Chapter 15
LINDA
It was almost ten-thirty in the morning, and Linda sat in the visitor’s chair beside Uncle George’s bed at the hospital, her notebook open in her lap and a pen in her hand.
She was between Tom and Maggie. They had been at the hospital since six that morning.
Brock Hendricks was the last nursing candidate of the morning.
He sat across from them in the chair the hospital had pulled in for the interviews.
He was younger than Linda had expected. Mid-thirties, maybe. His clear, steady eyes made a person feel they could trust him within thirty seconds of meeting him.
“So you actually started out in medical school?” Maggie asked, leaning forward.
“I did,” Brock confirmed with a small, easy smile. “Three years of medical school and one year of residency. I got most of the way through before I realized I’d been chasing the wrong door.”
“What changed your mind, son?” Tom asked.
“My second rotation was in orthopedic recovery,” Brock explained.
“I spent six weeks shadowing a surgeon and watching him do brilliant work in the operating room. But the patients on the recovery floor were the ones I kept thinking about at night. The surgeon would fix the bone and move on. The nurses were the ones who helped the patient return to normal, or at least their new normal. They were the ones who got them out of bed for the first time. They were the ones who remembered the patient’s grandchildren’s names.
They were the ones the patient hugged when they were finally well enough to go home.
That was the side of medicine I wanted to be on. ”
“That’s a beautiful way to put it,” Linda agreed softly.
“My mother thought I’d lost my mind,” Brock continued with a small laugh.
“She’d watched me work for four years to get into med school.
I sat her down one night and explained it to her.
The doctor sees the patient on the worst day.
The nurse sees them every day after that. I wanted the every day after.”
George was watching Brock from his nest of pillows with a sharpness Linda had not seen on her uncle’s face since she’d gotten home.
“Do you play any sport, son?” George asked.
“I do, sir,” Brock answered. “Football is my first love. I played college ball. I was a defensive end. I still coach a community team on the weekends. And I play ice hockey in a recreational league two evenings a week. Goalie, mostly.”
George’s whole face lit up.
“Goalie.” George smiled. “That takes a particular kind of nerve, son.”
“Or a particular kind of stupidity, depending on who you ask, sir,” Brock quipped with a smile.
George laughed, a proper laugh, the first real one Linda had heard from her uncle since the fall.
Linda glanced down at her notebook. She, Tom, and Maggie had spent an hour upon their arrival at the hospital, with Dr. Stanford and the head nurse drawing up the interview questions.
They had a list of fourteen of them. They ranged from practical questions about rehabilitation techniques and infection control to softer questions about temperament, conflict, and how the candidate handled patients who were resistant to care.
Each candidate had been given thirty minutes.
Brock had answered every single question better than the three nurses who had come before him.
George caught Linda’s eye and gave her a small nod.
“Mr. Hendricks,” Linda announced, “thank you so much for coming in. We’ve truly enjoyed meeting you. We’ll be in touch later today through Dr. Stanford’s office.”
“Thank you, Miss Heart,” Brock replied, standing and shaking each of their hands warmly.
He paused at George’s bedside, and his manner shifted into the gentle professional ease of a man who had spent years in recovery wards.
“Mr. Heart, it has been a real privilege to meet you, sir. I hope to see you again soon.”
“I think you will, son,” George replied with a quiet smile.
Brock nodded once and left the room.
The four of them sat in companionable silence for a beat.
“Right,” George announced. “Brock is my new favorite. That knocks Stuart into second place.”
“Uncle George,” Maggie pointed out gently, “that means we’re hiring both of them anyway, since they’re both still in your top two.”
“You can hire whoever you like, Maggie.” George waved a tired hand. “But Brock is my favorite, and I’m reserving the right to call him that.”
“Fair enough,” Linda agreed warmly.
Linda made a small star next to Brock’s name in her notebook and then a second small star next to Stuart’s name from the second interview.
Stuart had been older, mid-fifties, calm, deeply experienced.
The two of them would alternate shifts and work seamlessly.
The other two candidates would go on a backup list in case either of the chosen two ever needed cover.
Linda glanced at her uncle.
George’s eyes had begun to drift closed again. The morning had been long for him. Four interviews in a row, plus the small effort of being his charming self for each one, had taken its toll.
Linda set her notebook on the night table and leaned across to Tom.
