“Everybody knows reindeer talk,” Greta said, assuring her.
“Mark didn’t know,” Emily said.
I laughed out loud.
“Did you know they fly, Mark?” Greta asked.
“Of course! I pass them all the time in the air.” Emily smiled the faintest of smiles and slid closer to Mark’s side and I swear I saw him melt a little.
FIVE
You can’t help everybody, but you can help a few. It’s that few that God will hold us accountable for.
—Bob Pierce
Nathan Andrews was awake long before five-thirty, the time his alarm clock was set to ring. In the last six weeks Meghan snored whenever she slept on her back and he’d been awake for forty-five minutes hoping he’d fall back to sleep. He turned off the clock before it rang and stepped inside the shower. He wasn’t supposed to work that day but Dr. Wanschu had phoned last evening and asked if Nathan would cover his patients today because he’d gotten a virus and was vomiting. Nathan dressed and leaned over to kiss Meghan before leaving. She snored more loudly and rolled onto her side, when the snoring stopped. “Great timing,” Nathan said, closing the bedroom door.
Nathan drove to the hospital and took the elevator to the fourth floor, the pediatric cardiology unit. The nurses behind the desk smiled at him. “What are you doing here?” one of them asked.
“Dr. Wanschu thought he’d spend the day vomiting.”
One of the nurses cringed and then they began to talk amongst themselves. “You know, something’s going around. My daughter was vomiting three days ago and yesterday my husband started. I hope I don’t get it.”
“Dr. Lindall was sick yesterday, too,” the second nurse said. “Better wash your hands a lot. Dr. Andrews, you better wash your hands more often today,” she yelled toward Nathan. He smiled and agreed.
Nathan opened his office door and put his keys in his coat pocket. He felt something inside it and pulled out the gift Meghan had found and shook his head. He put it back into his pocket so it would be out of sight and out of mind before looking through the files of Dr. Wanschu’s patients. He sat down and took a long drink of coffee but couldn’t stop thinking about the gift. He sighed and pulled it out of his coat pocket, wishing Meghan had never found it, because she was right: it was making him feel guilty. He picked up the phone and dialed long distance. “Hi, this is Nathan Andrews,” he said. “Is Dr. Lee available?” He listened to Muzak for several minutes before he heard the phone click.
“Nathan?” It was Rory. Dr. Rory Lee was the attending physician in the emergency room when Nathan had done his rotation during his third year of med school.
“How are you, Doc?” Nathan said.
“I’m great. I’m a dad again!”
“Congratulations! Another girl?”
“A boy this time. Ben. What are you up to?”
“Well, I’m about to become a father myself.”
His old friend asked all the right questions. How is Meghan feeling? Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl? Do you have any names?Yes, it does change your life, but for the better.
“What’s going on?” Rory asked. “Do you need help with something?”
“I have a strange question,” Nathan said. “Is there any way to find out what a patient had as part of their personal items? A patient from four or five years ago?”
“A patient in the ER?”
“Yes. Does anybody keep records of what a patient brings in? Do they write the items down and include that in the patient’s file or do they just bag the items and label it with the patient’s name to make things simple at discharge?”
Rory sighed. “That’s hit or miss. It’s rare but there are those occasions when a nurse will actually write down the items but it just depends on the nurse and it depends on the day and how busy we are. What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know, really. I have something and I’m wondering who it belonged to.”
“You don’t know who it belongs to?”
“No.”
“You’re just hoping you’ll be able to wander through files and see the item written down as part of a patient’s personal effects?”
“Yes.”
Nathan could hear him sigh. “That’d be like finding a needle in a haystack. If you didn’t know the patient’s name then you’d be out of luck.”
“That’s what I thought,” Nathan said.
“What is it you have anyway?”
Nathan looked at the gift in his hand. “I have no idea. It’s still wrapped.”
“Then unwrap it and give it to charity. At least that way you won’t feel guilty.”