Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Hannah sat in the office chair, her hands going through some old files she had come upon. They had had a patient earlier in the day, Mr. Haywood, who had insisted that he had seen the doctor thirty years ago, and the doctor had prescribed for him to take iodine every day.
It seemed like an odd prescription, and Hannah was trying to find the old record, which had not been inputted into the new computer system that had been in place for almost a decade.
Many of the people represented by the old files had passed away.
They were in sore need of updating, as Dr. Terry freely admitted, but she had just been too busy to take the time.
So she'd been doing what Hannah was now doing, which was going through the files when they needed them.
They were mostly in alphabetic order, but occasionally one was off, and Mr. Haywood's file had not been where it belonged. She was going through all the H files, just in case it had been misplaced.
She'd just found a file with the name Haywood on it and had pulled it out of the filing cabinet when there was a knock at the door.
Glancing at the clock, seeing that it was past 9:30 and they had closed an hour ago, she was tempted to just ignore it.
But that's not what a doctor at a small-town clinic did, so she pushed out of the chair and hurried to the door.
She opened it, not knowing what to expect, and was surprised to see Ben Tucker standing on the stoop, his son beside him, a bloody bandage pressed to his wrist.
"Oh my goodness, looks like you did a number on your hand. Come on in. I'm guessing you need some stitches." She opened the door wide so they could go in. "I’m Doctor Hannah, by the way.”
“This is my son, Mason,” Ben’s introduction was short as he ushered his son in.
“Is it broken?" she asked belatedly, realizing that she wouldn't be able to take care of them if it was. Although she could probably find a brace that would keep his arm stable until they could make it to the bigger hospital down the mountain.
"I don't think so," Ben finally said, when Mason didn't say anything. "Honestly, I saw that it was bleeding and would need stitches, and just put him in the truck to bring him here. I didn't even check to see if it might be broken."
"What did you do?" she asked Mason, the way any concerned person would, but she actually had to put it in her notes. Still, it was nicer to frame it as a question that showed she cared rather than just gathering information.
There was silence.
"How did you do this?" she asked again, just in case Mason didn't hear her.
"Answer the doctor, Mason." Ben's voice was low, and it held a warning.
"I punched the kitchen wall." Mason sounded surly and annoyed. But he also, underneath all of that, had a note of insecurity or... desperation maybe. The kid was crying for help, Hannah would bet the farm on it, because she'd been there herself.
"All right. Come on into this room and let me take a look at it."
She led them into an exam room. Then she washed her hands with soap before putting on gloves. All the while, she asked questions.
"Why did you punch the wall?"
"Because I wanted to," Mason said. She was still facing the sink, so she didn't know if Ben gave him a look that said he had to answer or not. But it didn't sound like he wanted to.
"All right. That seems to be an odd impulse. Not one that I typically have anyway."
"Of course not. Because you're perfect."
"I didn't used to be. I guess I don't think I am now, either."
"Of course you are. You're a doctor."
Grabbing some gauze and some sterile solution, she walked over and sat down in the chair, scooting it closer to the exam table where Mason sat. As she examined his wrist, which did indeed need to be stitched, she spoke.
"When I was about your age, I certainly was far from perfect. I was angry because my mom had remarried after my dad died. It was barely a year. I felt like she was being selfish."
"Your dad was dead for less than a year?" Mason asked, his voice seeming to be interested despite himself.
"Yeah. My dad died in a car accident, and he left Mom with four kids.
I never really thought about it at the time, but looking back, I'm sure my mom wondered how she was going to take care of us all.
Maybe that had something to do with it, because the man she married was a bit older.
He was kind, nice, but... I hated him because he took Mom's attention away from us, and I also felt like Mom was betraying Dad because she was with someone else. "
"Yeah." That was all he said, but it was a telling word.
"So yeah, I started acting out, started doing some things I shouldn't have."
"Like what?"
"Well, I didn't pull any fire alarms," she said, lifting a brow at him. He had the grace to look abashed and wouldn't meet her eyes. She looked back down at his wrist, continuing to clean around the wound so she could suture it without risk of infection.
"I skipped school some. I fell in with the wrong crowd. I went to some parties that I shouldn't have, and my parents—my mom and stepdad—were worried about me. So that year when school let out, my parents sent me to live with my grandmother."
"Where'd she live? Antarctica?"
Maybe he was being sarcastic, but she laughed.
"Hardly. Although that probably would've been good for me too.
Sometimes when you're struggling to survive, you forget the things you're angry about, and you develop a camaraderie with the people around you.
" She paused for a moment. He was probably too young to understand that.
"But no, she lived here in Mistletoe Meadows. Where I live now, in the farmhouse."
"So you just moved in with her and stayed there?"
"No. I was just here for the summer. And then I liked it so much, I came the summer after that and the summer after that and the summer after that. And every summer until I graduated high school."
"So they thought they were punishing you, but it ended up being a reward." He was smart.
"No. It was hard at first. Grandma made me work.
But I respected her. She was honest—not that my parents weren't—but she demanded a higher standard for me.
She wanted me—expected me—to be a better person than what I was.
It took a bit, but eventually I wanted to live up to what she thought of me.
I didn't want to let her down. Because I knew she loved me.
And she was making sacrifices in order for me to be able to have benefits that she didn't have growing up. "
Mason didn't say anything, and Hannah focused on putting the Novocain in and numbing the area around the jagged cut.
Mason reminded her a lot of herself. Of course, he was a boy and she was not, but the signs were there.
Maybe there was something she could do to help.