Looking through the cracked-open door to the room, he watched as the child, wearing a pretty pink-flowered bandana on her head, pulled a brush through the hair of the brunette psychiatrist he had been thinking about. Sitting on the bed with her legs crossed in front of her, dark hair flowing down her back, Dr. Frannie looked perfectly at home playing with the little girl.
Was this how she worked?
“You know your parents only want what’s best for you, Sarah. Is it that you’re scared of the surgery?”
Ian watched as the child’s mouth tightened and the look of enjoyment left her face.
“Amy had one of those tubes. She showed me. She said it was yucky and it hurt,” Sarah said.
“Did it look yucky to you?” Frannie asked.
“It’s a tube sticking out of her tummy. It’s gross. She said they used it to give her nutrition—whatever that is.”
“It’s what you need to make you strong again. What if I bring one of my dolls in to show you how it works? Would that make you feel better?”
The child scrunched her eyes, as if concentrating really hard, and then pulled the brush back through the thick brown hair.
“Maybe, but it’ll still look yucky. And Amy said it hurt when they put it inside her. She didn’t like it and I won’t like it either.”
“Is that why you told your mommy and daddy that you didn’t want to let Dr. Spencer put the tube inside you?” Frannie asked.
“Maybe...” the little girl said.
* * *
Frannie slid off the bed and turned around, looking back at the beautiful little girl who still held the brush in her hand. She fought back the tears that threatened to spill. This child had been through so much in the last two years. She’d only been in remission for a year before cancer had struck her small body again, and it appeared that this time it might win.
“Dr. Spencer is a real good surgeon. I can’t tell you it won’t hurt, but I know he will give you some medicine to help.”
Frannie watched as the little girl chewed on her bottom lip.
“Will it be that bubble gum medicine? I like the bubble gum one.”
“I’ll talk to Dr. Spencer and see what I can do, okay?”
Frannie turned around and gave the little girl a hug, being careful not to get tangled in the IV line running to the child’s chest.
“Dr. Frannie, I know I’m real sick. I heard Mommy and Daddy talk about it and they were crying.”
“Yes, Sarah, you are real sick. That’s why the doctors are giving you this medicine that makes you feel so bad. They’re trying to make you better.”
Frannie released her and stepped back and took the child’s little hands in hers.
“All the doctors are going to do everything they can to help you get better, but your parents love you so much that it hurts them to see you sick.”
“I don’t like to see them so sad. I don’t want to make them sad. I’ll try harder not to cry when it hurts. Will that make them feel better?”
Frannie swallowed as she straightened the bright bandana around the little girl’s head, still working to hold back the tears.
“I think your parents would be more upset if you tried to hide what you’re feeling, but I bet a bunch of hugs and kisses would make them feel a lot better.”
Sarah smiled, then picked up the doll whose hair she had been brushing before Frannie had walked into the room. “I can do that,” she said, then returned to the doll.
Frannie held it together as she said goodbye and promised Sarah that she would be back the next day to see her with her own doll.
Sarah’s parents had requested that she speak to the little girl after she had become upset at the mention of having a tube placed inside her to help with her nutrition. Now that Frannie knew about her conversation with Amy, she understood why. She’d speak with the little girl’s parents to let them know her concerns.
She walked out to the hallway and almost ran straight into Ian.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, then looked up into troubled eyes that matched her own. “You heard?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, then took a step back from her.
“Sarah’s been through so much already, and I just don’t know how the parents keep doing it,” she said.
“Keep doing what? Watching the doctors trying to save her life?” he asked.
“I know, but—” she started. She could hear the anger in his voice. What had she said this time? She’d just been going to say that it had to be hard on the parents of the little girl, as every day they had to face making decisions that would impact their child.
“No, Dr. Wentworth, you don’t know. You know nothing about the pain a parent experiences when losing a child. Nothing. And no matter what your program does it won’t bring back a child to grieving parents. It won’t put them back together. It won’t fix their marriage. They’ll spend the rest of their lives waking up and questioning themselves, wondering if they did everything they could, if they missed some sign and whether that would have made a difference in their child’s life, if things would have been different if they had been there more for their child. You know nothing about how it feels to lose a child,” he said.
He turned and started to leave.
“Well, hello there,” said Dr. Guidry. “I have to say it’s a bit of a surprise to see the two of you having another discussion out here in the hallway.”
Frannie felt as if she was fourteen again, getting caught smoking in the girls’ bathroom by Sister Agnes.
“We were just...” She looked at Ian, waiting to see if he was going to help her out.
He lifted an eyebrow and continued to glare.
“It was just a misunderstanding,” she said. She gave Dr. Guidry a guilty smile, then continued. “We should have been more discreet,” she said, and forced herself to smile at Ian. “It won’t happen again. Will it, Ian?”
“I apologize, Dr. Guidry.” Ian finally spoke up. “Dr. Wentworth is right. We should have moved out of the hallway.”
Dr. Guidry studied the two of them with a stern look that had Frannie fighting the need to run. They were in big trouble.
“What we seem to have here is a communication problem, and I think that’s something the two of y’all could use some help with. So I’ll tell you what we’re going to do about it,” he said as he turned toward her. “My wife has been worried to death about not having enough volunteers to help with the hospital’s Mardi Gras float this year. I think it would be a great idea if the two of you help her out a bit—do some of that team-building the higher-ups are always preaching at me about. Doesn’t that just sound like fun?” he said as he turned toward Ian.
The look on Ian’s face—a face that was usually so unreadable—showed signs of shock and maybe a little bit of horror. Did the thought of working with her scare him that much?
Or maybe he was one of those men who didn’t like to get his hands dirty with actual physical work? Though judging by the hard build of his body the man worked at something besides what he did in the operating room. He was probably one of those gym rats, and the only sweating he did was on a machine surrounded by other people.
Or maybe it was fear of injuring his