepped closer to read it.

Eileen reached around her and picked up a laminated bookmark from a clear plastic holder on the counter. She handed the bookmark to Rachel, who saw that it repeated the mission statement and also included information for contacting members of their staff when needed.

“That's impressive,” Rachel said.

“And ambitious, especially when it looked like maybe it would be Paul doing all the work. But you're here now,” she added brightly. “Come check out your cubicle and let me know if you need anything in the way of supplies or a different chair or more storage above the desk. Anything at all.”

Rachel stepped into the small space and opened the top drawer of a two-drawer file cabinet. It had already been stocked with hanging file folders in a rainbow of colors. She opened one of the overhead bins above her desk. There she found legal pads, pens, a stapler and staple remover, scissors, paper clips, and notepads in a variety of sizes. There was a telephone with an intimidating row of buttons in addition to the usual numerical keypad. And all the while she tried to ignore the computer that dominated the corner where her built-in desk wrapped itself past the window and onto the solid wall. She knew the basics of how to use a computer. In the school system she had been responsible for inserting data, but beyond that she wasn't exactly computer savvy.

“Do not ask me to explain why they would situate your computer and chair so that you are looking out into daylight. Talk about a headache in the making.” Eileen frowned, but then she took a step closer to the window and her features softened. “On the other hand, it is a lovely view with the serenity garden and all.”

“It's very nice,” Rachel assured her.

Eileen pulled her gaze away from the tropical scene outside and glanced around. “Well, I'll leave you to it. Paul wants to meet with you at noon. And then somebody from I.T. will be by at four to finish setting up your phone and computer.”

“I.T.?”

“Information Technology. The computer and phone geeks.”

“I see.”

“There's coffee and tea behind the counter in my space. If you need anything, give me a shout.” Her warm brown eyes sparkled with merriment as she indicated the open space above the cloth-covered divider separating them. “I'm right over the fence here.”

“Thank you, Eileen. Thank you for everything.”

For the next hour Rachel busied herself getting settled in. She rearranged the supplies to her liking and could not help but wonder if she would ever have enough files to fill up even one, much less both of the file drawers. A volunteer from the hospital gift shop stopped by to deliver a dish garden filled with a variety of living plants. Rachel opened the florist's card and read the typed message:
From everyone at Gulf Coast Medical Center, WELCOME!

As she worked, she was comforted by the sounds of Eileen attending to her duties. Paul's assistant answered phone calls, dealt with two or three people who came looking for Paul, and in between seemed to be constantly tapping away at the keyboard of her computer.

Rachel had started to read through the materials in the folder that Paul Cox had given her during their first meeting when Eileen said, “Call for you, Rachel. I'll send it over.”

Rachel stared at the red light blinking on her phone. “What do I do?” she asked.

“Pick it up,” Eileen instructed. “It looks complicated, but it's really just a telephone.”

“Hello,” Rachel said tentatively.

“Well, hello yourself.” Her friend Hester chuckled. “Are you supposed to greet me with something official like ‘This is Rachel Kaufmann, Hospital Chaplain' or whatever your title is?”

Rachel couldn't seem to stifle the kind of girlish giggle the two friends had exchanged when they'd been roommates. “My title, I'll have you know, is
child life specialist
,” she said, keeping her voice down even though Eileen seemed to be completely occupied with her typing.

“Well, get you,” Hester teased, then her tone shifted. “How's it really going?”

“Too fast. I mean the morning has flown by and it's been a whirlwind of meetings and touring the hospital and getting my office space set up.” She turned to look out the window. “How's Justin doing? I wanted to call, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that yet.” She had lowered her voice to almost a whisper.

“Justin seems fine. John put him to work in the packinghouse getting everything cleaned up and ready for the new season. He's a quiet one, isn't he?”

He didn't used to be,
Rachel thought. “He's been through a lot.” She glanced at the wall clock and saw that she had only five minutes before her meeting with Paul Cox. “I have to go, Hester.”

“Understood. How about I bring Justin and come by to pick you up at the front entrance at five so we can go meet Sharon Shepherd and see the cottage.”

“Ja, and Hester?”

“Ja?”

“Thank you so much.”

“You don't need to keep thanking me, Rachel,” Hester told her. “It's the least I can do after everything you and Justin have been through. See you at five.”

The line went dead at the same time that Rachel heard Paul Cox enter the office. “Is she in?” he asked even as he bypassed Eileen's desk and tapped on the metal edge of Rachel's cubicle. “We've got an emergency,” he said. “Want to come along and see how this works?”

Paul did not wait for an answer as he headed back out the door and then down the corridor toward the skywalk that led to the children's wing. “I hope you don't get queasy at the sight of blood,” he added grimly as he turned down a hallway then strode through a set of double doors that marked the entrance to the emergency room for the children's wing.

Chapter 5