Page 61 of Plentywood
Julia relaxed, so I removed my hand from her shoulder and smiled. Agnes let go of her hand and stood beside me. The words of my mentors ran through my head.Treat them as real people. Try to empathize without being too clinical in your approach.
“I truly respected my mother’s decision to fight her disease,” I acknowledged. “Truthfully, I needed to know she would. I felt that if she told me what was going on, maybe I had some control. I didn’treallyhave any control, but it felt like I did. Just the knowing part,” I added.
“My mom told me too,” Julia said. “She’d gone through it with her mom. Mom only met one of her grandkids, Gretchen, before she passed. She was happy I named Gretchen after Gramma.”
“I’m sorry about your mother and your grandmother. I truly am. And I also think it best that you find out as early as possible,” I stated. “I’d like to go with you to your appointment.”
“But Paul and I don’t have any money,” she replied. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll personally cover your medical expenses,” I said, reaching for and holding her hands. “Remember how scared you were with your own mother?” She nodded through her tears. “Let’s give your children the same security we had.”
“But my mom died.”
“And so did mine,” I stated. “But not all women die of breast cancer. Not to mention they’ve made great strides in early detection and treatment.”
“You’ll really go with me?”
“I really will,” I confirmed. Julia nodded she would go for a second opinion and a biopsy. “Nurse Agnes will finish your annual and then I’ll speak with her about the next step.”
I left the room, leaning against the wall on the outside of it. I thought about how helpless I’d felt concerning my mother and the fear I’d lived with. I went to my desk, and after several minutes, Agnes came out and walked Julia to the exit to the waiting room. They chatted quietly, and then the patient left.
Agnes faced the door for several seconds before she turned back to me, her eyes wet. We stared at each other for what seemed like an hour before she walked to my desk. Again, we simply looked at one another before she finally spoke.
She pointed toward the exam room we’d both just come out of. “What you just did in there, Doctor” she started, shaking her head back and forth. “For that girl.” She paused to keep her self-control. “Youcannotleave here,” she said. I opened my mouth to speak. “No! I mean it, Ben. You can’t.”
Agnes had never called me Ben.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: Hunter
Neither one of us said much as we made our way out of town. I ran into Ben at Jill’s Diner yesterday, and we’d agreed to ride together to Jay and Jennie’s who lived in Culbertson. I’d picked Ben up at the clinic ten minutes prior because he wasn’t keen on driving his truck much after the flat tire.
“Jennie’s having a boy,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “They don’t want to know the gender until the baby arrives.”
I laughed out loud, relaxing a bit. “And you told me?” I asked. “That was trusting.”
“You’re the Sheriff. You’ll keep the secret.” I didn’t respond to his certainty, but he was correct. I was an excellent keeper of secrets. We drove out of the city limits and past my house on the highway. “Bella okay at home?” he asked, noticing my place on the left as we zipped by.
I liked how he remembered Bella’s name. Animal lovers were good partners. So I’d been told by who knows who. Actually, it was Mark who’d told me that. “She’s used to me being gone a lot. Doggy door,” I added, hoping he knew what a doggy door was.
“Good idea,” he agreed, nervously folding and unfolding his hands in his lap. “Are you supposed to use this sheriff’s truck for personal events?” he asked, turning to face me and pivoting our conversation from pets to business. “Or is this your only car?”
I was tempted to correct him on two items. One. This wasn’t a sheriff’s truck. It was a Chevy Tahoe, converted for law enforcement use. It wasn’t a car either, was number two. But my brain knew better than to seem petty. I’d been married to a man similar to him. He hadn’t liked being corrected on bullshit things. And once again, I assumed Ben was the same.
“I have aJeepas well. But I save money by using my county vehicle instead,” I answered, glancing at the fuel gauge. “Shoot! Speaking of,” I said. “We’re nearly out of gas.”
“You can do that?”
“I can,” I fibbed. “Well, as long as I haveofficialbusiness,” I added, emphasizing the word official.
“So this date is an official act of business?” he asked, surprising me by referring to this as a date. “You’re telling me that the county is paying for us to drive to an attempted set-up?”
I turned toward him before checking the road again. “You knew?” I asked, checking on oncoming traffic again. As usual, there wasn’t any. It was Friday at seven PM. If you weren’t at Smitty’s or home. You were a tourist. And we didn’t get tourists.
“I saw Jennie earlier in the week. The baby thing,” he said, catching me up. I wondered if she’d told him about her vision. “She enlightened me about the fact that your husband came to her with a request. Some sort of vision.”
Oh shit! Heknew.“She actually told you?” He nodded. “And you still agreed to go over there? With me?”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Do you seriously think I wouldn’t heed the advice of a clairvoyant?”
