Laugh (22 page)

“Good job, Dr. Burnside. It’s a pleasure to work with you.”

Sam leaned over and kissed Maureen’s forehead.

* * *

Nina heard Rachel’s voice as if it was coming from far away.

“Eat all of that pudding. Then the juice. I know it’s not as good as you’re used to, baby, but it will help you feel better.”

“She okay, Rachel?”

“Her color’s better. Not so white around her lips and green around her gills.”

“I don’t have gills,” Nina said, and slowly swallowed another bite of syrupy vanilla pudding from the plastic cup the nurse gave Rachel and tried not to gag.

“You ladies okay in here, now?”

Nina watched the nurse go to Tay’s bedside and bend over to look at the bloody bag of urine hooked to the frame coming from Tay’s catheter. Nina closed her eyes and took a breath through her nose.

“Good,” Nina made herself say.

“Glad you were by the chair, ma’am, you could’ve hit your head.”

“Fine,” Nina replied.

Rachel clucked and smoothed her hand over her forehead. The nurse left and Nina forced herself to take another tiny bite of pudding.

Then she heard Tay giggle.

“Ha, ha.” Nina said.

“It’s just that you’re tall and strong and kind of cut, even, and then you just went all noodly.”

“Don’t tease,” Rachel said, but she said it laughing.

“Whatever.”

“I don’t get it,” Tay said.” You’ve butchered before. Dealt with dead animals in the fields. All kinds of stuff. Remember that deer that was all … slimy when I found it last spring? You just grabbed it by the hooves or whatever and chained it to the tractor, dragged it right out. I had to walk away and think happy thoughts.”

“Different.”

“Then there was that time you cut your knee right open on a loop of cheese wire. You were bleeding all over the place. I still get kind of queasy thinking about smoked gouda, and you just wrapped it up and went to the urgent care. No big deal.”

“Still different.”

Nina finally felt steady enough to lean back in the recliner and open her eyes.

Rachel sat down at the foot of Tay’s bed. “It’s other people’s blood, isn’t it, baby?”

“Yeah.”

“Oops,” said Tay. “I should have warned you about that packing change, then.”

“It’s okay. Please don’t fuss over me.”

“You’re probably much weaker than usual, too, after all the sex with the doctor.”

Rachel turned her head and
shoosh
ed Tay sharply.

“Don’t
shoosh
me, I’m in the hospital.”

“You can still keep hold of your manners.”

“I hardly had manners before my pee was hanging in a bag from my bed.”

“It’s okay, Rach.”

The women were quiet for a while, and Nina worked on breathing and getting her center back. The visit had been going so well. Tay was feeling much better and could sit up a little. The pathology reports had come back as oncology had expected without any unanticipated spread of Tay’s cancer.

They had been joking through their tears about Adam bossing around Nina in the fields during one of the last sweet corn harvests yesterday, yelling at Nina all day long. Then he had taken Nina to dinner to ask her what kind of ring to get Tay.

Then the nurse had come in and worked between Tay’s legs, pulling out blood-soaked packing, changing it while Tay dozed after pushing the button on her pain pump, and it had overwhelmed Nina.

What Tay was facing. The worry in Rachel’s bloodshot eyes. Adam’s misplaced anger in the fields yesterday.

The blood. Tay’s blood.

Then she had gone down.

And yeah, she hadn’t been sleeping either. Or eating all that well. Tay and Adam and Rachel, the ten thousand needs of all her seasonal farmhands, and the community projects. Taking over seed and processing orders from Tay.

Sam.

Sam’s body, under hers, over hers, his hands bracketing her face. The way he looked at her and kissed her.

Marry me, Nina.

Russ hadn’t ever proposed. Russ had been a foregone conclusion. Shortly after she graduated from ESU, he’d taken her out to dinner and they’d talked about whether his folks should get into the nursery business and then he’d asked if she thought she’d be okay getting married at Christmas, or if she wanted to do it sooner.

She’d heard from her intern that Sam had been at his regular shift this morning, watering and weeding, and her heart had squeezed. By some mutual agreement, they hadn’t contacted each other after he left her apartment when his proposal made her cry—not like a bride-to-be cries, but like a person cries when hurting a friend.

