The Doctor's Undoing (20 page)

“Everyone was wondering where you were.” Donna sniffed again. “Mrs. Smiley was shouting at Dr. Parker about you not being in the infirmary. Is something wrong?”

Ida sighed. “I had a little problem, but it's all sorted out now, so you don't have to worry about it. You tell everyone at the Home that I've gone to the hospital to be with Gitch and I'll be back just as soon as I can. Mrs. Gallows knows everything else and she can talk to the Aunties if they have any questions, but right now our hearts and minds need to be on Gitch, right?”

“Right.”

All three of them stood. Leanne had already pinned her hat on and was handing Ida her own while she passed a damp napkin to Donna. “Press this to your face, child. It'll help. You've been through quite a dash and we don't need you to overheat.”
That's my Leanne
, Ida thought.
Once a nurse always a nurse.

While Donna pressed the cloth to her face, Leanne caught Ida's gaze. “Will you be all right at the hospital?”

Ida felt her resolve settle into place, that steely certainty she could always count on in a tight spot. “I'll be where I'm needed. The rest is up to God.” After a quick hug, Ida added, “But I wouldn't mind a prayer or two, if you're asking.”

“We'll be praying every second,” Leanne said. “Won't we, Donna?”

“Yes, Mrs. Gallows.”

Leanne smiled tenderly and wiped a wet tendril from the young woman's forehead. “Why don't you call me Leanne? Or better yet, Auntie Leanne?”

“That'd be a fine thing...Auntie Leanne.” Ida was glad to see a slip of a smile return to the girl's face. What a harrowing day Donna had endured. And the day was far from over—Ida expected it would be a very long night before any word of Gitch's prognosis could be sent.

Just before they left the house, Leanne pulled Ida aside. “I think that I shall find some reason to ask Isabelle's assistance in keeping Amelia at the Home with us or at her own house. I don't think she'd go to the hospital, but you don't need her there.”

Ida pushed out a breath. “I hadn't even thought of that. Thank you, Leanne. Daniel must be beside himself right now. I'm so thankful I can be there for him this one last time. Say nothing to Isabelle or the children about my plans for Washington. I'll find a way to tell them in my own time, but that certainly isn't now.”

“Of course.” Leanne gave her one last hug. “Oh, take care. I won't stop praying until I hear from you. We'll have every single one of the Aunties praying, as well.”

“It will be enough,” Ida said, hugging her friend back. “It has to be.”

Ida hugged Donna once more, and watched Leanne and the girl turn left out the door while she squared her shoulders and turned right toward Roper Hospital and the fragile fate of Lady Gwendolyn Martin.

Chapter Twenty-Two

D
octors did not belong in waiting rooms. It was the cruelest of tortures to ban a physician from the surgery, to exclude him from participating in the care of someone he cared about. On the other hand, Daniel was glad they had taken Gwendolyn straight into X-ray and surgery in order to identify and treat her wounds.

Cranial fractures were held hostage by time, their damage made better or worse by how well swelling or bleeding was controlled right from the start. His own brain knew he was of no use in a surgery in this case, his own emotional state making him more liability than help should drastic measures be required. He'd called in Michael Hartwick—the doctor who'd worked on his own face—but that hadn't eased his panic one bit. Too much could still go wrong.

He walked down the hall to stare at the pediatric ward, finding the rows of metal hospital beds far too much like those at the Home.

Ida was right—too much about the Home was institutional. Identical and colorless, with no individuality. It was no “home” at all. The dormitories at the Home should feel nothing like this ward, and yet Daniel could not help but think that only the change of the walls from gray to white would be Gwendolyn's clues that she was not at home.

Ida could change all that. Ida had already begun changing that.

Half of him yearned to bolt through the hospital doors and go find her.
I need her. The Home cannot be a home without her. You sent her to me, Lord, and I pledge to You as surely as I pledge to fight for Gwendolyn to heal, that I will fight for Ida to stay. I know what Mother is up to, and she will not win.
And yet he knew Ida was strong, while tiny Gwendolyn was weak. His heart was with Ida, but his duty was with Miss Martin. And so he found himself standing in the hall of the hospital, fists clenched, cursing the woman who had placed him in this loathsome war between two allegiances for the sake of some silly social contrivance that had never meant anything to him in the first place.

“Daniel!”

Daniel turned to see Ida rushing toward him down the hallway. He didn't bother with words. He didn't care who saw. He simply drew her to him so fiercely that a nurse farther down the hallway nearly dropped her files. Ida resisted for a moment, which told him all he needed to know about how successful his mother's tactics had been. But he would not let her keep her distance. Daniel held her close until her worry and the power of his care overrode her caution, and bit by bit she melted into his arms.

He knew the moment he had won her back, and it was as if his entire world stopped holding its breath. He had been as fearful—if not more so—of losing her as he had been of losing Gwendolyn. He gave silent thanks that she could still be his. He stroked her hair, breathing in and drawing strength from the particular precious scent that surrounded his Ida.

