The Single Dad Finds a Wife (4 page)

Chapter Four

S
pring headed straight to the emergency department at Cedar Springs General Hospital. As one of the staff physicians at the medical center, she had a designated parking space and was able to bypass the entry used by other hospital employees.

On weekends, the emergency department—typically called an emergency room by the public, as if there was just one room to it—bustled with acute trauma cases, mostly of the do-it-yourself-home-improvement variety like broken arms and legs or fractures. Then there were the asthma attacks and bee stings, as well as the usual mix of possible heart attacks, allergic reactions to everything from peanuts to shellfish and the occasional car crash victim. Severe trauma patients who needed advanced care were airlifted to Durham, where specialists at Duke University's emergency trauma hospital and facilities could handle burns, gunshot victims and the like. Thankfully, those cases were rare at Cedar Springs General.

Spring looked around but didn't see either David or Jeremy Camden in the emergency department's waiting room. This evening there was just a handful of people in the waiting area. Three people huddled together with a man who kept saying, “I'm not gonna let them touch me. I'm not gonna let them touch me.” And an elderly woman in a light blue pantsuit sat erect in one of the chairs facing the receptionist's desk. The woman clutched her purse as if someone might try to snatch it from her grip.

The televisions were on; one wall-mounted plasma set displayed a cable news channel, while its twin depicted a late-night talk show host yukking it up with a celebrity guest.

“Hi, Dr. Darling,” a man said from behind her. “What are you doing here this time of night?”

Spring turned to see Joseph Bradshaw, one of the physician assistants. Dressed in green scrubs, the uniform of most of the emergency department staff, he held a chart and was making his way toward one of the bays.

“Hi, Joseph. I got a call from the father of a patient. Acute abdominal pain that's gotten worse. They're supposed to meet me here.”

“It's been pretty quiet tonight,” Joseph said. “I haven't seen—”

Just then the automatic doors whooshed open and David Camden rushed in, almost running, with his son in his arms. The panic in his eyes and his bearing arrested Spring. He spotted her almost immediately.

“Dr. Darling!”

“Joseph, I'm going to need a bed.”

“On it, Doc,” he said, heading toward the emergency bays.

“He woke up doubled over,” David said, approaching Spring. “And he threw up again.”

“All right,” Spring said as several emergency department aides rushed to take the boy.

“Daddy, my stomach hurts a lot,” Jeremy said. Adding emphasis to just how much, the boy moaned and burrowed in closer to David's chest, instinctively seeking the protection of his father rather than the strangers with outstretched hands.

The sound tore at Spring. Little Jeremy's moan was one of the most pitiful sounds she had heard in a long, long time.

“Dr. Spring is right here,” David told his son.

The boy lifted his head a bit. “Pretty Spring?”

“Yeah, buddy. It's Dr. Spring.”

Despite the strain she saw evident in the worry lines at his mouth and brow, Spring heard a note of amusement in David's voice as he answered Jeremy. She'd been called many things in her thirty-five years, but this cute little boy calling her pretty just tugged at her heart.

It was clear Jeremy had more than just a bad case of stomach flu or too many jelly beans. Her mind raced with possibilities, none of them good.

“Noooo!” Jeremy cried out when David tried to place him on the gurney manned by two orderlies.

“It's okay, buddy,” David assured his son, who resisted lying down. “I'm right here.”

“Want Dr. Spring.”

“I'm here, too, Jeremy,” Spring said with a nod toward one of the orderlies. “If you'll lay back, we're going to take you into a room where I can see what's making your tummy hurt. Okay?”

The little boy nodded and did as she requested, but tears streaked down his face and he sought his father.

Spring glanced up at David.

“Can I come back?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

* * *

Helpless and anxious, David watched as emergency room attendants wheeled his son into a room cordoned off with curtains and hooked him up to machines.

David was terrified, so he could only imagine how Jeremy must feel. He reached deep for the anchor that would stabilize him. He needed to be strong for his son, not show the panic that raced through him. His heart beat so fast that he feared he might end up on a gurney next to Jeremy.

