Ozark Nurse (12 page)

"You aren't going to die," the earnest young resident doctor with the completely bald head said gently. "We'll keep you here for a few days; then you can go home. You'll be perfectly all right, if you'll just be a good girl and take it easy."

"You're a liar! I'll never be all right again. Losing a baby that way does something to a woman's mind. It drives her crazy. I read that in a book once. That's how I know you're lying to me."

The young doctor smiled down at her pityingly. He had not yet learned to forget that his patients were people. "Perhaps you read too much, Mrs. Hilton, and maybe the wrong books."

As soon as he and the other girl were gone, Ethel grabbed frantically at Nora's hand and burst out with words which convinced Nora she was raving in delirium.

"Listen. I know I'm likely to die, no matter what that doctor says. As likely as not I'll bleed to death and—"

"Psh." Seated on the edge of the bed, Nora held the hot, moist hand and tried to calm and soothe her. "Don't talk that way, Ethel. This happens to ever so many women. There's no danger, if you're properly taken care of. I've had patients who had suffered through five or even six miscarriages. They are simply unable to carry a child through to normal birth. It has to do with the enlargement of the uterine mouth."

"Will you shut up!" The words were a scream. "So all right, maybe I won't die. But I might. Anybody can die. And if I should, I want you to promise me something."

"Anything, honey," said Nora, sponging off the damp, feverish face. "If it's about Bobby—"

"I'm not worried about Bobby!" Tears streamed again; choked sobs came from the dry, quivering throat. "I know you'd look after Bobby and be a better mother than I was. It's Jerry I'm worried about."

Ethel took a good deep breath, blew her nose and shook her head sorrowfully. "Oh, I know I've been an awful wife to him. But oh, God, I do love him so! You know I love him, don't you?"

Nora nodded, and discovered she was fighting some tears of her own. Ethel's was a strange, poorly organized kind of love which she had used to hurt herself. But still it was love.

"And you know, just like I do, that Jerry is just a big kid. He means well, but he's weak, Jerry is. He needs a woman to lead him along; not drive him the way I've tried to do. What worries me something awful right now is that after I'm gone—"

"You aren't going anywhere, sweetie," Nora was smiling again, more cheerful, "except back home in a few days."

"Maybe. But suppose it doesn't work out that way. You know what'll happen, same as I do. Before I'm cold in my grave, other women will be after Jerry. He's so attractive. Women just can't seem to let him alone. And—well, if it's somebody who's right for him, I won't care because I won't know anything about it. But I don't want the rest of his life ruined by the wrong woman."

There was no stopping her sobbing outburst. The words came in a torrent. She would pause long enough to catch her breath, to tighten her clutch on Nora's hand, then would begin again. She seemed possessed of a demon of fear. The only way to rid herself of the demon was by a frenzied outpouring of words.

Let her talk it out, Nora thought. Maybe it will do her some good to pour it all out to me. And then she herself jerked upright, suddenly stiff and tense.

Ethel was saying: "So I want you to promise me you'll keep him away from that Rita Lansing. She's been after him ever since he got that boat; always hanging around him, trotting up on the deck of the boat, patting him, giving him the come-on with her eyes, showing herself off in that next to nothing she wears. I know a no-good woman when I see one, and that one's no good. She'd be no good for Jerry. I shudder to think what would happen to Bobby if
she
married Jerry. But she might. You know how handsome Jerry is. And with all
her
money, she's the kind to buy herself a husband just for kicks."

"Ethel, you're talking utter nonsense."

It was right then, for the space of a few minutes, that Nora decided Ethel was out of her head with fever, that it would be silly to take her seriously.

"Rita Lansing wouldn't have any time for Jerry. Honestly, Ethel, I know what I'm talking about. So if that's all that's bothering you—"

"What do you know about it? You never go out to the lake. In all the weeks Jerry has had his boat, you've only been out once."

That was perfectly true. Nora had avoided the lake as if it were enemy territory occupied by hostile forces. For Paul was parked out there in his lifeguard station. Let Paul imagine she was running out there after him, trying to get him back? Never.

