Tying the Knot (15 page)

Anne glanced at the group, hoping the rest were here for moral support. The three other girls turned away and stared out the window, watching traffic.

Anne directed the girl into the lab. “What is your name?”

“Ella.” It sounded more like a grunt. She sat, but her gaze stayed glued to the floor.

“Well, Ella, can I ask you a few questions?” Anne stared at the form, hoping to find some sort of solace on the blank page. She held no delusions that the reservation somehow protected the inhabitants from the evil of the cities, but this girl couldn’t be more than fourteen. Anne felt sick.

Ella shrugged, but her hands shook. She stilled them by folding them together, then tucking them between her knees.

“Ella, have you been . . . um . . . active recently?”

Ella looked away.

“Within the last year?”

She saw the girl’s jaw tighten.

“Okay then, let’s take a sample.” Anne glanced at the form. “You know, you don’t have to give me your name. I can do this anonymously.”

“It don’t matter. If I’m dying, I’m dying.”

Anne knelt before her patient. “What is done is done. You can’t change the past. But you might not be HIV positive, and if you aren’t, this is a great time to think about your future. Even if you are, AIDS research is extending life expectancy. This isn’t the end of your life, Ella. It’s just a dark moment.”

The girl said nothing, but tears welled in her eyes. Anne fought the urge to take Ella into her arms. She knew Ella’s fear. As a health professional, she’d been tested every year for the fatal virus. She’d never tested positive, but she understood the dread and knew more than she wanted to about bleak moments. “It’s going to be okay, honey.”

“If I have it, who would ever marry me?” The pitiful words, spoken so softly, almost ripped out Anne’s heart.

Anne smoothed Ella’s silky hair. “Someone who loves you very much. To the right man, it won’t matter. All the scars on your body and soul won’t matter.”

“I hope so,” Ella said.

Anne silently agreed with her. She had her own scars, body and soul, and while she felt pretty sure she’d never let a man within shooting distance of her heart again, if one ever did make a direct hit and meet her at the altar, he would eventually see the destruction to her body. Seventeen stitches in her stomach and a spiderweb scar in her back weren’t something she ached to reveal. She shuddered against the thought.

To Anne’s dismay, she tested all seven teenagers milling about the waiting room. None of them seemed as young as Ella, but all had eyes ringed with fear. Anne prayed that the tests would return negative and that this scare might reap a change in their lives. The need for a camp like Wilderness Challenge to change young lives nagged at her all day.

Jenny had assisted Dr. Jefferies in attending to the other patients. Anne noticed how one elderly couple hung on to Jenny as if she were their own child. She wondered briefly, if she were to fill Jenny’s position, would the locals adopt her, or would she even want them to? These people weren’t so different from the ones she’d escaped . . . lonely, desperate, on the brittle edge of poverty, filling their time with seedy pursuits. Did she think that moving north would obliterate the human sin nature?

When the last of Anne’s teenagers left, she stood at the window, watching the entire group climb into a pickup—four in the bed—and roar through town. Dust fogged their wake and churned up despair in Anne’s heart. What would it take to touch these teens? She recognized in their eyes the same emptiness that plagued the kids in Minneapolis. A black hole of despair.

Perhaps that was why her father had chucked a comfortable pastorate in the Minneapolis suburbs for a home next to a drug lair. Maybe that was why Anne and her sister were yanked out of their safe junior high and plunged into a world of security checks and language that had curdled their ears. It certainly wasn’t a lifestyle Anne wished for her own kids, if she ever had any.

But as Anne gathered the vials of blood, making sure each was labeled correctly, she acknowledged that her father’s work had changed lives. He’d dragged homeless kids off the streets and restored light to their grungy faces. He’d taught young mothers how to parent their out-of-wedlock babies and even convinced a few to offer their children a new life through adoption. And he’d taught his own daughters how to say no, how to think on their feet, and how to live a life of holiness in a world of filth.

Noah had a worthy idea—so worthy that a decent person, one with EMT training and no other job prospects, wouldn’t hesitate to reconsider his offer and invest her summer in it. If she could change one life, keep one young lady from the grip of drugs and disease, wouldn’t it be worth letting her heart get a little trampled? Her father would have nearly exploded with pride. And he, in surrendering his life, had found peace. So Anne would have to surrender her summer. Wasn’t peace why she’d moved to Deep Haven?

