Kitabı oku: «Firefighter With A Frozen Heart», sayfa 3

CHAPTER THREE

“IS EVERYBODY out?” Will Brassard shouted across the ruckus of firefighters struggling to get through the line of bystanders watching the flames shooting out the kitchen roof. Set against the backdrop of the black night, the orange glow was an astounding work of art, mesmerizing its watchers, stalling them in place, causing congestion in the area. Also, the hundred or so patrons evacuated from the restaurant, combined with the two hundred guests at the lodge hotel and various guest cabins who were leaving by a sundry of exits, were causing quite a commotion, some in shock, some confused, some simply looking for a safe place to go. Consequently, by the time the Lilly Lake volunteer firefighters had arrived and readied their equipment to face down the fire, about a third of the population of Lilly Lake was either there, or on their way to watch the show.

“Not yet!” one of the volunteers practically screamed at the top of her lungs. “I think we’ve got three more people still in the kitchen, doing God only knows what. Manager of the lodge says they’re trying to account for everybody registered right now, and they’ll let us know in a minute if we’ve got to worry about that.”

“Like we have a minute,” Jess snorted. He was suited up and heading in through the cluster of people. Not thrilled, though, to be called to paramedic duty. Of course, Will probably thought he was a natural, maybe even assumed that’s what he did in the city. But it wasn’t. He shunned medicine now. Yet here he was, carting medical equipment through a crush of gawkers, getting ready to do something he didn’t want to do. Except there was no way he could turn his back on these people. No way to tell Will he wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t in him. Wasn’t like him to turn his back. Probably one of the few good character traits in him, thanks to Aunt Grace. “So, where are the injuries? And do we know what we have so far?”

“We’ve got them in a couple of places. The less serious injuries are out back in the caretaker’s cottage,” Will shouted. “We have a couple of more serious ones going to the third guest cabin down from the pool. Decided to put them there because transport out will be easier, and we’re clearing the parking lot and road in right now for the ambulances. Got five coming in, by the way. The one from here has an ETA of less than five minutes, and the other four coming in from Jasper and Hutchings are still twenty to thirty minutes out. And, Jess … one of my men just radioed, and we’ve got what looks to be a bad injury on the way down. Burns, maybe something else cardiac. They couldn’t tell, but he’s going in and out of consciousness.”

“Okay.” Jess took a harder grip on the medical kit Will had thrust at him once he’d climbed out of Will’s SUV. Serious injuries, one ambulance in town and the possibility of a long response time. “What about a helicopter, if we need it?”

“We can get one, but time out on that’s going to be forty-five minutes, if we’re lucky.” Will was running hard to keep pace with Jess. “Give me the word, and I’ll get it ordered.”

“So that’s all we’ve got in the way of transportation?” It wasn’t good enough and, frankly, he was surprised he hadn’t known the status. But what did he know about anything concerning the medical or emergency needs in Lilly Lake?

“Well, we can get them into the hospital here pretty fast, but until the expansion on the emergency department begins, they’re limited in what they can do.”

Which frustrated the hell out of Jess. He wanted, no, he’d always demanded immediate response and the best facilities, yet he owned a hospital that wasn’t yet ready to offer what he would demand … if he still practiced as a doctor. He needed to talk to Rafe about it, see what they could do to fix it, in a hurry. Back away from his plans to not get involved and get involved in this one thing. “But the hospital’s ready to receive, what? The less serious injuries?”

“It’s ready to receive whatever we send them. They’re a good bunch there, and they’ll do whatever they can to get those we can’t keep out to facilities that can handle them. So, don’t worry about that end of it. It’ll work.” The voice answering wasn’t that of Will, though. It was Julie, and she was following on Jess’s heels, running just as hard toward the guest cabin as he was.

“What are you doing here?” he shouted at her.

“Came to help. Like I said, I’ve got everything well covered at the hospital, got staff that came back in the minute they heard about the fire, so Rick … Dr. Navarro … asked me to come out to the field and coordinate efforts here. They do that in Lilly Lake, send hospital personnel out when there’s a need.”

A klatsch of women too busy watching to notice the rescue operation in progress swarmed over the path leading to the guest cottages, essentially swallowing up the passageway. Jess swerved to avoid them, but Julie pushed her way right through. “Look, ladies, you’re going to have to move back,” she said, stopping for a moment. “All the way to the other side of the building.”

