Rachel gently shook her mother’s shoulder. “Mom? Mom, can you wake up now? I’m sorry, but I gotta get some sleep before I fall over.”
Janey opened one eye. “Wha’ time izzit?”
“About ten-forty. And it’s still Monday night, too.”
The other eye almost opened. “Any change?”
“No. Dad’s asleep and they say he’s still stable. The nurse came in about ten minutes ago to check his vitals and draw some more blood. He didn’t react at all.”
Janey grunted, then flipped the coverlet back from the cot. “Thanks for waking me. You can have the cot as soon as I go to the bathroom.”
“You better hurry. That cot looks really good to me right now.”
As soon as her mother sat down beside her father’s bed, Rachel took off her shoes and jeans, then lay down, pulled the blanket over herself, and completed her journey to the land of Nod.
*****
Rachel knew she was asleep, knew she was dreaming, and yet her mother’s shouts were really loud. Why was her mom yelling at her to get up? Why was she telling her dad he couldn’t go? Was he going somewhere he shouldn’t go? Did he—
Hospital!
Her eyes snapped open and saw her mother bent over her father in the hospital bed, her hands around his shoulders, shaking them as she all but screamed for him to come back.
Rachel jumped out of bed without stopping to put on her jeans or shoes. She was beside the bed in an instant. “Mom! What’s wrong?” Her mother didn’t respond except to cry harder.
Rachel looked at the monitor and saw that her dad’s heartbeat was rapid and irregular and his blood pressure was one-ninety-two over one-thirty-five. She grabbed the call box and pressed the button. As soon as a woman answered, she yelled, “Mark Harris in ICU room – I dunno – his heart’s beatin’ funny, real high blood pressure—”
“I’m coming right now.” A page for Doctor Brooks went out over the intercom with a Code Blue suffix.
The cardiac monitor suddenly went flat and emitted a constant tone. Rachel all but leaped on the bed and started chest compressions to keep her father’s blood flowing. The ventilator kept breathing for him, so she didn’t have to do that. All she had to do was keep the blood flowing.
She timed her pumps around the airflow of the ventilator. She glanced at the machine and saw that his blood oxygen level was just under ninety percent. Not too bad, but not good, either. She started pumping again.
The floor nurse jogged into the room and checked his pupils. “Pupils normal and reactive – keep going on the heart massage – temperature ninety-nine point eight – blood-ox eighty-six percent and going down – blood pressure one-ninety over one-forty-five – may have an embolism.” She turned and yelled at the door. “Doctor Brooks! In here!”
A short, slender, older black man in scrubs jetted in and snapped, “Report!”
The nurse repeated what she’d said aloud a moment before. Dr. Brooks pulled a stethoscope from his pocket and snapped, “Stop the compressions!”
Rachel leaned back and wiped sweat from her forehead as the doctor checked her father’s chest. “I think you’re right. I need a crash cart and a syringe of Retavase now!”
The nurse vanished in a splatter of shoe squeaks on the floor. The doctor turned to Rachel and said, “You’re the daughter, right?”
She panted as the vent pushed air in her father’s lungs again. “Yes. Also county sheriff.”
“Takes too much time for us to change places, so keep those compressions going. You’re doing excellent work.”
She leaned in again and pressed, hoping that she didn’t damage his ribs further. Sweat and tears mixed on her face and dripped off her chin, leaving little damp dots on her dad’s hospital gown.
Pump-pump-pump-pump don’t forget to breathe wait for the vent pump-pump-pump-pump-pump—
Her world shrunk to her hands on her father’s torso. Nothing else existed, not her fatigue, not the terror of losing her father, not her mother still crying next to the wall, not the doctor standing beside the bed, not the nurse rushing in with a syringe or the big man pushing the crash cart into the room—
Dr. Brooks grabbed her arm as she paused for the vent. “Climb down now. If we have to, we’ll defibrillate him.”
