One weekend in prague, p.16
One Weekend in Prague,
p.16
‘Happy anniversary,’ she whispered when she was close. ‘I love you.’ Her eyes were shining with that love. ‘Fancy a family picnic?’
* * *
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Mending the ER Doc’s Heart
by Susan Carlisle
CHAPTER ONE
A child’s shriek ripped through the air at the other end of the grocery store aisle. Izzy Lane’s heart jumped. The box of tea she’d touched fell to the floor, bringing down five others. Her head whipped toward the sound. What was going on? Was the child hurt?
As a pediatric nurse, that was always her first thought. Prepared to help, she looked down the aisle to see what the difficulty might be. No problem there. All she saw was a young boy of about three sitting in a cart, flailing his hands and kicking his feet until the cart rocked. As her heart rate returned to a regular pace, her concern turned to worry over the boy toppling the cart.
A tall solid-shouldered man wearing a knit golf shirt had his head down, talking to the child. “Shush, Henry. We talked about this before we came in.”
The boy wailed, “I want Sugar Loops.”
“You need to pick out another cereal.” The man glanced at her, concern on his face, his mouth drawn into a tight line. Picking up a box, he showed the child. “What about these?”
“Sugar Loops!” the boy demanded at the top of his voice.
Izzy shook her head with a wry smile. It wasn’t going well for the dad. She’d had her fair share of those moments in her line of work. Sometimes there were behavioral issues that weren’t immediately obvious to others. Maybe that was the case here.
Her chest squeezed. She had to admit the boy was cute. With his cotton-white hair, full cheeks and big eyes. Despite his tantrum, Izzy wished she had a child who could give her a hard time. She’d believed that would happen with Richard until he’d cheated on her. For years he’d led her on, getting her to pay for his school by telling her he loved her. He had her believing he wanted to marry her and then start a family. Instead she’d just been used. Now that dream had been shattered.
Her attention returned to the jumble on the floor. The corner of her mouth lifted in exasperation. She had a mess to clean up. Setting her armload of items down, Izzy went to her knees and picked up the tea-bag boxes replacing them on the shelf.
Another yell vibrated around her. Izzy shuttered and watched with a quirk to her mouth as the man handed the sugary cereal to the child. She muttered, “Frustrated parents will do anything to survive.”
While she’d been busy, the man and boy had started toward the front of the building. They moved alongside her. Her head jerked up to meet startling silver eyes.
Izzy cleared her throat. Had the man heard what she’d said?
He continued to watch her as if he knew she’d been focused on them. “Sorry we were so loud.”
Izzy remained snared in his look, embarrassed that he might think she was judging him. “Not a problem.”
Relief filled her as he moved on. She turned and watched him go. Tall, with a hint of gray at his temples, he looked as if he’d carried a burden on his shoulders for too long. Izzy shook her head. Tired from moving to a new town and learning a new job, she was ready to get home. Such as it was, being just a hotel room. Her own issues were enough without being concerned about a stranger and his problems. The current challenge consisted of cleaning up around her and paying for her groceries. She gathered her items into her arms again.
Making it to the checkout lanes, she went through the self-checkout while the man and the boy were in a line for a person at the cash register. A loud complaint came from behind her, and she didn’t have to turn around to know it was the same little boy, Henry. “Candy.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see the man patiently listening to the demand. If he were her child… Sadness swamped her. But he wasn’t.
Izzy sent her items through the self-checkout and bagged them. The man and his child headed out to the parking lot. The noise level lowered by a half. She could have sworn a collective sigh came from everyone. It hadn’t taken much to put the late afternoon Atlanta crowd on edge.
Finished with her business, she started toward her car. She’d chosen the first grocery store she’d come to on her way to and from
Atlanta Children’s Hospital from the efficiency hotel.
A giggle and an expletive drew her attention to the parking row one over from where her car sat. The man from earlier was picking up apples rolling across the asphalt. Henry sat in the buggy parked against the late model SUV.
The man really was struggling. Her heart went out to him. He needed help. Izzy hurried between the cars toward him, bending down to pick up apples.
He looked up from where he crouched, trying to pull an apple out from under a car tire. The man had the most beautiful eyes. They were like looking at quicksilver with a serving of intelligence in the depths. It was as if he could see more of her than she wanted him to. She blinked, registering the weary look on his face.
“Here you go.” With a smile, she handed him a couple of apples.
He looked at her as he opened a bag with gratitude. She dropped the apples in. Henry squealed.
“I’ll stand with him while you finish up here.” She walked over to the boy. “Hi, Henry.”
He settled and watched her with wide eyes.
“Do you have a dog?” Izzy asked.
The boy shook his head.
“How about a cat?” Izzy made sure to keep a hand on the cart so it wouldn’t move.
Henry shook his head fast enough to make his eyes wobble.
Izzy couldn’t help but grin.
The father joined them and put the bag of fruit in the vehicle. “Thanks for your help.” He ruffled Henry’s hair and took him out of the cart, giving him a hug. “Next time I’m going to make sure the bag is tied before I let you hold the apples.”
Henry looked at the man with simple adoration.
A sweet sadness filled Izzy. There was obvious love between the two. She’d hoped to experience that with Richard and their child. Instead Richard had used her, thinking of only what he wanted. Izzy had no intention of ever getting caught in a one-way relationship ever again.