“Anything we can do?” one of the women asked.

“As a matter of fact …” Julie motioned them closer to her. “We’ve got a lot of personnel coming through here now, with more on the way. Maybe you ladies could keep the area clear for me, make sure people stay back, sort of take control of the pedestrian traffic flow.”

Jess smiled, hearing the words. She was, essentially, turning part of the problem into the solution. Smart gal. Natural leader. He admired that.

“I didn’t know you were so resourceful,” he said, once she caught back up to him.

“I was living on the street when Grace took me in. You get to be very resourceful when you don’t have a roof over your head or a meal in your belly.”

Apparently, there were a lot of things about Julie he didn’t know. “I guess I never knew that either.” What, exactly, had he known about her back then, other than she’d attracted him like crazy? He thought about it for a moment, and came up with nothing.

“Nobody knew. I didn’t want anybody’s pity, and Grace was respectful that way, not telling anyone.”

That, she had been. And he missed her more and more each day. “She was,” he agreed, still fixed on the image of Julie being homeless. He’d been young, but how could he have not known?

Arriving at the guest cabin where the more serious of injuries were being brought, Jess was first in the door. Greeted by several volunteers, townspeople who all stepped away when he strode in, he looked first at the log rail bed in the corner of the room where a middle-aged man was being attended by a woman still clad in her black-and-white checkered chef pants and a white jacket. She was putting cold compresses on his head, and a second appraisal showed he was the only patient in there, so far. Meaning the bad one was still en route.

“Okay, I’m Jess Corbett,” he said above the murmur of the bystanders. “Doctor … er, firefighter. So, what do we have here?”

“Chest pains,” the woman said. “Shortness of breath. And he’s looking a little … pale. His name is Frank Thomas, he’s our head chef.”

Jess was immediately at the bedside, taking the man’s pulse. Rapid, thready. He was diaphoretic … sweating. Shortness of breath becoming pronounced.

“What do you need?” Julie asked, peering over Jess’s shoulder.

“Get his blood pressure, get him on oxygen, then get an IV, normal saline, ready.” He looked at Frank. “Frank,” he said, assessing the man’s responsiveness. “Are you allergic to anything?”

“Cats,” Frank managed to whisper.

Jess laughed. “Well, then, I won’t be treating you with any cats today. Any medicine allergies, or reactions you can recall?”

Frank shook his head.

“Good. I want you to take an aspirin for me.” He looked around, saw Julie strapping the blood-pressure cuff to Frank’s arm. “Anybody here got an aspirin?”

With that, three different people produced a variety of types, and Jess chose the low dose, then popped it into the man’s mouth. “Chew it up, Frank, and swallow it.”

The man did, with great difficulty. “Am I going to be okay, Doc?” he forced out.

Doc. It had been a long time since anybody had called him that. Strange how it sounded. Kind of nice, though. “We’re doing our best, Frank. Right now, we’re going to get you stabilized, then send you to the hospital, where they’ll be able to run tests to see exactly what’s going on.” “My wife,” Frank gasped.

“I called her,” Julie said, stepping up with an oxygen mask. “She’s going to meet you in the emergency room.” With that, Julie placed the mask on his face, then whispered to Jess, “It’s low, ninety over sixty.” After which she immediately set about the task of finding a vein in Frank’s arm and inserting an IV catheter. “You’re going to feel a little stick,” she said, as the needle slid in as smooth as melted butter. She glanced over at Frank, saw that he didn’t respond, not even a tiny flinch to being stuck, and she nudged Jess, who was busy hooking EKG leads to Frank’s chest. “I think Frank, here, is on the verge of taking a little nap.”

“Frank!” Jess shouted, giving him a little shake. “Wake up, can you hear me?”

Franks’s eyes fluttered open.

“Do you have any history of heart disease?”

“No,” he sputtered. “Healthy …”

“Ever had chest pains that you can remember?”

This time Frank didn’t respond. Rather, he stared up at the ceiling.

“Come on, Frank,” Julie said, slapping him on the wrist, trying to stimulate him back into paying attention. “Stay with us, okay? We need you to try hard and answer the questions Dr. Corbett is asking you. It’s important.”