A moment later, he was politely asked by one of the attendants to step back.

“I can't leave my son.”

A soft hand on his arm drew his attention. Spring was there.

“David, you don't have to. They just need some room to work.”

He glanced around and saw a nurse or a doctor wheeling some sort of machine. He quickly moved to a spot she indicated, where he could stand and hold Jeremy's hand and not interfere with the tests they needed to run.

“Lord, you took her. Please don't take him, too,” he whispered in an anguished plea. “He's all I have.”

* * *

As she'd expected, the diagnosis wasn't good. Fortunately, it was something that was fairly routine for the hospital. Spring consulted with the emergency department's attending pediatrician while David Camden remained in the emergency room bay with Jeremy.

“We have done an ultrasound and a CT scan,” Timothy Paquette, the department's pediatrician, told Spring.

Worried, Spring bit her lip. “I sent him home thinking it was just gastroenteritis.”

“I would have done the same thing,” Dr. Paquette said. “I took a look at the lab you did at the clinic. With his other symptoms, it made sense.”

Spring nodded, but his words didn't make her feel any better. She just wanted to take Jeremy in her arms and hug all the hurt away.

“You want to talk to his father, or should I?” Paquette said. “Dr. Emmanuel should be here in about five minutes. The OR is ready just as soon as he gets here and the father gives the okay.”

“I'll tell him,” she said, knowing from experience the reaction he would have.

David jumped up from his chair when Spring entered the waiting room. Telling him his son was so sick wasn't going to be pleasant; this part of the job never was.

“Mr. Camden—”

“Call me David,” he said, grabbing her hand. “Is Jeremy all right?”

He was clutching her hand so tightly that Spring winced.

He immediately dropped it. “I'm sorry. I'm just worried about Jeremy.”

Spring resisted the urge to massage her throbbing hand. “He has appendicitis,” she said. “Dr. Adam Emmanuel is ready to operate once we get your approval.”

“Operate? His appendix? But he's just four,” David said.

“Appendicitis is not uncommon in children,” Spring said. “Toddlers, even infants, can develop it. But it's harder to diagnose in the younger ones.”

David Camden looked genuinely distressed. “Are you sure?”

Spring didn't know if his question was a result of her earlier misdiagnosis or the first and typical question from a worried parent of a sick child. Either way his question reminded Spring about their precarious financial situation. This was one of those situations where the generous donations to the Common Ground ministries paid off. The surgery Jeremy needed would not bankrupt his father or leave him with the choice between paying medical bills or paying to keep a roof over their heads, even if said roof was that of a hotel.

She nodded in answer to his question. “This is something that can't be ignored,” she told him. “And it can't wait. If his infected appendix isn't removed, it could burst or leak, and that would lead to peritonitis, which can be fatal, particularly in children.”

She didn't want to scare him, but he needed to know all the facts to make an informed decision regarding his son's health.

David swallowed. His gaze connected with hers. She'd seen it before, the parents of her young patients looking in her eyes and trying to determine if she was leading them in the right direction.

“I...” David swallowed again, then took a deep breath and ran his hand over his face. “He's never been sick. Nothing like this. I just... Is he going to die?”

Spring's heart ached. She wanted to close her eyes and cry out at the arbitrariness of illness. But she maintained eye contact with him. “We need to get that appendix out as soon as possible.”

“Was it something I did? The jelly beans?”

She placed her arm on his. “Mr. Camden...David, it's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault. There is no way to prevent appendicitis. It happens or it doesn't. All we can do is deal with it when it does occur. And Jeremy is in good hands. Dr. Emmanuel is board certified and our top pediatric surgeon.”

He nodded.

“I know he's in good hands,” David said. He looked away for a moment, as if embarrassed again, then met her gaze. Spring was sure he was going to ask how much the operation would cost.

