Deep Haven [02] Tying the Knot Read online

  “It’s been nice to be busy,” Anne said in answer to his comment. “Jenny brought me out on Wednesday, introduced me to the tribal council, and showed me around the reservation. She mentioned the clinic needed some work.”

  “That’s an understatement.” Dr. Jefferies turned down the swell of hip-hop on the radio, to Anne’s silent gratitude. “With the new casino opening, I know the reservation has plans to sink some profits into the community.” He shrugged and gave her a bleak look. “About half these folks live below the poverty level, even with the casino profits. The other half send cash down to the cities to help their families.”

  Anne had no problem picturing those folks. Half of them lived in her former neighborhood. Many of them escaped the reservation to find jobs or attend the university. The others had simply exchanged rural poverty for urban hopelessness. There was a good reason why alcoholism skyrocketed among the elderly Native Americans. Many still had difficulty finding their footing, regardless of where they lived.

  “I met some wonderful young mothers,” Anne offered, “and according to the reservation statistics, about half are double-parent homes.”

  “Granite River Reservation has a better percentage than many. Over 75 percent of the population is gainfully employed, between the state parks, the federal jobs, the casino, and the border jobs in Thunder Bay. That’s not typical, however.” Dr. Jefferies passed a crawling minivan, piled high with luggage. Anne waved at a little girl who had pushed her nose up against her grimy window.

  “Most Native Americans struggle with a place to call home,” Dr. Jefferies continued, his foot stomping on the accelerator as he passed a slow-moving car. “The reservation is no picnic. Jobs are hard to find. Poverty, broken marriages, and alcoholism are the norm. And the city offers no escape. Without a decent education, they find themselves on the street or crammed in with their distant relatives.”

  “What about drugs? I’ve heard they’re on the rise.” The memory of one punk, high on some sort of uppers—snow or perhaps black beauties—raced through her mind. She blinked it away.

  Dr. Jefferies paused, pursed his lips. “It’s always an issue.”

  “And gangs? In the cities, they play no favorites. Native Americans are sucked in along with the rest of the kids.”

  “I don’t know about the gang activity in Granite River, but I wouldn’t be surprised.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, brow furrowed, as if wrestling with his thoughts. “By the way, if you haven’t already heard, there’s a burglar afoot in Deep Haven. Gloria Miller—she works in the PT department—had her house vandalized while she was on vacation. And one of the local nurses claims she was followed while coming off late shift last week. She called the cops on the way home, and they were waiting for her at her house. It scared the mugger off. But he’s out there, so, well . . . just be careful, okay?”

  He glanced at her, and she saw concern in his eyes, reaching out to her. “If you are ever afraid, you know you can call me. I’d be glad to help . . . walk you home or whatever.”

  She imagined Dr. Jefferies standing in front of some mugger, and while his slight form didn’t inspire the confidence that, say, Noah the Thug would have, the kind offer warmed her heart. “Thank you.”

  They passed the sprawling Granite River Casino, crafted to resemble a cozy 1800s lodge in the tradition of the fur traders who once blazed a trail from Canada down to Lake Superior. Anne was under no illusions that this new enterprise held the latest in blackjack, bingo, and video slots designed to suck up a person’s hard-earned paycheck.

  “You know, the dining room serves excellent apple dumplings.” Dr. Jefferies smiled at her, and she couldn’t help but notice a twinkle in his eye. “If we’re late driving back, maybe we can stop in.”

  Anne nodded, debating how to respond wisely. Sharing dessert with a coworker wasn’t a date, was it?

  “Okay, maybe,” she said. Perhaps Dr. Jefferies, with his safe, calm demeanor and a nicely constructed future, was just the medicine she needed to heal her wounded heart. “That would be nice.”

  Granite River itself couldn’t be defined as a boomtown. The main street resembled something out of a Hollywood mock-up with a convenience store/gas station, a grocery store, a postal office/federal building, and the shabby clinic comprising the hub. A collection of micro single-family homes, with peeling siding and weed-rooted yards, spiraled out from the main drag on half-paved, half-dirt streets. Rusty bikes, broken yard toys, and fraying furniture littered the streets and occasional saggy porches. A few children sat on the cement front steps of a trailer, one playfully fighting with a dirty mutt for a rag.

