And by the time Crystal reached her forties, maybe they would have a cure.
As Crystal’s coughing and wheezing increased, Mercy turned onto Maple, the street that fronted Knolls Community Hospital and her clinic. The hospital came into view, glowing a dark rose color in the security lights set strategically around the grounds. Mercy slowed to the required fifteen miles per hour as she passed the property, set in a scenic residential section of town, with plenty of open lawn and evergreens. Bare branches of oaks and maples jutted out from between humps of burlap-protected rose plants.
She looked up to see, without surprise, that the administrator’s office was illuminated on the second floor. Mrs. Pinkley had opted to move her operations into an unused storage area rather than take the time to repair her own suite, which had been damaged in the explosions when the E.R. was destroyed. The E.R. was Estelle Pinkley’s first priority. Knolls Community usually employed about two hundred fifty people, many of whom would be out of work until they had the west wing with an emergency department. Estelle’s sense of civic responsibility had impacted her career as prosecuting attorney for a great deal of her life. Why stop just because she’d changed careers? At seventy, she was a more powerful force than a whole roomful of attorneys.
Odira sniffed and wiped her face again. “Sure do miss Dr. Bower.” Her heavy voice had an unaccustomed catch of sadness. “Bet you do, too. Bet you get all kinds of calls like this since there ain’t an E.R.”
Mercy reached over and patted Odira’s fleshy shoulder. “You know I wanted to come.” But what the woman said was true. Mercy’s practice had been overwhelmed the past three months. She missed Lukas a lot, and not just for his professional ability.
Lukas Bower, the acting E.R. director, was working temporarily at a hospital on the shore of the Lake of the Ozarks, a three-hour drive from Knolls. Patients and hospital staff members continually asked Mercy when he’d be back. She wondered, too. Nobody missed him more than she did.
“Don’t seem right he should be out of work just because some monster wanted to set fire to the E.R.” Odira pulled Crystal closer. “Don’t seem right we should all be suffering like this.”
“I feel the same way.” Mercy looked down at Crystal. “How are you doing, sweetheart?”
“My chest hurts.”
Mercy bit her lip and prayed silently, the way Lukas had taught her to do. God, please help me with this one. She’s so young. Why is she suffering like this? The question came up often lately in Mercy’s mind, and after all the talking she and Lukas had done about the subject, she still hadn’t found a satisfactory answer. Every time she found herself questioning God about it, she felt afraid. Sometimes it seemed as if all those great, profound truths she and Lukas had discussed last summer and autumn had deserted her, and that her new belief in Christ was just a fairy tale.
She turned into the dark parking area of her clinic, less than a block from the hospital. “Let’s get inside and get a breathing treatment started.”
Clarence Knight just happened to be in Ivy Richmond’s kitchen, raiding her refrigerator and practically swallowing three frozen chocolate chip cookies whole, when the phone rang for the second time Saturday night.
He jerked backward and knocked his head on the overhead compartment where Ivy had been hiding the treats from him. He thumped his elbow on the door and spilled crumbs down the front of his size 6XL T-shirt in his rush to get to the phone before the ringing could wake Ivy. If she came in and found him eating, she would roast him whole over an open fire, all four hundred twenty pounds of him.
He jerked up the receiver, then realized his mouth was still full. He chewed and swallowed. “Mmm-hmm?”
“Hello? Who is this?” It was a man’s voice. Sounded familiar. Sounded upset. “Clarence?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Is Dr. Mercy there?”
Clarence swallowed again. “Hmm-mmm.”
“Do you know where she is? This is Buck. I just tried her at home, and I couldn’t get her. I need her bad. Kendra tried to—” His voice broke. “She needs help. I’ve got to get her somewhere…got to get her on some oxygen.” There was another crack in his voice. “Clarence? You there?”
Clarence swallowed again. “Hol’ up, Buck. Ith’s okay.” One more swallow. There. “Mercy dropped Tedi off here a little bit ago, ’cause she was on her way to the clinic for some emergency. What’s the matter with Kendra?”
Buck took a breath. “She tried to kill herself. Carbon monoxide poisoning. She was running her car motor out in the garage when I found her. The doors and windows were all shut.”
Clarence grunted as if he’d been hit in the gut with a football. “Oh, man.” Poor Kendra. And poor Buck. “She okay? Where are you?” He knew they were still having trouble in their marriage, but was her life bad enough for her to want to die?
“We’re still at home. I’ve got to get her to Dr. Mercy’s,” Buck said. “There’ll be oxygen there.”
“Yeah, Dr. Mercy’ll check her out. Want me to call the clinic and see if I can let her know you’re coming?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Clarence.”
There was so much relief in Buck’s voice, Clarence went even further. “You’ll be coming right by here on your way….” He hesitated. He’d just started getting back out into public after losing all that weight, and he still had a long way to go. Could he do this?
Yeah, he’d do anything for Buck. Buck had been there for him when he was in trouble. “I could meet you out at the street. All you’d have to do would be stop and let me get in and ride with you. Then you wouldn’t have to do this all by yourself.” And maybe he could talk to Kendra some. He knew firsthand what depression could do to a person.
There was a pause, and he braced himself for Buck to turn him down. He’d lost over a hundred pounds since last spring, but he’d still draw a big crowd at a circus sideshow. He was big and clumsy and took up two seats wherever he went, and strangers stared and laughed, and he knew the few friends he had were probably ashamed to be seen—
“You’d do that for me, Clarence?” came Buck’s relieved voice. “It would help.”
Clarence blew out a bunch of air he hadn’t realized he was holding in his lungs. “Sure would, pal. Look at what you did for me last fall. I’ll be waiting out front when you get here.”
He hung up and glanced toward the hallway that led to Ivy’s bedroom suite. Good. No lights, and he thought he could hear her snoring over the hum of the refrigerator. Mercy’s daughter, Tedi, had gone straight to sleep in the spare bedroom without waking her grandma. He guessed neither of them had heard him on the phone.
Ivy had once compared his voice to a derailed locomotive running loose through the house, and she really griped when he woke her up in the middle of the night. Especially when she caught him eating.
Clarence and his sister, Darlene, had come to live with Ivy Richmond—Dr. Mercy’s mom—three months ago when their health got too bad to live on their own. And Ivy had bullied him every day since then to eat right, exercise, take his vitamins, exercise, take his medicine, drink a bucket of water a day and exercise. She’d even tried to make him go to church with her. He’d done everything but that.
