turned from her vigil by the telephone, where she’d been waiting for Dr. Boxley to return her call. Thank goodness Odira was still in the other room. “No, honey.” She got up and crossed to Crystal’s side and pressed the back of her hand against the child’s face. “You’re just sick again. Are you feeling worse?”
“No.”
Mercy gently stuck the wand of the tympanic thermometer into Crystal’s ear. She waited a few seconds to get a reading. The temp was almost back down to normal. “Aren’t you feeling any better?”
Crystal tilted her head sideways, seriously considering the question. “Yes.”
Mercy sat down on the exam stool next to the bed and took Crystal’s left hand in both of her own. “Then why do you think you’re going to die?”
Crystal’s clear water-blue eyes held Mercy’s for a long, quiet moment. “A girl at school told me.”
“Then don’t listen to her.”
“But then I asked Gramma. She said I might, but when I do, I’ll go straight to heaven and I’ll never get sick again.” She paused for a few seconds. “I’d like that.”
As a mother, Mercy couldn’t help imagining her own daughter saying those words. She’d never heard a child so young expressing a wish to die. What hurt the worst was the realization of Crystal’s suffering, both physical and emotional. From a year of treating Crystal, Mercy knew that the little girl, with her soft heart, worried more about her great-grandma Odira than she did about herself. Odira wasn’t in the best health, with her excess weight and high blood pressure. What would become of Crystal if anything happened to her great-grandmother?
“But, Crystal, we want to keep you here with us longer,” Mercy said softly. “I know it might be selfish of us, when heaven is so wonderful, but do you think you could be strong for Gramma and me?” Jesus, what do I say? How can this be happening? She tried not to think about the situation, but the questions grew too numerous too quickly. Her faith still felt so fragile.
“Gramma needs me,” Crystal said quietly. “I’ll stay awhile.”
They heard the sound of Odira’s footsteps and heavy breathing, and then she came lumbering through the open exam-room door. “I didn’t even think about using a Popsicle to get Crystal’s temperature down. Here’s a red one, her favorite. You’ve got a nice little freezer in there. Looks like you’ve got that back room all set up like an emergency room. I bet you use it a lot, what with the hospital—”
They heard the crash of a door flying open out in the waiting room, then the boom of a familiar voice—like a jet during takeoff. “Dr. Mercy! You in here?”
Clarence held the door open for Buck to carry Kendra through. “Dr. Mercy!” he called again. “Got those patients for you.” He tapped Buck’s shoulder and gestured toward the open doorway that led to the exam rooms at the back of the waiting room. When he’d telephoned Mercy she’d told him just to bring Kendra to the first exam room. Clarence knew where everything was. He should. He’d been here enough times.
After he’d finally lost enough weight to get around on his feet a little better, Dr. Mercy had made him come to her office once a week so she could weigh him and check him over. He hated going, hated the way the other patients in the waiting room stared at him and whispered. Still, when Mercy asked him to do something, he did it. If she asked nice.
Mercy came rushing down the hallway, her long dark hair drawn back in a loose ponytail, wearing baggy old jeans and a thick wool sweater. Her dark eyes looked tired. “Hi, Buck. Bring her back here. I have a bed ready for her. I’ll need you and Clarence to help keep an eye on her.” She reached forward and laid a gentle hand against Kendra’s cheek, and some of the tiredness cleared from her eyes. “Hang in there, Kendra. We’ll get you on some oxygen.” She pulled the stethoscope from around her neck, warmed it in her hand for a second, then placed it against Kendra’s chest.
Clarence watched Mercy as she guided Buck into the exam room and helped him lay his wife on the bed. He enjoyed watching her work. When she treated patients, she acted as if they were a part of her own family. Of course, that also meant she nagged them like family. At five feet eight, she was four inches shorter than Clarence, but there were times when she seemed bigger than life, especially when she stood over him as he balanced on that dinky little exam bed wearing nothing but his shorts and a sheet.
But the times she made the biggest impact on him were when she saw his depression and bullied it out of him. He didn’t get that way as often as he used to, but some days the heaviness of his thoughts messed him up big-time. Those were the days he didn’t want to diet, didn’t want to exercise, didn’t even want to get out of bed. That was when her tender toughness showed itself. She could look into his eyes and say, “Clarence, we’re going for a walk. Get your shoes on,” or “You haven’t come this far to give up. Just get through today,” and then she would tell Ivy to keep watch. And Ivy could be the queen of mean.
As soon as Buck eased Kendra down onto the exam bed, Kendra covered her face with her hands. Her body shook with sobs that grew louder and more forceful. “Why didn’t you just let me die?” She turned her head sideways on the pillow, and her light brown hair, as soft-looking as a sparrow’s breast, fell across her cheek. “Everybody’d be better off that way.”
Buck took a deep breath and hung his head, his square jaw working like a grinding machine. Buck was a big man, lots of muscles, with hair cut so short that his ears, which were already big, looked like doorknobs. He had a big heart, and nobody doubted that he loved his wife. Except her.
Clarence wished there was something he could do to help them both.
Mercy leaned over. “Kendra, tell me how you feel. Do you have a bad headache?”
Tears dripped across Kendra’s nose onto the pillow, and her lower lip trembled. “Yeah, real bad.”
Mercy gestured to Buck. “Would you please hook up the oxygen? I want her on a one hundred percent nonrebreather mask.” She reached toward a box beside the bed. “Kendra, I’m going to put this little clip on the end of your finger. It’s attached to something called a pulse oximeter, which will tell me how much oxygen you have in your system. And I’m sorry, honey, but I’m going to have to stick you for blood. It’s going to hurt, because I have to go deep enough for an artery. We’ve got to find out how aggressively we need to treat you. Buck, has she been confused?”
“Yes, at first.” Buck scrambled around until he found the tubing and mask he needed. “On the drive in I had the windows open, and she cleared up. Now she just keeps crying.” He stepped back over to his wife’s side.
Mercy leaned over Kendra again. “Are you dizzy? Do you feel sick to your stomach?”
Kendra’s face puckered. She covered it with her hands once more and didn’t reply.
Buck cleared his throat, tried to speak, cleared it again. “She was feeling sick earlier, Dr. Mercy. She had some shortness of breath.”
Mercy turned around and saw Clarence standing in the doorway. “Call an ambulance for me, would you?”
“No!” Kendra cried out. She reached toward Buck, eyes wide and frightened, and tried to sit up. “Don’t let them haul me away!”
“It isn’t for you,” Mercy took Kendra’s arm and eased