  Even the medical clinic had seen better days, judging by its weathered clapboard siding and the once-neon, green-and-white light over the door. The reservation felt as miserable as it looked, evident, for instance, from the empty eyes and drawn faces of two elderly men holding long-neck bottles as they lounged in front of the grocery store. Anne hoped it was root beer. She tried not to look at the old-timers but felt their probing gaze on her as she followed Dr. Jefferies into the clinic.

  Jenny waited inside, wearing a pink nurse’s jacket over her jeans and T-shirt. Anne donned a similar jacket and tried to feel comfortable. Hard to do with twenty pairs of eyes on her. Three young mothers holding sniffling babies, an elderly couple, and two chubby middle-aged women sat in the cracked vinyl chairs. A handful of teenagers clumped in the corner. The tension felt oily and thick as she slipped into the supply room behind Jenny.

  “Is it always this full?”

  “Only once a month.” Jenny readied a tray of vials, swabs, alcohol swipes, and gloves. “Most are here for HIV tests. First Friday of every month, they’re free.”

  She shoved the tray into Anne’s hands and trotted out of the room. While Anne stood there, openmouthed, her courage careening to her toes, Jenny called the first name.

  To Anne’s dismay, one of the teenage girls stepped forward, hugging her skinny waist. Eyes downcast, her shiny black hair obscuring her face, she scuffed across the dirty linoleum floor in her clogs.

  Anne glanced at the group, hoping the rest were here for moral support. The three other girls turned away and stared out the window, watching traffic.

  Anne directed the girl into the lab. “What is your name?”

  “Ella.” It sounded more like a grunt. She sat, but her gaze stayed glued to the floor.

  “Well, Ella, can I ask you a few questions?” Anne stared at the form, hoping to find some sort of solace on the blank page. She held no delusions that the reservation somehow protected the inhabitants from the evil of the cities, but this girl couldn’t be more than fourteen. Anne felt sick.

  Ella shrugged, but her hands shook. She stilled them by folding them together, then tucking them between her knees.

  “Ella, have you been . . . um . . . active recently?”

  Ella looked away.

  “Within the last year?”

  She saw the girl’s jaw tighten.

  “Okay then, let’s take a sample.” Anne glanced at the form. “You know, you don’t have to give me your name. I can do this anonymously.”

  “It don’t matter. If I’m dying, I’m dying.”

  Anne knelt before her patient. “What is done is done. You can’t change the past. But you might not be HIV positive, and if you aren’t, this is a great time to think about your future. Even if you are, AIDS research is extending life expectancy. This isn’t the end of your life, Ella. It’s just a dark moment.”

  The girl said nothing, but tears welled in her eyes. Anne fought the urge to take Ella into her arms. She knew Ella’s fear. As a health professional, she’d been tested every year for the fatal virus. She’d never tested positive, but she understood the dread and knew more than she wanted to about bleak moments. “It’s going to be okay, honey.”

  “If I have it, who would ever marry me?” The pitiful words, spoken so softly, almost ripped out Anne’s heart.

  Anne smoothed Ell
a’s silky hair. “Someone who loves you very much. To the right man, it won’t matter. All the scars on your body and soul won’t matter.”

  “I hope so,” Ella said.

  Anne silently agreed with her. She had her own scars, body and soul, and while she felt pretty sure she’d never let a man within shooting distance of her heart again, if one ever did make a direct hit and meet her at the altar, he would eventually see the destruction to her body. Seventeen stitches in her stomach and a spiderweb scar in her back weren’t something she ached to reveal. She shuddered against the thought.

  To Anne’s dismay, she tested all seven teenagers milling about the waiting room. None of them seemed as young as Ella, but all had eyes ringed with fear. Anne prayed that the tests would return negative and that this scare might reap a change in their lives. The need for a camp like Wilderness Challenge to change young lives nagged at her all day.

