Sacred Trust (19 page)

A
t five forty-five Mercy leaned back in her desk chair and stared at the pile of charts stacked in her in-tray. She'd barely had time for half a sandwich on the way back from her house call, and she was starving. The least Lukas Bower could have done was offer her dinner—not that she'd have accepted, but he could have.

Her office door opened, and Josie stuck her head in. “It's him again, Dr. Mercy.”

“Him who?”

“Dr. Bower. I told him you were buried beneath a pile of work, but he's holding on line three. He wants to know about the results of some tests.”

“Fine, I'll take it.” At the pleased smile on Josie's face, she scowled. “Out.” She pointed at the door, punched the button and picked up the receiver. “Yes, Dr. Bower.”

“Good, you're still there.”

“Of course I'm still here. I'll be here until midnight at this rate.”

“Business booming?”

“Not if I keep doing house calls. Some of my patients waited two hours this afternoon.”

“Sorry.”

She relented. “I'm glad I went, especially after I saw the results of the tests.” She picked up the sheets she had received from the lab this afternoon. She read him the report, which confirmed that Clarence was dangerously diabetic and probably had chronic heart failure.

“We need to get to work on this guy right away,” Mercy said. “I still don't think he'll accept my help.” She looked up as Josie walked back in with another chart.

“I'll accept your help,” Lukas said. “He obviously needs another house call.”

“Thursday's my day off. Want to set a time?” A clipboard clattered to the desk. Mercy looked up to find Josie staring at her, eyes wide in eager anticipation.

Mercy pointed to the door. “Out, I said! And if you come in here again, you'll be fired for the second time today.”

“Uh, excuse me?” Lukas asked tentatively.

“Nothing. What time Thursday?”

“How about noon. I owe you lunch for today, and maybe I'll get some sleep between patients tonight.”

“How about one o'clock, so you can sleep at least one extra hour after morning shift takes over? And I think you owe me more than that—at least a dinner. I'm starving.” Mercy bit her tongue. What was she saying? Had she suddenly lost her mind? Good thing she'd chased Josie out of the room.

“Okay, I'll see that you get fed. Unfortunately, I can't share it with you because I have to be back to work at seven, and I just got up.”

“That's a tight schedule. Did you get any sleep this afternoon?”

“About four hours. At least it's only a twelve-hour shift tonight.”

“Still too much. See you Thursday.” Mercy hung up, glanced toward the door, and noted that it was ajar. “Josie, you'd better not be out there!”

She heard feet scurrying away, but before she could pursue it, her intercom buzzed. “Dr. Mercy, line one is for you,” came her secretary's voice. “It's your daughter.”

Mercy glanced at her clock as she pressed the intercom button. “Loretta, what are you still doing here? It's after quitting time. Go home. You can finish your work tomorrow.” She pressed the phone button. “Tedi? Hi, sweetie. What's up?”

“Hi, Mom. Can you meet with my teacher at school Thursday? That's the day after tomorrow. Your day off.”

“Of course I will…. Tedi, did you stay at home alone last night?”

There was silence.

It was all the answer Mercy needed. Theo would put up a big fight if she fought him for custody, but she was going to take him on this time. “Honey, try to get some sleep. I'll call your teacher and make an appointment for Thursday.”

“Okay. Mom? What if she won't talk to you because you're not my legal guardian?”

“I will explain to her that guardianship is in the process of changing.”

Tedi gasped. “Mom! You mean it?”

“There'll be a fight. You'll most likely get dragged into the middle.”

“I don't care! Do it, Mom!”

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Isn't it what you want?”

“I never wanted it any other way.”

“Won't Dad cause you a lot of trouble?”

“Don't worry about that.”

“Mom, do I have to see a shrink Thursday morning?”

“A what?”

“Dad made me an appointment with this guy he knows.”

Mercy bit her lip. Theo was using his mind games again. “I did not request a ‘shrink,' Tedi. I told your father I wanted you to see a counselor.” And the jerk had set Tedi up with one of his friends in the “good old boy” system, but it wouldn't do to complain about something like that now.

“Why did you tell Dad I had to see a counselor?”

“Because I want you to be able to talk about anything that is bothering you right now without having to worry if you'll start a fight between your mom and dad. I want you to be able to trust someone who will listen and not cause trouble.”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Tedi.”

“I love you, too, Mom. Bye.”

Thirty minutes later, a pizza supreme arrived at the door.

 

Lukas had discovered, to his relief, that weeknight shifts at the Knolls E.R. were about as different from those in KC as the Mark Twain Forest was from Swope Park. He hadn't seen a gang shooting since he'd arrived, and the few knife wounds he'd treated had been from the local poultry processing plant over in Summit. The only enemy most patients had was the specter of infection if they didn't properly care for their wounds.

What amazed Lukas even more was that some nights he even had a chance to sleep a few hours, which freed
up his daytime hours to read through his junk mail. If he had lived closer to his dad and stepmom, he would have visited them on his days off. As it was, free time found him depending too much on television or hanging around the hospital to keep loneliness at bay.

By Wednesday night he was too tired to think about being lonely, and he had little chance to sleep. He dozed off about three o'clock Thursday morning, but barely an hour later a loud screech from somewhere in the emergency room shot him up in bed with all the subtlety of an explosion.

“Leggo of me, Emmett!” came a woman's shrill voice. “I ain't drunk! I din't ev'n have a full jar!”

