Wake the Dawn (17 page)

Ben and Esther walked out with him and saw him into his car.

“Are you sure he should still be driving?” Esther asked as they made their way to Ben’s truck.

“Most likely only around town here. His mind is still plenty sharp.”

“True, but not so sure about the rest of him.” Esther shook her head. “If someone had told me he’d be spearheading the hospital drive when we started working on him during the storm, I’d have declared you loco. The human body sure can surprise us all, even the old ones.”

“Now he has a reason to keep on going.” Ben opened the truck door for her. The voice started up again.
Ask her.
“Ninety days to pour the footings? Surely he can’t mean that.”

“We can’t get permits that quickly, let alone plans. I’ve never worked with an architect before, but we don’t even have one yet. Do any architects live in Pineville or nearby?”

“I’ll ask Jenny; she knows everything. And someone better talk with Mr. Aptos and see if he will change his mind on the qualifications. Losing a million dollars would be sad.” He drove the dark streets to Esther’s house. “Sure seems strange without the streetlights.”

“A million dollars. And he seems to think there are others that can do the same.” She turned to Ben. “Are there really people in this town with that kind of money?”

“Probably the ones we’d least expect.”
Ask her.
“I’ll walk you to the door.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“My mother said a man never lets a woman out of a truck to walk to a dark house by herself.”

“She didn’t really?”

He got out and opened the door on her side. “She had rather strict rules on manners.”
And besides, I need to ask you a question.
They walked to the front door, and he waited as she unlocked it.

“Night.” Turning back to his truck he called himself all kinds of names, primarily coward. But the bottom line, he’d enjoyed not sparring with her for a change. A welcome change.

Chapter Eighteen

A
mber and her son Paulie are here.”

Esther looked up from the paperwork that still hung over her head since the storm. Amber…Paulie…huh? Her brain stuttered.

“You know, you saved the little boy’s life in the car?” Barbara paused to give Esther time to shift gears.

“Okay, thanks, sorry for the blank-out there. The death of the medical profession is paperwork. How come they didn’t tell us about this dreadful disease in med school?”

“No idea, maybe they figured learning to deliver babies and repair bones was more important. Silly them.”

Esther shoved her chair back; good thing it had casters. Today was proving to be a bit slower than normal, with few appointments and fewer walk-ins, so she was using the time to try to make a dent in the stack. “What is the child’s name?”

“Paul. Paulie. Named after her father. According to him, just talking to him on some occasion, she was still in the drug scene, but it doesn’t appear that way now. Not that I’ve had a lot of time to observe, but…” Barbara shrugged.

Esther checked her pockets for fancy Band-Aids and treats, snagged her stethoscope off the hook by the door and looped it around her neck, and followed Barbara to room two, where a file now filled the slot by the door.

“I had her fill out all the new-patient forms for both of them.”

“Good, thanks.” Esther forced herself to take a deep breath, let it out, and paste a smile on her face before opening the door. Chief’s daughter and the grandson he never met.
Please God, she wasn’t doing drugs when she got pregnant.
Hopefully she’d gotten her life straightened out first. “Good morning, Amber, right?”

The blond young woman sitting in the chair with her son on her lap nodded. “And Paulie. Thank you for saving his life.”

“One of God’s miracles.”

“If I had just gone the ten miles farther out to Sven’s Crossing and the main road. But that would have taken at least twenty minutes longer, plus there was a tree blocking and they hadn’t gotten to it yet, but I knew about that back road, and…”

“My father always told me that we can’t change the past, only the future. I’ve learned he was right.”

“Sounds like something my dad would say.”

“I probably heard it from him, too.” Fighting to keep the tears from flooding back, Esther smiled at the boy. “How you feeling, Paulie?”

He nodded and looked up at his mother.

“You can talk with her, she’s our doctor now, just like Dr. Peters.” Amber looked up at Esther who had stood up again, with a crackle in her knee. “I’ve taught him he can’t talk to strangers.”

And today I feel like a real stranger.
“Good.” Esther leaned against the examining table. “Which of you am I seeing today?”

“Paulie. We’re out of his asthma medications, and we need a new prescription.”

Esther flipped to the page in the file and read off the meds. “How long has he been on these?”

“He was diagnosed two years ago, after he had pneumonia and then bronchitis.”

“Do you smoke?” At the head shake, Esther continued. “Any regular smokers in your house?”

“No. When I turned my back on my former life…” She paused. “Were you and my dad friends?”

