A Hunka Hunka Nursing Love (Women's Fiction) (14 page)

“Oh, Val, I’m sorry to bother you, but Wanda’s out of town, and I didn’t know who else to call.”

“What’s up?”

“It’s my mom. She had a stroke.”

Chapter 11

Keith found Pam in the surgery waiting room, typing on her BlackBerry at warp speed.

“Hi, Pam.”

She looked up, and her eyes reminded him of a wounded animal. “Keith. Hi. Uh, hang on a sec.” She finished up whatever she’d been typing and replaced the BlackBerry on her belt. “So, what brings you here?”

He noticed the sweat stains under her arms as he sat next to her. “I was with Valerie when you called, and since she was in no shape to get here quickly, I offered to come instead.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Pam said, lifting some of her heavy brown curls away from her forehead. “I totally forgot about her leg.”

“I also thought maybe my medical knowledge might come in handy.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, thank you.” Her lower lip began trembling, and her eyes filled with tears. Keith put his arm around her, and she fell against his chest as she allowed the dam to burst. Her hair smelled like herbal tea.

He embraced her gently. “It’s okay, Pam. It’s okay.” She had always come across as a pretty tough cookie, so he knew breaking down like this had to be hard for her.

She eventually sat up and wiped her eyes. “I’m just so scared.” Her voice was an octave higher than normal. “This whole thing, it’s all so frightening.”

He hunted for some tissues but couldn’t find any. Damn hospitals. Everything was such a depressing color, too: gray walls and carpet, black chairs. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

She sniffled and glanced around as if she, too, thought there might be some tissues. “I stopped by after work and found her sitting on the kitchen floor trying to clean up this jar of—oh, what was it?—Olives, I guess, that she had dropped. When I asked her what she was doing, she could just barely talk, and she couldn’t move her right arm at all. So I figured she was probably having a stroke, and I called 9-1-1. Then she got mad at me! For calling 9-1-1!” Her eyes seemed to plead with him to make some sense of her mother’s odd behavior.

“Sometimes they’re so frightened themselves that they just don’t want to admit what’s happening to them.”

She let her head fall way back, and he heard a muffled crack in her neck before she righted it. “So the ambulance finally got there, and I rode up in the front with the driver, so I don’t know exactly what they did to her on the way here. But he told me they’d probably do a CT Scan as soon as we got here, and sure enough, that’s what they did. Then the doc—or, surgeon, whatever—came out and told me she had a blood clot in the brain, and they were immediately going to do a throm . . .”

“Thrombectomy.”

“Right. So that’s what they’re doing now.” She stood and shook out her hands as she began pacing. “I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin.”

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thanks.” She stopped pacing and pushed her hair off her face with both hands. “They kept asking me how long it had been since her symptoms started, and I had no idea, but they acted like it was important.”

He nodded. “Yeah, the sooner they start treating a stroke, the less damage it’s likely to do.”

“Oh, great.” She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her khakis and resumed pacing. “She could have been sitting there for hours for all I know.”

He thanked God his own mom didn’t have any serious health problems—yet. “The important thing is that you got help for her as fast as you could.”

“Yeah, but I probably should have been checking on her more often. She’s not that old, but she has diabetes and high blood pressure, and she smoked for, like, forty-five years. So she’s at high risk for a lot of things.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He crossed his arms. “You should have quit your job and devoted yourself entirely to caring for her.”

She stopped and gave him a puzzled look.

“I can’t believe how selfish you are,” he continued, “wanting to have money for frivolous things like food and housing.”

She snorted. “Okay, I get the message.” She sat next to him. “And you’re actually right. I’ve always gone beyond the call of duty with her. I stop by there every night.”

“I know. Valerie told me.”

She sighed with a loud gust. “I guess I just need to chill out and hope for the best.”

“It’s hard to just sit here and wait, though.” He recalled waiting through his sister’s surgeries, wanting to climb the walls. “Who’s her surgeon?”

“Uh . . . Pence?”

