Page 14 of Between Our Hearts

Though his bare chest and fingers felt numb, he turned on his miter saw and started cutting slivers of reclaimed wood into exact angles. Knowing that in a few hours, when this piece would be complete, he’d find Sadie already asleep in their bed.

?Chapter 7?

Sadie knelt in the damp grass surrounding the dark hardwood mulch, dewdrops and dirt marring her black slacks. The last two times she’d done this, she had found some solace in the action, but this time, only a crushing sensation pushed at her spine.

After replacing the mulch around the yellow gerbera daisy, she gathered her trowel and the plastic pot. Deborah would drive by sometime later this morning when the park officially opened and find this third flower. Sadie stood, unable to tear her gaze away from the yellow-white-yellow trio planted in the ground. Only the beeping of a horn as someone locked their car in the parking lot jolted her from her rumination.

A heavy sigh left Sadie’s lips. She needed to leave now to make her first appointment on time. Maybe staring at the grey X-ray images of her patient’s bones would help distract her from the insidious blackness overtaking her heart.

Thirty minutes later, Sadie’s nurse aide, Klara, handed her a tablet displaying her first patient’s X-rays. “Thirty-five-year-old female fractured third through fifth lesser metatarsals. Dr. Harvill wanted to be sure that she didn’t need a pin in LM4. DOI was two days ago. Patient states she tripped in the yard chasing her toddler.”

Her eyes flicked over the images on the screen, easily identifying each break. Three clean, simple fractures stared back at her. Her patient didn’t need surgical intervention, but apparently Dr. Harvill was feeling nervous about his diagnosis. Sadie’s brow twinged with irritation. “I’m assuming she’s been booted since then.”

“Yes, doctor.”

She knocked twice before pushing the exam room door open, leaving Klara on the other side. “Good morning, Johanna. My name is Dr. Carmichael—” She glanced up from flipping through the electronic chart, and the rest of her typical introduction died in her open mouth.

Klara had forgotten to mention that her patient was roughly thirty-nine weeks pregnant. Even though Sadie knew that particular bit of her patient’s history was irrelevant to her foot fracture, the sight of the taut fabric of her patient’s maroon maternity shirt stretched over her rotund belly snapped the breath from Sadie’s lungs.

She forced her eyes back to the tablet as the splintering pain started in her chest and then thickly swept through each of her bones. Her entire body struggled to keep her suddenly heavy frame standing. Even her fingers ached.

Turning her back to her patient, she flicked on the faucet at the small stainless-steel sink. While washing her hands, she forced herself to swallow over the lump in her throat and continue. “I see you broke your foot. Can you tell me how it happened?”

Her patient let out a large sigh. “I was in the front yard with my two-year-old, Graham, and the trash truck came by. He got so excited and raced toward it, and I was afraid he’d run into the road, so I sprinted as best I could to get to him. He stopped on the sidewalk, thankfully, but not before my foot got caught in a divot between the grass and the concrete.”

Sadie nodded to the upper cabinets above the sink as she took her time drying her hands with crisp paper towels. “And how have you been managing your pain since then?”

“Just Tylenol and ibuprofen.”

She straightened her strong shoulders and faced her patient with an empathetic expression. Unfortunately, any other patient would have been given some variety of narcotics, but Johanna’s pregnancy precluded her from that. “I’d like to remove the boot so I can examine your foot. Normally, I’d ask you to get on the exam table, but if you’re comfortable in that chair, we can do it there.”

Johanna’s lips twisted in a regretful grin. “You’ll have to do most of it. I can’t really reach my feet right now.”

“I understand. That’s not a problem.” Sadie perched on the hard dark blue chair next to Johanna and reached for the Velcro fasteners of the orthopedic device, focusing solely on her patient’s foot. “You’ve been wearing this the whole time since the break? Even at night?”

The ripping of tiny plastic teeth sounded over the whooshing of the air conditioner.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

When she leaned to get the fasteners over the top of her patient’s foot, she brushed up against Johanna’s belly. A hot spike of unwelcome envy stabbed her in the ribs as a halting breath left her nose. She should have moved the chair to sit across from her patient, not beside her.

“I’m sorry if it smells,” Johanna said timidly.

“It’s not—” She stopped as a tiny foot pressed through the woman’s strained skin into Sadie’s side.

“Xavier!” Johanna playfully scolded her belly. “Don’t kick the doctor.”

Her patient chuckled lightly until Sadie sat straight up, completely abandoning her task while brushing the hot tears that had escaped from her eyes off her nose.

“I’m sorry,” Sadie squeaked.

A flush ran over Sadie’s cheeks and down the part of her neck that was exposed through the one open button of her black dress shirt. She’d thought she’d gotten through most of the tears this morning in the shower, but here she was losing it in front of a stranger.

The impulse to run was fierce, but Johanna’s hand was on her back in an instant, rubbing smooth reassuring circles. “It’s okay.”

The dynamic shift was so stark that her right temple pulsed with pain.Shewas supposed to be helping this woman, not the other way around. Here she was supposed to be a professional, not the fragile woman who was barely making it through her days. Sadie made another sloppy attempt to clear the liquid that kept streaming from the corner of her eyes, blatantly disregarding her internal commands for it to cease. Johanna added soft shushing sounds to the gentle pressure of her hand.

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