One Perfect Day Read online

  That thought was not particularly calming either.

  White swirled and danced, so she turned her lights on. She should have brought cookies with her, since she was late. Something to soothe the savage beast, not that Christi would be savage, but Nora never appreciated the silent treatment either.

  Christi ran from under the overhang as soon as she pulled up. “You’re late, Mom. You know I’ve got a tight schedule.”

  “I know. Sorry.” She glanced over her shoulder to pull back out into the traffic. “You want to stop at Burger Hut for something to eat?”

  “No, let’s just get to the church.”

  Nora’s phone rang and she handed it to Christi. “Hope it’s your dad.”

  “Hello? No, we’re on our way to church.” She covered the phone. “Charlie wants to know if it is all right for him to take a couple of guys home after the party.”

  “To our house?”

  “No, their houses.”

  Nora regarded the snow caking along the bottom of her windshield. “This snow is looking worse than the weather gal predicted.”

  Christi listened, then turned to her mother. “He says it’s supposed to lighten up. He says the guys aren’t wearing hikers or winter coats and that you’d hate to have them walk home in this.” She smiled.

  Nora nodded agreement with a chuckle, then shook her head after Christi punched off. “Your brother could sell snow to Eskimos.”

  Nora swung the car into the church parking lot. She could see tire tracks through the accumulated snow.

  “I’ll see if I can get a ride home, okay?”

  “That would be a help. Or maybe Charlie can swing by here and pick you up. Let me know.” This was one of those times she was glad both her children had cell phones. While she often hated the intrusive things, keeping in touch was easier with them than without. So why had Gordon called the office and not her? They would have to have a conversation when he got home.

  In what seemed like minutes instead of hours, it was time to head back out into what Nora would nearly call a storm, to pick up Christi. Charlie—in the middle of his charitable ride giving after the party—had called to say he’d be home late.

  Christi leaned her head against the headrest. “Charlie call?” Those two were always checking on each other as though they shared one heart.

  “Said he’d be home about ten. I’ll fry us some burgers as soon as we get home.”

  “Good, what about Dad?”

  Yes. What about Dad? As annoyed as she was, Nora felt concern creeping in with the snow. “I’m going to call and see what the flight is doing in this snow.”

  Christi nodded. “Okay. I’m starved.”

  “But you finished?”

  “We did. Might have some touching up to do, but Mrs. Sorenson and Bruce came to help.”

  When they got inside, Christi bit into a buttery sand-bakle before even removing her jacket. She devoured a second one and headed off to put her things away.

  Nora checked on the number and dialed the phone, holding it between ear and shoulder as she dug out the frying pan. So much for grilling outside. She punched in the flight numbers and listened for the response. The last leg of Gordon’s flight had been delayed out of New York and should arrive in Minneapolis between ten and eleven.

  She and Christi were just finishing their burgers when she noticed Christi’s frown.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh… a headache,” Christi replied. She rubbed her temples and moved her head around to pull the tension out of her neck muscles.

  Nora glanced at the clock. Charlie should be home by now. Gordon was out in the snow. Her Christmas felt scattered, as though already changing. She didn’t like it. She stacked their plates and took them to the sink, then returned and rubbed her daughter’s neck and shoulders.

  “Um, thanks, Mom, that helps.”

  Betsy stood and looked toward the living room, her ears pricked. She woofed when the doorbell rang, then barked several sharp yelps as she headed for the front door, Nora right after her.

  Chapter Three

  Jenna

  Over here, stat!”

  Jenna turned at the doctor’s command. The emergency room at Jefferson Memorial had escalated beyond busy with the arrival of two ambulances from a pileup on the interstate. Although she wished no one to suffer, the controlled chaos forced her to operate as nurse Jenna Montgomery, not as Heather’s mother. It helped her push down, with professional efficiency, the ever-present pain that nagged at her gut—that… perhaps this was their last Christmas together.

  Grabbing the end of the gurney, so one of the EMTs could return to the ambulance, Jenna caught the words the woman threw over her shoulder as she left.