Exhausted, she hesitated. The second nurse, the big guy with the crash cart, put his hands on her waist and all but picked her up off the bed to set her on her bare feet beside the cot. The man leaned down and whispered, “Sheriff, you’re out of uniform,” then turned away to manipulate the machine on the cart.
Rachel glanced down to check her uniform and suddenly realized she was wearing only her dark blue T-shirt and her underwear. She reached down and grabbed her jeans, then put her hands on her knees and took in several deep breaths before putting on her pants.
Just as she fastened her belt, the doctor said, “Retavase in! Charge to seventy-five!” The box on the cart whined and the doctor shouted “Clear!” and her father’s body leaped up from the bed and everyone in the room stopped moving.
The alarm on her dad’s monitor – which she hadn’t even heard until everyone stopped – went from an irregular tempo to a regular beep then to a lower-pitched warble then a continual beeeeeeeee—.
She froze. He couldn’t be dead. No! He’s not dead!
Then the monitor resumed its regular beeping, and the doctor and the two nurses sighed. “There,” said Dr. Brooks. “BP is coming down, we have a regular sinus rhythm, pulse is strong and steady. Watch him closely for the next two hours. Second Retavase injection in the IV line in thirty minutes. As long as the BP stays normal, we shouldn’t have to worry about internal bleeding or a stroke.” He turned to face Rachel. “Excellent work, Sheriff. I think you just saved your father’s life.”
She tried to say something nice to thank him but suddenly they were so far away and everything turned gray and she couldn’t hear them—
*****
Lana sat beside Rachel’s bed and shook her head. If Lana had been in Rachel’s position, her father would probably not have survived. Once again the town’s young sheriff had proven her worth, this time in front of some very influential medical professionals. Mark Harris was such a lucky man to have a wife like Janey and a daughter like Rachel.
She glanced at her watch. She had about fifteen minutes before she needed to relieve Janey in her husband’s room. The women planned to switch bedsides then.
She looked back to Rachel. The girl was asleep with a blood pressure cuff on her upper left arm and a blood oxygen monitor clipped to her right index finger. Lana saw that Rachel’s blood pressure was 116 over 77, her blood oxygen level was 97, and her pulse rate was 64. It all looked good to Lana, who was not a doctor or a nurse, and had apparently looked good to the nurse who was also checking those numbers. The big man, who wore a magnetic name tag that read Barry Simpson, smiled and said that she’d probably be released when she woke up.
“When will that be?” Lana whispered.
“When she’s ready,” he replied quietly. “She was flat tuckered out when she got to her dad’s room yesterday, and they tell me she stayed awake while her mom got some sleep. Then she lay down for less than two hours and had to get up and do CPR on her dad until we got there.”
“Oh? You were in the room last night?”
“Real early this morning, actually, but yeah. I volunteered to stay late to watch over her. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone that impressive on first sight.”
This was interesting, thought Lana. “How impressive?”
The young man grinned. “I pushed the cart into the room and there was this blonde Valkyrie sitting on the bed doing chest compressions on her dad while Dr. Brooks and Ashley worked on him. Did you know she jumped off that cot to do CPR without putting on her pants? That was impressive.”
Lana squelched a chortle. “Her pants? When did she get dressed?”
“I pushed the cart next to the bed and the doctor yelled at her to get off. I could see she was exhausted, so I picked her up and stood her beside the cot and told her she was out of uniform. By the time we got her dad stabilized she had her jeans on, and then when Dr. Brooks told her she’d saved her dad’s life, she passed out.”
“Did she hurt herself?”
“No, I caught her. But when she didn’t revive right away, Dr. Brooks told me to take her to this room and put her to bed. And before you ask, no, I didn’t undress her. Ashley and Vanessa took care of that chore.”
Lana chuckled. “So she’s just wiped out, then?”
“Yep. That’s all. Well, I need to go finish my rounds. I volunteered to stay and watch over her and they put me to work. Totally unfair.”
