Samson and Sunset (42 page)

  I was so nervous, I asked Shay if we
could leave right then and just ride around together somewhere
until our appointment. I needed some fresh air and a little
distraction.

  ***

We arrived at the doctor’s office at ten ‘til
eleven and got right in. I told my doctor I didn’t want him to tell
me I had a lump, I already knew that. I wanted him to tell me what
it was and what we were going to do about it.

  “Kathrine, we won’t know what it is,
or how to treat it until we know what we’re dealing with. We need
to perform a biopsy on the lump. I’m going to schedule it for
tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. at the hospital. In the meantime I don’t want
you touching it or pushing on it. I want you to wear a bra at all
times, even sleep in it tonight. I’m going to have the nurse do a
blood draw so we have the blood work by morning.”

  I hadn’t slept in clothes since I’d
married Shay (except for my brief stint as a trucker woman,) but
one night wouldn’t hurt me.

  ***

I don’t know if it was Shay or Mom who told
the kids, but they both came in that evening and lay on the bed
with me.

  “Mommy,” Kelly said, “I don’t want
anything to happen to you. If it’s cancer, will it be like
Grandpa?”

  Wes just lay there holding my hand—my
fifteen-year-old son, with tears in his eyes. He lay there,
silently. It was right then that I decided to draw on Shay’s
strength. If it was bad, then I’d go down doing all I could to stop
the situation, knowing I had fought with a cool head. I could feel
myself getting stronger. I told the kids not to be worried, that I
wasn’t scared. Whatever it was, we’d deal with it like we’d dealt
with everything else.

  After the kids left, Shay showered and
came to bed. He was lying there holding me. I could tell he sensed
I was much stronger, I wasn’t crying anymore. I was actually
laughing and joking with the kids when they left.

  “What?” I said after a while of just
cuddling. “No lovemaking tonight? You’re not getting off that easy,
big boy! I want you to make love to me.”

  It didn’t take much to make Shay a
willing participant. It seemed as though nothing had changed. Shay
and I had a great lovemaking session, but as soon as we were lying
there in the afterglow, Shay said, “Callie, put your bra on.”

  “That sounds so cute coming from you,”
I laughed. “Imagine, Shay Westover telling me to put my bra
on
!”

  ***

We checked into the hospital at 6:30 a.m. as
requested. They needed to prep me for surgery at 8:00 a.m. It felt
strange being here and not the maternity ward.

  But I did have some lovely little
nurses working with me. There was a little Gray Angel there in the
room. She seemed timid, but nice.

  “Kathrine,” my head nurse said, “This
is Marilyn. She’ll be your Gray Angel helper until 1:00 this
afternoon. Then, at shift change, you’ll have Patty. She’s fifteen
and quite new, but she’s good help and a real sweet girl. Patty
leaves at 10:00 p.m. and then Violet will be your Gray Angel until
Marilyn is back on at 6:00.”

  The head nurse looked fondly at
Marilyn. “These fine young ladies work here in our Gray Angel
program to see if they want to become nurses and attend our nursing
school.”

  They wore gray uniform dresses with a
nametag and got 75 cents per hour.

  “Kathrine, your Gray Angel will get
you anything you need to be comfortable—books, magazines,
sandwiches—or if you just want them to sit and hold your hand,
they’ll do that too.”

  I got an IV in my arm and I was
out.

  The News

  It was all over. Now: several days of
waiting for the results. Every hour felt like ten. Doc Sam came
into my room and told me I was anemic again. He wanted to keep me
at the hospital for a few days to build up my iron.

  “I want to see the numbers rise before
you go,” he said.

  Well, granted, I was always tired, but
I certainly thought I had an explanation for that. Shay had been
there most of the day and my new little Gray Angel, Patty, had come
on duty. I knew I was in good hands, and even though I didn’t like
being without Shay, I wanted him to go home and rest. He had a big
farm operation plus a trucking business to take care of, and he’d
been at the hospital for hours and hours.

  “See,” I said to Shay, nodding toward
Patty, “this little angel’s going to take good care of me. When I
need to hold your hand, darlin’, I’ll just hold hers.”

