Dana flicked on the switch and adjusted the channel, hiding a smile from Miss Ena.
* * *
Several weeks later Dana was called into Mrs. Pibbs’s office, and Dana knew without asking what the reason was.
“I’d like to forget this, Nurse,” she said, lifting the letter of resignation that Dana had placed on her desk early that morning as she came on duty. “Nursing has been your life. Surely you don’t mean to throw away all those years of training?”
Dana’s eyes were troubled. “I need time,” she said quietly. “Time to get over Mother’s death, time to sort out my priorities, to get myself back together again. I…I can’t bear familiar surroundings right now.”
Mrs. Pibbs leaned back with a sigh. “I understand.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “If it’s a change of scene that you need, I may have a suggestion for you. A friend of mine is looking for a private-duty nurse for her son. He lives in some god-forsaken place near the Atlantic Coast. He’s blind.”
“I hadn’t thought about doing private duty,” Dana murmured.
“You will have to support yourself,” Mrs. Pibbs reminded her. “Although the salary will be good, I must warn you that it won’t be all tranquility. I understand that Lorraine’s son has a black temper. He was an executive, you know, very high-powered, and an athlete to boot. He’s been relegated to the position of a figurehead with his electronics company.”
“The blindness, is it permanent?”
“I don’t know. Lorraine is rather desperate, however,” she added with a tiny smile. “He’s not an easy man to nurse.”
Mrs. Pibbs had made it into a challenge, and right now Dana needed that.
“Perhaps,” she murmured, “it would be just what I need.”
Mrs. Pibbs nodded smugly. “It might be just what Gannon needs too.”
Dana looked up. “Is that his name?”
“Yes. Gannon van der Vere. He’s Dutch.”
Immediately Dana pictured a small man with a mustache, very blond, as memory formed the one Dutchman she’d ever had any contact with—Mr. van Ryker, who’d once been a patient at the hospital. She smiled, softening already. Perhaps he could teach her Dutch while she helped him adjust to his blindness. And in helping him, perhaps she could forget her own anguish.
That night she was combing her long platinum-blond hair when Jenny came whirling in, hairpins flying as she rushed to get out of her nurse’s uniform and into a dress.
“Not going out tonight?” Jenny asked from the bathroom.
“Nowhere to go,” Dana replied, smiling into the mirror. “I’m having a quiet night.”
“You always have quiet nights. Why don’t you come out with Gerald and me?”
“No, thanks, I’d rather catch up on my sleep. I’ve been called out on cases twice in the past three days. How did that little girl do—the one with pneumonia that Dr. Hames admitted?”
“She’s responding. I think she’ll do.” Jenny came back out in a green-and-white-striped dress with matching green pumps. “Say, what’s the rumor about you quitting?” she asked. Jenny had never been one to listen to gossip without going to the object of it to get at the truth. It was the thing about her that Dana admired most.
“It’s true,” she said reluctantly, because she liked her roommate and would miss her. “I’m waiting to hear about a job Mrs. Pibbs knows of, but I have officially resigned as of next Monday.”
“Oh, Dana,” Jenny moaned.
“I’ll write,” she promised. “And so will you. It won’t be forever.”
“It’s your mother’s death, isn’t it?” Jenny asked softly. “Yes, I imagine it’s rough to be where you’re constantly reminded of her. And with the situation between you and your family…”
Dana’s eyes clouded. She turned away. “I’ll be fine,” she managed. “Have a good time tonight,” she added on a bright note.
Jenny sighed as she picked up her purse. “Can I smuggle you something when I come in? A filet mignon, a silk dressing gown, a Rolls, a man…?”
Dana laughed. “How about two hours’ extra sleep to put in my pocket for when old Dr. Grimms calls me down to help him dress a stab wound and tells me his entire medical background before he sends me away?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Jenny promised. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
Mrs. Pibbs was waiting for Dana in her office the next morning after she’d listened to the report and was on her way to catch up on some paperwork.
“I’ve just talked to Lorraine,” Mrs. Pibbs said with a faint smile. “She’s delighted that you’re going to come.”
“I’m so glad,” Dana replied. “Has she told Mr. van der Vere?”
“Only that a nurse is expected, I understand,” the older woman replied. “It’s better not to give the enemy too much information about troop movements.”
Dana blinked. That old Army nurse’s background popped up every so often in Mrs. Pibbs, and she tried not to giggle when it did. Surely that was a strange choice of words for a new patient. And what a very strange way to describe her impending arrival at the van der Vere home.
“Troop movements?” she asked.
“Just an expression,” Mrs. Pibbs said uncomfortably. “Get on with your duties, Nurse.”
Dana stared after her. A pity she didn’t have time to think about that unusual description, but the doctors were due to make rounds shortly and there wasn’t a minute to spare.
The week went by quickly, and before she knew it, the stitches were out of her face and she was on her way to Savannah by bus. She liked to travel cross country, preferring the sightseeing that way to airplane flights, during which she could see little more than clouds. It was early spring and the landscape was just beginning to turn green across the flat land, and she could still gaze at the architecture in each small town the bus went through. It was one of her hobbies, and she never tired of it.
The styles ranged from Greek revival to Victorian to Gothic and even Williamsburg. There were split-levels, ranch-style homes, modern, ultramodern, and apartment houses. Each design seemed to have its own personality, and Dana couldn’t help but wonder about the people who lived in the houses they passed—what their lives were like.
Halfway across the state, she finally succumbed to drowsiness and fell asleep in her seat by the window. The driver was announcing Savannah when she woke up.
She took a cab out to the van der Vere summer house. The driver followed the directions Mrs. Pibbs had given Dana, and Dana’s eyes took in the jagged boulders of a new development along the beach until they drove farther and turned into a driveway lined with palms and shade trees and what looked like flowering shrubs; it was the season for them to bloom.
The house was fairly large, built of gray stone and overlooking the Atlantic, so ethereal that it might have been an illusion. Dana loved it at first sight. It’s beautiful, she thought, with flowers blooming all around it and the greenery profuse.
She paid the driver and went up the cobblestone path to the door, pausing before she rang the doorbell. Well, she told herself, it was now or never. Self-consciously she tugged a lock of her loosened