“Don’t worry. If I’m not in here, her mom will be. We won’t leave the heroine alone.”
Barry smiled and nodded, then looked at Rachel again. Lana thought she saw a budding case of hero worship in his eyes. Wouldn’t hurt Rachel to be thought of as a hero, she mused.
The big man deftly whirled and walked out with a spring in his step.
A long moment later, a grunt from the bed drew her attention.
Rachel’s blue eyes blinked and partly opened. She made as if to sit up, but Lana gently pressed down on her shoulder. “You just lie still, girl. You’ve earned some sack time.”
The blue eyes squinted, then seemed to focus. “Lana? That you?”
“Yes. Just be patient.”
Rachel looked around and grunted again, then ran her free hand down her side under the covers. “I’m in a hospital bed wearing nothing but a gown. I’m already a patient.”
Lana smiled. “True. It’s almost ten-thirty on Tuesday morning. Your father’s doing just fine. Your mom’s with him now. I’m supposed to relieve her in a few minutes so she can come sit with you.”
Rachel lifted each arm in turn. “I guess I can’t go nowhere right now anyway. When’re they gonna disconnect me?”
“Sometime today if the doctor on call this morning thinks you’re ready to get up. The way everyone here is telling the story, you’re the reason your mom isn’t a widow.”
Rachel’s head dropped back against the pillow. “So I didn’t dream all that last night.”
“You did not. Your mother woke you out of a sound sleep, you jumped up on your father’s chest and did CPR until the med staff took over, and you impressed the daylights out of everyone who’s been by to check on you.”
“That’s nice.” She paused, then said, “Can you call a nurse to unhook me? I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Lana smiled wider and pressed the call button. “Yes?” came the immediate response.
“Rachel Harris is awake and needs to run an urgent personal errand.”
“Run a personal – oh, of course, I’ll be right in.”
Rachel lifted her eyebrows. “Very polite. Circumspect, too.”
“Circumspect? Have you been reading your Word-a-Day toilet paper lately?”
“No, just detective novels, a series. Hero’s name is the same as some Middle English poet or something. Guy just uses one name.”
“The author?”
“The main character. Spenser, that’s it. The author named him after Edmund Spenser. Keeps sayin’ his strength is the strength of ten because his heart is pure. Poetic stuff like that.” Rachel shifted on the bed. “Sure wish that nurse would hurry up.”
“I think there’s a bedpan around her somewhere if you can’t wait.”
“I can wait. Long as it ain’t too long.”
Just then a nurse Lana hadn’t seen bustled in. “Good morning, Miss Harris! How are we today?”
Rachel glared at her and said, “We are gonna wet this bed but good if we don’t get in that bathroom right about now.” She lifted her left arm. “Unstrap this gizmo for me.”
The nurse tried unsuccessfully to hide a grin. As soon as the cuff was gone, Rachel unclipped the O2 sensor taped to her finger from its lead to the monitor and lunged out of bed. Lana tried not to laugh as the sheriff’s gown refused to fully close behind her as she waddled stiff-legged to the bathroom.
The bathroom door closed. After a moment, they heard the young woman moan and sigh as if she were receiving a relaxing massage. Lana chuckled and the nurse smiled.
“You ought to see and hear some of the things I have to deal with,” the woman told Lana. “You’d advocate for a raise in pay for every nurse in the country.”
“No thanks. I’m executive secretary for Smallville’s mayor, and that’s as political as I want to get.”
Rachel came out of the bathroom and closed the door, then leaned her back against it. “Can I get dressed now? This here gown don’t preserve my modesty at all.”
The nurse shook her head. “I’m sorry, you can’t get dressed until the doctor clears you. But I can let you put your underwear back on.”
Rachel frowned, then nodded. “That’s something, I guess. Doctor gonna be here soon?”
“Shortly after lunch. Morning rounds are already complete.” The nurse stood and asked, “Are you hungry? You missed breakfast, but we’ve got some stuff in the vending machines to tide you over until lunch.”
