Diamonds and Cole (13 page)

“When did you become my father?!” Ellie screamed. “And when did you become so uptight? You are the one...you are the one who always goes with the flow. Take chances, reach for your dreams... was that all bullshit? Who
are
you?”

“Who am I? Who the hell are you?” he shot back. “Ellie, are you strung out?” His voice and tone softened, “I’ll get you help. We can beat this thing. I love you. I’m here for you.”

“You think I’m high? That’s it? You’re here for me! I am here for you! I came to get you! I am here to save your soul. Free yourself of this material obsession you have. Join us! Live life for a while, free your mind. Get high on life. That’s where I’m at. Dance in the grass, swim in the sea...each day, Cole, take each day, make love to it, caress it. Tomorrow it’s gone. You don’t own it; you just get to use it. It’s not yours. Come with me. We’re leaving at 4 o’clock. Please.”

“I want to be a journalist. I want to write. The Sun is reviewing my internship app. That could mean a job, a real job, on a real paper. You know that’s what I have always dreamed of. I can’t just drop it and go dance in the sun! Get real.”

“I
am
real. Realer than I have ever been. I have friends who love me for me. Not some clique, but real thinking, living, loving people. Everything is shared, everything is free. If we run out of money, we stop and work for a while. I cooked during wheat harvest. We boxed shoes at a factory in New Hampshire, cut cane in Louisiana, and danced in the cane breaks at night. We painted apartments in Bakersfield and picked hops in Oregon. We got dirty, we felt the earth, and we discovered America. Not the one in books or on the 6 o’clock news but the real America, with real people, beautiful people. People with families who sing while they work, who laugh at the end of a hard day because they are free. At night, around fires in the fields, they play guitars and banjos and little accordions and sing and dance and tell stories and—”

“What next? How long can you just ramble and pick fruit? You sound like a commercial for the Woody Guthrie Travel Agency. Okay, let’s sing ‘This Land Is Your Land’! Come on, Ellie, come home. You have lived the great experiment, you have touched the land. I need you here. Please let your friends go on without you, and you and I will go later. Next month, school will be out. We can take off after finals.”

“That won’t happen.”

“Sure it will. We can have a whole month if you want.”

“You are part of the machine. You have—”

“Where did you get all this crap? Me? Part of the machine! I have always been more involved than you. I have marched more miles, given more money, manned more tables, passed out more flyers. I have even been arrested for fighting the Imperialist War Machine. But I want to really change things, not just make a lot of noise, and I can do that through the press. I’ve got a real chance with this internship. If they like me, who knows where it will lead. Come on, Ellie, think.”

Tears streamed down her beautiful tanned cheeks. “This time is for me. If you really care about me, you’ll come. You can always get a job. You can always finish school. But now, right now, this is for me. You decide. We need this. If we are going to be together, we need this time. Free, free to get up and lay down where and when we want. To touch, to feel, to really live life and see life, together. Don’t you see?”

“I guess not,” Cole said softly.

“I really thought you’d come. I don’t know you anymore.” She turned and took about five steps, before turning to face him again. Without taking her eyes from his, she returned to where Cole stood motionless, and softly put her arms around his neck. She kissed him. With all the warmth of her being, she kissed him deeply, as if to speak from her soul to his. Then she turned and ran back across the commons. Ran like she was being pursued by a pack of dogs. All the colors seemed to have dimmed, the joy and beauty gone. Just a dark-haired girl fleeing the scene of an accident.

Cole watched her go. He finished the semester, did well. He made the Dean’s List. The internship at The Sun fell through. He didn’t see Ellie for almost a year.

“You marry her?”

“Nope,” Cole said matter-of-factly.

“Boy, howdy, you sure can tell a story.” Mickie laughed.

“It has tumbled around in my heart for so long it’s polished like a stone.” Cole smiled for the first time. “Now, doesn’t that sound like a writer?”

“Yeah, a bad one,” Mickie teased. “But you’re a good man to come looking for the girl. And Jessup is the end of the trail?”