  “We have two more.”

  Two more, how bad? The questions buzzed Jenna’s mind as she automatically checked the saline bag hanging on a post above the patient. Obviously, they were heading for the OR, and from the look of the man on the gurney, it might not be soon enough. They pushed through the swinging door and handed their charge off to the green-garbed OR team.

  Jenna headed back down the hall at a trot, adrenaline pumping energy into her legs and mind. This man must have been the most severely injured if they did triage at the door. She dodged another gurney, this one bearing a small body, and raced down the hallway.

  They had a knife wound in cubicle one, asthma in two and alcohol poisoning in three, plus all the chairs in the waiting room were full of people getting antsy with the wait. So much for Saturday night at the circus. While they were the closest hospital to the accident, they were not a major-trauma center, one of the reasons she agreed to work in the ER. She’d done her years at the University of Southern California Medical Center in Los Angeles and moved away to a small town, partly to get out of it. Here in North Platte, Nebraska, their main patients were those on welfare who used the ER as a doctor’s office.

  Another gurney trundled into the now-crowded ER and she motioned them to a long wall. While they’d practiced disaster procedures, this was their first execution. Bad choice of words.

  “Mary Ann, call in some of the reserves.” She gave the order in spite of the fact that she wasn’t the charge nurse tonight, but Parker was up to her elbows with the knife wound on a man who was coming off a high. His growls could be heard clear to pediatrics.

  “Get me an orderly, stat.” The order came from the knife wound cubicle. Oh, oh, Parker was mad. The man she was working on had made a big mistake.

  The teenager on the gurney by the wall had tears streaming down his face.

  She stepped to his side. “Is the pain that bad?”

  “No, it was my fault.” He turned his head away, so she wiped his tears, since one of his arms was in a sling and the other taped to a firm board.

  She checked the injury ticket tucked in beside him. Possible concussion, X-rays needed on left shoulder and right arm. The right side of his face was already swollen, looked like it needed an X-ray too. Painful, but not life-threatening. “Have your parents been notified you are here?”

  “I think so. My dad’s gonna kill me.” He looked up from his less swollen eye. “He is.”

  “I seriously doubt that.” In a rush, thoughts of life without Heather filled her mind, closing her throat. For a moment, she couldn’t speak, then managed, “He’s going to be grateful you are alive….” She heard her name being called. “I’ll be right back.” She patted his hand and turned away. “Coming.”

  “Can you go talk to those waiting, please?” Dr. Madison always took time to be polite with the nurses, one of the traits that made him so popular.

  Jenna nodded and pushed her way through the door that locked from the outside. She stopped in front of the occupied chairs lined up around the room and relayed her message. Reaction was mixed, mostly unhappy, others trailing out to make new plans.

  “Thank you for understanding,” Jenna said, although she knew they hadn’t. She turned back to punch in the numbers on the keypad and ret
urn to the ER. Someone shouting from behind the closed door sent her hurrying through. The man with the knife wound was now brandishing a hypodermic needle and screaming obscenities. Parker leaned against a wall, clutching her arm. Two familiar EMTs pushed through the door from the ambulances, one of them big enough to take out the screamer, and the other blond and cute, a cheerleader type known for her ability to talk someone down.

  Jenna stepped into the cubicle to check the vitals of the asthmatic. The middle-aged man was sitting on a stool, the pulse oximeter attached to his thumb. He raised his eyebrows.

  “Quite a production out there,” he said, his voice still raspy.

  “You’re telling me.”

  In the next cubicle, Jenna smiled at an older man and his wife. “Let’s go for a ride,” she said, motioning for one of the orderlies. Together they lifted the man from the examining table to a gurney and trundled him out the door.

  Maybe they could start caring for those waiting now. It was proving to be quite the night. Soon she’d be crawling into her own bed, visions of a perfect Christmas… well, not exactly dancing in her head, but she’d do her darnedest to make it memorable for her and Heather. One just like the old days.