The thought of Ella’s tear-glistened eyes convinced her. At least at a camp, Anne wouldn’t find herself staring down a gun barrel. Dr. Jefferies’ warning flickered through her mind. Maybe by the end of the summer they’d nab their burglar, and Deep Haven would become the safe “haven” she needed to start her new life.

She’d have to don that tough-as-nails shell her father had helped create and face Noah. Well, maybe she’d hide behind the other staffers, but she would be there, bright and early Monday morning, making sure Wilderness Challenge changed lives. At least until Dr. Simpson could find a decent replacement. The last thing she wanted to cultivate in her new hometown was the reputation of shutting down dreams. Just because Noah had demolished any fragment of trust she had for him, it didn’t mean these kids had to pay the price. She’d simply remind herself not to fall for his dangerous, break-her-heart charisma.

Anne packed the blood samples into a padded case and set it next to her bag of notes and files. She’d noticed a number of rusted Fords tucked behind houses, and she wondered how many of them had seeped unused fuel into the ground. She had a sick feeling there might be a few kids in Granite River battling lead poisoning and wanted to sleuth through the files to confirm her hunch. The first thing she needed to do, if she landed Jenny’s job, was requisition a computer.

Dusk threw dirty shadows across the linoleum in the waiting area. Jenny had hauled out a mop and bucket and had swabbed down the entryway. “Can you stack those magazines?” she asked.

Anne heard a door click in the back of the clinic and turned to see Dr. Jefferies entering. Where had he been? Carrying a white paper bag, probably containing supper, he hustled into his back office and shut the door.

So much for apple dumplings at the casino.

Anne piled the magazines on the table, picked up a few crushed candy wrappers, and had just tied the garbage bag when a cry rent the air. “Help me, somebody, please!”

Anne swallowed her heart back into place and ran to the door. A young woman clutched a small boy to her chest. His red color made Anne’s mouth run dry. “Bring him in here.” Anne pointed to the examining room. “How old is he?”

“Three. Please. I found him like this on the floor of our family room.” Panic pitched the young mother’s voice high. “He seemed tired today, but now he won’t wake up.”

Anne felt the boy’s face—dry, warm skin. His pulse seemed thready, rapid. She tipped his head back to clear his airway, then checked for breathing sounds. He seemed to struggle.

“Jenny, get Dr. Jefferies, quick.” Anne checked his nose and ears. They indicated no head trauma, but she checked for bumps to confirm. She unbuttoned the boy’s shirt, ignoring the stains of ketchup and Kool-Aid. “What’s his name, ma’am?”

“Justin. He’s my only son; please help him.”

Anne glanced up at the woman.

Tears streaked down her pretty face. “He’s all I have.”

“Justin, can you hear me?” Anne grabbed a stethoscope from the wall. Where was Dr. Jefferies? Justin’s heart raced. She ran her knuckles along his sternum. He didn’t flinch. She opened his sunken eyes. Pupils weren’t dilated.

“Are there any medicines missing? or poison? Could he have gotten into detergent, perhaps?” The child seemed deprived of air. He sucked in deep, sighing respirations.

The mother rubbed her skinny arms, backing away. “No, I don’t think so. No.”

Justin stiffened. Anne’s heart dropped when she saw the child soil himself. She scooped him up off the table and set him on the floor.

“What are you doing?” the mother shrieked. Anne’s EMT training kicked in, and she ripped open his shirt lest it ride up and choke him.

“Turn around!” she ordered. The last thing the woman needed was to watch her son enter the next phase of his seizure. “Jenny!”

Justin jerked. The mother screamed as Anne made sure the child didn’t slam his arms and legs against the wall. “Are you sure he didn’t eat any poison? Maybe rat poison? Do you have any houseplants or mushrooms in your yard?”

The child’s seizure lasted two agonizing minutes as his mother wailed and Anne filed through her brain for clues.

Jenny appeared at the door, looking white. “Dr. Jefferies won’t answer.”

Anne swallowed that bit of information and turned to the mother. “Has Justin vomited recently?”

She shook her head, her hands over her mouth, horrified as she stared at her son. The boy stopped convulsing and Anne immediately checked his eyes. Pupils responded slightly to her penlight.

She checked his respiration. “Tell me what you did today, ma’am. Everything.”

“Nothing. We did nothing. We slept in a little late because we were at a birthday party last night. Justin seemed so tired, I hated to wake him.”

