BWWM Interracial Romance 2: Open Heart (2 page)

More hours passed, and by the time Ashley was cleared to go on her lunch break—to actually sit down for thirty minutes and relax, instead of gobbling something down on the move—she was thankful for it. Her feet weren’t hurting, but her lower back had a faint ache to it. Ashley had been what her mother called “lush and lovely” from a young age, with full breasts and hips and long, thick legs that were well toned. She ate healthily, and she got plenty of exercise, but her body just wasn’t meant to be smaller than a size twelve, and she was contented with it as it was. Her curves didn’t make buying scrubs easy, and when she did have to wear the hospital’s pairs, she looked atrocious, but that was the kind of hardship that Ashley was able to bear without any real qualms. The stares she sometimes got were less welcome, but she had learned how to ignore them.

As Ashley stopped at admitting to check with the three women working there to see if any of them were going on break, or needed anything from the break area, Ashely’s ears were filled with the sound of a man shouting. She craned her head around the divider and saw a man standing in front of the admitting desk, gesturing impatiently. He was yelling at Rosalie, one of the most efficient women that Ashley knew in the hospital. If Rosalie was working, Ashley knew that everything would be absolutely in order—and would take place as quickly as possible. Ashley stepped up behind her colleague, trying to understand what was going on. The man standing on the other side of the desk was taller than she was, lean and muscled; she could see the movements of his body through the tailored suit he was wearing. His blond hair was cut short, his blue eyes were reddened, and she thought he looked as though he’d had a rough night. If she could have guessed what he was there for, she would have thought it would be coming down off of drugs, or too drunk to function, but instead he was speaking clearly—though in a raised voice—about his niece.

“How long does it take to be seen in this dump?” he was asking in a near-shout. “I mean, what is this? It’s supposed to be an Emergency Room, right? So when someone has an E-mer-gen-cy,” he stressed each syllable, scowling, “like a little girl desperately sick, then shouldn’t there be some sense of—oh, I don’t know—
urgency
?” Ashley was annoyed on Rosalie’s behalf, as well as her own, although it occurred to her that if she hadn’t gone snooping, she wouldn’t be hearing his abusive tone.

“Sir, have you filled out your niece’s paperwork?” she asked him sharply, cutting through his diatribe. The man looked at her, and something flickered through his bright eyes before he resumed his scowl.

“Yes, I gave it to this woman twenty minutes ago.” Ashley glanced at Rosalie and held out her hand for the paperwork. This man was an uncle—he was here with his niece, not his daughter. She looked over the symptoms listed. She resisted the urge to shake her head.

“This is not an emergency situation right now, sir,” she said, looking at him coldly. “I can understand that you are concerned for your niece, however, I just left the room of a woman who had a six inch cut in her stomach that had severed an artery.” She held his gaze levelly. “As for why there’s such a wait, we are still working on multiple patients who were involved in a four-car pileup early this morning, which has thrown off the schedule. I apologize if you find the wait time unpleasant, but I believe that the patients I just mentioned have a right to quick attention. If you continue to abuse the staff, I will make sure that you are escorted out of the hospital.” The man sputtered that she couldn’t do that to him, and Ashley shook her head, turned on her heel, and left.

Ashley managed to gain some perspective on the situation while she sat in the break area eating her salad and sandwich. She was even able to shake her head and laugh at the fact that she had threatened to have the man thrown out. Normally, she was able to keep her composure even with the most annoying, whining patients—and since she rotated responsibilities as a family practice and a trauma doctor, dealing with pediatrics cases as well as ER and a few general cases, she had heard the gamut of annoying and whiny. But there had been something about the man standing there, chewing Rosalie out over something that wasn’t her colleague’s fault. Something about his demeanor; a kind of swaggering, bully-like air, as if the man expected everyone in the hospital to just kowtow to him. She half-expected him to pull out the old and tired, “Do you know who I am?” routine—and maybe he had before her arrival. Something about it had just set her off. She had worked with the woman she mentioned to him in her set-down; the woman’s cut had been so deep that Ashley was concerned that her ovaries, her bladder, or her intestines might have been nicked. The woman had gone to surgery—not Ashley’s specialty—but Ashley continued to worry for her, especially seeing the demeanor of the man who had come in with her—a kind of quiet brutality. He had blood on his shirt that she was sure was his wife’s, and not necessarily from rushing to her ER.

It was just one of those things, Ashley told herself as she threw away the trash from her meal and stowed the leftovers in the cooler bag, shoving it back into her locker. She would have a laugh with Rosalie later about the shutdown she had delivered, and maybe she’d check out what had ended up happening to the patient.

When she checked the duty board again, Ashley saw that she had ended up in pediatrics after the morning chaos after all. She would talk to Rosalie later, since the ER was farther away than the department that needed her.

