For One Nen (26 page)

“I don’t eat breakfast, Mom; just coffee.”

“But I’ve made you breakfast every morning for years. It’s my job.”

“And every
morning I don’t eat. I just pick up coffee at work,” Darcy said as she threw her bag’s long strap over her head and let it hang at her hip. She raced to the runabout and opened the door.

“But what do I do with your food?” her mother whined.

“Eat it. You always make it how you like it anyway,” Darcy said as her nerves pinched. She knew she’d said too much. But she was determined not to let her mother stifle her lovely feeling she awoke with that morning. Her life was growing brighter and she was actually excited at her prospects.

She arrived at the classroom in time for the morning meeting wearing a smile.

“What’s gotten into you?” Jess asked, sliding her computer tablet on the table in front of her.

“What do you mean?” Darcy asked innocently.

“You’re glowing. Stop it,” Jess said with a joking laugh. “You’re too damn lovely to sit by me when you smile like that.” Jess touched her own hair as if trying to primp. “Make me look drab and I’ll have to steal your next scheduled surgery.”

Darcy shoved her shoulder into Jess’ and said with a laugh, “Silly woman.”

Rhys walked through the door and took the seat next to Darcy.

Jess watched Darcy’s gaze drift upward and
then rest on Rhys. Darcy’s smile grew even bigger.

“Ah, ha,” Jess said in a whisper. “Now I see.”

The rest of the morning Darcy floated around the halls of the hospital as if she were in a dream.

Halfway through the morning there was an unexpected visitor.

“Mother,” Darcy said with a furrowed brow.

Her mother gave no greeting
. She simply looked around as if trying to find someone.

“Mother, is everything alright?” Darcy asked with concern. Her mother hadn’t been to the patient’s ward since Darcy’s father had died.

“Thought I’d come have lunch with my daughter today,” her mother said absent of emotion.

“That’s nice but I won’t break for lunch for another couple of hours.”

Her mother stepped away from Darcy still glancing around the room. “That’s fine. I’ll find something to occupy my time.”

Darcy watched her a moment then carried on with her job of changing a patient
’s IV bag, giving another patient their pain pills.

S
till, another patient, a child, she sat with and tried to convince that eating was a good thing, even though she knew the food was dreadful.

“How about this?” Darcy told the young girl. “You eat half of what’s on your tray and I’ll bring you a chocolate bar later.”

“Honest?” the little girl with dimples asked.

“Honest,” Darcy answered.

Feeling very pleased with her morning she walked to the student lounge looking for Rhys.

“Jess, have you seen Rhys around?” she asked.

“No, not lately,” Jess said. “But I did see him heading toward the cafeteria about an hour ago with some lady that looked like your mom.”

“Oh, no.” Darcy hurried to the cafeteria where she found her mother sipping tea and gazing out the window.

“Mother, have you seen Rhys?” she asked.

Her mother turned her face toward Darcy and answered with a smile that showed her teeth, “I don’t know that name dear.”

“Someone saw you walk in here with him,” Darcy asked confused.

“I’ve been right here, dear,” her mother reassured her.

Before sitting with her mother she headed to Sia, the pastry chef behind a counter.

“Sia has Dr. Rhys been in here?” Darcy asked.

“Yeah,” she said. Then pointing to Darcy’s mother across the room she added. “He was talking to that lady for a while but he suddenly got up and left. Looked upset, too,” she added.

Darcy’s lovely day collapsed around her. “Thanks,” she heard herself mumble to Sia.

She felt like her mother had just punched her in the stomach. Actually she would have preferred a punch in the stomach instead of being blatantly lied to. She walked back to her mother and opened her mouth to speak but her mother looked into her eyes parading her usual controlled and even smile. Darcy felt the blood drain from her face. She turned away and raced back toward the general ward asking friends along the way if they’d seen Rhys. She looked in the main office. She asked the director of nurses. She searched every patient’s room and then she tried the locker room.

“Rhys?” she said when she saw him at his locker. He was grabbing things from his locker and shoving them in his bag that was on a bench behind him.

He didn’t even react when Darcy called his name.

“Rhys?” she called again.

Still no reaction.

She drew close, invading his space.

Without speaking to her, Rhys stopped packing and gave her a cold stare. He held his stern look until she stepped aside to let him continue packing.

“Rhys,” she begged. “Won’t you tell me what happened?”

The only acknowledgement of Darcy’s plea that came from Rhys was a long sigh. He reached for his last item in his locker, a worn journal. As he touched it he froze for a moment.

“It’s my mother, isn’t it? She said something?” Darcy asked softly.

Holding the book close to him he turned to face Darcy.

“I hope…no I beg the Creator to see you at Celestial Hope. But I also hope I never see that woman again.”

Darcy’s thin eyebrows almost touched as she said, “I could never leave her all alone here. She has no one.”

“Darcy,” Rhys said evenly, “maybe there’s a reason for that.”

“You’re telling me to choose,” Darcy realized aloud.

Rhys didn’t budge with any attempted response.

“You
are
telling me to choose,” she said.

Again there was an awkward silence from Rhys.

“I don’t know what to say,” Darcy said softly. Her breathing was quick and labored.

Pursing his lips Rhys shoved the journal toward Darcy as he said with parting words, “Don’t say I didn’t try to help you. And don’t say I didn’t ask.” He opened the door but turned back shaking his finger in anger and disappointment, “You’re the most loyal person I know. But your loyalty is your greatest weakness.” He stepped aside and let the door close as he dropped his bag and quickly drew Darcy close to him with only their breath in-between.

“I’m not asking you to choose me. This is more than that. Just come finish school. Become a doctor. Do what you were made to do.” He scooped her into a full embrace and kissed her. The kiss was deep and warm like lovers. Yet when they parted and their eyes slowly opened he knew she would not be coming to Celestial Hope.