It was Ruby Taylor's voice, one well recognized here in the hospital. Lukas had treated her when she'd sprained an ankle at a country dance and had continued dancing with all the vigor a drinking binge could give her. Her family had dragged her in kicking and screaming that time, too. She didn't like doctors. Great. Lukas threw off his blanket and sat up. From the other room he heard a tired male voice clearly.

“I didn't think she'd had time to drink too much this time, Nurse.”

Lukas recognized Emmett Taylor's longsuffering tone. Why did the hospital designers put the call rooms right here in the emergency department? Every single sound penetrated the door.

Lukas braced himself to go out and face Ruby and her worried family—tradition had it that they always came as a group: the husband, drunk wife and two teenaged sons. From what Lukas had heard around the hospital, the Taylors drove an old '76 model Ford truck held together by rust.

“Did you see how much she drank?” the night nurse,
Claudia, was asking the family as Lukas joined them in exam room two.

“Prob'ly more'n she's admittin' to,” the fourteen-year-old piped up. “Ma can really put it away.”

“Shut up, boy!” Ruby snapped. “I'm the patient here, Nurse. T-talk to me.”

“Okay, I'm only trying to help you,” Claudia said patiently. “I need to check you out and see how your heart's beating, how well you're breathing, and—”

“I don't need checkin' out! Emmett, get me outa here!”

“Stop it, Ruby,” the husband said. “You're sick, you're throwin' up, and I know you have another bad headache.” He glanced at Claudia, then Lukas. “She's been awfully moody lately, Doc. She can't even walk straight across the front porch.”

“Yeah,” the sixteen-year-old said. “I had to catch her once tonight, or she'd've fallen.”

Ruby, a middle-aged woman with premature gray hair and a permanent frown, turned to glare at Lukas. “You're the doc that treated me last time. Tell 'em they're crazy. I ain't drunk.”

Lukas stepped forward with his stethoscope. “Okay, if you don't need to be here, I'll tell them to take you home. Since you're already here, though, and you obviously don't feel well, let's see if we can help you feel a little better before you leave.”

She held a hand up to ward him off. “I ain't sick! Get away from me, all of you!”

Lukas was close enough that the fumes from her breath nearly choked him. He glanced at the husband. “May I speak with you a moment outside, Mr. Taylor?” He turned to Claudia, a competent, no-nonsense nurse in her fifties. “Please get Mrs. Taylor's blood pressure and pulse if you
can. Temp, too, if possible.” He turned to lead the husband out into the hallway.

“What is it, Doc?” Emmett Taylor looked ten years younger than his wife, even with the frown and defeated expression that seemed to be a part of him. “You can treat her, can't you?”

The shrill sound of Ruby's voice reached them from the other room. “Get that thing off me! Help me, somebody, they're takin' my arm off!”

“Ruby, hold still,” Claudia soothed. “It won't read your pressure right if you don't—no, don't pull it off!”

Mr. Taylor shook his head and grimaced. “She's worse than ever. I can't even get her to see reason anymore.”

“When did she start drinking today?” Lukas asked.

“About dinnertime. You're not gonna send me back home with her like this, are you? We don't know what to do with her there.”

Lukas suppressed a weary sigh. Alcohol use seemed widespread in this town, but then, that was the case in every town. He got most of his drunks late at night, especially on weekends. “I need you to sign a consent for us to treat her,” he said. “She's obviously incapable of making that decision.”

“Yeah, show me the paper. I'll sign anything you need, Dr. Bower. She seems to be gettin' worse, especially when she drinks.”

“What do you man ‘especially'? Does she do this when she hasn't been drinking?”

Emmett frowned thoughtfully. “Seems like it. Sometimes she just starts getting bad while she's drinking and stays that way awhile after. She doesn't get over her hangovers as well as she used to, either.” He sidled closer and lowered his voice. “Doc, you think it's the change?”

“The change?”

“Yeah, you know, the midlife thing. I hear women go out of their heads when that happens. A couple of times last night she doubled over and grabbed at her stomach and screamed like she did when she was givin' birth.”

“Since we haven't been able to get close enough to examine her, I don't know what it is yet. Has she been drinking more than usual lately? Does she drink every day?”

“I don't see her drink every day, no.”

“She hasn't hit her head lately, has she? Maybe it's something besides the alcohol.”

“She never told me about it if she did.” Emmett shook his head. “I don't know, Doc.”

“Has she been taking any new medications in the past few weeks?”

Emmett raised his eyebrows at Lukas. “Only time she ever sees a doc is here. She calls the stuff she drinks her medicine. Dr. George gave us something for her stomach a few months ago when she came in, but I don't think she ever took it.”

“So she doesn't have a family doctor?”

“I guess we've got Dr. George for a family doc. That's who we put on her check-in papers. He's the one who admits her when she comes in drunk.”

Lukas suppressed a grimace. He was not in the mood to face Jarvis, even over the telephone. “Okay, Mr. Taylor. I'll have Rita get a form for you to sign. We may call Dr. George in a little bit.”

Emmett followed him to the central desk, where Rita sat studying the computer screen. “Doc, do you think the boys and I could go back home for a while?” Emmett asked. “We left before we could do our morning chores, and if those cows don't get milked, they'll go dry for
sure. We could come back later on in the morning after we're done.”

“Do you have a telephone at home so we can call you if we need to?” Lukas asked.

“Nope, the line doesn't come that far out. We've always kinda liked it that way.”

After the form was signed and Emmett and the boys left, Lukas returned to the exam room in time to see Ruby burst into tears. “They left me here to die.”

“Why do you think you're going to die, Ruby?” Claudia asked gently, stroking the woman's hair. “We've always taken good care of you before. We're not going to let anything happen to you.”