Jenny had the woman in a tight embrace. “It’s okay, Mary,” she soothed. The mother clung to Jenny as if she might collapse.

“A birthday party? Was there cake?”

“And ice cream and cookies. Justin had a ball.” Mary buried her face in Jenny’s shoulder.

Anne leaned over the boy, smelled his breath. She nearly gagged at the sickly sweet, acetone odor. “Jenny, get me some sugar.”

“What?”

“Just get me some sugar!” Anne wound a blood-pressure cuff around his arm and pumped it up. One hundred ten over fifty. She needed help—and fast.

“He did vomit . . . a few days ago,” Mary hiccupped.

“How many days? Has he been confused? lethargic?”

The mother knelt beside Anne and touched her son’s leg. “I thought he had the flu. He said he had a stomachache. And he seemed extremely thirsty, but he always is, especially when his stomach is hurting.”

Anne prodded Justin’s stomach. There seemed to be no distention. “Has he ever been tested for diabetes?”

The woman went white. “No. He’s always been normal. A happy, active child. No, nothing like that.”

Anne put her hand on Mary’s shoulder, holding it tight. “I don’t know what’s wrong with your son. I’m just trying to help him.”

The woman nodded. Tears dripped off her chin.

Jenny ran in with a bag of sugar. Behind her trailed the grocery-story clerk, still clad in a green apron, and the two old park-bench sentries. But no Dr. Jefferies. “Thank you, Jenny.” She took the bag and ripped it open. “Go try to rouse Dr. Jefferies, please.”

Lifting the child’s head, Anne pinched out a small amount of sugar and gently sprinkled it under his tongue.
Please, O God, let me guess correctly!
With Justin unconscious, she couldn’t administer liquid glucose, and pure sucrose, table sugar, was the quickest remedy. Whether he was in a diabetic coma or insulin shock, the sugar would keep his system from totally shutting down.

“Get a blanket,” she said, and heard someone running to the supply room. The exam room had a full oxygen tank, one she had personally inspected only two days ago. She set it for eight LMP, then unwrapped a non-rebreather oxygen mask, filled it with oxygen, and snapped it over Justin’s head.

His chest rose and fell with the rhythm of 85 percent oxygen.

“C’mon,” she said to his mother as she tucked the blanket around him and scooped him up. “We’re taking him to Deep Haven.”

Anne muscled through the door and stopped. She didn’t have a car. Jenny’s SUV was at Mom and Pop’s for a tune-up, and her substitute pickup didn’t look like it would max 30 mph without perishing.

Jenny remained inside and kept pounding on Dr. Jefferies’s door. “Open up, Doctor!”

Anne looked at the two old bench warmers. They suddenly reminded her of the man who’d barreled his way into her home and rescued her dog. They stood there, exuding the same fierce demeanor she’d seen in Noah, complete with wide shoulders and clenched fists. Perhaps it had been root beer they’d been drinking. “Can you break down a door?”

10

Noah made a face in the mirror, disgusted with the tie he’d just knotted around his neck. The double Windsor took up half his chin and made him look like a hippie reject from the seventies. He’d brushed his hair back from his face, but it had dried into a shaggy mess, and he’d nicked himself shaving in at least two places.

Who was he trying to fool? After his rude behavior toward Anne last Wednesday, it would take more than spit and polish and a dash of cologne to convince her he wasn’t Attila the Hun. Not that she should think any more of him than he thought of himself. No matter how he’d tried to drive Anne from his thoughts this week, the hurt written on her beautiful face haunted him. He’d never felt more like the felon he was trying to forget he was than when he’d looked her straight in the eye and kicked her out of his life.

Even if he had done it for her own good. Noah was the last person Anne should get involved with, and that resolve had crystallized over the past four days. He didn’t deserve her, and the sooner he accepted that and the fact that he had no hope of repairing their friendship after the way he’d treated her, the sooner he’d stop spiffing up in hopes of seeing her in town.

Obviously, he was far from getting that thought through his thick noggin. Noah tugged off the tie and threw it on a growing pile of clothing at the end of his army cot. Now that the senior staff had arrived, he’d moved his gear into a dusty cabin he’d share with two other male staffers. It once housed fishing supplies, and the smell of bait embedded the walls. Noah still didn’t have the guts to walk around barefoot. He had no desire to lodge a discarded hook into his toe.