  After Shay left, it gave me a chance
to get to know Patty. I asked her a little about herself. She told
me she lived with her grandma, Bertha, and that she had always
thought it would be wonderful to be a nurse.

  “A nurse helps people,” said Patty
simply as she sat by the window, “and that’s what I want to
do.”

  She told me she went to school
mornings, but got out at noon for the Gray Angel program, which
began at the hospital at one. She got school credit for the
program, so that helped. I told her I had a son who was fifteen,
like her, but that he wasn’t near as mature as she was.

  “He would never be able to make a
decision about his future at this age,” I said.

  I told her I had a seventeen-year-old
daughter, and at fifteen she probably could have made a decision
like that. So Patty and I laughed at the fact that we had settled
it, girls were just more mature than boys.

  “Let’s face it,” I said. “Boys can be
silly at any age!”

  “Your husband is a very good looking
man,” Patty told me.

  It was amazing how Shay could still
turn women’s heads, even fifteen-year-olds’.

  “Yeah,” I told her, “he is as handsome
on the inside as he is on the outside.”

  Normally I panicked when I wasn’t with
my family, but here was this darling little Gray Angel who truly
put my mind as ease. I knew God had sent her to watch over me.

  If Patty was shy, well she had met the
right person: Miss Chatterbox. I talked this poor child’s leg off,
but it was keeping me from being lonely for Shay and the kids. I
told her all about Kelly and Wes, how they had their sibling
fights, but just adored each other. I told her how handsome my
fifteen-year-old son was and how he was a head-turner like his dad.
I told her they should meet; I thought they’d really hit it off.
Boy, I don’t know if it was the anesthesia or what, but I poured my
heart out to this child.

  She had fixed my pillows several
times, rubbed my arms and legs and back with lotion, and now she
wanted to know if I wanted any magazines or maybe a book to read.
Probably wants me to shut up and give her some peace! I thought
amusedly. I told her I didn’t feel like reading, but I was a little
hungry. Patty left the room and came back shortly with a ham salad
sandwich and a glass of tea. I must have really told this poor
child everything, because she even brought a small glass of orange
juice with the tea.

  I knew two things at this point for
certain: one, I liked Patty, and two, she was going to make a
fantastic nurse. Her supper hour was 5-6 p.m., but to my joy she
came to my room and sat with me. She asked if I cared if she spent
her supper break with me. Did I care? I was elated.

  I asked her more about herself and
learned that Patty and her grandmother lived in a mobile home park.
I learned she rode the school bus to school and the city bus to the
hospital.

  “Well, Patty, my mother lived in
Hudson until this past year, so I know the buses stop running at
9:45 p.m. How do you get home from the hospital?”

  “I walk home,” she said
matter-of-factly.

  “How many blocks is it?”

  “I think it’s a couple of miles. It’s
way down east on the other side of the tracks.”

  “Girl, are you telling me you walk
home in the dark two miles every night?” I was shocked.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” she answered shyly.

  I thought I was going to cry. I knew
one thing right then and there: I was taking this child under my
wing. Shay always said I brought home every stray I found. Of
course Patty wasn’t that kind of a stray, but she was my new
project. I’d found a child that needed my help.

  ***

At 10:00 p.m. Patty came in and hugged me and
told me she was off and she’d see me tomorrow. What a gracious
child. Violet, who replaced her, was sixteen and kind of an
airhead. I had to ask her several times to adjust my pillows before
she got to it; she kept forgetting. When Violet was out of the room
and my nurse was in with me, I told her how much I had enjoyed
Patty being my Gray Angel.

  “She is a sweet girl isn’t she,
Kathrine? I think she would make a great nurse. She has a good
heart and she’s sensitive, attentive…. What’s concerning is,” the
nurse lowered her voice a little, even though we were the only ones
in the room, “if she does this program for the next three years and
we accept her to the nursing school, I don’t think her family is
going to have the funds. She keeps saying she’ll work it out, but
honestly, Kathrine, I don’t see how.”

  “Don’t they have scholarships or
anything like that?”

  “Not this program, unfortunately. I
suggested she save her 75-cent hourly wages for three years and
that would at least help, but she told me she was using the money
to buy groceries for her and her grandmother.”