Rachel’s mouth twisted. “No thanks. I get enough vending food at the sheriff’s office. Say, did anybody call my office to fill them in?”
Lana nodded. “Your mom called and talked to Mrs. Howard. She said not to worry, they’d cover for you and that you were supposed to take care of your father, your mother, and yourself, all together and in that order.” She stood and walked to the closet. “Here’s your underwear. Ooh, turquoise. Nice color. Anyway, I can go get something from a fast food place or the cafeteria if you want.” Lana turned to the nurse. “I can bring her something from outside, can’t I?”
“She’s not critical care, should be released today, so yes, you can bring in anything non-alcoholic. We’ve had a few patients try to cheat that way, so there are rules.”
“No problem there. She doesn’t drink alcohol.” Lana grabbed her purse. “What can I bring you, Rachel?”
“Uh – thanks. They’s a Arby’s close by, ain't there?”
“There is. I’ll go tell your mom that you’re awake, and if she’s hungry I’ll bring back whatever she wants, too. What’s your preference?”
“Turkey and Swiss cheese and some of them curly fries. A big one if you can afford it.”
“Will do. Beverage?”
“Biggest sweet tea they got with very little ice. If they argue about that, tell them the sheriff is already as cool as she needs to be. And thanks again, Lana.”
Lana smiled. “No problem. Oh, the Kents are coming by in a little while to visit your mom and dad. I’m sure they’ll drop in here, too, if you haven’t been released yet. Be back as soon as I can!”
With that, Lana bounced out of the room and turned down the hall. It made Lana feel good that she was helping the Harris family this way. Maybe it made up for some of the times in the past she’d been petty and vindictive toward Rachel.
Maybe they could learn to be friends, too. It never hurts to have the cops on your side. Might even help her at work if the mayor found out she was a personal friend of the county sheriff. And in her topsy-turvy out-of-sorts private life.
Maybe Rachel could help her with that situation too. When the time came, anyway.
*****
The young woman behind the rental storage facility counter that morning with a name tag on her shirt that read “Madge,” smiled and leaned toward Clark as he completed the paperwork for his storage unit. Madge had been impressed by the big young man. He’d been polite, gentle, patient, and hadn’t touched her once, not even when she’d sidled up against him – quite by accident, of course – to point out some of the storage options available.
She watched him unload the appliances from his pickup, marveling at his strength and seeming ease with the heavy loads. Madge had seen guys who looked like pro football linemen grunt and yell and barely move refrigerators and freezers and stoves and washing machines. A few of them had even dropped their loads.
Not this guy, this Clark Kent. He moved his belongings with gentleness and precision, and he never appeared to reach his limit. His T-shirt revealed the definition of his shoulders and arms, but as long as she watched him he never seemed to strain to move anything. He loaded the facility-supplied hand cart and pushed it up the concrete ramps with ease. He seemed to put out as little effort as he might when pushing a shopping cart, as if he could have carried each load to the top floor storage room in his hands.
On his second trip, just after lunch, he’d filled his truck with boxes. He pulled them out of the bed, from the back seat, from the passenger side of the front seat, loaded the pushcart and ferried them to his room, and he never strained with any of them. The guy was strong, really strong, and he never seemed to get tired or even sweat very much.
He came down after his last trip and walked into the office. “Hi, Madge,” he said. “You busy?”
She lifted the phone in her hand. “Got a customer looking for some paperwork at home. Be right with you, Mr. Kent.”
He nodded, smiled, then put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. Madge forced herself not to sigh into the phone.
The woman on the other end came back. “I found my receipt. You know, I was sure I’d agreed to a large room, but the receipt describes a mid-sized one. I’m very sorry to have bothered you with my mistake.”
“It’s no bother, Mrs. Butler. That’s what we’re here for. You have a good rest of the day, okay?”
