Page 15 of Plentywood
I stood and stared at the beautiful man in the tiny picture. Mark had been my everything. I breathed him in as my source of all that I needed to survive. Shit like this wasn’t supposed to happen. Why did it? There’d been no warning concerning Mark’s heart condition. In fact, he’d had a physical a month prior and nothing indicated he wasn’t the picture of perfect health.
“You weren’t fair, baby,” I whispered. “You promised me we’d grow old together, remember?”
Where were the fucking hummingbirds, for Christ’s sake? I needed a goddamned sign. I glanced around the neighboring marble monuments for any signs of the tiny bird. Fuck all was what I saw. As I stood over the eternal sleeping space of my beloved, I almost wished I could crawl in with him. One last embrace for an eternity.
“I love you. I hate you sometimes, but I love you.”
A wave of grief hit me so hard that I damn near buckled at the knees. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to scream and howl so the world could feel my agony right along with me. Life is not fair, and I doubted I’d be able to believe it was ever again.
I stepped through the rusty old gate as I exited the cemetery, toward the SUV the city gave me for being the Sheriff. Taking one last look across the field of the dead, searching for the birds with the tiniest hearts, I pulled myself into my vehicle.
I didn’t cry, but I could build one hell of a wall of water that was hard to see through. Jill was right. Coming here today had been a mistake. Being near Mark on this particular day only made my life seem worse. I leaned forward and rested my chin on the steering wheel, about to scream until my lungs flew out of my mouth. That dam of water in my eyes was at the breaking point, threatening to release two years of hurt, but I wouldn’t go there. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
But then I saw something spinning on the other side of the chain-link fence that outlined the small cemetery. Blinking to clear my eyes, to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing, I focused on the shiny stick in the ground and what was whirling at its top.
A plastic hummingbird, impaled by a metal stick, spun around, dancing in the sunlight.
CHAPTER TEN: Benedict
Ihated to admit that I felt accomplished at the end of the day. After years of training and accompanying those who were already attending physicians, I was finally an attending physician myself. The difference now was that people looked only to me for their health advice and my plan was the final and accepted opinion. They wanted me to make the decisions regarding their wellbeing, and I liked the responsibility of doing that.
Being the only doctor in a small town was different than most doctor’s paths, but my decision hadtechnicallybeen made for me. I’d made the promise and was now forced to deliver on that agreement. Needing a monthly stipend from a large trust fund also forced the issue, but I’d get through a year and then I’d be scot-free to do whatever I wanted with a fat new salary.
I can’t tell you how many times I’d heard speeches about underserved markets, rural areas, and the dire need for doctors in those places. But truthfully, Bumfuck, USA, was not on my list of places to practice medicine at. After my prison term here in Plentywood, the single stupidest name for a town, I’d be back in New York or Los Angeles, so I could get back to my people.
There was one good thing about practicing for a year here, and that would be the cross-section of patients: all ages, all illnesses. There would be many opportunities to put intopractice what years of training had taught me. From colds and flu to broken limbs and heart disease. I’d see and treat them all.
As much as I hated to admit it, the nurse at the clinic was talented. Was she crass? Was she tactless? Did she talk like a trucker? Was she as old as the building? Yes, she was all those things, but she knew her stuff and was as efficient a nurse as I had ever encountered.
Agnes Brewster. The name fit. According to her, she wasn’t used to asking permission. Her attitude was that it was better to ask for forgiveness later than to ask permission upfront.
“Women weren’t allowed to be doctors back in my day, or I would’ve been,”she’d defended.“Basically, I’m one already.”
“You’ll still need to seek my advice, Agnes,”I’d reminded her.
She shook her head and glared at me.“I’ve trained more doctors than you graduated with, punk. You all come in here with your fancy pedigrees and then watch me dance circles around your stiff asses.”
She wasn’t wrong. Experiencewasher degree. An amazing thing about her, that I had zero plans of admitting to her, was that she was clearly up on current treatments. I noticed during her lunch break, which she informed me she was inflexible about and would be taken exactly at the same time every day, that she studied the medical journals that came in the mail monthly.
Serving alongside her was like having an additional doctor in the practice. After my speech about prescriptions, she began to dump her patient files on my desk for review. Each file was meticulous in its notes, and if prescriptions were needed, she held the paper under my nose while I made the decision. Was she bitchy about it? Of course she was.
“You ain’t half bad, pipsqueak,” she said, hanging her smock on a hook at the end of the day. “I didn’t have high hopes for a pretty boy like you, but I ain’t stubborn. You’re actually decent.”
“And you’re efficient, Agnes.”
She placed her hands on her hips and glared in my direction. “Efficient?” she asked. “Who the fuck uses words like that? How old are you, son?”
“Asking a fellow employee their age is unprofessional,” I stated, turning back to the file I was reviewing for my end-of-day notes. “And swearing is unprofessional as well.”
“That is unprofessional,”she snarked, apparently trying to imitate me.
“I would never ask you your age, Nurse Agnes.”
“I’m seventy-four!” she declared. “Should’ve retired years ago, but then what would I fucking do? I outlived my old man and my one daughter is a drunk. Her kid, my grandson, I practically raised him. I hate most people and only suffer through interaction with folks to be courteous,” she explained, pretty much giving me a life update and history lesson in one shot.
“You call what you do being courteous?” I asked, closing the file and returning her glare. “I’d hate to see you being unpleasant.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You wouldn’t want to see that.”