“Yes, good friends. Your mother helped me feel at home here in Pineville and after she died, we kept up the friendship. So, yes, I think the question you are really asking is how much did your dad, and in this case your mother, too, tell me about you?”

Amber nodded and stared down at her son’s dark hair. “Knowing everyone knew me, and what a mess I’d made of my life, made coming back here even more difficult. But I wanted Paulie to grow up knowing his grandpa, that he had a family.” She wiped the tears from her eyes with one finger.

“I come from a small town, too. Ya gotta love ’em or they’ll drive you crazy. Too many long memories.” Esther quelled some memories of her own, then nodded and smiled at Paulie. “Well, young man, how about if I listen to your chest? Afterward, if you like, you can listen to your heartbeat with my special earphones.”

He nodded but shortened the small distance between him and his mother. “My grandpa’s gone to live with Jesus.”

“I know that, and I know he is very happy there. Can you unbutton your shirt for me?” As he did that, she warmed the scope’s bell and diaphragm in her hands while she watched him fight the buttons. Normal gross coordination for a child that age. Good sign. “Okay now, you breathe in real deep and blow it all out.”

She checked all four quadrants in back and moved to the front, asking him to breathe deeply again each time, then removed the earpieces from her ears. “You want to hear now?” At his slow nod, she put the earpieces in his ears and pressed the diaphragm over his heart. A grin split his face.

“I’m going
thump, thump
.” He deepened his voice to sound like a heart.

Esther took the stethoscope back and slipped the bell into her breast pocket. “You sure are, and you have a good strong heart.” She checked his pulse, the lymph nodes in his neck, and then his ears and throat, introducing her equipment each time. “One other thing.” She went to a drawer and pulled out a clamp. “Let’s check your oxygen levels, too.”

She put the clamp on her own finger to demonstrate. She put the clamp on Amber’s finger. When she slipped it on his finger, his eyes grew wide as the red numerals glowed. Good attention, normal reactions; also good signs.

Esther recalled Amber saying in the car that Paulie had been good for weeks, so she saw no reason to second-guess the medication levels.

“Anything else, Amber?”

“No, I can’t think of anything.”

Esther wrote the same prescriptions Paulie had been taking and gave them to her.

Amber looked a little harried—no surprise there—but she smiled. “Thank you. Is Don’s drugstore still there? I haven’t had a chance to go down that street.”

“It is, but it’s not a Rexall anymore. And it still makes killer malted milks. Paulie might like to try one.”

“So would I.” Amber stood up and helped Paulie button his shirt.

Esther almost didn’t do it, but her better self prevailed. She pulled a business card out of her pocket and handed it to Amber. “If you want someone to talk to, call me. We’ll get together. That’s my personal cell.”

“Thank you.” Amber glanced at it and slipped it into her purse. She took a deep breath and asked, so painfully casually that it was obviously not casual, “Say, do you happen to know if Ben James is thick with anyone at the moment; you know, dating?”

“I know you two dated in high school.”
And right now he’s all in love with a month-old baby, but you’re not going to know about that.
“I don’t know what his status is right now; I don’t hear too much scuttlebutt.”

“Just curious. Like you say, we used to see each other, but that was long ago.”

Not long enough.
What was wrong with Esther that she suddenly got this ridiculous jealous streak? She pasted on the old smile and saw them to the waiting room.

“Back to the paperwork,” she told Barbara. “You know, I still haven’t sorted out the mess from the first storm. Any word about the soft-drink and junk-food dispensers?”

“Not since the email message that he’d be here in a day or two.”

“That was last week.”

“We’re not one of his bigger accounts. I have candy bars in my desk drawer if you get desperate.”

Esther smiled. “I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.” She crossed to her office, closed the door, and locked it.
Why did you do that, silly?
She flopped into her chair, leaving the door locked. Chief Harden’s grandson and daughter. Treating them was a lot tougher than she would have expected. Chief insisted his daughter had not cleaned up the booze and drugs, but so far Paulie showed no obvious signs of fetal alcohol syndrome.

She leaned way back, scooting her butt to the front of the seat, stretched out in the chair, closed her eyes, shut herself away. So much ugliness was happening, ugly with little streaks of light. Not all bad but hardly any good, and most of it not—

The phone blared. She jumped, every nerve in her body vibrating. She should have asked Barbara to hold calls. Maybe she had; she couldn’t remember. Picking up the phone as if it might jolt her with a bezillion volts, she said, “Hello?”