Ashley wondered who had ended up with the uncle from hell and would have asked, but pediatrics was busy. She checked the chart of the kids from the early-morning car accident, as she knew that half the staff was probably doing; they were stable, but their condition wouldn’t necessarily stay that way. The little girl had internal bleeding, the little boy several broken bones, and they had both suffered intense head trauma. The parents were unconscious as well, and the question of how to deal with the family’s accommodation had caused a flutter after they were all stabilized. The parents were not in the Pediatrics ward, but they had been put as close to the Pediatric Emergency unit as possible.

Ashley reached for the charts that were in her bin, and opened the first one up. It was an emergency admission. A girl, admitted with fever, chills, vomiting, some blood in vomit. Ashley read through the triage notes and then flipped to the paperwork at the back and groaned. She had assumed that some other resident would take the uncle from hell and his niece. If only she had stayed in the ER, she would be able to dodge this particular bullet. At least, she thought, he couldn’t possibly be angry at not being seen yet—the girl, Amanda, was in a holding room. She had been triaged and sent to the pediatric unit, which made sense with the relatively low-grade symptoms that the girl was exhibiting. But it was just her rotten luck that Ashley had told off the guardian; the chart indicated that the girl’s father had faxed in notarized authorization for his brother to stay with his niece. Ashley steeled herself and made her way to the room, taking a deep breath and preparing to be screamed at.

There was a flicker of recognition in the man’s eyes when she came into the room, but instead of shouting at her the way he had Rosalie, he remained seated and said to his niece, “Look, Mandy, the nice doctor’s here to see you.”

Ashley smiled at the little girl; to some degree she could trace a resemblance—while no one would mistake her for the man’s daughter, they had a similar brow structure, something of kinship in the line of their jaw. Ashley decided that it was best to focus on the patient; if her uncle wanted to start something with her later, that was his business, and she would handle it.

“Hey, Amanda. I’m Doctor Brown, but you can call me Dr. Ashley if you want,” she said, crossing the room to the bed. There was a vomit tray nearby, and Ashley had read in the admitting notes that the girl was still vomiting—had been vomiting for two days straight. “Nurse Angie told me you were very brave when she had to take your blood for tests.” Ashley gave the girl a smile.

“She said they were going to put it in a centri-center—” the girl hesitated over the word, her brow furrowing weakly.

“A centrifuge? Yep. They’re going to look for a lot of different things, to make sure we know what’s going on with you.” Ashley looked at the read out on the monitoring equipment for a moment; the girl’s heart rate was steady, if a little low. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to get another poke, and you’re probably going to have to lie still for a long time,” Ashley told the girl, turning her attention back to her.

Amanda looked up at Ashley with a flicker of feeble curiosity in her dark eyes. “Another poke?” she said, grimacing slightly.

Ashley nodded sympathetically. “I’m afraid so. Do you know what an I.V. is, Amanda?”

The girl considered a moment, glancing at her uncle and then around the room. “It’s that thing that’s in a bag, right? That hangs next to the bed?”

Ashley grinned. “It is indeed. Since you’ve been so sick, we’re worried you’ve become dehydrated. So we’re going to have to put an IV in your arm—it’s a little needle, and it’ll drip some more fluids into you. That way you don’t even have to have anything to drink!” The girl was fascinated, and Ashley explained a little more, telling her in basic terms how the I.V. worked. “It’s going to hurt a little, and you’ll probably feel pretty cold for a while, but at least you won’t feel quite so groggy,” Ashley said, finishing the explanation. “I’m going to have them put a bit of medicine in it too, just to hopefully keep you from hurling so much. Once we have a better idea of what bugs are in you, we can give you more medicine to get rid of them.” The girl nodded her acceptance of the idea, and Ashley jotted down her notes. From everything she saw, it was likely just a very virulent strain of virus—for which they wouldn’t be able to do much—but it might be bacterial, which they could treat with more than just an IV and anti-nausea medication. She gestured for the uncle to step out with her after finishing her explanation to Amanda.

“It’s good to see that you’re decent at your job,” the man said, giving her a wary glance.

“I am, in fact, very good at my job, sir,” she replied levelly. “I am fairly certain your niece has no major illness—she’ll probably have to stay overnight, just to rest and rehydrate, and the tests aren’t back yet, but I’d almost stake my license to practice that she’s got a simple case of gastroenteritis.”

The man nodded slowly. “Should it have lasted this long?”

Ashley shrugged. “Up to a few days is fairly standard, but obviously her case is pretty severe.” Ashley paused, deciding to do what she could to mend fences with the man; she’d have to see him a few more times over the course of the back half of her shift. “It was a good idea to bring her here. I’m glad she had someone to take care of her.”

The man’s face softened. “She’s sort of a favorite of mine,” he said with a little smile. “My brother had a major meeting he had to get to, so I told him I’d bring Mandy in.”

Ashley nodded, echoing his smile. “I’ll make sure she’s well taken-care of. If there’s something she needs, or if you have any questions, one of the nurses can page me if they can’t answer it themselves.” Ashley could tell that the man she spoke to was used to getting his way—she had known it about him when he’d been brow-beating Rosalie over the wait time. But if he was willing to start over and pretend that nothing had happened, then Ashley was fine with playing along with the premise.