  Jenny had assisted Dr. Jefferies in attending to the other patients. Anne noticed how one elderly couple hung on to Jenny as if she were their own child. She wondered briefly, if she were to fill Jenny’s position, would the locals adopt her, or would she even want them to? These people weren’t so different from the ones she’d escaped . . . lonely, desperate, on the brittle edge of poverty, filling their time with seedy pursuits. Did she think that moving north would obliterate the human sin nature?

  When the last of Anne’s teenagers left, she stood at the window, watching the entire group climb into a pickup—four in the bed—and roar through town. Dust fogged their wake and churned up despair in Anne’s heart. What would it take to touch these teens? She recognized in their eyes the same emptiness that plagued the kids in Minneapolis. A black hole of despair.

  Perhaps that was why her father had chucked a comfortable pastorate in the Minneapolis suburbs for a home next to a drug lair. Maybe that was why Anne and her sister were yanked out of their safe junior high and plunged into a world of security checks and language that had curdled their ears. It certainly wasn’t a lifestyle Anne wished for her own kids, if she ever had any.

  But as Anne gathered the vials of blood, making sure each was labeled correctly, she acknowledged that her father’s work had changed lives. He’d dragged homeless kids off the streets and restored light to their grungy faces. He’d taught young mothers how to parent their out-of-wedlock babies and even convinced a few to offer their children a new life through adoption. And he’d taught his own daughters how to say no, how to think on their feet, and how to live a life of holiness in a world of filth.

  Noah had a worthy idea—so worthy that a decent person, one with EMT training and no other job prospects, wouldn’t hesitate to reconsider his offer and invest her summer in it. If she could change one life, keep one young lady from the grip of drugs and disease, wouldn’t it be worth letting her heart get a little trampled? Her father would have nearly exploded with pride. And he, in surrendering his life, had found peace. So Anne would have to surrender her summer. Wasn’t peace why she’d moved to Deep Haven?

  The thought of Ella’s tear-glistened eyes convinced her. At least at a camp, Anne wouldn’t find herself staring down a gun barrel. Dr. Jefferies’ warning flickered through her mind. Maybe by the end of the summer they’d nab their burglar, and Deep Haven would become the safe “haven” she needed to start her new life.

  She’d have to don that tough-as-nails shell her father had helped create and face Noah. Well, maybe she’d hide behind the other staffers, but she would be there, bright and early Monday morning, making sure Wilderness Challenge changed lives. At least until Dr. Simpson could find a decent replacement. The last thing she wanted to cultivate in her new hometown was the reputation of shutting down dreams. Just because Noah had demolished any fragment of trust she had for him, it didn’t mean these kids had to pay the price. She’d simply remind herself not to fall for his dangerous, break-her-heart charisma.

  Anne packed the blood samples into a padded case and set it next to her bag of notes and files. She’d noticed a number of rusted Fords tucked behind houses, and she wondered how many of them had seeped unused fuel into the ground. She had a sick feeling there might be a few kids in Granite River battling lead poisoning and wanted to sleuth through the files to confirm her hunch. The first thing she needed to do, if she landed Jenny’s job, was requisition a computer.

  Dusk threw dirty shadows across the linoleum in the waiting area. Jenny had hauled out a mop and bucket and had swabbed down the entryway. “Can you stack those magazines?” she asked.

  Anne heard a door click in the back of the clinic and turned to see Dr. Jefferies entering. Where had he been? Carrying a white paper bag, probably containing supper, he hustled into his back office and shut the door.

  So much for apple dumplings at the casino.

  Anne piled the magazines on the table, picked up a few crushed candy wrappers, and had just tied the garbage bag when a cry rent the air. “Help me, somebody, please!”

  Anne swallowed her heart back into place and ran to the door. A young woman clutched a small boy to her chest. His red color made Anne’s mouth run dry. “Bring him in here.” Anne pointed to the examining room. “How old is he?”

  “Three. Please. I found him like this on the floor of our family room.” Panic pitched the young mother’s voice high. “He seemed tired today, but now he won’t wake up.”

  Anne felt the boy’s face—dry, warm skin. His pulse seemed thready, rapid. She tipped his head back to clear his airway, then checked for breathing sounds. He seemed to struggle.