Frank nodded, but didn’t look away from the ceiling, and it appeared he was having difficulty even doing that. Jess gave a nod to Julie who, without asking, knew to get the defibrillator ready, just in case. She was impressive, taking his nonverbal cues, setting out drugs that might have to be administered, getting the endotracheal tube and laryngoscope ready. It’s what she did in the normal course of her day, and what Jess used to do, too. But somehow, seeing Julie work the way she did knotted his gut. She was so … good. So confident. She’d gone so far beyond anything she’d ever thought she could be back in the days when she’d wanted him. Good for her, he thought. She did better than anything I could have ever been for her.

“Frank, you’re having a cardiac episode … heart attack,” Jess explained. “Are you on any kind of medication, for any condition?”

The man shook his head, a wobbly, feeble attempt at it, but the effort was more than he was able to endure, and his eyes dropped shut. “Damn,” Jess snapped, immediately scrambling into assessment mode, trying to locate a pulse. Which he did, thankfully. “Weak,” he said. “Respirations getting more shallow, quite a bit more labored, too.” Meaning Frank was winding down. “Julie, could you check his blood pressure again? I have an idea it’s dropped.”

She did, then tried a second time. “Not hearing it,” she said, pumping up the blood-pressure cuff a third time, on this attempt feeling the pressure with her fingertips. “Palp at fifty,” she finally said.

“So when can we get him transported?” The three or four minutes they’d been working on the man seemed like an eternity, and the thing was, in the field there was little or nothing they could do for him unless, God forbid, he crashed. Which was getting perilously close to being the case. But in even the most scantily equipped hospital, which he hoped his hospital was not, there was a world of options and miracles that would save Frank’s life, once they got him through the door.

“Someone, check on transport,” Julie shouted to the three or four people in the cabin who seemed to have no function other than wait. “Go find Will Brassard, the fire chief, and tell him we’ve got a patient we’ve got to get out of here right now!”

“Big voice,” Jess commented, plowing through the kit containing the cardiac meds. He wanted something to kickstart the heart in case it decided to stop, and he found it in the form of a tiny vial of epinephrine. “Don’t remember that on you before.”

“That’s because it’s an acquired talent. I had to work on it. Bad patients in the back of my ambulance need a big voice sometimes. Patients like you were.”

He chuckled. “So you took shouting lessons?”

“Something like that. Part of some assertiveness training Grace had me take.”

“Money well spent,” he said. “You’re about as assertive as anybody I’ve ever known.”

“In a good way?” she asked, taking the vial from Jess and drawing the liquid into a syringe, getting ready to act.

“In a good way.” A very good way.

“They’re ready to take him,” one of the volunteers called from the door. “And they said to tell you they’re bringing in a critical from the kitchen right now.”

It was almost an amazing switch. As one Frank Thomas was carried out the door to the nearest ambulance, one Randolph O’Neal was rushed in and deposited in the very same bed Frank had just vacated. Only, right off the bat, both Jess and Julie saw the grim prognosis for the restaurant’s sous chef. He was burned extensively on his legs, shoulders and chest, a combination of second- and third-degree burns. His breathing was raspy, gurgly. He wasn’t conscious. He also had a gaping, bleeding head wound. “I need saline,” Jess shouted, then looked at Julie. For a moment they exchanged knowing glances … glances that spoke volumes in the span of a fractured second.

“I’ll get a helicopter in,” Julie said.

Jess, already in assessment mode looking for pupillary reaction in the man, simply nodded, already seeing the bleak reality. Unfortunately, the bleakness was only confirmed when Jess pried open O’Neal’s eyelids, flashed his penlight, saw fixed, dilated pupils. No reaction to light. “Nothing,” he said, cursing under his breath and at the same time, strapping a blood-pressure cuff on Randolph’s arm.

Julie didn’t even bother asking what it was because, judging from the grim expression on Jess’s face, it wasn’t good.

“Oxygen, IV, saline for the burns …” he said, on a frustrated sigh. “You know the drill.”

Julie immediately turned to the group of bystanders, all but one of whom had gone out the door when Randolph O’Neal had come in. “You got any kind of medic training?” she asked the boy, who appeared to be a busser at the restaurant.

“No, ma’am. Except I can do that squeeze thing if somebody’s choking.”

“Can you pour liquid over this man’s burns?”

“Yes, ma’am. I can do that.”

And just like that, Julie had recruited a volunteer who stepped forward to assume an important part of their patient’s treatment.

“Got a broken leg,” someone shouted from the door.