Then the next morning: her whole life, coming at her, her business, her farm; she had been making decisions so quickly lately that she dreaded the coming months, because she hadn’t had the time to think any of her decisions all the way through.

She had no room for another
yes
, even as the
no
had choked her with tears.

Farming was always uncertain, but she had grown fat the last several years, fed by all the love from people sharing her vision. Taking more on her own made her remember earlier years when she’d shouldered so much and every season came relentlessly after the next and she’d been certain she was going under, ruining farmland, letting farm shareholders down.

This time was worse, because she knew different. She knew the fat and plenty, knew the joy of feeding and feasting, and for the first time, the
safety
of others. Like she had known when she was young, her parents legal, with a business of their own, and she’d been running through corn rows with a half-grown boy who smiled all the time.

Making herself safe again, she had made for herself so much to lose.

She couldn’t lose Sam if she didn’t have him.

Which she was old enough to know was terrible logic, wasn’t even the logic she had recently told herself to listen to, but fear wasn’t very good at logic.

She wondered if she was ready to feel she deserved the women in her life, the people, her dream as realized as any farming dream could be, and someone like Sam who would believe anything she did was good.

Who would show up to take orders from her intern after she had given him nothing but
no.

“Sam,” she said, because he was in the doorway to Tay’s room.

He looked at her, fully her surfer boy god in his familiar cargo shorts and T-shirt, his cheekbones and ears too red from the sun, his red hair with new gold highlights at the ends.

Then he looked at Tay, and went to her.

“Hey,” he said, his voice easy.

“Hey, Dr. Sam.” Tay fist-bumped him.

“How’s the digs?”

“The food sucks.”

“To the rescue.” He held up a sack that Nina hadn’t even noticed. It was from the strange but awesome vegan beer hall in his neighborhood where Nina had discovered had some of the best veggie burgers and fries
she’d ever had, and who wouldn’t give Rachel the recipe.

“Oh this is the shit, thanks, Sam.”

“So you’re eating okay? On regular diet orders? No vomiting?”

“As of yesterday night. And I’ve been super hungry all day today.”

“Take it easy, anyway. Your pain tolerable?”

Tay held up the button she could push for medication to go through her IV. “Got it.”

“Don’t wait. Push it when you need it.”

“Got it. You gonna doctor Nina?”

He looked at Nina again, his brow wrinkled. She shook her head at Tay. “I’m fine.”

“She almost took a header.”

“Nina?”

“Oh no, really. I’m fine.”

“She can’t handle blood and she still looks pretty pale. I don’t know, maybe someone should take her home.”

Nina narrowed her eyes at Tay, whom she could tell was trying not to laugh.

She looked at Rachel for help, but Rachel was picking imaginary lint off the skirt of her yellow gingham sundress.

“Did they bring you some juice?”

Nina held her foil-covered cup of OJ to show Sam.

“Take your blood pressure?”

She nodded.

Sam looked at Rachel. “She throw up?”

“No, honey. She ate a little pudding, but I think maybe our girl Tay is right and Nina should go home.”

“You drive?”

Nina sighed. “I’m okay. Everyone here knows I’m okay. I rode with Rachel.”

“Yeah, baby. But I was going to stay with Tay tonight until Adam got here late. You should go on home and rest. You were out in the fields this morning, and need to get up early.”

“So do you. To open the café.”

“Oh, but I’m used to it.” Rachel raised a perfect eyebrow and Nina heard Tay giggle again.

“So am I, Rachel. I’m a
farmer.
”

“Umm, hmm,” Rachel hummed, which meant she would no longer be good for conversation and had dug her heels in.

Nina looked at Tay, who was again trying not to laugh.

She looked at Sam.

He actually appeared a
little
sorry.

“Fine.”

Sam stood up the same time Nina did, and they looked at each other across the small hospital room.

“All I need is a ride.”

“No problem.”

“I can take a taxi; you’ll have to go north and then all the way back past the hospital to go home.”

“Barely half a mile out of my way.”

“Hey guys.” Lacey stepped in and leaned against the doorframe. When she caught Nina’s eye, she raised her eyebrows then looked between her and Sam.