"I'm too busy at the hospital, Ethel. And on my days off—well, the beach and the lake don't really appeal to me. I'm sort of allergic to the bright sun."

"I don't ask you why. I just said you don't go near the place, so how can you know what's been going on? But
I
know. It's been driving me half out of my mind, the way that redhead keeps after him. And if you don't believe what I'm telling you, ask Andy Fine."

Nora felt somewhat guilty about leaving Ethel that night. But after the doctor had returned, checked on her condition and put her under sedation, there was nothing more anyone could do for her.

Looking anxious and grave, Andy was waiting in his car. "Everything okay?" he asked, as Nora settled beside him, drew a deep sigh and hunted in her bag for a cigarette.

"She'll be all right—physically, that is." It took three matches to get her smoke lit. "But I guess you know by now that Ethel is a case for a psychiatrist. Jealousy can become a sickness, you know. Ethel has reached the point where she sees every girl who looks at Jerry twice as a deadly menace. She imagines the wildest things. Take tonight."

Pausing to tap ashes into the small tray, she laughed. "It isn't funny, of course. It's
tragic
. Anyway, she's got it into her head that Rita Lansing—you know who she is, of course?" A silly question. She knew that he knew.

Andy nodded. "
Your
deadly rival," he teased, trying for a light tone. "So what has the gorgeous Rita done now?"

"It's what Ethel imagines she's done." And Nora repeated much of what she still believed to be irrational, feverish babbling.

"She said to ask you, Andy. So I am asking you. It isn't true, is it, that Rita spends most of her days at the lake and is trying all the wiles and tricks in the book on Jerry. It's just more of Ethel's foolish jealousy, isn't it?"

His reply startled her.

"No. This is one time Ethel isn't so far off the track."

"I can't believe it, Andy. What would Rita Lansing want with my brother, a married man with no money, no job?"

"I didn't say she wanted him. I doubt that she does. But have you never heard of a girl making an all-out play for one man for the purpose of attracting the attention of another man?"

She stared at him. "What does that mean?"

Abruptly he stopped the car, cut the motor, and with a grin said: "Please, Nursie, may I have a cigarette? Just one?"

"You'd be better off without it," she said sternly.

Then she laughed as she handed him the pack. "Things seem to be going on that I know nothing about. If Jerry has been fool enough to play into that girl's hands—"

"Jerry hasn't." He said it firmly, leaning back to enjoy his first smoke in months. "You can believe me when I tell you that he has given her no encouragement whatever. Incidentally, I happen to believe that Jerry is basically okay. He simply needs the will to grow up and accept a man's responsibilities. Then if he could find a job that suited him and had the incentive to work hard at it, I believe he'd take pride in standing on his own feet."

"He has a wife—"

"Who handles him all wrong. But to get back to Rita—"

Here Andy interrupted himself to apologize for sounding like a nosy, small-town gossip. "Probably," he said, smiling, "that's the inevitable fate of coronary cases. We're ordered to take it easy and forget all the interests that once filled our lives." So what was left but to sit back and watch the sideshow of life and people all around them?

That was what he did during the time he spent out at the lake. Occasionally he would go out on the boat with Jerry, but only occasionally. He preferred to sit under the umbrella in his beach chair, read a little, doze a bit and watch the pretty girls in their fetching swim suits.

"La Rita," he observed, "is quite a dish on a beach in her somewhat revealing costumes."

"Bikinis, you mean," Nora said dryly. "But you still haven't explained to me—"

"What man she really wants to attract? Do I need to explain that, my dear?"

Nora gave a tired sigh. "No. I suppose not. You're telling me that Rita is still interested in Paul Anderson."

"Who apparently wants no part of her," Andy put in. "Just to keep the record straight, and to be fair to your ex-boy friend, he seems to devote his entire attention to doing his job and reading the
Medical Journals
he keeps handy."

"Maybe that's an act," Nora suggested morosely. "Maybe they're very palsy-walsy after his lifeguarding hours are over."

"Maybe. I'm only reporting what I've seen, Nora. The deck of our little boat, plus a handsome fellow like Jerry, affords a nice stage setting for a beautiful redheaded girl to show herself off. Rita is something of an exhibitionist, you know. And nature has been kind to her. She makes the most of it."