Her unruly hair was wild out of its braid and her eyes were puffy with tears as she looked up at him to ask, “Is she...?”

“We don't know much yet.” He kept her hand in his as he walked her back toward the surgical waiting room.

“What do we know?”

“Concussion, that much is sure. They should be able to rule out cranial fracture soon, but I don't know the extent of the damage to the cheekbone and the jaw.”

Ida's shoulders fell in relief, and she let out a breath. Daniel had pretty much done the same when the surgeon had sent word out of that good news. “Thank Heaven. I've been praying with every step I ran over here.”

“There are no signs of bleeding on the brain yet, but they have to keep watch. What we do know,” he went on, running his thumb across the back of Ida's palm, “is that there is some kind of fracture of the jawbone, with two broken molars. Hartwick has a procedure he learned from the war that he's doing—wiring her jaw shut until it heals. I expect he's doing that right now.”

“You called in the doctor who worked on you?”

“I wanted the best man for her. It's her face, after all.” He felt his own voice near to breaking.

“Her jaw wired shut,” Ida said with a burst of nervous laughter at the procedure even Daniel had to admit sounded a bit gruesome. “Oh, she won't like that.”

“She will live,” Daniel said, infusing the words with all the certainty he could. “It will give her the best chance at healing. From what we know right now, unless something new springs up, I believe she will make a full recovery.” He hated what he had to add. “But some things will never be the same.”

“I know.”

“I will never get the sight of that blood on the cement and in the water out of my head as long as I live.”

Ida touched his cheek. “Oh, Daniel, it must have been horrifying. The children—they must be so frightened. We have to tell them Gitch will be okay.”

Daniel took a deep breath. “I'm having the bathing pools filled in starting tomorrow.”

“Are you really sure that's necessary?”

“I've made a decision.”

She looked at his eyes, and silenced whatever reply she was readying.

“I've made another decision. My mother is never to speak to you outside of my presence ever again.”

Ida's eyes flew wide open, her face showing a flurry of emotions before her gaze went to the floor. “You know.”

“I learned only moments before the ambulance arrived, or I would have been out looking for you. Mrs. Smiley let it slip that she'd approached my mother about the impropriety of us being found alone in the kitchen after midnight.”

Ida's brows bent and her lips pursed. “Mrs. Smiley? Your mother never mentioned her, or even that they'd spoken. And here I thought I'd won that woman over.”

“I've half a mind to fire her for going behind my back like that. And I won't discuss in your company what I feel about my mother right now for whatever it is she said to you.” He took Ida's arm in his. “I saw the letter from Walter Reed, Ida. Don't go. Don't you dare leave me.”

“John found out about the position and I thought...”

Daniel held his hand up. It galled him to admit the depth of his mother's actions to Ida. “Dr. Bennet is a friend of the family. My mother made sure John Gallows heard about that position. She pushed Bennet to mention it to Leanne's husband while suggesting that I should arrange for you to leave.”

“Even before the socks?” Ida had every right to look shocked.

Daniel hated to make it worse. “Actually, it was even more devious than that. I believe she put the whole thing in motion before she even tried to convince me to send you packing. I believe she only viewed my consent to give you up—consent which I would not give, by the way, consent I would never,
ever
give—as an unnecessary luxury.”

Ida pulled her hand from his, turning her head to look out the hallway window they happened to stand beside. “It wasn't God.” Her tone was half question, half statement.

“Pardon?”

She turned back to him. “You read the letter. The post at Walter Reed involved art and knitting as accepted parts of the treatment protocols. Art and knitting, Daniel—it seemed so perfect, but I didn't think I wanted to leave. And then, when we...” She flushed. “I knew I'd never want to leave.”

“Ida...”

“But your mother,” Ida went on, grabbing his hand. “When she told me if I really cared about the children and the Home that I had to leave or she would ensure that the Home would lose its donors, I wondered if God hadn't been kind enough to make a way for me to leave.” She squeezed his hand. “I couldn't stay here and not be with you.”

Daniel was glad his mother wasn't anywhere nearby. The words he would speak to her right now would far overstep the bounds of a respectful son. They would overstep the bounds of any respect at all. He touched Ida's cheek, needing to feel her skin to stem the tide of rage boiling up inside him. “There is no reason at all for you to leave. I want you to stay, and I want you to be with me.”

Ida closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. “Daniel, she's not all wrong.” Her eyes opened again. “Oh, believe me, lots of her is dead wrong, but there are plenty of people in Charleston who think the same way she does, and plenty of those people donate to the Home.”

“I don't care.” Daniel wanted to defy the world, to kiss Ida right here in the hospital hallway and declare to the sterile walls that Gwendolyn Martin would not be permitted anything less than a complete recovery.