She stood on trembling legs with opened quivering lips and watched him go. The door had completely closed before she let her knees bend enough to collapse to the floor.

“Why didn’t I follow him?”
she wondered. After that first thought the stream kept coming and nearly drowned her.
“Why can’t I leave my mother? Why can’t I feel like I deserve love? Why can’t I walk away from wanting to please my mother? Why am I so damn weak? Why can’t I think for myself? Why can’t I stand on my own? Why do my mother’s words break my will? Why can’t I break free? Why can’t I stop hurting so damn much? What will make this ache go away? Will I ever feel free to be me – who ever that might be? Why can’t my mother, for once, do something that will benefit me, that’s good for me? How will I ever survive this?”

She lost track of time as she sat in her puddle of misery.

Jess breezed through the door and headed to her locker when she saw Darcy sobbing on the floor.

“Oh! Sweetie, what happened?” she said as she lifted her to the nearby bench and held her in a tight embrace. Jess pushed Darcy’s straight dark hair away from her wet face.

“I’m not going,” Darcy said calmly through her tears.

“Not going?” Jess asked.

“I won’t be going to Celestial Hope,” she said.

What are you talking about? Of course you’ll be going. You can’t finish the program here.”

“I’m just not,” she said without explanation.

Jess loosened her embrace enough to look her in the face. “I don’t understand. If you don’t go what will you do?”

“I know they will need staff here so maybe they’ll keep me on,” she said.

“That’s ludicrous,” said Jess. “You can’t stay here. There’s nothing for you here. In a few years this place will be like a ghost town like those old fairytales we used to hear about in grammar school.”

“You wouldn’t understand. I just know I can’t go.”

“Well you better hurry if you’re going to say goodbye to Rhys. He’s heading for the passenger shuttle.”

“What?” Darcy said frantically. She stood up wiping her face.

“Yes, I saw him talking to
Chief Hagan just a minute ago. Old Loren’s going to take his rounds starting tomorrow. We’re supposed to report at CHH two days from now but Rhys seemed in a hurry. Did you guys have a fight or something?” Jess asked.

“Didn’t have enough time together to have a fight, or much of anything,” Darcy said.

The ladies hurried out the door as they headed for boarding. At the passenger flight desk Darcy asked, “Have you seen Dr. Rhys? Did he get on a shuttle? Did he?” She was beginning to panic.

“Let me look at the flight log,” an older gentleman said as he placed his glasses on the tip of his nose.

“Rhys, yes. Last one logged in. Barely made it on, I see.” He looked back at Darcy and asked, “Can I help you with anything else?”

“Get me on the next shuttle,” she said in haste.

“No more shuttles tonight, dear.” He looked back at his digital log and said, “But I have room on the first one out tomorrow. Will that do?”

“Yes,” she said. 

She looked back at Jess who was grinning widely.

Darcy pressed her open hand to her chest and took a relieved sigh. She smiled.

Jess grabbed her in a tight hug.

“What made you change your mind?” Jess asked.

“I just can’t let him go,” Darcy said, “and I can’t go home, you know?” Darcy said as her smile faded slightly.

“I don’t understand all that but if you need a place, you can stay with me,” Jess said.

Darcy was treated to an evening of stress-free living. Though her heart didn’t skip a beat in the presence of her friend Jess, lik
e it did when she was with Rhys; she did laugh so much that her cheeks hurt. They retold stories of their most embarrassing medical situations that they had gotten themselves into. Darcy stayed up late, and no one told her to turn her light out and get to sleep. She ate raw cookie dough and no one told her it would make her sick. And when Jess had gone to bed and Darcy had slipped into a bed Jess had made up for her, she decided to sleep naked, simply because it was something her mother would never have approved of. She pulled off her blue scrub top and dropped it to the floor and no one told her she was a slob, or a brat, or lazy little girl. She unhooked her bra and ran her fingers down the side of her rib cage. She took her low ponytail down and let her long hair fall over her breasts. She added her scrub pants to the little pile of clothes beside her bed. Tucking her thumbs into the edge of her panties she dragged them off of her body when Jess walked through the dimly lit room headed for the kitchen.

Darcy grabbed a blanket and covered herself from her toes to her chin.

“Damn girl,” Jess said without even slowing her pace. As she passed Darcy and continued on to the kitchen she added, “What do you have to be embarrassed about? You and I have hot bods.”

Opening the refrigerator Jess picked up a soda. “I’m having a rum and coke. Want a glass?”

“Oh! Uh, no thank you,” Darcy said holding the blanket with white knuckles.

Mixing her drink, Jess walked to the foot of Darcy’s bed. “Look sweetie. You have to start wearing something other than those damn scrubs all the time. Us hot chicks are at a disadvantage with guys at work because of those silly shapeless scrubs we have to wear. Why do you think I come to work in a hot outfit every day, and change again before I leave? Cause I can’t stand for people to only see me in those crappy hospital clothes.”

Tugging at the corner of Darcy’s blanket Jess said, “Now come here. I want to show you something.”

“No, I’m fine,” Darcy said
, holding a tight grip on the blanket.

Jess stopped pulling at the blanket but instructed with a curl of her finger, “Come here and quit your shyness.”

Jess turned and walked across the room to a full length mirror.

Darcy very slowly followed her friend.

Setting her glass down, Jess stood next to Darcy and ripped off her night shirt. Sporting only her bra and panties she examined her reflection.

“See, I think I have nice legs but look how flat by butt is. I like my upper arms but my pug nose drives me nuts. But all in all I think I’d be a damn good catch.” Looking into the mirror she cut her eyes to Darcy. “Now, take a look at yourself,” she said simply.