Caden glances up from a chart, cocking an eyebrow. “In Pediatrics?”
“Yeah. Hot, right?”
Catching me staring, Caden holds my eyes for a second and that sparkle I saw before, lights up. “She’s alright,” he says to his friend, casually returning to the chart.
“Alright?! Dude, she’s…” Dev notices my presence. “…a very talented woman with a beautiful mind.”
I sigh and turn in the other direction.
“Dr. Myers!”
I pause for Caden to catch up with me. We walk up the corridor together, my face passive. “Yes?”
“How did you and your friend fare after I left?”
“Left where?”
He chuckles, “Oh, okay. You’re going to play it that way.”
“You mean Digby’s?”
“You know I mean Digby’s.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Right,” he snorts, moving out of the way of an approaching family. “Sure.”
“Can I help you with something medical, Dr. Cocker?”
He lowers his voice. “Yes, I’ve got this patient who made me blush a few nights back. You see, I touched her smooth calf when I shouldn’t have. Now I can’t get her out of my cerebral cortex.”
Successfully hiding my inner smile, I dryly inform him, “You should stay away from her. That’s my best advice. You did apologize?”
“I don’t believe I did apologize. At least not very well. Because I wasn’t very sorry.”
Casting him a quick look to see if he’s merely playing with me, I note that he seems serious in his flirtation, like I could escalate this if I wanted to.
Immediately I freak out on the inside. Of course he can’t tell because Gwen was right—I can hide this if I try. And these last few days of waiting for him to say something—anything—kinda pissed me off. “I’m not sure what you expect me to do, Dr. Cocker.”
He smirks, “How about…” but now is dragging a hand over his face, almond eyes losing their light. “Nothing you can say, I guess.”
We stop in front of Room 309, my destination. And I don’t want him to give up that easily. I understand why he has, but dammit, what do I do now? How can I flirt without flirting? Clearing my throat, I ask, “It’s coming out of the blue, don’t you think?”
Caden blinks at me, head tilting slightly. “You were waiting for me to say something earlier.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No.”
“Yes it is what you meant.” He mirrors my stance, shoving stubborn hands in his white coat’s pockets. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“That’s fine because it’s not what I meant.”
In a lower volume he says, “But you’ve been on my mind, too.”
We stare at each other until it becomes clear that one of us had better move before this becomes obvious. I reach for the doorknob but pause. “Room 707. Twenty minutes. We’ll discuss this further.”
“See you there.” He takes off and I disappear inside.
CHAPTER 16
ELIZABETH
A charming drawl greets me, “Oh, Doctor! Just delightful. How are you? Wasn’t it a lovely day?”
“Hello Mrs. Thorpe.” I glance to the moon through her window and pull a chart from the foot of her bed. “I can’t believe it’s already after ten. But the sun never stops shining in here.”
She waves my compliment away—along with reality—while turning her head to smile from the corners of tired eyes. “You’re too sweet, stop it! Did I tell you that you remind me of my daughter Penny?”
“You have told me that. I was even lucky enough to meet her on Sunday and I can see why you think that.”
Cloudy eyes are filled with confusion. “But she wasn’t here…was she?”
Gently I remind her, “Penny visited with you all day, Mrs. Thorpe. You had a lovely time.”
Tapping her head, she’s upset it doesn’t work like it used to. “Isn’t that the hardest thing? Now if I could only forget my ex-husbands!”
I laugh, though I’ve heard this joke from her before. Alzheimer’s is so hard. Sometimes I wish I’d gone into neuroscience, but the crawling nature of research wouldn’t dovetail with my hunger for an E.R.’s activity.
Mrs. Thorpe’s hip broke because she forgot there were stairs in her home, and now she’ll be moving to a Senior Living facility where her room will be on the first floor—Penny ensured that.
“How’s your hip feeling?”
“That’s what I needed to ask you, Doctor!” She touches it, glancing down, “Why does it hurt?”
“You fell, Mrs. Thorpe, and unfortunately broke the bone. On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?”
“Six?”
“Which means eight, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t want to complain, dear.”
I smile, “And I don’t want you in pain, dear.”
Making the cutest face, she slumps a little. “Perhaps it’s a bit closer to an eight. But only a wee bit.”
I write a note and slip the file back into the folder. “Now your nurses can transform that number to one much lower.”
“Did I tell you I marched with Martin Luther King Jr? That man was magnetic! You know they say some people are put on this earth to further mankind, and he certainly did that.”
Her reverential smile floats to the side as her memory marches with him. This is one story she never seems to forget.
Nurse Gabi enters the room as Mrs. Thorpe recounts the tale for us. “I was on the Pettus Bridge when those state highway patrolmen beat us in March of 1965. It was so frightening. Didn’t make no kinda sense! And two weeks later, you know what I did? I walked beside three thousand people all the way from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. I had never seen anything like it! We weren’t alone, you see. There were thousands waiting when we arrived at the Alabama State Capitol, excited to hear what Martin Luther was going to say. I waited with bated breath, too.”
Gabi whispers, “Cradle of the Confederacy. I still can’t believe it was that recent people were drinking from different fountains!”
“Absurd,” I sigh.
But staring off, Mrs. Thorpe smiles. “All of us…using our voices together…the Voting Rights Act was signed that August, and President Johnson handed Martin Luther the pen! Now that was a victory. One