  “Jenny, get Dr. Jefferies, quick.” Anne checked his nose and ears. They indicated no head trauma, but she checked for bumps to confirm. She unbuttoned the boy’s shirt, ignoring the stains of ketchup and Kool-Aid. “What’s his name, ma’am?”

  “Justin. He’s my only son; please help him.”

  Anne glanced up at the woman.

  Tears streaked down her pretty face. “He’s all I have.”

  “Justin, can you hear me?” Anne grabbed a stethoscope from the wall. Where was Dr. Jefferies? Justin’s heart raced. She ran her knuckles along his sternum. He didn’t flinch. She opened his sunken eyes. Pupils weren’t dilated.

  “Are there any medicines missing? or poison? Could he have gotten into detergent, perhaps?” The child seemed deprived of air. He sucked in deep, sighing respirations.

  The mother rubbed her skinny arms, backing away. “No, I don’t think so. No.”

  Justin stiffened. Anne’s heart dropped when she saw the child soil himself. She scooped him up off the table and set him on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” the mother shrieked. Anne’s EMT training kicked in, and she ripped open his shirt lest it ride up and choke him.

  “Turn around!” she ordered. The last thing the woman needed was to watch her son enter the next phase of his seizure. “Jenny!”

  Justin jerked. The mother screamed as Anne made sure the child didn’t slam his arms and legs against the wall. “Are you sure he didn’t eat any poison? Maybe rat poison? Do you have any houseplants or mushrooms in your yard?”

  The child’s seizure lasted two agonizing minutes as his mother wailed and Anne filed through her brain for clues.

  Jenny appeared at the door, looking white. “Dr. Jefferies won’t answer.”

  Anne swallowed that bit of information and turned to the mother. “Has Justin vomited recently?”

  She shook her head, her hands over her mouth, horrified as she stared at her son. The boy stopped convulsing and Anne immediately checked his eyes. Pupils responded slightly to her penlight.

  She checked his respiration. “Tell me what you did today, ma’am. Everything.”

  “Nothing. We did nothing. We slept in a little late because we were at a birthday party last night. Justin seemed so tired, I hated to wake him.”

  Jenny had the woman in a tight embrace. “It’s okay, Mary,” she soothed. The mother clung to Jenny as if she might collapse.

  “A birthday party? Was
there cake?”

  “And ice cream and cookies. Justin had a ball.” Mary buried her face in Jenny’s shoulder.

  Anne leaned over the boy, smelled his breath. She nearly gagged at the sickly sweet, acetone odor. “Jenny, get me some sugar.”

  “What?”

  “Just get me some sugar!” Anne wound a blood-pressure cuff around his arm and pumped it up. One hundred ten over fifty. She needed help—and fast.

  “He did vomit . . . a few days ago,” Mary hiccupped.

  “How many days? Has he been confused? lethargic?”

  The mother knelt beside Anne and touched her son’s leg. “I thought he had the flu. He said he had a stomachache. And he seemed extremely thirsty, but he always is, especially when his stomach is hurting.”

  Anne prodded Justin’s stomach. There seemed to be no distention. “Has he ever been tested for diabetes?”

  The woman went white. “No. He’s always been normal. A happy, active child. No, nothing like that.”

  Anne put her hand on Mary’s shoulder, holding it tight. “I don’t know what’s wrong with your son. I’m just trying to help him.”

  The woman nodded. Tears dripped off her chin.

  Jenny ran in with a bag of sugar. Behind her trailed the grocery-story clerk, still clad in a green apron, and the two old park-bench sentries. But no Dr. Jefferies. “Thank you, Jenny.” She took the bag and ripped it open. “Go try to rouse Dr. Jefferies, please.”

  Lifting the child’s head, Anne pinched out a small amount of sugar and gently sprinkled it under his tongue. Please, O God, let me guess correctly! With Justin unconscious, she couldn’t administer liquid glucose, and pure sucrose, table sugar, was the quickest remedy. Whether he was in a diabetic coma or insulin shock, the sugar would keep his system from totally shutting down.