Page 11 of First Love, Second Draft

But between Buck’s continued weakening state, worsening COPD, and ongoing dialysis sessions three days a week, Mom and Aunt Gracie’s choices had been limited when it came to finding him a place that could provide him with the level of care he needed without taking him too far from home.

So Haviland-Harrison Hospital it was. The building wasn’t much to look at, but the hospital had been plugging away for more than a century on the outskirts of Alda, providing healthcare to all the surrounding communities in their rural area.

Not exactly the homiest of places for Buck to spend his final days. But it was the best option they had. The only option they had.

Sort of like when Matt called Noah the other day.

So maybe that wasn’t the smartest move, going behind Aunt Gracie’s back like that, offering her rental to Noah. But somebody had to dosomething. And not just in regard to helping Aunt Gracie get back on her feet. Something about Gracie and Noah’s crumbled marriage. Matt wasn’t sure what had happened between them, but he’d never stopped believing that they belonged together.

The way Matt saw it, there were only two ways this forced reunion of theirs could end—a passionate reconciliation that led to the renewal of their vows... or a double homicide.

Matt prayed for reconciliation.

Matt slipped into his grandpa’s room, stepping past his grandpa’s roommate, Shorty, with a wave before he caught himself. “Sorry,” he said, then wanted to smack himself. Shorty was blind. He felt doubly stupid for waving, then apologizing.

Shorty grinned and waved back—somehow aware Matt did this every time he visited—before adjusting his radio, which was always on sports, whether it be high school, college, or professional. This evening it sounded like the local high school football game.

“You don’t need to turn it down,” Matt said.

Shorty shrugged and offered his typical response. “Nothing too exciting happening right now anyway.” Shorty sat on the side of the bed with his hands clasped in his lap, dressed in a pair of clean but worn blue jeans, the left pant leg rolled up to accommodate his below-the-knee amputation. The blue-and-gray plaid button-up shirt looked big on his slender frame.

“Matt, that you?” Buck’s groggy voice carried past the plastic curtain separating the two beds. He must’ve just woken up from a nap. “You’re just in time to finish my sponge bath.”

Shorty shook his head. “You need some new jokes, old man.”

“Who you calling old, Shorty?”

“Who you calling short, Oldie?”

“Break it up, you two,” Matt said, pointing a finger at each ofthem as he pushed back the curtain all the way to the wall, “before I call Nurse Ratched in here.”

Both men pretended to shiver. “No need to get all nasty,” Shorty murmured.

“The only nurse I know who gives a sponge bath without wetting the sponge,” Buck said with another dramatic shiver.

The old-school nurse who never came to work without her white-skirted uniform, white hose, and white shoes was one of their favorite topics of conversation. Mostly because each of them knew beneath all that starch and antiseptic, the woman had a heart of gold. Maybe. Matt hadn’t actually witnessed it yet.

“Hello, boys.” And here she stood now. Both his grandpa and Shorty turned rigid. Matt straightened like a soldier at attention.

“Matthew,” her cold voice sliced through the room.

“Nurse Ratch—uh...Wanda. Nurse Wanda. Just Wanda. Not Nurse Wanda. I don’t know why I said Nurse Wanda even though you are a nurse so why not say Nurse Wanda?”

“Nobody calls me Nurse Wanda.”

“And neither will I.”

Wearing her white uniform that fell beneath her knees and shoes that squeaked with each step, Wanda clutched her ever-present clipboard against her chest and glared through her narrow spectacles. “I trust you boys are all behaving yourselves.”

“Yes, ma’am,” all three replied in unison.

“Shorty, did you remember to drink your prune juice this evening? We all know what happens when you forget to drink your prune juice.”

Shorty fumbled with the tray next to his bed and rattled an empty juice can back and forth. “All of it.”

Wanda nodded once. The scent of rubbing alcohol wafted off her as she stepped past Matt. He wondered if she dabbed it behind her ears like perfume every morning.

“And you, Buck?”

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