That someone turned out to be Rafe, who was leading the way for two firefighters carrying yet another patient on a stretcher.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Jess quipped.

“Well, I’ll be damned. You’re the medic in charge?” Rafe asked.

“I’m the medic in charge, which means you take the broken leg because …” He looked back at his patient. Didn’t finish his sentence as Randolph O’Neal’s breathing had just gone agonal … into near-death mode. Rafe must have seen the same thing, as he tried stepping between his brother and O’Neal.

“Look, you don’t need this right now, okay? You take the guy we just brought in and I’ll deal with this.”

“Because I can’t?” Jess snapped.

“Because you shouldn’t.” Rafe stepped up, took Jess by the arm, tried to move him. “Jess, his pupils are blown,” Rafe whispered. “He’s not going to make it. Not to a hospital, not anywhere.”

“I don’t give up on my patients, Rafe,” Jess growled, bending down over the man.

“Jess,” Julie said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Rafe is right. We can’t … There’s nothing …”

A hush fell over the cabin as the inevitability became apparent to everybody there, and within seconds the cabin cleared of everybody but Jess, Julie, Rafe, the two patients and James Orser, the young man who was still, dutifully, dousing Randolph O’Neal’s chest with saline, even as O’Neal exhaled his final breath.

Julie laid a hand on James’s arm, whispered for him to stop. “Go sit with the patient who was just brought in,” she said. “I’ll be over there in a second.” She looked at Rafe, whose agony for his brother showed in his face. Then she looked at Jess, who seemed … numb. “There wasn’t anything we could do,” Julie said to Jess, as Rafe went to treat Max Fletcher, the man with a compound leg fracture that had happened outside the lodge, well away from the fire … a bystander who’d come to watch and gotten in the way of a pick-up truck. “He was so badly injured, he wouldn’t have made it to a trauma center, and even then …”

“I know,” he said. He was a trauma surgeon, after all. Well, trauma surgeon, past tense. But he still had all the knowledge, still had the same feelings, present tense. And this was why he’d left medicine. It was too late. O’Neal had come to him too late. He had needed to be there sooner. And Jess had needed to be the first one to look, not the last one. All his years of medical training yet by virtue of being the surgeon he was always the last one in line. That’s what he’d figured out on the battlefield. What he still knew. What he still hated.

Suddenly, nausea welled up in Jess like a water balloon stretched to its limits and ready to explode. Without saying a word to Julie, he ran outside, straight to the bushes and retched until there was nothing left inside him, then gave way to dry heaves after that.

“Leave him alone,” Rafe said, stepping up to Julie, who was halfway to the tree line, running after Jess to help him. He grabbed her by the arm and forcibly stopped her.

“Why? Can’t you see he needs help?”

“What he needs is to be alone, to work it out.”

“He lost a patient, Rafe. He’s taking it hard.”

Rafe let go of her arm. “He lost a fiancée in Afghanistan. Almost two years ago now. And, yes, he’s still taking it hard.”

“Oh, my God,” Julie whispered. “I didn’t know.”

“He doesn’t really talk about it.

“I’m so sorry, Rafe.” She turned to look at Jess, who’d finally straightened up. “That’s why he left medicine? Did he lose heart?”

“I don’t think he lost heart, or else he wouldn’t be out trying to save lives in a different way. To be honest, he’s never told me what’s going on with him. I’ve asked, but he shuts me up, tells me it’s nobody’s business.”

“But you can’t let him go through this alone right now, even if he thinks he wants to be alone. You know that’s true. So which one of us going to go over there to see if he’s okay?” she asked.

“That would be you, because I’m going into the hospital to operate on Max Fletcher’s leg. Headed there right now. And, Julie, just so you’ll know, Jess is as apt to push you away as he is let you in. Don’t take it personally. Jess loved Donna and she died in his arms. I’m not sure how you get over something like that. Or if you can. But Jess is stubborn. He won’t let anybody get too close, and you do know some of the reason for that.”

She did. “Thanks for telling me about Donna.”

She gave Rafe a squeeze on the arm, then went to Jess, but before she could say anything, Jess held his hands up in surrender. “I don’t need help,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” she said, handing over a bottle of water. “In fact, you look like hell.”

He took the water, uncapped it, swished some around in his mouth, then spat it out. “He told you, didn’t he?” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

“Some. Not much. And I’m sorry, Jess. I didn’t know.”