"And poor Ethel is the one who has to suffer for it."

Crushing out her cigarette, Nora covered her face with her hands. "Oh, Andy, this whole thing makes me sick. That awful girl!" Shuddering, she shook her head.

"I don't want to hate anybody, but my hatred for that girl is like a poison welling up inside me. I can't help it. She's done such awful things. I keep remembering those vicious newspaper stories about me—after the Ben Sackett thing. And now, in a sense, she's responsible for Ethel losing her baby."

"And there isn't a thing you can do about any of it, honey." Gently he swung his arm around her and pulled her close, pressing his cheek against hers.

After a small silence, he began to talk, telling her first what a wonderful girl she was, how he admired her, respected her for her intelligence and her devotion to duty. "But you have handled your life all wrong, Nora. You are so busy trying to do the right thing, you are unable to see how you continue to do the wrong thing."

"I don't know what you mean," she said gravely, and decided she needed another cigarette.

"It isn't," he said slowly, "that I wish you had married Doctor Anderson. Since I'd like to have you for myself, to say that would be a lie. But I think you loved him. Yes? So you should not have kept putting him off because of a feeling of responsibility toward your family. But you did just that. Therefore when he cracked up and desperately needed the help and strength of a loving wife, you were not his wife."

"But, Andy—"

"I know, I know. You were an adopted child, and so you had a deep sense of obligation. But is there any law that says an adopted girl has no right to a life of her own? Is there any law which says she must go staggering through life, trying to carry the emotional problems, the financial problems, the worries and frustrations of half a dozen other people on her two slender shoulders?"

"But that is what you have tried to do. Now you are worrying yourself sick about Ethel's jealousy problem. You are chewing nails because a certain girl is complicating things for Jerry for some secret motive of her own. You can't change any of it, my dear. You cannot change people or straighten out their lives. You cannot bring order out of the chaos others create for themselves. But you can spoil your own life trying to."

"I'm not like that, Andy." However, her voice lacked conviction.

"Because you make so much unhappiness for yourself, I am sorry for you, Nora. Also—and this may surprise you—I am sorry for the wrong you are doing this family of yours."

She stared at him, amazed.

"Now that's a peculiar thing to say. After all I've done, sacrificed—"

"Exactly. You put that very well. Why have you drained your own life dry to do so much? According to the psychiatrists, every person has some deep-seated frustration or neurosis which drives him beyond his own understanding. I think you are no exception. I have studied you closely all these weeks I have lived in your home. I think you want to prove that you are indispensable."

"No!"

"Yes. No doubt it goes back to the fact that you were an adopted child. Jerry and Carol were born into the family; therefore they belonged. You were the outsider who had to earn the right to belong. Are you going to spend the rest of your life earning that right?"

She shook her head slowly.

"You make me feel so ashamed, Andy, as if in trying to help all of them, I've simply been trying to show my own importance."

His arm tightened around her. "Nora, why don't you make up your mind to marry me?"

"This is hardly the time to bring up that subject."

"Any time is the time to talk about something I want so much." He leaned toward her and kissed her cheek.

Involuntarily, Nora shrank away from him. Andy was an extremely attractive man—at a distance. But at the slightest show of physical demonstrativeness, she was annoyed. Was it because she was still in love with Paul? Was it because, at any little gesture of affection from Andy, her unruly mind started to race back to those precious, memorable evenings when she had sat close in Paul's arms, while they gazed dreamily at a blazing pine log and talked of the life they would share?

I don't want to be in love with Paul any more, she thought angrily. So why couldn't she stop being in love with him? Hadn't she any control whatever over her own silly emotions?

No. Apparently she had not.

Andy was talking, all about another wonderful idea that had come to him. They would get married. Then they would go East, he would buy a larger boat—one with a cabin and living accommodations—and they would go on a do-it-yourself cruise through the Caribbean islands. This kind of trip had become very popular. Already he had collected a number of travel folders telling all about the ports they would see, the right places to eat and so on. "We'll take the family along," he said, and Nora started to laugh.