“That old fool wanted something from the top shelf of one of the kitchen cupboards. Instead of asking me to get it, or waiting until tomorrow for you to come over and get it, he climbed on a stepladder, lost his balance, and fell on his bad leg. The EMT says it might be broken again.”
“Where are they taking him?”
“Monroe Hills Medical Center.”
Adam raked his hand through his locs as his eyes fell to Janae. She’d somehow managed to walk around the counter so that she was standing next to him.
Instead of the anger of a few moments ago, he could see concern glimmering in her expression.
“I’ll meet y’all there.”
He hung up the phone and Janae put a hand on his arm.
“Is your mother all right?”
He nodded, pursing his lips and breathing out slowly to try to calm himself. There was no use in him getting so excited that hewasn’t able to function. His parents needed him to be able to step up right now.
“My father took a nasty fall on his bad leg from a stepladder. EMTs think it could be broken again. They’re taking him to your hospital right now. I… I—”
“You need to go upstairs.” Her voice was both reassuring and calming at the same time. He imagined how her patients must feel when she spoke like that to them.
It quelled some of the panic sitting like a knot in the middle of his chest, and actually gave him room to breathe and think.
“Go and get dressed,” she continued. “Then I’m going to drive you to the hospital.”
Running solely on instinct, he did exactly as she said and within minutes they were on the road, taking the short drive to get to his parents.
Adam waited on one side of his father’s ER stretcher with Janae standing next to him while his mother stood on the other, holding his father’s hand.
He’d been given some meds to help with the pain that made him sleepy. As Adam was watching the rise and fall of his chest, counting each breath to make sure there was no cessation, a Latinx man with salt-and-pepper hair and a clean-shaven face opened the curtain and stepped into the stall, closing the curtain behind him quickly to maintain his father’s privacy.
“Hello,” he greeted them each with kind, yet professional, eye contact. “I’m Dr. Coronado. I’m the ortho consult on tonight.”
He turned toward his father to find him waking up from his brief nap.
“Mr. Henderson, is it all right if I discuss your care plan with you while your family’s here?” His father said yes, and they all waited forthe doctor to continue. “I’m afraid you’ve refractured your leg. It’s a nasty break and this time, I’m going to recommend putting some metal pins in it to stabilize it and give it a chance to heal properly.”
“My father’s in his seventies. Isn’t operating on someone his age risky?”
“With the exception of his leg, your father’s in great health. There’s always a risk with surgery. But I can promise you, we will monitor him very carefully to give him the best care possible. If we don’t do this, your father may never gain full mobility in his leg again.”
“Then I’m doing the surgery.”
All eyes were on his father. Adam, quite frankly, was shocked the old man wasn’t ready to sign out against medical advice at the mention of surgery.
“I wanna walk again. I don’t want you and your mama having to treat me like I’m some frail invalid for the rest of my life. Gimme the papers, Doc. I’ll sign ’em.”
As the doctor left to get the consent forms together, Janae squeezed Adam’s arm and began to step away.
“Where are you going?”
“To make sure your dad has people on his OR team that I would trust to take care of me.”
Adam’s vocal cords seized, and he couldn’t seem to voice what was in his heart at that moment. Even after their fight, she was helping his father, which showed him what a great person she was.
The tenuous bond he’d felt growing between them since his return to town seemed to solidify into something concrete, strong and visible.
She was taking care of his father, yes, but she was doing it because of Adam.