“Cliff Pence. He’s good, very good. You got lucky.”

That brought a brief smile to her face. “So if you were over at Valerie’s, that must mean . . .”

He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t pry.”

He didn’t want to be rude, but he also knew he should proceed cautiously. “I took some dinner over for her.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “You know, just for the record, I’m okay with you two . . . getting friendly.”

He studied her closely. “Despite our working relationship?”

“Yeah. I mean, I know it’s not a good idea for bosses to get involved with their employees, and vice versa. But you’re adults, and frankly, I think you would be good for her.”

He didn’t expect to hear that. “You do?”

“Yeah, I do. You’re a decent guy, when you’re not haranguing me for being a bad daughter”—they both smiled—“and she’s really interested in you. And if anyone ever needed interests outside of work, it’s Valerie.”

He chuckled. “She admits she’s a workaholic.”

Pam’s eyebrows drew together. “I didn’t worry about it when she was married to Greg, since they at least did
some
fun stuff. But ever since they split up, she’s just become consumed with work. She does a lot of things for her mom, too. So you’ve been a godsend there.”

“Well, Helen has tolerated me so far, but we’ll see how long that lasts once Valerie is back to normal. So what does Valerie like to do?”

Pam frowned thoughtfully. “She loves hiking and biking, but with the broken leg . . .” She shook her head. “I guess I’d say movies, concerts, plays . . . oh, comedy clubs. She loves stand-up comics. You know, whatever. The important thing is to get her out of the office and away from her BlackBerry.”

He guffawed. “How do you separate a woman like Valerie from her BlackBerry?”

She appeared to ponder that for a moment. “I know how a lesbian would do it.” She smiled impishly. “I suspect it’s not so different for you.”

Keith raised his brown ceramic sake cup. “Here’s to our first real date.”

Valerie lifted her glass of Diet Coke. “And here’s to waitresses who
don’t
call me ‘ma’am.’”

His face drooped into a frown. “Are you still mad about that?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘mad’. Annoyed to smithereens maybe, but not mad.”

“I think you’re being overly sensitive. They call me ‘sir’ sometimes, and that doesn’t bother me.”

“It’s different for men. It’s not like ‘sir’ has an age connotation.”

“I think it does.”

“‘I think you’re being overly sensitive,’” she mocked.

He sniggered. “At least she didn’t call you ‘grandma.’”

His words hit like a sucker punch. “No, she didn’t. No one will ever call me that.”

His jaw dropped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t— The only reason I said that is because I had a kid call me ‘grandpa’ once. We were in line to fill our drinks at this fast-food place, and I guess I wasn’t moving fast enough for him. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” His explanation had softened the blow, but she couldn’t help wondering whether Greg, or anyone closer to her age, would say something so thoughtless knowing her history. On the other hand, how could she expect Keith to be as cautious about the subject as Greg would be?

The waitress arrived with two platters. “Sushi Deluxe?”

“That’s me,” Keith said.

She placed his dinner in front of him. “And California Combo.” She served Valerie. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, ma’am,” Valerie said.

Keith scolded her with a sharp glare. “No, thanks,” he said, and the waitress left. He took his first bite and moaned with approval. “So how is Pam’s mom doing?”

Valerie had to force herself to focus on the conversation rather than pondering what else might make him moan like that. “Not so good. She’s lost too much of her functionality to live alone anymore, so they have to move her into assisted living.”

“Hmm. Too bad.”

“Yeah. She’s
not
happy about it. Her mom, I mean. But Pam doesn’t have any choice.” Valerie dropped a California roll but easily retrieved it with her chopsticks. “The good news is that they were able to find a decent facility right away, which I guess is pretty unusual. But it’s also one of the more expensive ones, so, as Pam said, her mom’s little nest egg is going to have a major crack in it.”

“Well, speaking of moms . . .”

“Uh-oh. Is something up with mine?”

His pained expression answered before he spoke. “When I got there yesterday, I noticed kind of an odd smell, and when I went into the kitchen, I discovered she had left one of the burners on.”