  When Jenna had handed her charge off to the floor nurses, she paused long enough to get a drink of water before returning to the ER.

  “You had a bad time, huh?” the nurse asked.

  “You can say that again.” The medical floor, with the lights dimmed in the hall and patients sleeping, seemed like a haven after the chaos below.

  “How’s Heather?”

  It caught her off-guard, this mention of her daughter’s name, spoken with caring and warmth. They’d been in and out of this hospital so many times that everyone knew her daughter—and loved her. The question made her shift from nurse to mother, and she rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. With a sigh, she answered, “Getting weaker.”

  “Any movement on the donor list?”

  “Not much.” They’d been on it for months. Should have been on the list for years, but with so many people needing heart transplants, the patient had to reach a near critical level of need before being added to the list. The fastest way off the list was dying. Jenna knew all the reasons for the rules, but it was different when the patient was her only child. Although at twenty, Heather wouldn’t appreciate being called a child, even though due to her frailness, she seemed so young.

  “I’ll pour you a cup of coffee and you can drink it on the way down.”

  “Thanks, I take it black.” While she waited, Jenna rubbed her forehead and leaned her rear against the counter, sighing out the adrenaline that had kept her hopping. Hopefully, the caffeine would restore some vitality.

  She took the proffered cup. “Thanks.” And headed for the elevator. Third floor was medical and orthopedic, while the ER took up a big part of the street-level floor. She pushed herself back to nurse mode.

  Back down in the ER, the chaos created by the druggie had settled and patients were being moved through the examining rooms as efficiently as usual. Those from the accident were taken care of, a helicopter transporting the most severely injured man to another hospital, the small child still in surgery and the others treated and either released or moved to another floor.

  By the time six forty-five A.M. rolled around, they’d even had some time to catch up on the charting. Jenna tapped the enter key on the screen to finish her shift as the blast of an ambulance siren split the early morning.

  “You go home,” said the nurse who came on in fifteen minutes.

  Jenna hesitated, instinctively turning toward the doors when they slid open to admit the same two EMTs and a gurney with a slight form under the blanket. Her breath caught so quickly, she sagged a bit in the knees. The light hair spilling out from the still body—could it be an adult, so small?—looked familiar. Just like the strands on the daughter she’d left so reluctantly hours earlier. Heather. Oh, Heather.

  Chapter Four

  Jenna

  The crisp bite of the weather on her nose belied the sun lifting itself above the horizon. Jenna quietly closed the car door and leaned against it, closing her eyes, forcing herself to take deep breaths and not whimper. The aftermath of realizing that the last patient on her shift wasn’t her daughter had drained her of… of what? What had she had before? She’d already been running on empty. The few seconds when the child on the gurney had become Heather had been the manifestation of everything she’d prayed to God to be saved from.

  What the sun did best at this time of year was set all the diamond snowflakes afire, although the icicles could begin dripping by midmorning, and black asphalt patches showed through the plowed streets and sidewalks. Six inches wasn’t bad for a first real snowfall.

  Taking both hands to wipe her wet cheeks, she straightened her shoulders. She needed to see Heather, hold her. She’d promised to make waffles. And a perfect Christmas. Would her daughter still be here when the strawberries ripened and they could enjoy their favorite breakfast of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream? Somehow frozen ones just didn’t make the grade.

  The house greeted her with silence. A note on the table said that Matilda next door had been in to check on Heather. She was sleeping now, but the neighbor had seen the kitchen lights on during the night. Sometimes when she couldn’t sleep, Heather would heat milk in the microwave, add vanilla and sip it while checking e-mail and message boards. One of her favorites was a chat room for those on transplant lists.

  Heather would get really quiet for a few days after a post announced that one of her online friends had passed away.