“Dr. Darling, I don't know you, and I don't know if you're a woman of faith. But I need to pray right now. Will you join me?”

The question was not at all what she'd expected. But without a moment's hesitation, Spring nodded. That this man who had so much on him would ask a virtual stranger to pray with him said a lot about his character.

She bowed her head and a moment later felt his hand connect with hers. It was warm and strong and felt like an anchor in a storm. Given that he was the one in need, Spring could only marvel. When he began praying, she felt her own resolve grow stronger.

* * *

The surgery would last the better part of an hour. Parents, even the parent of a four-year-old, weren't allowed in the operating room. So rather than watch him pace the waiting room for an hour, Spring suggested they go to the hospital's cafeteria for a coffee.

Although open in the middle of the night with reduced kitchen staff, the cafeteria remained essentially empty with few people filling the gray-and-black aluminum chairs. Spring led the way across the room.

“Pardon the retro penitentiary waiting room look,” she told David. “This part of the hospital, while open to the public, is used primarily by staff, so it's last on the renovation list. Patient rooms and family waiting rooms were the hospital administration's first priority.”

Spring got a couple of coffees, and they settled at a table near the windows overlooking a courtyard in shadow.

“When the weather is nice,” she said, “people like to go outside to eat or take a coffee break. The fresh air itself is medicinal, especially when you've been cooped up inside for hours.”

She knew she was babbling, but she couldn't seem to help it. She was at a loss as to why she was so nervous. Over the course of her eight years at Cedar Springs General, she'd had hundreds of conversations with the parents of her patients, many of them in this very cafeteria. There was no reason for her heart to have such an erratic rhythm or for her hands to feel so clammy.

It was as if she were suddenly displaying symptoms of hypoglycemia or an anxiety attack. Since she was prone to neither, she had a pretty good idea of the cause of the rapid-onset malady.

“Mr. Camden—”

“David,” he said.

Her mouth edged up in a slight smile, and she nodded. “David, Jeremy is in excellent hands with Dr. Emmanuel. He's one of the best in the region, and Jeremy's a trouper.”

She watched as he looked about the room at the empty tables. Across the cafeteria, a maintenance worker had parts of an ice machine's compressor on the floor and a couple of nurses were chatting as they sipped from tall tumblers.

“I guess I've been rather preoccupied lately.” He stirred his coffee although he'd added neither cream nor sugar to it.

Spring wanted to, but she didn't ask the obvious question: preoccupied doing what? Whatever he wanted to tell her would come out in his own way.

“Jeremy has rarely been sick,” he said. “He had a bit of colic when he was much younger, and he's had a couple of colds, but never anything that required being in the hospital, let alone an operation of any kind. I've been blessed that he's had good health.”

When his gaze again connected with hers, Spring saw the beginning of panic in his eyes.

She reached out a hand and placed it on his arm in a gesture of comfort.

“I'm a grown man,” he said, “and I've never had an operation. Not even my tonsils out. He has to be terrified. I should be—”

“You can't be in the operating room,” she reminded him. “The procedure will take about an hour and a half. Dr. Emmanuel has barely gotten started. We'll be there in recovery when Jeremy wakes up. He needs you to be strong and focused. He's going to be sore for a while afterward.”

David nodded. Then he wrapped his hands around the mug and contemplated the brown liquid in it. “I know.” He exhaled as if releasing all the tension that had built up inside him. “I know,” he said again.

Spring sipped at her coffee, letting the silence act as a balm to his tattered emotions.

“There's something you need to know,” he said. “About me. Us, I mean. I'm not homeless. We're not homeless,” he clarified.

“You don't have to—”

“Yes,” he interrupted. “I do. I know you heard what happened at the clinic—about my insurance card. But I really did leave my wallet in the hotel room. I'm here in Cedar Springs for...for some business meetings. My sitter, who is my mother, is out of town. She had the dates of this trip mixed up. That's why Jeremy is with me. I don't normally have a four-year-old when I go on business trips.”

“What type of business are you in?”