“Hey Sam, are you being nice?” Lacey sounded suspicious, and looked back at Nina.

“Absolutely. Was just offering Nina a ride home. You’re staying for a shift, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll have to head downstairs in a bit, but wanted to check on our girl. How you feeling, Tay?”

“Much better. I started getting hungry today, and Sam brought me food. I’ve got the pain button.” Tay held it up.

“Awesome.” Lacey looked back between Nina and Sam.

The room got quiet and Nina started feeling uncomfortable.

She looked at Sam.

He smiled, and it wasn’t some big grin, and he didn’t seem to be trying to charm her. He just smiled and looked down. As if he liked her. Just liked her and was willing to take her home.

Probably take her home and keep her, if she’d let him.

“Okay.”

He looked back up at her, but Nina looked at Tay, willing the blush at her jaw and ears not to flood into her face. She went to Tay’s bedside and hugged her the best she could with the little tubes and wires around her, inhaled her huge topknot of dreads to catch the scent of peppermint.

“Adam has the day off tomorrow, so he can spend the night here with you.”

“I know,” Tay whispered back. “He’s bringing all the movies we always want to see but never do because we’re always too tired and need to get up too early. You really going to be okay bringing in the peppers? It’s going to be a dicey one. I think only about half the harvest is going to be good enough for Vadnais and it’s a lot of sorting at cold storage. It’ll be a tough day.”

“I’ve got it.”

“I won’t let Adam worry, then.”

Nina kissed Tay’s forehead and wouldn’t let herself cry.

All their faith in her. All her faith in them.

“Can I help?” Sam asked.

Nina looked at him. “With what?”

“You know,” he said, “the peppers? I think I could do tomorrow, before five though, because I have a thing at Betty’s house, though maybe you’d want to go? Anyway. It’s my usual day off, if I take it. Which I could. Unless, I guess, Lacey, you might need me?”

Nina watched Lacey look at Sam for a long beat. “No, we got a decent amount done today, that’s okay.”

“Unless I’d be in the way?”

It seemed like everyone was holding their breath waiting for Nina to answer.

Dios.

“You should drive your own car, in case it’s too much. I don’t know how much you can help.”

“What time?”

“We’ll … I’ll tell you what you need to know in the car. When you take me home.”

He smiled at her again and she could feel the whole room watching him do it.

She gave Tay another hug, to keep herself from smiling back.

“We going to go in?”

Sam took a long pull of his iced tea. “Yeah.”

“Anytime soon? It’s kind of hot.”

In the parking garage of the hospital, he had asked Nina if she would please talk to him, and he would try to keep his mouth shut. She said she would, and then he found himself asking if she would talk to him at his place. He had this thought she should see him, see how he did his best to manage, so if he found himself accidentally proposing again, she had more information to work with.

Except now that they were here, leaning against the brick half wall in front of his building, he wasn’t sure he had the balls.

“It’s kind of a mess.”

“You said.”

“It’s always like that. It’s not like I’ve been busy and let things go a little. Busy or not, it’s always a big fucking mess.”

“You said that, too.”

“And it’s small. Some people think being a doctor means you have tons of money. I do okay, but Des and Sarah are on my health insurance and so I pay a pretty high monthly premium. I still have student loans. I went into family medicine, instead of some fancy specialty. I’ll do better, someday, but because I’m going into community health, mostly I’ll just do okay.”

“Sam …”

“Also, I like it here. I mean, not
here
in this dumpy building, but here. The neighborhood. I don’t really like to travel, so I don’t really know, I guess, if some other place would be better, and maybe it would be. I’ll never know, because I’m planning on staying here. I’m trying to save up for a place like I grew up in, one of those two-story row houses with a little yard in back. I should take you to where I grew up sometime. My buddy Mike bought it. Him and his wife, DeeDee. They have two kids. It’s a good family place.”

“Sam …”

“Yeah.”

“I feel like … you’re trying to lay out your prospects.”

Sam looked at Nina, her hair in those braids that he loved, those tiny shorts.

“Maybe I am.”

“Oh, Sam.” She closed her eyes.

“I promise I won’t propose, as long as you take it easy on me with the sex. You’re too good at it. I had no choice but to propose. Biological imperative.”