“Erin is here, I think. She doesn’t know her mother is ill. They haven’t seen each other in about four years. Ellie’s husband was pretty rough on the girl, and she bolted. I need to let her know Ellie’s sick and try to get her to come back, before it’s too late. Three years ago, she called her mother on her birthday. Wouldn’t say where she was. A friend of mine, a cop in Chicago, traced her here. He said she’s a nurse. Funny, Ellie trained to be a nurse.”

“The hospital is just up the road. Shouldn’t be hard to find out.”

“That’s my next stop.” Cole smiled. “Mickie, you’re okay.”

“Stop. Don’t be getting all grateful on me. Been enough cryin’, don’t get
me
started.” She gave a theatrical giggle and covered her mouth with a napkin like the ingenue in a melodrama. “Just part of the service here at the Hillside Cafe.”

“Just the same...” Cole’s voice trailed off and he looked out the front window. “Looks like you’ve got some customers.”

“Oh yeah, Ben and Ruby. They come in every day about this time for coffee, and they share a doughnut. Better let ‘em in.” Mickie slid out of the booth.

Cole took a business card from his wallet and a $20 bill. On the back of the card, in pencil, he wrote, “For psychological services and thoughtfulness above and beyond the call of duty” and signed it “Cole.” He slipped it and the $20 under the corner of his water glass, slid out of the booth, blew Mickie a kiss, and left the cafe.

TEN

The hospital was only a mile and a half outside of town. The three-story red brick building sat on a slight rise surrounded by acres of grass, trees, and small ponds. Sprinklers chattered back and forth across the broad stretches of green. It was like a little oasis in the dry, dusty surroundings. A large old-fashioned white sign with crisp black lettering on the front lawn read “Santa Felicia Regional Medical Center.”

Welcome to Happy Acres,
Cole thought as he parked facing the front entrance. The sign said “Visitors, 30-Minute Limit.’ He hoped he wouldn’t need much more.

The tall glass doors glided open with a modern efficiency you wouldn’t expect from such an old building. The air inside hit like an Artic blast and made Cole shiver. The walls in the lobby were covered with overblown enlargements of the hospital in years past, former directors, and a big map of the service area provided by the hospital. Green chairs and couches surrounding short sterile chrome and glass tables looked like they had been there since opening day.

In a chrome stand was a hospital directory and map. “Cafeteria and food service, follow the yellow line.” At Cole’s feet were six colored stripes painted on the floor. He followed the yellow line with his eyes to where it rounded the corner of the lobby. He pursued it down corridors, around corners, through swinging double doors, across a breezeway, and arrived at a sign that read “The Gardens Cafeteria and Coffee Shop.”

Inside the cafeteria were round tables with white tablecloths, each one topped with a vase of fresh-cut flowers. At the rear was the service area, and at the register sat just the kind of person Cole was looking for. One look and he knew she was a fountain of information.

Since he hadn’t eaten, Cole picked up a turkey sandwich and a bottle of grape juice. He mustered up his best smile and made his way to the register.

“Good afternoon.” He beamed.

“Good afternoon to you. Will this be it?” The woman sitting at the stool must have weighed 300 pounds. Her salt-and-pepper hair was covered in an industrial strength hairnet. Her white uniform was starched brittle, and her nametag said “Biddy.”

“Well, you look like the lady who knows what’s going on around here. I could use your help.”

“I don’t know about that.” Her smiled faded slightly.

“I don’t need to know what doctor’s foolin’ around with what nurse or anything like that.” Cole winked, and he could have sworn her cheeks colored a bit. “I’m looking for a friend of mine’s daughter. I was passing through town and thought I’d say ‘hi’ if she was on duty.”

“Who might that be?” Biddy frowned.

“I’m not serving papers, not a private detective, or signing people up for Amway. Just a social call. Her name is Erin. Don’t know her married name.” He didn’t know if she was married or not but needed a reason for not knowing her last name. “She’s a nurse.”

“Erin Mitchell, she’s the only Erin here. What a sweetheart. Always brings me peanut brittle. She makes the best peanut brittle you ever tasted, with me trying to diet, too.”

“Diet! What on earth for? I always say a girl isn’t worth huggin’ without a little meat on her bones. Do you think she’s here?” Cole grinned.

“She was in here for 10 o’clock break. Have you seen her little girl? What an angel. She brings her in sometimes and gets her an ice cream. I don’t charge her, but don’t you tell.”