  The nurse sighed. “She’s a hard
worker, Kathrine. She never complains.” Then she smiled. “I noticed
she spent her supper break in here with you. That’s sweet. You
know, she usually goes to the library and reads medical books. The
Gray Angel meals are 25 cents, but Patty doesn’t have it, so she
goes without and reads. I’d like to help her out, she’s so sweet;
but if I bent the rules for her, I’d have to bend the rules for
everybody.”

  I was sick, just sick. I sat there and
ate my sandwich and drank my tea and juice, while this child had
nothing to eat. Well, it wasn’t happening again. I’d see to it that
Shay fixed that.

  My night was lonely when I was awake.
I wanted Patty there, not Violet. In just one day I was becoming
attached to this child. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about Patty
walking home in the bitter cold, through blizzards, not having any
supper, working this hard without any promise that her hard work
would even get her where she wanted to go. Finally, I think my
nurse noticed my restlessness and brought me a sleeping pill.

  ***

It was 6:00 a.m. when the nurse woke me to do
vitals, and there was no way I could go back to sleep. My little
Gray Angel helped me to shower and dress in my red silk pajamas. I
didn’t eat much for breakfast, but I noticed my diet was filled
with iron-rich foods. I was amazed at how little conversation I got
from Marilyn, my morning shift Gray Angel. I was anxious to get
Patty back. I’d have someone to talk to then, someone who took her
time with me and seemed to care.

  Right at 8:30, there he was, my
beautiful Shay Man. He came in with fabulous flowers from the hot
house and just laid the bouquet on the bed as soon as he saw me,
engulfing me with hugs and kisses.

  “Callie, I love you. I missed you so
much.”

  “Darlin’ you’re crying…do you know
something I don’t, did you get the results?”

  “Oh, no, babe, I just missed you so
damn much last night. I can’t sleep in our room without you, so I
went up and slept in a guest room.”

  I touched his cheek fondly, then I
said, “Shay darlin’, I need you to do something for me, please.” I
fixed him with my begging eyes. “I have a real big favor to ask and
if you do this for me, I promise it will be my Christmas, birthday
and anniversary present all in one; you won’t have to get me
anything else for the whole year!”

  “Gee, Callie, it must be pretty
important if you’re willing to give up gifts for the whole year!”
Shay chuckled.

  “Shay, I want you to go to the
cafeteria and buy a Gray Angel meal ticket, five meals a week for a
year. Each meal is 25 cents. Then I want you to call the taxi-cab
company and see if you can get a taxi pass to go from the hospital
to down on the east side of town, one way, five days a week, for a
year. Please, Shay, do it for me.”

  Shay wrapped me in one of his hugs.
“Callie, I don’t know why you want the ticket and taxi pass but
I’ll get them if that’s what you want. I’ve never said no to you,
babe, have I?” He held me outward looking at my face. “I’m going to
guess my baby doll has found a stray kitten she wants to help,” he
said with a smile. Then he kissed me tenderly, saying, “I’ll be
right back, Miss Callie,” and walked out the door.

  When Shay returned he had the ticket
in his hand. He said the user just needed to present it and it
would be punched at the register. I’m sure the taxi ticket was
pricey, but my Shay wouldn’t let me down. I heard him haggle for a
good price; then he bought it with his credit card and told them to
have someone bring the pass over within the next few hours and
leave it at the front desk of the hospital for Mrs. Kathrine
Westover.

  “Well,” Shay sat down next to me on
the edge of the bed, “there you have your ticket and cab pass,
princess. Now the good news is, you don’t have to forfeit your
future presents,” he laughed, putting his arms around me.

  Shay was there when my doctor came in
to look at the incision. It really didn’t look bad, a little less
than an inch-long with about nine stitches. My doctor said
everything looked good, so in the next few days if my iron was up,
I could go home.

  “When will I get the results of the
biopsy?” I asked Doc Sam.

  “It usually takes about three to five
days, Callie, but as soon as I get them I’ll contact you.”

  “I want you to be sure Shay is here
when you tell me,” I said.

  Doc Sam assured me he would do just
that.

  Shay was still there when Patty came
on shift, so when she ducked her head in, I said, “Shay, I want you
to meet my special friend, Patty. She wants to be a nurse. Patty’s
Wes’ age, and I just think we should introduce them.”