“The medicine you’re giving her—what is it?” he asked, concerned.

“The IV itself will replenish her fluids, which should, hopefully, take care of some of the lethargy she’s feeling. Normally we don’t recommend anti-vomiting medication, but because her case is so severe, I’m going to have them add a small amount of a medicine we use for that purpose. It won’t cure her, but it will at least help keep her comfortable.” Ashley chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, remembering the blood that had been seen in the girl’s vomit, according to the admission report.

“What about the blood?” the man asked, as if he’d read her mind.

“That’s why I’m prescribing an anti-emetic,” Ashley told him. “My concern—my suspicion—is that she’s been throwing up violently enough to tear the inner lining of her esophagus. It’s probably not severe, or there’d be other symptoms, but it’s worth making sure she doesn’t make it worse. If she’s able to get over the infection, her esophagus should heal on its own in a few days.” The man nodded again, looking anxious. Ashley found herself reaching out and touching him on the shoulder to reassure him. “Really, she’s going to be fine, I promise. Short of some very strange and unforeseen thing—and her symptoms don’t match any serious illnesses—by this time tomorrow she’ll be on the mend.”

Ashley went about the rest of her rounds, checking in on her ER patients and signing them over as the doctors for that department started to come in for the second shift. It was a long day; they all were—but Ashley was pleased to find as the day wore on that the frenetic pace started to slow down just a bit. The patients whose arrival had caused the backlog in the emergency department had settled in, and as more and more doctors came on, more cases were evaluated, processed, and discharged. Ashley would be back in the next day and most of her patients would still be there for the beginning of her shift, which thankfully started at seven instead of four; she’d have time to check on them and make sure everything was okay.

She thought about the man and his niece more than once while she was making her rounds through the pediatric department. Ashley had fallen into covering mostly pediatrics almost as an accident; her specialty was family medicine, but she covered pediatrics so much during her residency rotation that the hospital just sort of started assigning her there. Ashley tended to like pediatric patients better than adults, in some respects; the parents of the patients were sometimes more than she wanted to deal with, but the patients themselves were intrigued by their illnesses, wanted to know what everything was. Ashley was happy to answer questions and explain things to the curious, and when she had adult patients who wanted to really know about their illnesses, and their treatments, she was equally happy to explain. Most adults wanted to argue with her, however; they wanted to demand a particular medication or protocol, gleaned from twenty minutes of research online. Or they thought their illnesses were much more severe and important than they really were. Kids were—oddly—more patient, less grossed out and revolted by things like throwing up or diarrhea.

The man and his niece were an odd mystery to Ashley; she could understand his stated reason for being the one to bring her to the hospital. Parents didn’t always have the choice to take time off of work, and while Ashley didn’t have any kids of her own, she had had to cancel plans with Kent on more than one occasion because of the demands of the job she worked. Nor were such demands unique to the medical profession. One of Ashley’s patients that morning had been a woman who hadn’t slept in days—too wound up and anxious from a variety of projects at work. She had had a panic attack while Ashley watched, she was so stressed out. Ashley gave her a short-term prescription of an anti-anxiety medication and a referral to a friend who practiced psychiatry, as well as a sleeping pill to take that night after she got home. “My dear,” Ashley had told the woman, “What you need to do is get some sleep tonight, and start learning some coping skills for your work stress. The insomnia will resolve itself in time.”

But just because the father was at work, didn’t explain why the uncle seemed to be so tender and caring of the girl. He treated her almost as a daughter, staying by her side, entertaining her while she was awake and exhorting her to sleep. The nurse who was handling the girl’s medications and IV regimen said that she had looked at him the entire time the IV was being inserted; he had distracted her from the pain, the nurse said, by singing a goofy song about a hippopotamus. That didn’t exactly jibe with the impression that Ashley had formed of him. But then, she thought, people under stress do strange things. Perhaps, though he had absolutely needed the set-down, she had formed an unfair initial opinion of the man; he might actually be a decent human being when his favored niece wasn’t sick.

The results came in and confirmed that the girl was suffering from a strain of Salmonella. Ashley gave orders to administer an antibiotic, which would clear the infection itself, along with another IV for good measure. When the girl’s vomiting stopped of its own accord—which it should at some point in the evening—she would be given the usual BRATS regime of bland food, and discharged in the morning, probably shortly after Ashley arrived for her shift.

Ashley hit Amanda’s room on her last round of the day, saving it for the end; she wanted to check up on the girl, maybe see if she could catch some interaction with the frustrating man who was her uncle before she left for home. “Hello again, Amanda,” Ashley said as she came into the room. Amanda was awake, working on homework with her uncle, who was seated as close to her bed as he could be, almost on it, leaned in to help her sound out one of her vocabulary words. “I can see you’re feeling better, if you’re up to doing homework,” Ashley said approvingly. She pulled a chair over and sat down; the ten-hour shift was starting to get to her, and she thought that at that point, it wasn’t as though anyone would care whether she sat down or not. Her back was starting to ache, and in spite of the comfortable shoes, so were her feet.