I gave myself a shake and kept walking away from the very tempting, very infuriating Dr. Girard.
9
Deacon
“I hope you have something good to tell me, doctor.”
Sissie Lewis was perched on the end of her hospital bed like a bird about to take flight. At eighty-three, the woman was spry and peppy, and being around her always made me feel like I was a slacker. I’d known her my entire life—she’d taught me Sunday School in the third grade—and I was fairly certain that she still saw me as the mischievous little boy who’d stolen peppermints from her knitting bag while she was setting up Bible stories on the flannel board.
Still, when she’d been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma earlier this year, she hadn’t hesitated to come straight to me and request that I manage her treatment. She’d even consented to make the trip over to the Calumbra Center near Tampa until we had the wing up and running here at St. Agnes, despite her misgivings about going to the ‘big city’ for anything.
Miss Sissie had been born and raised in Harper Springs, and in her mind, everything anyone ever needed was right here. If it wasn’t here, we didn’t need it.
“Miss Sissie, this is my favorite part of the job.” I grinned at her. “I’m here to tell you that your last round of tests show that you are in full remission and likely to live on to keep the rest of us on the straight and narrow for at least the next eighty years.”
“Deacon Girard, I’ve been knowing you since you were born. Don’t you dare lie to me. I can tell when you do. You get that little tick in your cheek.” She wagged her finger at me. “Just like when you were a child.”
“All right, well, maybe not eighty years, but I’m not fibbing about the remission part. You’re a healthy woman, and what I want to know is why you’re taking up space here in my hospital, when I could have a person who is really sick in this bed.”
A beautiful smile bloomed across her face. “Well, thatisgood news. I’m tickled to hear it.” She stood up and stretched her arms. “Send in that nurse, then, and let’s get me out of here, so my empty bed can make you some money.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I’d turned to follow her orders when she called me back.
“Deacon, you’re a real good doctor. I’m proud of your hard work, and I’m going to tell everyone that we should all count our blessings that you’ve come back here to serve this community. Also, I’m going to have my prayer circle add you to our permanent prayer list, because I think you need it, with all the hours you work and all the people who need you.”
A lump rose in my throat. Coming back to work in Harper Springs hadn’t been an easy decision, but I’d known from the beginning that it was the right one. Hearing Miss Sissie affirm that was the icing on the cake of this good-news day.
“I appreciate that, Miss Sissie. Y’all should probably pray for my soul, too, since I don’t get to make it to service very often these days.”
She pressed her lips together primly. “I was thinking that, but I wasn’t going to say it right to your face.”
I chuckled. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t. Tact has never stopped you before.”
Miss Sissie rolled her eyes. “Go on now. I want to get home. That Bethany Williams who lives next to me has been minding my garden, and I just don’t know if I trust her sense when it comes to watering my azaleas.” She paused and cocked her head. “Although, come to think of it, she’s a very nice-looking woman, you know, Deacon. She owns her own house, and she runs a successful business in town—she’s got that new coffee shop on the corner, across from the florist. Have you met her?”
I screwed up my eyes, thinking. “Maybe? Did she graduate a few years behind me?”
“Probably. She was seeing some man from over Lakeland way, but that’s done now—he wasn’t good enough for her. You should come by some evening, and I’ll introduce you. Or re-introduce you. She’d make a real good doctor’s wife, I think.”
“Thanks, Miss Sissie, but I’m not in the market for one of those.” Miss Sissie must be all better if she was matchmaking again already. “I’m married to my job.”
“Hmmmm.” The older lady wasn’t convinced. “That sounds like a euphemism. Is it that you’re not looking for a woman, Deacon? Are you interested in the fellows instead?”
“Miss Sissie!” In my shock, I took a step back.
“Now, Deacon, there’s nothing wrong with being gay,” she counseled me patiently. “Why, one of your best friends from childhood is gay—”
“I know there’s nothing wrong with being gay, and I know about Emmett, too. I just didn’t knowyouknew. I mean, I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Oh, my, yes. I listen to the NPR, you know. I know all about the being gay, and the transsexuals and the cross-dressers and folks who are non-binary. I even watched a special on the gender reassignment process.”
“Of course, you did,” I sighed. Miss Sissie was a constant source of surprise to me. “But no, ma’am, I am not interested in the fellows. I just don’t have time for a woman in my life. For romance, I mean,” I amended hastily.
“But if you did . . .” She narrowed her eyes and tapped her pursed lips. “If you did, and by the way, I don’t buy for a second that you don’t. I’ve never met a man who couldn’t find time for love when the right person came knocking. But it would make it much easier if the right person was also working here at the hospital.” A cunning expression filled her eyes. “Oh, Deacon. Why, the answer was right in front of us. That pretty new doctor who’s working here, the one who’s all natural—”
I groaned, but she kept talking.
“You know. Emma. She’s very smart and so kind and compassionate—and she’s easy on the eyes, too. Have you even asked her out, Deacon? Have you tried—you know, flirting with her?”
