Suzanne Cox - Unexpected Daughter

“It’ll be fine.” She heard herself say the words but didn’t feel as though they came from her.

He dropped her hand, disappearing through the door, only to reappear seconds later. “Oh, and no swamp medicine.”

Blood rushed to her head and she opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off, laughing. “Hey, I was joking, okay? We’ll do what works.” He paused, as if contemplating his next words carefully. “I’d still like to see that birth certificate.”

She nodded. Damn Cade Wheeler. She didn’t need this confusion in her life. She fiddled with the exam-room supplies on the small desk. She’d have to find a way to deal with him until he left. Suddenly there was a shout and a thud from the direction of the lobby. Then Cade’s voice seemed to rattle the window in the small room.

“Brijette, get in here now.”

A BODY SPLAYED prone on the office floor first thing in the morning did not spell good news. Cade rolled the young man over.

“What’s his name?” he shouted at the bony girl with him.

“Ray,” she cried. “Is he gonna be all right?”

Cade ignored her. “Ray, can you hear me?”

Ray didn’t move. He made a wheezing sound, then went quiet. Leaning close to the man’s face, Cade couldn’t feel air on his cheek. “He’s not breathing.”

An ambu bag appeared over his shoulder and he fit the plastic piece over Ray’s mouth and nose, holding it in place, squeezing the attached bag to give the man air. Brijette knelt on the floor and stripped Ray’s shirt off, slapping on the pads for the automated external defibrillator.

“Tell me we have a crash cart.”

Brijette gave a quick shake of her head, then pointed to a large red tackle box.

“How am I supposed to know his heart rhythms or what meds to give? Do we even have the equipment here to intubate?” Surely his uncle kept supplies here in case of breathing emergencies, so he could put a tube into the lungs and get air to a patient who couldn’t breathe.

“We’ve got the AED here to administer a shock if needed, and the ambulance is on the way. We can unhook the big monitor from the cardiac exam room and roll it up here, but…” She paused as sirens shrieked outside. “But the ambulance will probably be here before we get it.”

The medics rushed in and Cade moved back, letting the two men take over. In seconds they had the man called Ray on the stretcher, racing to the ambulance.

Ray’s distraught girlfriend or wife waited in the doorway. “Is he going to be all right?”

Brijette crossed the room and stood in front of her. “We don’t know, but it doesn’t look good.”

Well, she didn’t sugarcoat that.

“It would help if we knew what kind of drugs he’s been taking. He did take something, didn’t he?”

“It… I think it might have been OxyContin. But he had a prescription.”

“Why did you bring him here instead of the emergency room?” Brijette asked.

The slender girl hugged her purse to her body. “He didn’t seem that sick. He walked in here. He was real weak and not breathing too good. This was the first place we passed, so we stopped.”

Cade groaned, watching Brijette head back to the desk. He stared at the girl.

“It wasn’t like he was doing illegal drugs, you know. I tell you, he had a prescription.”

The girl hurried through the door and Cade reached the reception desk in time to hear Brijette finish her report to the hospital’s emergency-room doctor. She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Sorry we didn’t have the equipment you wanted. I’ve talked to your uncle, but he says we’re so close to the hospital that we don’t need it.”

“Sounds like him.”

She smiled and Cade realized he was glad she’d been here. He’d worked in a clinic for such a long time that he’d forgotten what it was like to try to save a life in the immediate sense rather than the long term.

“You don’t seem surprised about the OxyContin.”

She snorted. “Not a bit. Some people tend to forget that drugs aren’t candy.”

“And the fact that he had a prescription?”

“Plenty of doctors will write prescriptions for anything. And then there are always stolen prescription pads.”

“Get much of that around here?”

She shrugged and glanced away. “A pharmacist in town had one on me yesterday.”

He hadn’t expected that. “How’d they get the pad?”

“Stole it when they had a visit here, or tore a sheet off when I laid it down. I try to keep up with mine, but your uncle leaves his where he drops it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when I’m writing prescriptions.”

She nodded and got to her feet. For an instant he imagined how nice it would be to forget the mess that was their past and pick up anew. He’d like to smile at her, maybe throw his arm over her shoulder. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t trust her for more reasons than one. He followed her into the hall to see the first patient he had waiting.

THE SUN HUNG LOW in the sky as Brijette turned the key to crank the boat. If Norma wasn’t such a good person she’d have quit being Dylan’s sitter long ago. Brijette ran late at least once every week, usually on Thursday when she went to Willow Point. She hated missing time with Dylan, but she hoped her daughter would learn from her example to help people who didn’t have the opportunities she’d had. She wished now she’d brought Dylan with her to the field clinic today, something she often did during school vacations. Her daughter enjoyed helping A.G. at the store or fishing at the dock with the local kids. She and Dylan didn’t have a lot, but it was important for her to learn that many people had even less, and they were still good people, happy people. Things she’d never learn if Cade’s family had their claws in her life. She’d worried more about Dylan lately. They’d had such a close relationship, until recently…until Cade came back. Her lip hurt as she chewed on it, trying to remind herself that her problems with Dylan really had nothing to do with Cade. The girl was growing up and disagreements were a natural part of that. Twice lately she’d mentioned her father, and both times Brijette had supplied the story that he’d left them because he’d been afraid to try to raise a child. That particular lie made her stomach lurch every time. She hated lying like this to her daughter but it was a necessity, to protect her, to protect both of them. Lately, however, it felt like a merry-go-round that was spinning so fast they couldn’t jump off.

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