Tabitha (13 page)

Another year has passed
, Tabitha thought.
When I
believed I could endure no more, you, Lord, sustained me. You are faithful, O
God. So faithful.

Tabitha had now worked an entire year of night shifts with
no respite, no holidays, and no furloughs. She had worked night after night in
addition to her classes, practicums, and exams; she maintained her grades in
addition to hours spent cleaning the bloody aftermath of surgeries or scrubbing
beakers and other medical instruments, wrapping them in brown paper, and
sterilizing them in the autoclave.

The same unrelenting duties were not assigned to the other
nursing students. Yes, all the students rotated through night shifts, but
Tabitha was never taken off the night roster. And only when a classmate made a
significant error or broke a rule were they given work in addition to their
daily duties.

Tabitha knew that she had Nurse Rasmussen to thank for the
“punishment duties” she never escaped.
I just do not know why, Lord
, she
fretted.

“Lord,” Tabitha whispered, “I give my life to you to do as
you wish. Let me be like the Apostle Paul!” and she quoted a passage from 2
Corinthians aloud as she stood long hours in the wards each night.

Always
bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our body.
For we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake,
that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

She no longer requested furloughs. After having her requests
rejected five times, she had given up asking for leave.

While most of the students vacated the campus between terms,
Tabitha and a handful of other students remained in residence in the dormitory,
working extended hours to maintain staffing levels at the hospital.

Though the hours were long, term breaks also had their bit
of silver lining: With no classes in session, Tabitha could sleep all day,
sleep until her exhausted body received its full complement of sleep.

Besides, the end of her ordeal was in sight. Within a few
weeks the spring term would commence—and at its end, she would graduate!

Then I will go home.

Home! She counted the months that had passed.

I have not been home in fifteen months
.

An entire spring had passed. An entire summer had drifted
by. Another fall and another Christmas had come and gone.

Carpenter had visited again at Christmas, and Tabitha cradled
those precious memories close to her heart. She had even begun to entertain
hope that she and Mason could have a future together.

If it is your will, Lord
, she prayed,
but I know
you have called me to nursing. Help me to follow hard after you, giving you my
all, so I might satisfy your purposes in my life.

Carpenter, too, seemed to have new purpose. “I earned my
pilot’s license, Tabs, and Cliff is teaching me how to instruct. He has a small
pilot’s school, and I shall be his partner.”

“But what shall you do with this flying, Mr. Carpenter? What
is its objective?”

He cocked his head, thinking before he framed an answer. “I
am not certain, but I cannot escape the sense that we are preparing for
something important, something momentous.”

As am I,
Tabitha admitted to herself.
Something
important, only I do not know what it will be.

Still, she longed for her schooling to be finished so that
she could return to Denver—but she also harbored some anxiety.

When I return to Palmer House, so much will have changed.
I will meet girls who live there but who do not even know me. And neither
Mei-Xing nor Breona reside at Palmer house any longer.

Tabitha made herself stop thinking along those lines. “Keep
your eyes upon your goal, Tabitha. Fix them upon graduation. Think of nothing
but receiving your nurse’s cap and pin—focus on what life will be when June
arrives, after which you will leave this place forever.”

