the way Erin said her name. But she asked anyway. She wanted to be wrong. “What happened?”
“It’s Grandma.”
Oh, shit.
“She’s much worse. We took her to the emergency room this morning because she was…” Erin’s voice wavered before she regained control of it. “She was having a lot of trouble breathing. They admitted her. She’s on oxygen, but she’s getting all weirdly intense about making sure everyone knows about her DNR wishes.”
“I’m going to get there as soon as I can.”
“Now?”
This was the downside of the single-physician practice. She had been high lately on the feeling that she personally was making a difference in the lives of people in this town, that she had built something from nothing.
But it also meant that she personally was responsible for her patients. There was no getting someone to cover her shifts.
“As soon as I can.” She had patients in the waiting room. She probably had one in each of her two exam rooms, too. Maybe if she just got through today, she could have Amber call everyone on the schedule for tomorrow and shuffle things around so the people who couldn’t wait came first thing, and then she could be on the road before lunch?
“Nora. Come as soon as you can. Please.”
After assuring Erin she would, she rose and walked out of her office feeling like she was floating outside her body.
Eiko was waiting in the corridor. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing. I—”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Dr. Hon, but I once broke a story about the previous town council conspiring to siphon funds from the lighthouse rehabilitation fund. You can’t fool me.”
“My grandma’s in the hospital. It looks like this is it.”
“Oh no. I’m sorry.”
Nora was about to brush off Eiko’s words. Well meant as they were, she didn’t want them. But Eiko was on to other things. She rapped sharply on the door of Exam Room Two. “Amber, can you step out for a minute?”
“What’s up?”
“Nora’s grandma is in the hospital in Toronto, and Nora needs to leave.”
“Yes, if we can get through the rest of the day,” Nora said, noting with amazement how calm her voice sounded, “I was thinking we could—”
“No. You go now.”
“I can’t just leave!” So much for calm. “There are patients here! We have a full schedule tomorrow.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Eiko said. “Go home, pack some stuff up, and hit the road.”
“What do you mean you’ll take care of it? You can’t—”
“We can,” Amber said with the quiet sureness that made her such a good nurse. “We’ll call everyone who’s on the books for the rest of today and tomorrow and either reschedule them for after the holidays or, if it’s urgent, send them to the walk-in clinic in Grand View. I can be here tomorrow in case there’s anyone we can’t reach. I obviously can’t see them, but I can triage and either rebook them for January or send them elsewhere. And I can do that right now with the people in the waiting room.”
“Are you sure?”
“Dr. Hon.” Eiko emerged from Nora’s office holding Nora’s coat and bag. “We lived without you before. It wasn’t pleasant, mind you, and we all like it a lot better with you here, but we can do it again. So just go see your grandma.”
Her things were shoved unceremoniously into her arms.
“Okay,” Nora said weakly. “Thank you.”
“I’ll call your sister back and let her know you’re leaving shortly,” Eiko said.
“Thanks,” Nora said again.
“And if there’s anything else we can do, you let us know.”
“Could you let Jake know what’s happened and ask him to keep Mick?” It was a stupid request. Jake was already keeping Mick. Mick was, at this point, more Jake’s dog than Nora’s, if you went by how much time he spent with each of them. Or the way he trotted along obediently after Mr. Dog Whisperer.
But she…just wanted Jake to know what had happened. It felt important that he know.
Chapter Seventeen
The day after Christmas, Jake bought a cell phone.
Because he had lost his mind.
“Are you going to tell Sawyer about this?” he asked Clara, who was sitting next to him in the shuttered clinic using her phone to order him a phone.
Honestly, the modern world made his head hurt sometimes.
She shot him a quizzical look. “Would you prefer I didn’t?”
He wasn’t sure how to play this. Was she teasing him? He decided to just be honest. “Yes. I would prefer you didn’t.”
“So you’re just going to have a secret phone that no one knows about?”