Pie Town - Lynne Hinton [61]
Malene nodded. She blew out a breath. “He does seem better,” she said. She glanced over to watch Alex as he slept. “I need to go by work and make sure they’re handling things okay. I know I left them in a mess. We were already understaffed before I took off.”
Roger stuck his hands back in his pockets. “I went by yesterday. Christine’s pulling double shifts, and a couple of the nurses are working overtime. They’re fine. They asked about you.”
Malene reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a bottle of water. She took a swallow. “You seen Daddy?” she asked.
Roger nodded. “We had dinner together last night at the diner. He seems pretty worried. He wanted to come with me today, but he decided he would cook some stew and take it over to your house for you when you come home.” Roger stretched out his legs in front of him. “He figures he’ll drive you when you’re ready to come back.”
“So you told him you were sending me home,” Malene commented. “This is already planned.”
Roger grinned. “You need to go home. You’ve been here the entire two weeks, Lena.”
Malene took another swallow of water. “I just couldn’t leave him this time,” she commented. “I wasn’t sure he was going to pull through.”
Roger glanced over at their grandson. “He looks good now,” he noted.
Malene followed his eyes. “Finally,” she responded. “But, Roger, this time was so much worse.” She turned back to her ex-husband and shook her head. “I don’t know how many more times he can do this.”
“Well, the good thing is that today we don’t have to worry about that,” Roger said. “He came through this crisis, and that’s enough for now.”
Malene glanced up at the door as a nurse walked into the room. “Hello, Mr. B.,” she greeted the sheriff. “You here to relieve Malene?”
Roger stood up. “I’m trying to get her to go home,” he replied. “But you know what a hard-head she is.”
The nurse began checking Alex’s IV bags, the line in his vein. “She loves this boy” was all she said. Syringe in hand, she pushed the fluid into a portal in the IV line. “The doctor wants him to keep taking the antibiotic,” she explained. “But only for a couple more days. It looks like the infection is mostly gone.”
Alex opened his eyes and smiled and then fell back to sleep.
“She tell you about last night?” the nurse asked Roger.
Malene answered before Roger could reply. “Hadn’t gotten to that yet,” she said.
The nurse shook her head. “We’re still talking about it,” she said. She pulled out a pad of paper from her front pocket and made a note. “Alex is a special kid.” She grabbed the stethoscope from around her neck, placed the end on the boy’s chest, listened for a few seconds, then looked at his vitals blinking on the screen above his bed. She took the stethoscope out of her ears and wrapped it back around her neck. “Sounds good,” she reported. “Finally normal.”
“No rattles?” Malene asked.
The nurse shook her head. “Nope, sounds clear. I think the staff wants to do something special for Alex,” she said.
Roger appeared confused. “Why?” he asked as he sat back down.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” Malene replied.
Having finished what she came in to do, the nurse gently patted Alex on the foot. “He saved that little girl’s life.” She shook her head as she watched her patient sleeping. “I still don’t know how he knew,” she said. “Children . . . I guess they’re just more attuned to stuff than we adults.” She sighed. “Okay, I’ll be back after a while to change that IV and to give him a bath. I’m hoping we can take him out for a spin around the unit later.” She smiled. “I know he’d like to visit some of the other patients.”
Roger turned to his ex-wife to hear the story about what had happened the previous night.
Malene met his eyes. “Alex had a dream,” she said. “He woke up about three in the morning and called for me. He told me to go and get the nurse.” She glanced over at the boy. “I thought he was sick or needed something, and I kept telling him that I would get him what he needed, but he insisted that I go and get the nurse on call.”
Roger waited. “Was something wrong?