nightly ritual.
He zipped into the next room. “Jason and Brandon, don’t give your nurses a hard time or you’ll have to answer to me. Have a good night’s sleep and I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow.”
How would John hold his head up at work if their affair became fodder for the hospital gossip mill?
As for herself, she couldn’t wait to be a mother, single or not. Finally she’d have a baby to love and cherish and they’d be a family, just the two of them. She thought about Dr. Woods and wondered if she had a clue what was being said about her, and decided not to participate in this grapevine.
She thought about telling Janetta that unless she knew for sure about something, she shouldn’t pass it along, but didn’t want to get on Janetta’s bad side. Instead, she nodded her head and let Janetta give her the rundown on several other people having affairs in the hospital, while listening to John enter each patient room and wishing the children a good night.
Soon enough her name would be added to the jilted-lover list.
Polly kept her thoughts to herself and to avoid John went back to caring for her patients, thankful that visiting hours made the floor busier and noisier than usual. The chaos still wasn’t enough to keep her from thinking about her own situation, though.
She’d have to get used to the evening staff as she planned to work at least two extra shifts a month from now until she went on maternity leave. She would have to in order to make ends meet, and there was no way she’d let John pay her for getting her pregnant. She’d never take his guilt money.
Thankfully, she’d get medical coverage through Angel’s hospital after her probationary two months. She’d have to hold tight until then to have her first prenatal appointment. Since she didn’t have a clue how to find a good obstetrician in town, she’d have to be discreet about getting a name without alerting the rest of the staff to her situation.
During her dinner break Janetta and someone Polly had never seen before joined her at the only table in the nurses’ lounge.
“This here is Vickie. She’s the receptionist up in hospital Administration offices.”
Polly greeted her, but wondered what she was doing hanging around the hospital after hours. The look on Vickie’s face made Polly think she was bursting with something to say.
“I thought we were going to be alone,” Vickie said to Janetta.
“Oh, you can trust Polly. Now, spill. What’s the big news you have for me?”
Vickie licked her lips as excitement widened her eyes. “You’ll never believe what happened today.”
“Go on, go on.” Janetta practically rubbed her hands together with glee.
“Okay. Well, Dr. Woods got called up to the offices today. She showed up all solemn-faced and nervous. When they buzzed me and I told her to go inside, girl, she looked scared.” Vickie took a big bite of bread and chewed quickly.
Janetta impatiently gobbled some of her dinner, as if not wanting to miss a single syllable. Polly wished she could disappear, but knew if she walked out Janetta would peg her as someone she couldn’t trust with good old-fashioned gossip, which would make Polly an enemy, so she stayed in her chair, quietly nibbling at her meal.
Vickie’s eyes brightened. “Okay, so a couple minutes after Dr. Woods is in the room, guess who comes barreling through the office doors?”
“Tell me, oh, tell me. Not...”
“Yes. Dr. R., and before the door can close I hear him say ‘I insist Dr. Woods’s name be cleared’.”
“Cleared from what?” Janetta looked like she was sitting around a campfire hearing a famous urban legend being retold.
“I think this has to do with some surgery on a kid back in Los Angeles that they got sued for. But get this. I sort of got out of my chair and went over by the door so I could hear better. He says, ‘She’s a gifted doctor with much to offer our hospital, and she shouldn’t have her name dragged through the media because of a surgery I agreed to perform’.” Vickie put on a horrible accent, and Polly’s stomach twisted with guilt, listening. “‘I was the person who was charged in that malpractice suit, not Dr. Woods, and I was cleared.’ He went on to say that he knew the surgery would be high risk, and if they wanted to lay the blame on anyone, it should be him.”
“Oh, my God, this is something.”
“Yeah, so next thing I know, Dr. Woods rushes out of the offices and out the door and Dr. Rodriguez keeps yelling at them. The last thing I heard was, ‘No, you listen to me. The verdict was no malpractice. Make it public, then!’”
Janetta was practically salivating over this news. Polly sat silent, watching the two women live vicariously through someone else’s drama. It just didn’t seem right.
Later, while exiting her patient’s room, she noticed the nurses’ station had gone quiet. She glanced up and spotted across the ward the very doctor Janetta and Vickie had been talking about at dinner. Polly waved and rushed to her side, not caring how it looked to her co-workers.
“Hi,” Dr. Woods said with a genuine glad-to-see-you smile.
“Hi. I wanted to thank you for arranging my test, and ask another question if you don’t mind?”
“Of course not. What’s up?”
Polly guided Dr. Woods to a more private spot, noticing Janetta’s eagle eyes watching. She lowered her voice. “I was wondering if you could recommend an obstetrician who is close by the hospital.”
Layla raised a perfectly arched brow. “So the test was positive,” she whispered.
Polly gave one solemn nod.
Layla patted her forearm. “Let me ask around, since I’m kind of new in town myself, and I’ll get back to you, ’kay?”
“Thank you so much.”
“Darlin’, it’s my pleasure. We girls gotta to stick together. You know?”
Overwhelmed by the doctor’s care and genuine concern, once their hushed conversation had ended, Polly decided that regardless of the hospital gossip about Dr. Woods having had an affair with the head of Neurosurgery while she was still married, Polly would be Layla Woods’s number one fan.
* * *
Polly could barely breathe when on the following Thursday the case involving Dr. Woods and Rodriguez went public at Angel’s. She read the memo addressed to the hospital staff about a boy named Jamie Kilpatrick and a high-risk neurosurgery that Dr. Woods had recommended to Dr. Rodriguez. One thing stood out beyond everything else: Dr. Rodriguez had valiantly taken full responsibility for the boy’s death.
One major question crossed Polly’s mind. Why would Dr. Rodriguez put his career and reputation on the line to protect Dr. Woods? She didn’t need to think for long. The man was obviously in love with her, just like Janetta had said. Wow, what must it feel like to have someone love you that much?
* * *
That night Polly combed the