“Well, it’s not exactly captivating conversation.” Taking one more swig, he rinsed and spat again, then capped the bottle. “So you see why I’m a firefighter now … the story of my shame. I don’t do trauma so well.”

“Not shame, Jess. A lot of other emotions, but not shame. And as for not doing trauma well, that’s only your opinion. I saw you work in there, saw the way you took care of Frank Thomas and tried with—”

“Oh, so now you’re being nice to me?” he interrupted. “Pity the man who’s off vomiting in the woods and offer him some good-hearted words that you wouldn’t have offered him an hour ago?”

“And you would have me do, what? Ignore someone who needs my help?”

“Who the hell told you I needed help?”

“It doesn’t take a genius to see what you’re going through, Jess. I just thought—”

“Don’t. There’s nothing here worth wasting your thinking on. What I was, what I am now … they don’t connect, okay? Don’t think you’re going to play the part of some little do-gooder who’s going to step in and make things right for me, because it’s not going to happen.” He stepped around Julie, appraised the scene. “Looks like the fire is squared away. Why don’t you go see if there are any more injuries that need treating.”

“Is that how it’s going to be, Jess?”

“How what’s going to be?”

She shook her head. As badly as she felt for him, there really wasn’t anything she could do to help. Rafe had been right about that. Jess had shut his brother out as masterfully as he was shutting her out. And if life had taught her one thing, it was never to force herself into a place where she wasn’t wanted. Clearly, she wasn’t wanted here. Even so, her heart did break for Jess. She’d loved him once. Had wanted to have his baby once. And, apparently, she still had a few leftover feelings for him. Feelings from the past, though. Only from the past.

“You still here?” Julie asked Jess, looking up from the desk she was slumped over, finishing up the last of the paperwork from the injuries at the restaurant fire. In total, six treated in the emergency room and released, two admitted, one of them gone to the operating room and now in Recovery, one under cardiac observation but doing well. And one fatality.

“Just checking on Frank Thomas.”

“He’s resting easily. Dr. Navarro doesn’t think he needs to go to a hospital with a cardiac care unit because, so far, the tests are showing that his heart attack was fairly minor.”

“You look like you should be resting,” Jess commented.

“I’m fine. I’ve worked longer and harder than this. And as soon as I put my signature on this last piece of paper, I’m out the door.”

“Would you like to stop somewhere for a cup of coffee on your way home?”

Actually, all she wanted to do was go to bed, sleep hard, sleep long. Because she was scheduled to be back on duty much sooner than she wanted to be. But something in Jess’s eyes, something in his voice, compelled her to accept his invitation. “Look, how about I meet you at the coffee shop down on Main Street in about twenty minutes? I can’t stay long, but a nice caramel mocha latte sounds good.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t figure you for the fancy stuff.”

“A girl’s got to have her indulgences, Jess. Caramel mocha latte happens to be one of mine.”

“Then I’ll have one waiting for you,” he said, then turned away. But before he was away from her desk, he spun back to face her. “Look, Julie, about last night, and some of the things I said …”

She waved him off. “Just go get us a table and order the coffee, okay? The rest of it doesn’t matter.” Even though it really did. But she wasn’t going to be the one to fix it for Jess. He didn’t want it, and she couldn’t afford the involvement. As long as she kept that in mind, she’d be fine.

“I ordered you a large,” he said, a little while later, as she sat down across from him at the table located in the front window.

It was like they were on display, the ideal couple drinking coffee together that anyone strolling by would see. The perfect place, if you wanted a place that lacked intimacy. Which this table did. In a way, she was grateful for the public display, because that kept things honest. And with Jess, this time around, that’s all she wanted. Honesty. “Thank you.”

“And a blueberry muffin. You used to love blueberries, didn’t you?”

“You remembered that?”

“Actually, I hadn’t thought about it for years, but when I told the server that I was ordering the caramel mocha for you, she told me you usually get a blueberry muffin with that, so I ordered one. And that’s when I remembered you loved blueberries.”

For a moment, she was disappointed. Then she chided herself for having some stupid, romantic notion that, after all these years, he would have remembered something so trivial. Of course he wouldn’t. Just like she wouldn’t remember something trivial about him, like … like … “Do you still have an aversion to pepperoni on your pizza?”

He chuckled. “Still hate it with a passion. How’d you remember that?”