So she toiled on.

~~~

January passed into February and then early March. The
winter term ended, and Tabitha welcomed the break between classes, and not only
because of the welcome extra sleep, but because she also anticipated a visit
from Mason Carpenter.

It seemed that Carpenter managed to schedule some business
appointment in Boulder every time the school term ended. And somehow he also
managed to appear with a two-hour pass from the Dean to take Tabitha to dinner
and to deliver notes and gifts to her from her friends at Palmer House.

“How is it that you can wrangle a pass from him when I
cannot?” Tabitha inquired as they sped from the campus toward a local
restaurant.

“Oh, well. Perhaps the school is grateful for the generous
donations I make,” he drawled.

She slapped his arm in mock alarm. “No! Is this true? Do you
bribe Dean Wellan for these furloughs?”

He chuckled. “My dear, how can the dean refuse to grant me a
two-hour pass with you when I am dangling a check under his ample chin?”

“You are incorrigible,” Tabitha pronounced.

“Money has its good uses as well as evil, Tabs,” was all he
replied.

They dined with hearty appetite, and yet Tabitha was
hungrier for news than for food. She devoured every word Carpenter shared from
home, every description of her friends he could provide.

“And Joy? Is there no word on her little Edmund?”

“None.” Carpenter grimaced, suddenly out of humor. “For all
the devoted efforts of Mr. O’Dell and having spared no expense to track Morgan,
the trail has run cold.”

“Having spared no expense? Mr. Carpenter,” Tabitha asked,
parsing her question with care, “are you providing the funds in the search for
Edmund?”

He turned his head and avoided her question. “Mrs. Michaels
is a great testimony to me. Her godly character and faith inspire me and those
who know her.”

He then turned the conversation back to Palmer House and
provided many more tidbits of news, to Tabitha’s delight.

“You make the separation from all of them bearable,” she
admitted. “Thank you.”

He smiled. “You are most welcome.”

Tabitha sighed, happy for the reprieve from her duties, filled
with good food, and comfortable in Carpenter’s company. She spoke before she
realized how forward her questions would be.

“Mr. Carpenter, how is it you have never married? Settled
down?” She reddened and slapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh! I do apologize. That
was inappropriate. Inexcusable.”

But he had only cocked his head again and studied her, as
though deciding how to reply. Then he touched his napkin to his mouth.

“I have often wanted to tell you, Miss Hale, about
my . . . wife.”

Tabitha’s lips parted. She could not speak.

“Do not worry, Miss Hale, I am not married.” Carpenter’s
smile was crooked. Sad. “I married young and impetuously. I loved Christ, but I
did not listen to the Holy Spirit when I fell in love with Maudie. I was not
wise and did not concern myself overmuch with her spiritual desires or
aspirations—I was too enamored with the blissful life I envisioned that we
would share.

“Her picture of our married life, as it turned out, was
vastly different than mine. She desired the whirlwind life of a socialite,
while I despised the vapid, pointless machinations of high society. We were not
happy together, but we were also not long together. She developed acute
appendicitis. The doctors performed surgery, of course, but afterwards Maudie
developed an infection. Following a week of fever and horrible suffering, she
slipped away. We were married less than two years.”

Carpenter stared at Tabitha, his jaw working. “It was a
mistake to marry Maudie with no thought to her spiritual condition. As it is, I
fault myself that she passed into eternity with no relationship with Christ.”

Tabitha dropped her eyes, afraid of the view Carpenter had
opened into his soul, afraid of the raw pain she had glimpsed.

“I promised my Lord that I would not make such a mistake
again, Miss Hale,” he murmured. “I will remarry only when and if I and the
woman I choose are spiritually compatible and God approves of our union. I want
God’s best. Until then, I am content to wait.”

~~~

The break ended, and Tabitha’s last term began.

She was crossing the lawn from her dormitory to the
classrooms, keeping to the cobbled walkway, when she passed one of the school’s
caretakers. He was pushing an edge trimmer along the walkway. She had not paid
much attention to the several caretakers in the past. However, as she drew
abreast of the man, he raised his head and they made eye contact.

His stare was appraising.

Tabitha nearly stumbled and her face flamed.

I know this man!

Tabitha forced herself to keep walking and not look back. She
ran up the stairs to her classroom as if pursued and slid into her seat. When
the lecture began she had trouble concentrating. She was distracted and upset.

With a start, she realized the physician teaching the class
had spoken to her. “I asked you a question, Miss Hale.”

“I beg your pardon, doctor. I am afraid my attention was
elsewhere. I apologize; it will not happen again,” Tabitha answered.