“Ben James. You sound sleepy. Did I just wake you up? I’m sorry.”

“No.”
Ben James, for heaven’s sake! He never calls. Why…?
“No, you didn’t wake me. Not at all. I’m working on the records yet, still working on that miserable storm and trying to reconstruct records. It’s horrible. No, you didn’t wake me up.” And just for emphasis, she added another, “No.” She was babbling. What was wrong with her?

“I can imagine it’s horrible. If you want sometime, we can sit down and sift through each other’s memories, see who we come up with.” Ben’s voice sounded a little tentative. “I probably know more people by name than you do.”

“That might be helpful. Uh, what can I do for you?” Shock. That’s what it was. She was just plain shocked that he should call.

“Well, two things. First one. I apologize for dragging you along to that meeting. Even the best meetings are dismal, and that one was a real moaner. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the more I thought about it afterward, the worse it sounded. Anyway, sorry.”

“Oh, please don’t apologize!” In an odd way, his apology charmed her. “I’ve been going to these meetings for years, and it was good that I went to this one. Keeps me in the loop. I appreciate that you took me.”

“You’re gracious. Number two, I’d like to make up for it, at least in part, by taking you along to the football game tonight. The Loggers, also known as the mighty Pineville Eleven, versus Bemidji North’s semi-fierce Wolverines.”

She found herself laughing. When was the last time she’d truly laughed?

“Home game,” he continued. “We can walk over to the high school.”

“I really should try to get a grip on this backlog.”

“Hasn’t it been gripped enough for a day?”

Why was she hesitating? It promised to be interesting, sort of—she wasn’t into football, didn’t even understand it, but a diversion might be helpful. Help her get her wildly flailing emotions back under control. “All right, if you like. Sounds fun. When?”

“Ansel says he might come. Beth is staying home, but she’s sending along a picnic supper. Tailgate party preceding the game. I’d come by your place around five thirty, we meet Ansel, eat, get our adrenaline running as the mighty Pineville Eleven defend their turf.”

Barbara rapped on the door. “Patient in three.”

Esther had forgotten it was locked. She raised her voice, “Coming,” lowered her voice, “Sounds good. Thank you, Ben!”

Her stethoscope was still around her neck. She unlocked the door and walked down to three in a sort of daze. Not dazed exactly, just lost in thought. She, Esther Marie Hanson, was going out on a date with a cute guy. Who could have imagined it? Well, not a date exactly, if Ansel was coming. And certainly not a formal date; rather, a payback for a perceived wrong. Still…

She entered three. “Why good afternoon, Mrs. Breeden.”

“Oh, I do wish you would just call me Avis, like everyone else.”

Esther painted on her make-nice smile. “If you really wish, but I apologize in advance if I forget. It’s not the way I was raised. What’s your problem today?” She began her routine task of taking vitals.

“This shoulder, same as always. When I move it, it’s as if I hit it with a hammer, only one that’s vibrating very fast, like this—” She wiggled her hand. “Only faster.”

Blood pressure, temperature, pulse, lung action, all normal; well, Avis’s version of normal. “The last time you were in, we injected the joint area with a steroid medicine. How long did the effects of the medicine last?”

“Oh, three or four days is all, and then it started to act up again. Herbert—he’s my son, Herbert, a very nice young man and not married yet—Herbert says I’m taking too many pain pills, and he’s worried.”

“I see. What other doctors are you going to?”

And the sweet little old lady’s cheeks, which were pale white, flushed pink. “Well, uh. You know…” She scowled. “Has Herbert been talking to you?”

“No.” Esther sat back. “I did not prescribe enough pain meds to worry your son, so if he is concerned, I surmise that you must be getting prescriptions from other physicians.” She shrugged. “Which is fine, but we should write them down on my chart here—and the other physicians’ charts—so that we can all keep track of them.”

“There aren’t
that
many.”

“It’s important, Mis—Avis. You’ll recall the first level of treatment for your problem is mild, over-the-counter pain meds. When they don’t do anything, we try the shots. The most drastic phase is orthopedic surgery.”

“That’s what Herbert said. ‘Go to an orthopedist, Mom.’”

“A wise recommendation. Shall I make you an appointment with a good orthopedist in Grand Forks? There is also a good one at the county hospital in Bemidji.”
And I have been fighting for years to get one here. You see how far that’s gotten.
“Would you take off your blouse, please? I’d like to look at it for discoloration or swelling.”