“Thank you, young lady. Goodbye.”
Madge hung up and smiled at Clark. She made herself call him by his last name out loud, but he was Clark in her thoughts. Probably always would be.
“How can I help you, Mr. Kent?”
“Oh, I just wanted to thank you for your help. I don’t know when I’ll be back for my stuff, but you folks just keep charging my credit card.”
She modified her smile and hoped she appeared to be a bit sly. “Don’t worry about that, sir. We always get paid.” They shared a chuckle, then she asked, “You did put a lock on your unit, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I prefer combination locks over key locks. Hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine. I’ll go up and put our second lock on it when Ernie gets back inside. He’s helping a customer with a rental truck right now.”
“Sounds fine to me. I hope I see you when I come back, Madge.” He waved and walked out the door to his truck.
Now that he couldn’t hear her, Madge allowed herself a sigh. Most guys that good-looking were married, jerks, morons, morally bankrupt, or a combination of at least two of those characteristics. The woman with whom Clark Kent fell in love would be the luckiest woman on the face of the earth.
Madge returned to her duties with a shake of her head. She wasn’t getting paid to moon over the customers, not even the luscious ones. And if Ernie ever figured out that she’d been drooling over a man she’d met only today, she’d never hear the end of it.
*****
Clark pulled the truck in the parking space nearest to his front door and got out. He took the two-wheeled dolly out of the bed and carried it into his apartment. One last load for the truck, mostly clothing and a few mementos, were all that were left to load. Then he’d tie a tarpaulin down over everything in the truck bed and point the vehicle’s hood to the west.
He stood in the bare front room, remembering all the times Lois had come over. They’d worked on investigations together, hashed out story details, argued over what was and what wasn’t likely to get past Legal, played board games, watched videos or TV, shared both planned and spontaneous dinners, and built what Clark had at one time thought was a strong relationship.
Shows you how wrong a Kryptonian can be, he mused.
The knock on his door brought him back to the present. He walked up the steps and opened the door to see Lucy holding a Chick-Fil-A bag in one hand and a plastic bag with canned soft drinks in the other.
“Surprise!” she called out. “It’s just a little going-away gift for you. I want your last memory of this apartment to be a pleasant one.”
He lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “I thought the meal at Mike’s was for good-bye.”
She wiggled the bags back and forth. “I hope you’re not saying that you’re not hungry, because despite my stomach’s empty condition I can’t eat all this by myself. Now let me in before I faint from malnutrition.”
Clark was grateful for her consideration. “Thank you, Lucy.” He glanced at his watch and frowned just to tease her a little. “Let me see – yes, I think I have time for a quick dinner. I’m afraid we’ll have to lean on the kitchen counter. All my furniture is in storage.”
She walked in, handed the bags to Clark, then nodded at the boxes still in the apartment. “Not much left, is there? I assume that’s what’s going to Smallville with you?”
“Yep. Clothes, shoes, my laptop, some CDs – my Kerth, of course – and some other kitsch I wanted to take along. I just have to strap it all down in the bed of the truck, stop once or twice for gas, and I’m good to go.”
“Just two gas stops?”
“The truck has dual fuel tanks. I can put over forty gallons in it when both are dry.”
“I see. Hey, why don’t we sit on the floor and make a table out of a couple of the boxes? I know your floor is clean.”
He smiled. “Floor with boxes it is. You hang on to the bags for a minute and let me do the stacking.”
“Sounds like a deal. I’ll even help you load whatever’s left when we’re done.”
*****
Around four-forty that afternoon, Martha walked through the hospital entrance and headed for the elevators. She’d already heard the bare bones of how Rachel had performed CPR on her father for however long it had taken the doctor on call to arrive. The girl had probably saved her father’s life, and she needed to know how heroic that feat really was.