“Oh, shit.”

“When I pointed it out to her, she said she had just turned it on because she was going to boil some water for tea.”

“Oh, that’s bull. She makes her tea in the microwave.”

“And the burner was on low. If she was really going to boil water for tea, I would think she’d turn the heat on high and put the kettle on.”

Valerie put her chopsticks down, leaned back, and squeezed her eyelids together tightly. “Damn. This is just the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night. I can’t help thinking it’s just a matter of time before there’s some horrible accident, and then I’ll be saying, ‘Why the hell did I let her stay there alone? Why didn’t I
insist
that she get into some kind of—’”

“Valerie,” he said sternly, but his eyes conveyed compassion as he reached across the table and took hold of her hand. “You yourself were the one who told me that as long as she’s of sound mind and body, she has the right to choose where she lives.”

“But she could have burned the house down! Doesn’t that prove she’s a clear and present danger to herself?”

“Well, maybe. But I suspect a judge would say leaving a burner on is the sort of thing any one of us might do occasionally.”

She sighed. “I feel like I have to do
something
about it.”

“It might be a good opportunity for you to remind her why it’s important to have someone like me coming in.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’m afraid she’ll start lobbying to get rid of you as soon as I’m completely back to my normal routine, so maybe I can head that off.” She gently withdrew her hand. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, so go ahead and finish your dinner.”

“You, too. You’re still healing.”

She picked up her chopsticks. “Ever since the incident with Pam’s mom, I’ve been thinking I really do need to have somebody checking on my mom daily. Maybe not on the days when she’s doing something with one of her friends, or going out with Charlie. But there are times when I don’t think she talks to another living soul all day.”

“So tell me about this Charlie guy.” He reached for the soy sauce. “She gets all shy and quiet whenever I ask about him.”

“Does she?”

“Yeah. You’d think she was in high school or something.”

She chortled. “I don’t know much about him either, except that he’s a retired history teacher. I didn’t like that incident with the cab driver, but I think he’s generally harmless. She sure does like him, I know that much.”

The corners of his mouth curled up. “There’s something inspiring about a couple of old folks like that still going for the romance. Do you think they’d ever . . . do it?”

She almost choked. “Are you serious?”

“Sure. I’ve heard of people in their nineties still having sex.”

That created a mental image she did
not
want to examine. “Well, be that as it may, I can’t imagine my mother being one of them.”

His eyes twinkled. “Won’t you still be doing it when you’re in your nineties?”

The real question is: Will I be doing it tonight?
“I’ll worry about that fifty years from now.”

“Maybe if you’re a late bloomer, your sex life lasts longer. I was definitely a late bloomer.”

“Really?” She had assumed a good-looking guy like Keith would have started early.

He flushed. “It happens.”

Perhaps he regretted being so frank with her. “My first was my high school sweetheart. Jimmy Lugg.”

He snickered. “Jimmy Lugg?”

“Don’t laugh. He was darling. He was the cleanup hitter on the baseball team. And, yes, they did call him ‘Lugg Nut.’ But he was the love of my life. At the time anyway.”

Nodding slowly, he smiled. “My first was Angela Turissini. We met at the West Suburban College of Nursing. Angela was definitely an early bloomer, and she was more than willing to teach me. But once she stole my virginity, I pretty much lost interest in her.”

“
Stole
your virginity?”

He shrugged. “Okay, I gave it. Gladly. But there certainly wasn’t anything special about the sex.”

“Oh, poor baby. At least it was a notch on the bedpost, right? I thought that was all you guys cared about at that age.”

“Yeah, most of my friends were like that. I guess I was more of a romantic back then. Of course, that was before I had my heart broken.”

“And who did that?”

Sighing, he lost his smile. “My wife. Who was your first big heartbreak?”

“Same guy. Jimmy.”

He grinned. “The Lugg Nut?”

“Yes, the Lugg Nut,” she said with a scowl. “It turned out he couldn’t keep his nuts to himself.”