Cole made the motion of turning a key on his lips and tossing it over his shoulder. “What department is she in?”

“Why, maternity, of course. She just loves the babies.” Biddy pulled a drawer out under the register and took out a Ziploc bag of peanut brittle, “You just have to taste this.” She opened the bag, took out a piece and put it on Cole’s tray. “No charge.”

“Gee, thanks.” Cole smiled at the round-faced woman.

“Way to a man’s heart, ya know.”

“You are a charmer, Biddy.”

“A girl’s gotta have a few lures in her bag if she wants to land a big one.”

“I gotta come here more often. The service is great.” Cole was slightly embarrassed of his shameless flirting, but it always seemed to work.
Besides,
he thought,
it always brightens their day.

Cole made his way to a table just far enough to end all conversation, ate the sandwich absentmindedly and downed the grape juice. He thought of the times he ate meals with Ellie while she was in nursing school. He used to set his alarm so he could get up and go have lunch with her at four in the morning. Now her daughter was a nurse.
Ellie will be proud,
he thought, and smiled.
She doesn’t even know she’s a grandmother.

Maternity was at the end of the blue line on the second floor. Cole approached the nurse’s station. He felt a little shaky and wasn’t sure just what he would say to her. “She’s Ellie’s daughter, so it shouldn’t be tough. She’s a caregiver. That says a lot,” he whispered to himself.

“Yes sir?” A woman in a pink flowered uniform looked up from behind a computer monitor.

“Hi. Is Erin Mitchell on duty?”

“Yes, she is.”

“I would love to say ‘hi’ if I could.” Cole once again turned on his best smile. This time it was met with a cold stare.

“She gets off at 3.”

“I need to speak to her. It is very important, and will only take a minute. Suppose you could let her know I’m here. I’m an old friend of the family.”

“We had three deliveries this morning—”

“Boys or girls?” Cole broke in.

“Two boys, one girl.”

“I don’t have any kids of my own. Sure wish I did. Is Erin a delivery nurse?”

“Natal care, and she does the new mother training.”

“I’ve come a long way—”

The woman behind the desk keyed a microphone, “Nurse Mitchell to the desk, please. Nurse Mitchell to the desk.” She unkeyed the mic and pointed to a small waiting room across the hall. “You can wait in there.” Her expression still didn’t change.

“Thanks a lot.”

Cole went across the hall and took a seat in the waiting room. He couldn’t see the desk from where he sat. It didn’t matter, though. The stress wouldn’t let him sit still. He got up and went to the window. The view of the grounds was quite beautiful from the second floor. He cracked his knuckles and rubbed his hands together.

“Hello,” came a voice from behind him.

Cole turned slowly to see a face he knew. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. His heart felt as though it would explode from his chest. Standing right in front of him was Ellie, just as she looked when they were together. It was as if time stood still. The last 24 years never happened. He laughed.

“God in heaven.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s just...it’s just—”

“Do I know you?”

“I’m sorry. My name is Cole, Cole Sage. I’m—”

“You’re kidding.” The young woman’s expression changed to one almost as thunderstruck as Cole’s.

They both stood and looked at each other for the longest time. She was tall and on the thin side. Her curly brown hair was pulled back and clipped just above her ears with pink barrettes that matched her uniform. The bridge of her nose wrinkled just like Ellie’s used to do as she studied the man in front of her. A smile slowly curled her lips and then broadened to show the same amazing smile he loved so much. She was beautiful.

“My mother used to speak of you. What on earth are you doing here? How did you find me? I mean, what brings you here to see me?”

“Can we sit?”

“Sure.” Erin’s voice conveyed a sense of concern.

They made their way to a small bench.

“Uh, I don’t know exactly how to begin,” Cole rubbed his hands together nervously, “So I guess I’ll just spit it out. I have some bad news. Your mom’s real sick.” Cole paused and looked down. He could feel tears building. He would not allow it. He steeled himself. “I know that—”

“What is it? Please, is she going to be okay?” Erin’s hand was at her throat and Cole saw a glimpse of what she must have been like as a little girl.

“She’s very ill. Has been for almost three years. She has Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS.”