She slowly peeked into Mark Harris’ room and saw Rachel sitting beside the bed, holding her sleeping father’s hand. Martha almost backed out, but Rachel glanced up and smiled. “Come on in,” she whispered. “Dad’s asleep. He woke up about two hours ago and I talked to him for a few minutes. He didn’t make a lot of sense but he was mostly lucid. Pointed to his chest like it was sore.”
Martha smiled. “Did you tell him why that was?”
“No. Figured he didn’t need to know just yet. I’ll let Mom tell him. She’ll make me out to be a big hero.”
“You are a hero, Rachel. Don’t be modest.”
Rachel shook her head. “I ain’t no hero. The doctors and nurses did the real work. I just did what any daughter’d do.”
Martha reached out and gently hugged Rachel. “Sure, sure. And with no pants on, too.”
Rachel reddened slightly. “Heard about that, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I guess it’s all over town now. ‘Naked Sheriff Saves Father.’ Make a good headline.” She snorted lightly. “Clark would enjoy readin’ that.”
“Funny you should mention Clark. He should be here by tomorrow evening or Wednesday morning. He’ll be staying with us for a while.”
The girl’s eyes opened in surprise. “Oh. Right. I forgot about him coming back.” She turned and adjusted her father’s already perfect bedcovers. “He gonna be here long?”
“For a few weeks, at least. He’s on assignment for the Daily Planet.”
Rachel opened her mouth as if to say something, then didn’t. Martha decided to change the subject. “How is your mother?”
“She’s okay, or about as okay as any wife can be in this situation. She’s at home asleep, supposed to get back in a couple of hours. Are you here to relieve me?”
“Yes. It’s your turn to sleep. I see they’ve taken the cot out. You can go home and get some rest.”
“I plan to, but I gotta stop by the office first. Paperwork don’t know nothin’ ‘bout sick days.”
Martha laughed quietly. “Then you go ahead. And get some quality sleep, dear. I’m sure your father will be just fine.”
“Yeah. His doctor said last night was the crisis he had to get past. Should be clear sailing from now on.” She reddened again. “Long as I don’t go to jumping on his chest no more.”
It was Martha’s turn to snort. “Make sure you have your pants on before you go.”
Rachel looked down in sudden alarm, then gave Martha a ‘look’ when she realized she was indeed fully dressed. “Very funny. I’m gonna get enough o’ that kind of stuff from my staff. Don’t need you dogpiling on me too.”
“Good night, Sheriff. Dream sweet dreams of your father coming home.”
Rachel nodded and slipped out of the room.
Martha sat down in the chair beside Mark’s bed and sighed. “Mark, your daughter saved your life last night. The story is all over town, and she’s going to get some great publicity out of this. That’s not why she did it, of course, the public response was the last thing on her mind, but she’s a hero now, and that can’t help but do a lot of good for her reputation.
“I don’t remember how much I told you about our son Clark coming back to live with us for a while. He’s on assignment from his paper to write stories about Middle America for the East Coast snobs.”
She chuckled to herself, then sobered. “The only real problem is that his girlfriend in Metropolis, Lois Lane, has broken up with him, and the breakup was so bad that she’s the real reason he’s coming back. I don’t know if they’re going to be able to mend that relationship. I sure hope so, because he really loves her.”
She shifted in the chair and leaned forward. “I know I don’t have to tell you that Rachel is more than glad he’s coming back. She’s had a thing for Clark for years, and that incident last year with the fake EPA investigation didn’t discourage her as much as I thought it would.” She sat back. “Come to think of it, the way Lois acted then made me think she really loved Clark. Guess sometimes you don’t know people as well as you think you do.”
She sighed again. “I just hope Clark and Rachel don’t get involved with each other. I don’t know how long he’s going to be here, and I don’t know yet how vulnerable he is. If the two of them were to get together, it might be a wonderful thing for both of them or it might be completely devastating for everyone around them.” She shook her head. “I’d hate to see Rachel get hurt. And I’d really hate to see Clark get hurt again.”
Martha patted Mark’s hand. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
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