The man smiled, which was almost as striking as his eyes. “Thanks. You must think I’m a rubbish dad.”
“You’re welcome,” Izzy said with a smile, “and no, I didn’t. Anyone can have a bad day.”
She started toward her car, glancing back at the man. She would likely never see him again.
Dr. Chad McCain pulled out his phone. He was needed in the ER. “I’ve got to go.”
He left the hospital conference room without a backward look. After all, he’d gone to school to help children, not sit in meetings. He’d been on holiday for a week and was ready to return to work. He pushed through the double doors.
A nurse stepped beside him. “It’s a boy with internal injuries from an automobile accident. He’s in trauma one.”
Chad didn’t slow down. Yet everything in him wanted to turn around and go the other way. Instead he put his head down and forged forward. After Henry had been injured in the car accident that had killed Nan, his wife and Henry’s mother, vehicle cases were hard for Chad to face. All he could see was his injured son, pale as death, laying on a too-large gurney.
His staff knew his history and always tried to warn him of what was coming. With a fortitude that came from who knows where, other than knowing a child needed him and that he had the skills to help, Chad strode into the trauma examination room. He prepared to go to work by pulling his stethoscope out of the pocket of his lab coat. The space was already filled with nurses and EMTs.
“We have a ten-year-old white male with a compound fracture to the left femur, a head laceration, problems breathing and possible internal injuries.”
The voice came from the side and just behind him. It wasn’t one he recognized as one of the usual nurses, yet it wasn’t unfamiliar. He didn’t have time to look and see who it was. With everyone having a mask on, he might not recognize her anyway. “Let me see what’s going on here.”
A space opened for him to move in next to the patient. With easy practice, he placed the ear tips of the stethoscope in his ears and the bell on the boy’s chest. The patient’s heartbeat was fast. Chad glanced at the monitor. And missing beats. He positioned the bell on the boy’s side. His breathes were shallow. Chad moved the stethoscope down to the boy’s midsection. The gurgling sounds indicated internal injuries.
“Call the OR. This child needs abdominal surgery ASAP. The Ortho will have to wait. Let’s get a set of X-rays.”
“They’re on the way.”
There was that voice again. He just couldn’t place it. “I want a blood panel, antibiotics and fluid running. Vitals?”
One of the nurses called out the numbers.
Beep, beep, beep…
The high-pitched sound originated from the monitor. The noise shocked everyone around him into action.
“The patient isn’t breathing,” Chad stated. “Start CPR.” He placed his hands on the child’s chest as a nurse placed a mask with a breathing balloon attached over his month. She squeezed in a rhythm.
“BP thirty over ten,” someone in the group called.
“Crash cart!” Chad snapped without missing a beat.
“Here,” the nurse whose voice he didn’t know announced.
“Paddles?” He turned. His look met those of the nurse holding them. Her! He tensed. The woman from the store who’d helped him with the apples. What was she doing in his department? He felt mortified that she should have seen him at his worst, dealing with one of Henry’s tantrums.
The nurse’s eyes widened over the top of her mask. She recognized him as well. Chad took the paddles without hesitation, prepared to shock the boy back to life. Hovering them over the child’s bare chest, he called, “Clear.”
Everyone took a step back before Chad placed a paddle beside the heart and the other on the boy’s side. “One, two, three.”
With a beep from the machine, the boy’s body came off the bed. As quickly as he turned to give the paddles back to the “apple” nurse, another nurse closed in to check the patient’s vitals.
Chad glanced at the monitor, apprehension making his muscles tight. “Let’s go again.” The “apple” nurse had the paddles ready when he turned to her. He followed the same procedure. This time the monitor issued a steady beat. With a heaving sigh, he gave the paddles back.
“Okay, people.” Relief sounded in his words. “We have him back. Now let’s keep him alive long enough to get him to surgery. Let the OR know we’re on the way. Then notify Ortho they’re going to need to take care of the leg.”
“Already done,” the voice that belonged to the “apple” nurse said.
Chad nodded. Whoever she was, the woman was an efficient nurse. One he’d be glad to work with any day. He just cringed at the thought of how she must see him.
He checked the monitor. The boy’s blood pressure remained low. “He’s still in trouble. Give him two liters of oxygen. Let’s get that blood work drawn, X-rays done and fluids in so this boy can be off to surgery ASAP. We don’t have time to waste here.”
Chad again listened to the boy’s chest. He pursed his lips. His breathing remained shallow. It would be his guess that he’d broken some ribs as well.
The “apple” nurse said, “They’re ready for him in the OR.”
Relief washed over him. He accepted death could be a part of his job, but he didn’t like letting it win any more than he had to. Between almost losing his son and the death of Nan, he knew well how special each day was. It made him a better doctor and father. He was determined to keep death at bay as often as humanly possible.
He remained with the patient until the surgery nurses came to get him. With that done, Chad started out of the trauma room, with one thought in his mind: Who was this new nurse?
Copyright © 2022 by Susan Carlisle
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ISBN-13: 9780369730763
One Weekend in Prague
Copyright © 2022 by Alison Roberts
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Alison Roberts, One Weekend in Prague
