Part 5
Leah checked the button at her throat in the elevator’s dull reflection. It was the only blouse she owned that belonged anywhere near a boardroom.
Sadie held Beverly’s hand, wearing her best dress and the lavender stethoscope. Daniel’s tag rested beneath it.
At the top floor, Beverly gave Leah’s elbow a brief squeeze.
“We’ll be right outside.”
The conference room smelled of fresh coffee nobody offered her. Leah sat on one side of a long polished table. The board members occupied the other. Mr. Ellison arranged a folder beside his water glass.
He began with the dates.
Eleven occasions that year when Leah had brought her child to the hospital. A staff area used for sleeping. A child without an assigned caregiver on a clinical floor. The most recent incident during a code blue.
Leah watched his finger move down the page.
“Are any of these records incorrect?” he asked.
“No.”
An older board member adjusted her reading glasses.
“Ms. Mercer, you understand why we have to take this seriously.”
“I do.” Leah lifted her eyes. “I didn’t have anyone to keep her. I know that doesn’t change the rules.”
She placed her hands in her lap so they wouldn’t see how hard she was pressing her fingers together.
The board member began discussing patient safety and the hospital’s responsibilities.
Behind Leah, both doors opened.
She turned.
Owen stood between them in dress blues, ribbons aligned across his chest and the gold trident above them. A black boot protected his ankle. He was using forearm crutches, keeping his weight carefully off the injured side.
He was pale enough that Leah almost stood to go to him.
A tall officer with silver at his temples entered beside him. Master Chief Keene followed. Then came Tessa, Curtis, and the rest of the night staff from Leah’s floor, some still wearing the scrubs they had worked in.
Beverly came last with Sadie on her hip.
Mr. Ellison rose halfway from his chair.
The silver-haired officer spoke before he could object.
“Commander Adrian Voss. I’m Chief Calder’s commanding officer. With your permission, he’d like the board to hear something relevant.”
The chair of the board nodded toward an empty seat.
Owen didn’t take it. He came beside Leah, caught one crutch awkwardly against her chair, and stopped to free it. His jaw tightened with pain.
“Sit down,” she whispered.
“In a minute.”
He steadied himself and faced the table.
“Before she worked here, Leah Mercer was a navy corpsman. Her husband got me out of a firefight. Last week, she saved my life in this hospital.”
He told them about the field hospital. About Daniel, the rescue crew chief who had left a helicopter under fire to carry a wounded man out of a ditch.
“I was that man.”
Leah looked down at the seam in her skirt.
“Daniel died after he got me aboard. His wife was working when they brought us in. She tried to save him while another team worked on me behind a curtain.”
Nobody at the table moved.
“Last Wednesday, she found me on the floor of my hospital room without a pulse. She started CPR before the team arrived. And she kept coming back for another round.”
His voice caught. He waited until it would work again.
“She got me here.”
He glanced toward Sadie.
“And if you’re wondering why I finally did my rehabilitation exercises, that was her consultant.”
Sadie straightened in Beverly’s arms. Recognizing that she had been introduced, she raised her hand to her brow, fingers flat exactly as Owen had taught her.
A board member laughed before covering his mouth.
Beverly stepped forward.
“You should know we helped keep Sadie there,” she said. “Leah takes our extra patients. She stays when somebody needs to leave. She covers for us, and we covered for her.”
Ellison began to speak, but the board chair raised a hand for him to wait.
Commander Voss placed a sheet of paper on the table.
“The team has taken up a collection,” he said. “We’d like to fund the start-up costs for an overnight staff nursery here, with the hospital arranging proper staffing and approval. A place where children are supervised and nurses don’t have to choose between leaving them and missing work.”
He turned the page so the chair could read it.
“We’d like it dedicated to Daniel Mercer.”
Leah pressed a hand over her mouth.
The board asked a few brief questions about the proposal. Then the chair called for a vote on Leah’s reinstatement and moving the nursery forward.
Every hand went up.
Ellison closed his folder. He walked around the table, looking older than he had when the meeting began, and offered Leah his hand.
“We’ll expect you back, Nurse Mercer.”
She stood to shake it.
Commander Voss came to attention and saluted her.
Sadie immediately returned it from Beverly’s hip. The commander held his expression for a second, then smiled. Applause broke out behind Leah, mixed with laughter, and Tessa reached around Curtis to hug her.
By the time the hallway began to empty, Owen was sitting on a bench with his crutches propped beside him. Leah stood in front of him, still holding the paper that confirmed her reinstatement.
“You should have told me you were coming.”
“You might’ve tried to stop me.”
“I would’ve made you sit.”
“That too.”
He shifted his boot out of the way of a passing cart.
“My team’s going without me,” he said. “Medical says no deployment for at least a year.”
Leah’s smile faded. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be yet. My new orders came through this morning. Instructor duty at the range.”
“The one here?”
“Twelve miles.” He looked up at her. “I’m not appealing.”
At the elevators, several nurses were pretending not to watch them.
Owen noticed and lowered his voice.
“There’s more I’d like to say. Preferably without witnesses.”
Keene drove them home that evening. Sadie fell asleep against Leah before they reached the house.
Owen made his way up the porch steps using the railing while Leah carried her daughter inside. She took off Sadie’s shoes, laid the stethoscope beside the pillow, and eased the blanket beneath her chin.
When Leah returned, Owen was waiting under the porch light. Keene’s car had pulled away. The neighborhood was quiet except for a dog barking several houses down.
Leah closed the screen door carefully.
“The envelopes have to stop.”
Owen shook his head.
“I’m seeing it through. Every month, until she goes to college. Daniel would’ve made sure of that.”
Leah looked at the crutch cuff around his forearm, at the stiff way he held himself to spare his ribs. Then she looked at his face.
“Bring them, then.”
He went still.
“Don’t mail them. Come to the door.”
Owen freed one arm from the crutch and leaned it against the railing. He lifted his hand to her cheek, hesitated, then let his forehead rest against hers.
Leah put her hand against his uniform jacket.
He kissed her gently enough that she could feel him holding back. When he began to draw away, she caught his collar and brought him close again.
This time he didn’t mistake the invitation.
Six weeks later, Leah stood in the doorway of the new nursery while a staff member showed two small children where their blankets belonged.
The walls were warm yellow. Little cots stood ready for the night shift, and beside the entrance hung a photograph of Daniel grinning beneath his flight helmet. His name was on the dedication plaque below it.
There were nurses in the corridor who had never known him. There were sailors who had. For a little while, nobody seemed able to stop looking at the photograph.
Sadie stepped away from Leah.
She stood in front of her father’s picture, brought her hand to her brow, and held the salute.
Beverly reached into her pocket for a tissue. Keene looked down and cleared his throat.
Then Sadie spotted Owen across the hall.
She planted her feet, folded her arms, and arranged her face into its fiercest scowl.
Owen answered with an even more dreadful one.
Curtis laughed first. Tessa followed, then Beverly, and soon the open nursery door was crowded with people laughing around them.
Owen reached for Leah and drew her close. He kissed her while someone behind them cheered. Sadie covered her eyes, leaving enough space between her fingers to watch.
Later, as the last of the refreshments were being cleared away, Sadie tugged at Owen’s sleeve.
“Still got grumbles?”
He lowered himself onto a padded bench and lifted her into his lap.
“Saved some for you.”
She pressed the toy stethoscope against his chest to check. Leah sat beside them, and Owen made room for her without letting Sadie slide from his knee.