“No, Miss Sissie, and while I’m happy that you like Emma—Dr. Carson, that is—just because a woman is single and beautiful and good at her job doesn’t mean I’m going to fall for her. If that was the case, I’d have a string of past relationships.”
“Instead of just one that broke your heart.” Miss Sissie’s mouth twisted for a moment, as if she’d tasted something sour, and then she grinned. “But youdothink Emma’s beautiful. That’s very interesting.”
I tossed up my hands. “I’m done here, Miss Sissie. I’m going to see about your release paperwork so we can get you out of my hospital!”
Her laughter followed me. “You do that, Deacon. And when you see Emma . . . be sure to tell her hello from me!”
* * *
All in all, I thought as I leaned back in my desk chair, it had been a good day. Miss Sissie’s news had been the high point, but actually, all of the patients currently staying in this wing were doing okay for now. That would change—I knew that. Some would get better, and some wouldn’t. Some would respond to treatment, and others would stymie us. For all of the advances in the medical world, what we learned every day was that there was no one-size-fits-all solution to any problem.
“Deacon? I’m heading out for the day. Everything okay with you?” Mira stuck her head around the partially shut office door.
“Yes, thanks, Mira. I’m leaving shortly, too.”
“Good.” She paused. “I saw Miss Sissie was discharged. That’s wonderful news. She’ll outlive us all and pester the rest of us to death along the way.”
“She’s something else,” I agreed. “But I’m glad she’ll live to keep an eye on the rest of the town. I can’t imagine Harper Springs without her.”
“I can’t, either.” Mira shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She was, I thought, not for the first time, the very embodiment of a head nurse. Her determination and strict sense of duty fairly glowed from her sturdy body up to the top of her steel-gray hair. Or maybe that was just me reading into those things, since I knew her well.
“By the way, I checked in on Angela Spencer before I left. She seems much calmer tonight. A little bit less anxious. I know it was a little thing, but making the change in her CVC was a good call.”
“It wasn’t my call.” I folded my arms and leaned them on the edge of my desk.
“I know it wasn’t.”
“I argued with Emma about it.”
“I know that, too.” Mira raised her eyebrows. “There are still quite a few things over which I don’t agree with Dr. Carson. That’s why I’m tellingyouabout Angela’s improvement, not her.” Her eyes twinkled. “But she’s good at what she does. She’s . . . I don’t know, tuned into the patients. She’d picked up on Angela’s stress before anyone else had, and she figured out a way to help, too. I wouldn’t say it to her face, but she’s a darn good addition to this team.”
I smiled slightly. “Maybe you should say it to her face, Mira. She might need to hear it. I know her transition here was kind of rocky.”
“True enough. And if the occasion arises, I might mention to Emma that I don’t think she’s half-bad. Although some of her ideas . . .” Mira wagged her head. “Do you know she asked me the other day how hard it would be to soundproof a room on this floor?”
My forehead drew together. “What? Why?”
“Oh, some theory of hers that singing loudly to music can relieve tension for the patients. She claimed she had some study to show me . . . anyway, I don’t know why, but I told her I’d look into it. Can you even imagine me going to the board with something like that?”
I chuckled. “Actually, I can. Emma does have a way of turning people to her way of thinking.”
“She does, doesn’t she? Hmph.” Mira smiled slightly and waved to me. “Good night, Deacon. See you in the morning.”
After she’d gone, I sat for a bit, absentmindedly playing with a pen on my blotter. I thought about what Mira had said about Angela . . . how the rest of us had missed her growing tension. It was true that as doctors, we tended to focus on what we could control or affect, and the patient’s mental state wasn’t always part of that equation. Emma’s catch might not have saved Angela’s life, but if it put her in a better position for getting through this stem cell transplant . . . there was no quantitative way to measure the value of that decision.
The fact of the matter was that Emma had been right, and I had behaved badly. I didn’t like to think that Angela was on target when she’d gently teased me about the patients liking Emma more than me. That wasn’t precisely true, but the more I considered it, there was a possibility that I was attached to the notion of being the doctor who knew best. And maybe I’d been more than a little guilty that I’d missed the signs of stress in Angela, someone who I’d prided myself on knowing well.
And furthermore, maybe I owed it to Emma to apologize. Only I didn’t want to do it here in the hospital, where we could be overheard, or even on the phone. I reached for my computer mouse and navigated to the employee info page. Under Emma Carson, there was a mailing address, which was a PO box in town, and a very odd physical address. I jotted it down and reached for my keys.
Time to go eat some crow.
* * *
I stopped home quickly to change and to grab a microwaved burrito, mostly so my stomach didn’t growl and interrupt the apology I was planning to make. I didn’t linger long, but the sun was setting as my truck bumped over the dirt road that my navigation app claimed was taking me to Emma’s house. I had my doubts. As far as I was aware, this area was completely undeveloped. I was all too familiar with the fields out this way. Unless she’d built a cabin in the woods that no one knew about, I would’ve heard some kind of buzz about a house going up out here.
But I didn’t see anything . . . except, off to the east, an old trailer was set up among the weeds and grass. That couldn’t be it. Or could it? Squinting, I spied a blue sedan parked alongside the mobile home. There was definitely someone living there. It might be our naturopath . . . or it might be an anarchist with an arsenal who didn’t want to be disturbed. I figured I was going to have to take my chances.
I drove closer and peered through my windshield, checking out the situation. There were curtains on the windows, and a small wooden porch outside the trailer’s door boasted a bunch of potted plants. Yeah, this was a chick’s place, for sure. Anarchist as a rule didn’t care much about the niceties of life, or so I’d heard.
