“Then can they postpone the funeral…?” Dana asked hopefully.
He shook his head. “Your aunt is in no condition to put it off,” he said bluntly. And he should know: her Aunt Helen was his patient too. “Mandy was her only living relative, except for you. She’s pretty devastated. No, Dana, the sooner it’s over, the better.”
“But I want to go,” Dana wailed bitterly.
“I know that. And I understand why,” he said gently. “But you know that the body is only the shell. The substance, the spark, that was her soul is already with God. It would be like looking at an empty glass.”
The words were oddly comforting and they made sense. But they didn’t ease the hurt.
Dr. Willis took her pulse and examined her eyes. “Shall I call Dick and have him come by and talk to you?” he asked when he finished, naming her minister.
She nodded. “Yes, please. It would be…a great help right now. Aunt Helen—is she coming to see me?”
He shook his head. “Not tonight. I’ve had to sedate her. The shock, for both of you, has been bad. Where’s Jack? I’d have thought he’d be with you.”
“My father has a family to think about,” she said bitterly.
He stared at her. “You’re his family too.”
“Tell him,” she said curtly, staring back. “Because he hasn’t even phoned me since the divorce. Since I left home. Since I went into nurse’s training! Never!”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t.” She looked down at the white hospital sheet. “I’m very sorry, Dr. Willis; I know you’re only trying to help. But this is something I have to work out by myself.”
He nodded. “If I can help, I will. I’ve known your family for a long time.”
She smiled at him. “Yes. Thank you.”
“We’ll keep you for two or three days, depending on how you progress,” he said gently. “I wish I could give you something for the grief. But only God can do that.”
* * *
Aunt Helen came by the next morning, dressed in a wildly expensive blue suit with a peekaboo hat and looking as neat as a pin. She looked a lot like Mandy, but she was taller and thinner. And much more emotional.
“Oh, darling,” she wailed, throwing herself on Dana in a haze of expensive perfume and a chiffon scarf. “Oh, darling, how horrible for us both. Poor Mandy!”
Dana, just beginning to get herself back together, lost control again and wept. “I know,” she whispered. “Aunt Helen, she was so unhappy, so miserable.”
“I know. I told her she never should have married that man. I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen!” Aunt Helen drew away with a tearful sigh. Her brown eyes were wet with tears. “I knew the minute she told me about the divorce that she wouldn’t be with us much longer. She wasn’t strong enough to live alone, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Dana groaned. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “It all happened so quickly; she was drinking….”
“They told me everything. But, darling, why did you let her drive? Didn’t you realize what might happen?”
Dana felt her face stiffen. “Yes, but…”
“Of all the stupid things to do, and you might have just taken the keys from her in the first place.” The brown eyes so like her mother’s were accusing. “Why in the world did you let her drive, Dana?”
Dana couldn’t even manage a reply. She reached blindly for the buzzer and pushed it. A minute later, a nurse came to the door.
“Will you show my aunt the way out, please, Nurse?” Dana asked tightly, not looking at Aunt Helen, who was obviously shocked.
The nurse knew what was going on from one look at her patient’s drawn face.
“I’m sorry, but Miss Steele can’t be upset; she has a concussion,” the nurse said firmly. “Will you come with me, please?”
As if she’d just realized what she was saying, Helen’s face was suddenly white and repentant. “Darling, I’m sorry….”
But Dana closed her eyes and wouldn’t look or listen. The nightmare wasn’t ever going to end, it seemed, and she wondered vaguely if everyone blamed her for her mother’s death. She turned her face into the pillows and cried like a child.
Her minister visited that night, after the funeral was over, and Dana poured out her heart to him.
“And it’s my fault; even Aunt Helen said it’s my fault,” she confessed.
“It’s no one’s fault, Dana,” he said, smiling quietly. A gentle man, he made her feel at once comforted and secure. “When a life is taken, it’s only because God has decided that He has more need of that life than those attached to it here on earth. People don’t die for no reason, Dana, or because it’s anyone’s fault. God decided the moment of death, not any one of us.”
“But everyone thinks it’s my fault. I should have stopped her—I should have tried!”
“And if you had, there would have been something else,” he said quietly. “I strongly believe that things happen as God means them to.”
“I can’t see anything,” she confessed wearily, “except that my mother is gone, and now I have no one. Even Aunt Helen hates me.”
“Your aunt was literally in tears over what she said to you this morning,” he corrected. “She wanted to come back and apologize, but she was afraid you wouldn’t let her into the room. She was upset; you know how Helen is.”
“What am I going to do?” Dana asked him, dabbing at fresh tears.
“You’re going to go on with your life,” he said simply. “That life belongs to God, you know. Your profession is one of service. Isn’t that the best way to spend your grief, by lessening the pain for others?”
She felt warm inside at the thought, because nursing was so much more to her than a profession. It was a way of life: healing the sick, helping the injured, comforting the bereaved. Yes, she thought, and smiled. Yes, that was how she’d cope.
But it was easier said than done, unfortunately. In the days and weeks that followed, forgetting was impossible.
After the first week, time seemed to fly. Dana made the rounds on her ward, pausing to see Miss Ena, who was being difficult again. The thin old lady had demanded her injection a full hour early, but Dana only smiled and fluffed up the pillows with her usual efficiency.
“Now, Miss Ena,” she said with a quiet smile, “you know I’m not going to ignore Dr. Sanders’s order, and you shouldn’t ask me to. Suppose I have one of the volunteers come and read to you until it’s time. Would that help?”
Miss Ena’s sour face brightened just a little. “Well, I suppose it would,” she said reluctantly. She shifted her thin body against the pillows with a sigh. “Yes,” she said in a softer tone. “Thank you, it would help.”
“I know hospitals are hard on people who are used to gardening and walking the woods and pruning shrubbery,” Dana confessed, laying a hand on the thin shoulder. “But in a very little while, you’ll be back on your feet and doing what you please. Just keep that in mind. Believe me, it will help the time pass much more quickly.”
Miss Ena smiled faintly. “I’m not used to being laid up,” she confessed. “I don’t mean to be disagreeable. It’s only that I hate feeling helpless.”
“I know,” Dana said quietly. “No one likes it.” She