Alison Strobel - The Heart of Memory

He chuckled. “You’d have expected him to come to the job interview with a ski mask?”

She gave a mirthless chuckle and lay back down. “That just breaks my heart.”

“I know; that’s why I haven’t said anything yet. I knew you’d take it hard. I didn’t want to worry you with things you couldn’t fix.”

“So now what?”

“Well, I think it’s clear we need to replace him.”

“What? No – we need to confront him, Shaun. What good are we doing for him if we don’t call him on it and do what we can to help him? Who knows what his motivation is. For all we know he’s got some awful financial trouble and doesn’t know what else to do. Taking away his income might make him even more desperate. I just can’t believe he’s doing it to be malicious.”

“Sweetheart, I know you like to assign positive intent to everyone, and overall that’s a good policy. But when we have proof that someone has been blatantly stealing from the ministry, I don’t think trying to make excuses for that behavior is helpful to anyone.”

She frowned, sitting up again. “I’m not making excuses, Shaun. I’m not saying it’s alright that he’s stealing. I’m saying we don’t know what is going on behind the scenes, and we need to consider the possibility that our brother in Christ-” her brows arched “ – is just in dire need of help. How can we, in good conscience, just send him on his way to steal from someone else and not even try to get to the bottom of things?”

Shaun mentally kicked himself for opening his mouth. After twenty-two years he knew how her mind and heart worked. How would he get himself out of this mess? “I’m just trying to help us avoid a scandal, Van. If anyone got wind of the fact that we knew about this and didn’t deal with it-”

“Oh, for pete’s sake, Shaun, are you listening to me at all?” Savannah pushed herself from the couch, glaring at him as she swayed on her feet. “We should deal with it, of course we should. But dealing with it doesn’t have to be-” She reached out a hand to the back of the couch, grasping it tightly as her other hand flew to her chest. “Oh…”

Shaun, frozen in shock, watched as Savannah seemed to fall in slow motion, her legs folding beneath her and her body settling in a heap on the floor.

SAVANNAH HADN’T BEEN TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM SINCE HER last miscarriage. She welcomed the distraction of a new environment, letting herself stare unapologetically at the nurses and doctors as they walked or ran past her room. It kept her mind off her own troubles – like how much harder it was to breathe, and how much more her chest ached.

Shaun looked about as awful as she felt. He sat beside her bed in a plastic chair, shoulders hunched and features etched with worry. She’d never forget the look on his face when she’d regained consciousness – it still hadn’t faded entirely. The intake nurse had asked him twice if he was alright.

The time passed slowly. The ER didn’t seem full, but apparently it was still busy. She had nothing to compare it to, other than the rare episode of hospital dramas she’d seen on TV, and who knew how accurate those were. Regardless, it took half an hour for a doctor to finally come to Savannah’s bed and pick up the chart; when she did Savannah’s nerves kicked up a notch for fear of what she might say. Shaun straightened in the chair and they reached simultaneously for each other’s hands.

“Hi there, Mrs. Trover. I’m Dr. Rockwell.” She pulled over a stool, lips pursed, and looked over Savannah’s chart. “Weakness and fatigue for two weeks?”

“Yes.”

“And the fainting spell this evening.”

“Yes, that’s never happened before.”

Dr. Rockwell pulled her stethoscope from her neck and settled it into place. “You told the nurse your chest ached. For how long?”

“I don’t know – three or four days, maybe? But not as badly as it does now.”

“Have you had shortness of breath, vomiting, diarrhea?”

Savannah blinked at the rapid-fire questions. “Um – short of breath, yes. It used to be just when I’d go up the stairs, but it’s a lot harder to breathe now than it was before I fainted.”

Dr. Rockwell moved the chest piece to a new place, eyes trained somewhere above Savannah’s head as she listened. “Have you ever had a stress test, heart catheterization, echocardiogram?”

“No, never – I’m usually very healthy.”

“Do you have high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, or do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been told you have a weak heart?”

The questions were becoming unnerving. “No. No to all of it. Like I said, I’m usually really healthy. Although…” She rubbed a hand to her chest. Talking so much was making it hurt more. “My doctor told me today to get an echo done. I was going to make the appointment tomorrow.”

The doctor helped Savannah sit up, then pushed her hair behind her ears and settled the chest piece between Savannah’s shoulder blades. “Deep breath in, please.”

It was more difficult than she expected it to be. She bit her lip, trying not to jump to any conclusions.

“Your doctor didn’t hear anything amiss in your lungs?”

“Rales – he said he heard rales.”

“Did you get a chest X-ray?”

“Yes, at the imaging center in his medical building. He said he saw fluid in my lungs and told me to get an echo done because my heart didn’t look right.”

Dr. Rockwell removed the stethoscope and laid it around her neck. “That’s consistent with what I’m hearing. I’m sending you up for an X- ray, we’re going to check your lungs again, and your heart.”

Shaun’s hand tightened on hers. “Any idea what it might be?” His voice sounded strained.

“I don’t want to say anything until I’ve had a chance to look at the X-rays.” She pulled back the sheets and continued her examination. After a moment she pressed on Savannah’s ankles. “Do you get swelling very often?”

Savannah pushed herself up on her elbows and gasped. Her ankles had swollen considerably. “No,” she said, her voice small. “Never.”

The doctor gave them a sympathetic look as she draped the sheets back over Savannah’s legs. “Don’t worry; we’ll figure this out. But first things first. I’ll order that X-ray, and someone will be with you in a bit to take you up to radiology. As soon as I get a chance to look at the results I’ll come back here and tell you what we’ve found.”

She made some notes on the chart, then left them staring at each other.

“ ‘What we’ve found’ – she didn’t tack on an ‘if anything.’ “ Savannah lay back again.

“Noises in the lungs – that could just be pneumonia. Walking pneumonia, maybe.”

“That’s pretty common, though. Dr. Helms would have picked that up. And my ankles… what on earth would cause that?”

They both fell silent, staring once again at the activity outside their little room. Savannah tried not to let her imagination run wild, but it was an exercise in futility. She thanked the nurse with more gusto than necessary when they were finally taken up to radiology; she was grateful for the change of scenery and another new experience to keep her mind occupied.

By the time they got back down to the ER-and placed in a curtain-walled cubicle room, which did nothing to calm her anxiety since now the noises and drama of the place were more easily heard- Shaun was looking almost worse than Savannah felt. “Honey, you need to get something to eat, or… something. Coffee-go get yourself some coffee. It’s past ten o’clock; who knows how much longer we’re going to be here.”

“I don’t want to leave in case the doctor comes back.”