  Jenna had nightmares about writing that post for her daughter. Leaving her jacket, gloves and ski band for her ears in a heap on a kitchen chair, she left her purse beside the computer and hurried down the hall. The oxygen machine hummed in Heather’s bedroom and a meow announced that Elmer, Heather’s half-Siamese cat, wanted out. Heather usually made sure the door was open a crack so Elmer could use a paw to drag it farther open and find his litter box in the bathroom. Elmer had a way with opening things.

  After letting the cat out, Jenna peeked in to see her daughter’s limp hair spread over the pillow, so like the little girl in the ER. The omnipresent oxygen prongs were in her nose and there was more color in the faded pink sheet than Heather’s face. Even with the oxygen, there was a faint bluish tinge around her mouth and eyes. Her poor heart could hardly pump enough blood to get sufficient oxygen. Jenna resisted the urge to check her daughter’s pulse—Heather always woke up—but instead left the door slightly open for Elmer and detoured to clean out the litter box before heading for her own room and a welcome shower.

  Standing under the pulsating spray, she closed her eyes and lost herself in the steam, the water and the weariness. Even though she considered herself a woman of faith, the fear that Heather’s… leaving… was imminent could not be contained as it had been in other years. Four days before Christmas and they’d not even put up the tree yet. What kind of mother was she?

  You didn’t wake me up.”

  Eyes bleary from lack of sleep, Jenna looked up from her pillow to see Heather standing beside her bed, with Elmer draped over her arm. Her long flannel nightshirt looked so much like the long flannel gowns of younger years that it took Jenna a moment to orient to today. Her little girl with the wispy gilt hair was still there inside the emaciated body of her grown daughter. Jenna’s mumble changed to real speech as she forced a smile. “You were really sleeping and I didn’t want to disturb you. Besides, I desperately needed a few winks.”

  “You want me to make breakfast?”

  “Wouldn’t you rather have waffles like we planned?”

  “Real ones that you make, not the freezer kind.” Elmer squirmed in her arms, so she hefted him up to be held against her chest, where he licked her chin with a raspy tongue.

  “I thought so.” Jenna stretched her arms with balled fists over her head and yawned. Oh, for the chance to sleep twelve straight hours
or until she woke up naturally, not with a cry for help or the phone with more bad news. Please, Lord, let today be the day. This had been her prayer for so long that it was automatic. The day for a heart transplant, the day their new life would begin. One look at Heather’s pale face told her another transfusion would be needed soon.

  “You taking a shower first? I could go start the bacon.”

  “No, let me wash my face and brush my teeth. I had a shower last night.” Last night, right. She glanced at the clock. Two point five hours ago, to be exact. She sat up and searched for her slippers with her feet.

  “We’ll go to church later?” Heather asked, a small smile pulling up the corners of thin lips.

  Since Dr. Cranston had said no crowds, a televised church service had been their church, the living room their sanctuary and the lumpy couch their pew. This had become their normal worship for the last few months. Thank God for congregations that could afford to tape their services for the benefit of those housebound. Heather hadn’t been a regular at youth group or choir for longer than Jenna cared to remember. And with her erratic hours at the hospital, she wasn’t able to do much better.

  Jenna staggered into her bathroom, turned on the water and stared at the face in the mirror. Dark shag-cut hair that hadn’t been on the pillow long enough to become bed head, hazel eyes that looked sunken into dark circles and a wide mouth that needed a reminder on how to smile without encouragement. Worry and fear chased away any vestiges of fat on her petite five-foot frame. Arlen used to call her pleasantly rounded. She needed belts on all her pants nowadays. Once, she had been considered cute and attractive, now all she looked was worn. Would all this waiting and hoping have been any easier had her husband been there to hold her when she cried and share the care of their failing daughter? She’d never know; a sniper’s bullet in some unpronounceable place in the Middle East had made sure of that.

  She concentrated on brushing her teeth. You’d have thought she’d have learned to not look in the mirror by now. All it did was make her more depressed. After tousling her hair with damp fingers to give it some body, she dressed and, still slipper-clad, made her yawning way to the kitchen, where the smell of frying bacon perked up her taste buds.