“Can we tell him about... you know?” Linda whispered.
“No,” Tom hissed back. “Absolutely not.”
“Tom...” Linda pressed.
“Linda.” Tom glared at her, shaking his head.
“You know you don’t whisper as softly as you think you do,” Maggie cut in, leaning toward both of them. She looked between Linda and Tom with eyebrows raised. “What do you want to tell?” Her eyes narrowed playfully. “Are you two keeping a secret from me?”
“No!” Tom denied.
“Oh, come on, Tom,” Linda urged. “We’re all family here.”
“Okay, now I have to know,” Maggie said firmly.
“I have to know too,” George murmured from the bed, his eyes still half-closed.
“Sorry, Uncle George,” Linda apologized softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Sweetheart, Maggie is right,” George chuckled sleepily. “You have never been able to whisper as quietly as you thought.” He stifled a yawn and turned his head to look at the three of them. “Now tell me this big secret so I can go back to sleep.”
“Tom...” Linda pushed with a big smile.
Tom sighed and shook his head.
“Fine,” Tom relented. “Go ahead.”
“Tom has a date with Lila tonight,” Linda announced joyfully.
“Well, it is about time,” George exclaimed. “Good grief, the pair of you have been making puppy dog eyes at each other for months.”
“Yes, Tom,” Maggie agreed, standing up and crossing to give Tom a hug. “We’re so glad you finally got the hint and asked Lila out.”
“So everyone really did know,” Tom sighed, his cheeks turning a faint pink under his stubble.
“Yes,” all three of them chorused.
“And we are very happy for you, Tom,” George said around another yawn. “It is about time you put yourself out there again.” He sighed, a soft smile lifting his lips, and drifted into sleep.
The three of them sat for a moment listening to the steady rhythm of George’s breathing.
“Right,” Linda whispered, gathering her things and standing. “Let’s let him rest. We need to find the head nurse and give her our list.”
They slipped quietly out of George’s room and walked down the corridor to the recovery wing nurses’ station. The head nurse, an older woman with kind eyes and a name tag that read Patricia, looked up from her clipboard as they approached.
“How did the interviews go?” Patricia asked warmly.
“Wonderfully, thank you,” Linda answered. “Uncle George has chosen Brock Hendricks as his primary, with Stuart Walker as his alternate. The other two go on the backup list.”
Patricia’s whole face lit up.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” Patricia exclaimed. “I thought Brock and Stuart would be the right pair for Mr. Heart. Brock is wonderful with older orthopedic patients. He has a way of getting them out of bed when they don’t want to move.
And Stuart is one of the most patient nurses I have ever worked with.
They are going to be excellent for your uncle. ”
“Could you let them know today, Patricia?” Tom asked. “We’d like them to start as soon as Mr. Heart is discharged.”
“Of course,” Patricia confirmed. “I’ll call both of them this afternoon. And I’ll let you know when I have their start dates locked in. Have you thought about home setup yet?”
“We were going to talk about that on the way out,” Linda admitted.
“I’ll have Brock and Stuart stop by Heart House before the discharge so they can walk through the space with you and recommend anything you may need,” Patricia offered. “Hospital beds. Handrails. Bath chairs. The works. They’ll know exactly what to put where.”
“Thank you, Patricia,” Linda told her. “Really. For all of this.”
“Mr. Heart is one of our favorite patients, Miss Heart,” Patricia replied warmly. “Take care of him.”
The three of them walked out of the hospital into the warm late morning. Linda took a deep breath and felt some of the morning’s tension loosen in her shoulders.
“I think Brock is going to be wonderful for him,” Maggie commented as they walked toward the cars.
“He is,” Linda agreed. “Uncle George liked him from the first answer.”
“The football and ice hockey sealed it,” Tom chuckled.
“Of course it did.” Linda rolled her eyes and shook her head. Her uncle loved his sport.
They reached Linda’s car, and the three of them stood for a moment in the warm afternoon air.
“Right,” Linda continued, more practically now. “We need to talk about the house. Uncle George can’t go up to the penthouse on a cane for at least three months. He’s going to need to move into Heart House for the recovery.”
“I agree,” Maggie said.
“The sun lounge at the back,” Linda thought aloud. “The one with the glass doors that open onto the deck overlooking the bay. We can turn that into his room. It’s downstairs, the light is beautiful, and the bay view will lift him every morning.”