“See that is does not,” he snapped.

Tabitha nodded and opened her book, but she could not get
the image of the caretaker from her mind. He was short, middle-aged, and
grizzled.

Not much had changed from when she had seen him last.

Nearly four years ago.

In her room at the
Silver Spurs
.

Lord, does he remember me from there?

She played back the chance encounter, the fleeting exchange.
Had she seen a blink of recognition on his part? Had he turned as she passed
by? Had his eyes continued to watch her?

Tabitha gnawed on her unanswered questions during the class
and remembered nothing of the lecture when the bell rang. As she gathered her
things and exited the building, she peered anxiously about her, looking for the
muted green of the caretaker’s uniform.

I must avoid another encounter with this man at any cost
,
she told herself.

~~~

April arrived with rain and sleet and departed on a warm
breeze. And then it was May. Final exams would begin in two weeks. Graduation
was scheduled for mid-June.

Tabitha’s days and nights passed by in a haze of study and
work, but she knew the end was near and that she was prepared.

I will more than pass my exams
, she exulted.
I am
in good standing and, because of God’s sustaining grace, I will acquit myself
well.

Tabitha returned to her dormitory after classes hoping to
snatch an hour of sleep before group practicums. One of her fellow students
handed her a note.

“This came for you,” she said.

“Thank you.” Tabitha slid the note into her pocket. She was
bone tired.
What I would give for a whole night of sleep
, she
fantasized.

An hour later she scrambled from her bed and made it to her
group practicum with only minutes to spare. Halfway through the afternoon, she
remembered the note in her pocket.

After she read the note, she stared around, hunting for a
clock, and was horrified to see that it read 3:15. She shoved the note back
into her pocket, explained her departure to the charge nurse, and raced for her
dormitory, the words of the note burning in her head.

Miss Hale,

You will report to the office of the Dean of Medicine at
3:30 to address a deficit in your training. Please do not be tardy.

Emilia Gunderson, Dean of
Nursing

A sense of dread descended upon Tabitha, and she took the
steps up to the dormitory hall two at a time. Ignoring the startled looks of
the housekeeping girls, she stripped her soiled apron from her uniform, tied on
a clean one, and felt her hair to ensure that it was tightly bound behind her
cap with its blue band marking her as a student nurse. Then she ran down the
stairs and across the campus toward the dean’s office.

Tabitha managed to arrive at exactly 3:30 and was ushered
into a conference room. Dean Wellan and Dean Gunderson were seated at the end
of the table; the four members of the board of regents lined the sides of the
table.

“Please be seated at the end of the table, Miss Hale,” Dean
Wellan instructed. He was perusing a stack of papers on the table in front of
him.

Tabitha seated herself. She was still out of breath from
running straight across campus. Her pulse pounded in her throat. The members of
the board, their expressions guarded, looked her over. Dean Gunderson, who had
always been gracious to Tabitha, said nothing, but Tabitha thought she appeared
stiff. Nervous.

Then Dean Wellan glanced up and, squinting a little,
regarded Tabitha with a frown. “May I ask, Miss Hale, if you have been ill?”

Tabitha was surprised. “No, sir. I have not.”

His frown deepened. “I ask because you look quite fatigued.
Not at all as I remember you last we met.”

Tabitha squirmed inside. “Dean Wellan, sir, if I appear
fatigued, it is only due to the rigors of classes and work. I can assure you
that I am well—and up to the challenge.”

He said nothing for a moment, merely studied her. Then he
turned his attention to the papers before him and cleared his throat. “Miss
Hale, your academic record is acceptable—quite fine, in fact. Dean Gunderson
and I had our doubts as to whether you could make up the work you missed your
first year, but you have done so successfully. You are in high standing in many
of your classes.”

He frowned again. “You can, perhaps, understand my confusion
when we, upon determining your eligibility for final examinations and
graduation, discovered a marked deficit in several practicums.”