Ida placed her hand on top of his, smiling. “You need to care. I'm not saying we need to cow to your mama's conniving, but we need to figure out how to fight it. I know her kind. You can't defy her without a battle plan.” Her voice softened a bit. “But Daniel, are you sure this is a war you want to wage? Think of the children. The Home. I'd hate to think your mama would use them as pawns, but—”

“—but we both know she would. Hasn't she already, trying to take you from them? They care for you.” He pulled her close. “
I
care for you. I realized I cannot build the Home the way it needs to be without you. If you really want what's best for the children, you must stay.”

Ida pressed her cheek into his hand, and his heart cinched as he watched a tear spill over to meet his palm. Her eyes gave him the answer no words ever could.

“Daniel?”

Hartwick stood in front of the doors of the operating theater, pulling the mask from his face. “We've finished treating your Miss Martin.”

* * *

Ida could barely stand how small and frail Gitch looked all bound up and braced in that enormous hospital bed. The way Daniel had described the fall, Ida said a prayer of thanksgiving that Gitch was even alive. She'd seen enough battle injuries to know the damage a neck fracture could do, seen what skull fractures could do to the fragile human brain. She'd seen grown men laid low and feeble by such falls, and Gitch was such a tiny little thing.

Still, she breathed. She moved, reminding Ida that paralysis was not an issue. Daniel had told her that, but Ida had to keep seeing it for herself. Hardest yet happiest of all, Gitch showed signs of pain. Pain meant awareness and mental capacity, even if it meant loss of comfort. Every time Gitch moaned, Ida stroked the parts of the child's face that she could touch, talking to her in soft tones, praying peace and comfort over the girl.

Daniel seemed especially troubled by Gitch's highly bandaged face, and it wasn't hard to guess why. “Wrapped up like that, the injuries look far too much like my own, and I remember how much those hurt. They throbbed and stung miserably, and I'm a grown man.” He stroked her hair with a tenderness Ida had never seen before in him. “She's so small, so young.”

“She's a fighter, though.” Ida took Daniel's hand and gave it a squeeze. “I wouldn't be surprised if she gives you no end of grief for shutting down the pools. Once she can talk, that is.”

Daniel leaned up against the high metal foot of the bed. “You weren't going to tell me what my mother did to you, were you?”

Ida ran one hand across the bed railing, feeling it cool under her fingers even in the early-evening heat. The day felt ten years long. “No. I didn't see what it would help.”

“You would just have left?” Hurt singed Daniel's words.

“Never. I would have said goodbye to the children.” She swallowed hard. “And to you.”
But it would have torn my heart into a million pieces
, she added silently.

“You would have let her win?”

Ida laid her chin on the high metal frame. “I would not have let the children become her battlefield.”

Daniel moved his hand to cover hers as it sat perched on the railing. “You are an astounding woman, Ida Lee Landway. You are worth more to me than every dollar every donor could give. The donors who see your worth are the donors I want to keep. Those Mother could sway, well, they're not worth keeping.”

Gitch moaned.

“Shh,” Ida said. “None of that now. Right now our thoughts are with dear Lady Gwendolyn here. I think she's waking up, and we're going to have to do all the talking for a while. I expect she won't take kindly to that, so we'd best be ready.” Ida stepped over to lean close to Gitch's puffy, pale face, taking the child's hand in hers. She was grateful her army hospital training gave her skills for this situation. “Gitch, honey, can you hear me? If you can, you just squeeze my hand once.”

Tiny fingers gave her hand a small squeeze, and Ida felt relief flood her chest. She looked up and nodded at Daniel, watching his own shoulders lose the tension they'd held since she'd arrived.

“You've been hurt badly, but you're going to be just fine after you've had a bit of a rest. You won't be able to open your mouth for a while, so no trying to talk, okay? You just answer yes or no by squeezing my hand and we'll get along just fine. Do you hurt?”

Squeeze.

“One squeeze for lots, two for only a little.”

One squeeze.

Ida felt her heart twist as she held up one finger, and Daniel sucked in a breath. “I know it hurts now, but we're going to do our best to make it better real soon. Dr. Parker is right here.”

At the mention of Daniel's name, Gitch's eyes fluttered and opened for a moment. She began looking drowsily around the room for Daniel, and he immediately stooped and shifted his face into her view. His expression when he caught her gaze raised such a lump in Ida's throat that she thought she might start sobbing and never stop. How could she have ever thought this man rigid and uncaring? His heart was so full of care for these children—and she hoped for her—that it would have been the worst of mistakes to leave him.

“I'm right here, Gitch,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. She noticed he used her nickname—the first time she'd heard him say it. “I'll always be here for you. You're going to be okay. I know it hurts now, but just close your eyes and go to sleep.” He glanced over to Ida with glistening eyes. “Remember Nurse Ida's trick? We'll do it together—I'll say the words for you, you think them in your head. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua...” He pressed his fingers to his forehead, his memory failing him in the emotion of the moment. He knew it now—she'd helped him to learn the entire list during his own recovery.