Truthfully, since that night when she’d treated him for smoke inhalation, she’d remembered a lot about Jess Corbett. Too many things, probably. “Don’t know. I suppose it just came to me.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, my pizza taste has gone to all veggies. Don’t eat any meat on them nowadays.” He took a sip of his chai tea. “Still don’t like coffee either.”

“That’s a new one on me. But we were kids. I don’t suppose we ever had the occasions to do coffee, did we?”

“Donna was the one … she used to tease me about my peculiar appetite. She drank probably ten cups of coffee a day, black, no sugar, no cream. Definitely no caramel.”

“And you two served together?”

He nodded. Looked out the window, fixed his gaze on something in the street. “She was a medic. Damned good in the field.” He cleared his throat. Blinked hard. “Look, I appreciate you trying to help me last night, and I apologize for being such an idiot about it. But that’s my history, isn’t it? Being an idiot at the most inopportune times.”

“Well, we were young at that particular inopportune time. Different problems, different … ideals, I suppose. And history’s just that … history. In the past. We learn from it and move on. Or hopefully learn and move on. No need to apologize for last night either. Rafe had warned me that you probably wanted to be alone, and I should have listened to him. But sometimes I’m headstrong, sometimes I go getting myself into situations where I don’t belong, and what you were going through … I clearly didn’t belong there. So it’s me who should be apologizing to you for bothering you. But I truly am sorry for your loss, Jess. I blundered right in where I shouldn’t have.”

“It wasn’t you, Julie. And whatever Rafe told you about how I push people away, he was right. I do. It’s easier that way. You know how we were raised, Rafe and me … my old man. Even though I wasn’t the one who got the beatings … I was there. Saw what he did to my brother. Wasn’t able to do a thing to help Rafe. Wasn’t able to do a thing to help …” He took a sip of his tea. “Anyway, enough of that. Let’s talk about something more pleasant, like what a good nurse you are. I’m impressed. Not surprised, though, because you were always strong.”

She smiled. “Well, I don’t know about being strong so much. But I’ll admit, sometimes it impresses me, too. Not that I’m a good nurse so much as that I am a nurse. It was my little-girl dream, the only one I ever had, really.”

“You never wanted to be a fairy princess?”

She shook her head. “Always a nurse.”

“But you were a paramedic? How did that happen?”

“It didn’t take as long to get through the training as it did to study to be a nurse, and being a paramedic got me into the medical field while I was studying. A practical choice on my way to nursing, I think. And I’m nothing if not practical. Oh, and Grace figured into it, too.”

Jess chuckled. “Why am I not surprised? She seemed to have a plan for everybody she loved, didn’t she?”

“Grace … she expected something of me. No one ever had, but Grace always did, and when I messed up, which I did a lot, she didn’t criticize. She just stood by me, showed me better ways. I think her offering me paramedic training was her way of testing my dedication to medicine, since I didn’t really display much dedication for anything else, except the horses. She knew that side of me … the side where I acted first and thought about the consequences later. I was barely eighteen, and all I wanted to do was go to nursing school. I didn’t think about all the years of education on a university level I’d need. My grades were so poor in high school I barely got out. And there I was, begging to embark on this long journey of even more education.

“Grace knew I wasn’t ready for it. So I knocked around in odd jobs for a while. Then she offered me a shot at paramedic training. Less in the academic pursuit, more in practical experience. She was testing me, Jess, to see if I could do it. To see if I could dedicate myself enough to pass the first hurdle. Which I did, because I loved working with people who needed help … needed my help.”

“But you still wanted to be a nurse?”

Julie nodded. “That never changed.”

“So Aunt Grace eventually paid your way to nursing school?”

“No. Somewhere along the way, I figured out that getting through nursing school was something I had to do for myself. It would have been easier letting Grace support me all the way, which she would have done. But I didn’t want easier. I wanted to earn my way in the world, which I did as a paramedic. Grace gave me my start, and helped me here and there when I needed it, but it was by her example more than her bank account that I found my way.” Julie smiled fondly. “And it was hard, working my job full time and going to school. There were times I wanted to quit … or drop out for a semester or two. But Grace believed in me … the only one who ever did.

“I’m sorry I missed her funeral, but I had university exams and Grace wouldn’t have wanted me to postpone. My thoughts were with your family that day, though.”

He reached over and squeezed Julie’s hand. “You’re right. She would have definitely had an opinion about you missing your exams. A strong opinion!”