The Bear With No Name (6 page)

“With pleasure,” she snapped. “I’m tired of you looking down on us all, and complaining about all the ‘civilized’ things you can’t buy here, and acting like we’re all your employees. Nobody asked you to ‘retire to the country’,” she said, with her hands clawing air quotes. “Nobody asked you to build that monstrosity up on the hill.”

David looked up where Fran was pointing: an elaborate structure spilled down the slope, with multiple sections connected by breezeways and porches, and all of it absolutely clotted with white gingerbread trim. It was like a Victorian farm house had metastasized.

“We got by just fine here for centuries without the Valentis lording it over us in a gaudy castle, and we’ll keep getting along just fine after you’re gone,” she finished. Then she turned and walked away before Mr. Valenti could respond. His face got even redder, but when he realized every man in the crew was staring at him, he coughed and tried to look unconcerned.

After another half hour of work the culvert was cleared. The crew returned to the shelter for lunch. David realized one benefit of spending time away from Lauren – now he would actually have something to tell her over lunch!

He caught sight of her standing over a grill outside the church. When she looked up and saw him, a welcoming smile spread across her face. She handed her spatula to a woman walking past and ran up to meet him.

There was an awkward little moment where neither of them was sure whether to hug or kiss or what. They settled for twining their fingers together and standing close.

“I missed you,” David said.

“I missed you, too,” Lauren said, blushing a little. Was missing someone something to be embarrassed about? Was this a social cue David had forgotten along with his name? If so, he didn’t care. He couldn’t imagine not telling her the simple truth, that she’d been on his mind in one way or another the whole time he was away.

They went to stand in line for some lunch. While waiting, David told her in a low voice about the argument between Fran and Mr. Valenti.

“I wonder why she seems so angry?” David mused.

“She’s pretty grumpy in general, it’s true. She loves the animals she takes care of, but she doesn’t have a lot of patience with people. Ella told me a really sad story about her. It’s third-hand by this point so I don’t know if we can really trust the details, but it would explain a lot. She and her husband only had one child, a daughter. They weren’t too keen on her going away to college, but she had her heart set on it. And there she fell in love with some guy that her parents totally did not approve of; I don’t know what the problem was, it might have just been that he wasn’t from Ashton or Sheldon. That’s how parochial some of the older people are here.

“Anyway, she ran off and married him without their blessing, and her parents didn’t speak to her for years. And when they finally decided to reconcile, they couldn’t find her. This was before the internet, and they didn’t even know her husband’s name. They had to hire a P.I. At first he couldn’t find any trace of them. When he finally found their name and where they’d moved to, it was too late. The daughter and her husband had both died in a car accident a few months before.”

“That’s awful!” David said. The story gave him a cold, heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he realized that he was clutching his paper plate so tightly it was getting crumpled.

“And the saddest part is that the two of them had a child, but he must have gone to live with some relatives of his father after the accident, because Fran and her husband never found him.”

David found himself tempted to take Lauren’s hand and pull her close, to hold her so tightly that nothing could separate them. He shook it off and starting loading some food onto his plate, when he noticed Mr. Mitchell acting strangely.

The elderly farmer had been helping them with the flood debris all morning. Now David saw him stagger to a chair and sit down, panting and hunching over uncomfortably. Sweat started dripping down the older man’s face. He was having a heart attack. It couldn’t be clearer if he actually stood up and yelled, “I’m having a heart attack!” And no one else seemed to notice.

David dropped his food and grabbed Lauren. “Stay with him and get him to lie down,” he said, pointing to Mr. Mitchell. He had just seen Reverend Parrish a few seconds ago … there he was! David pushed through the crowd and got his attention.

“Do you have a defibrillator in the church?”

“Why yes, we just got a grant–”

“Get it now!” David said, pointing to Mr. Mitchell. He returned to where Lauren had helped him down to the ground. He knelt down beside him and was assaulted by the smell of a body in distress.

“How are you feeling right now, Mr. Mitchell?”

“It doesn’t hurt so much now, but I feel awfully … strange …” the farmer said, trailing off as his eyes rolled back and he lost consciousness.

David felt for a pulse and watched for any signs of respiration, but the man was totally out. David started CPR immediately.

“Lauren, can you find Pete?” he said between pushes. He had no idea if the portable defibrillator in the church would be adequately charged, but the equipment in the ambulance would be maintained routinely.

“I’m on it,” she said, heading into the crowd.

As he counted the chest thrusts, he could hear Lauren calling out to a few other people with CPR training to come spell him if needed. Before he even got to the first round of rescue breathing, Rev. Parrish was there with the defibrillator.

“Is there someone who can take over while I set this up?” he asked the people circled around him.

“I’m a lifeguard,” said a young woman. She leaned in, putting almost her whole body weight into it to continue the thrusts.

David quickly scanned the instructions on the AED. The indicator light looked like there was enough charge. He pulled out the pads and motioned the lifeguard aside.

He applied the pads and hit the switch. Then he checked for a pulse: it was there, but weak and uneven. What else could they do to stabilize him? Pete would have oxygen on his truck, but he wasn’t sure what other drugs might be standard on a rural ambulance. Would he have nitro? Or clot-busters? And what other complications might Mr. Mitchell have?

“Is there anyone here who knows Mr. Mitchell’s medical history?” he asked the crowd.

“Someone is already driving over to the farm to get Mrs. Mitchell,” said Rev. Parrish.

Then David saw the ambulance edging toward them as people scrambled out of the way. Pete took over and they got Mr. Mitchell settled in with oxygen and a pulse oximeter.

“We could try nitro, but I have no idea if he’s ever had a stroke,” said David.

“I know he has a prescription for nitro. He usually takes the spray with him everywhere, but I’ve got some in the truck.”

They administered the spray and within minutes Mr. Mitchell was awake and breathing more easily.

“There really isn’t anywhere I can take him for further treatment, though,” said Pete. “Officer Kennedy is on the radio trying to set up an airlift for him.”

“He needs a hospital with a cath lab,” David said.

“Remember when I asked yesterday if you had medical training?” Pete said. “I’m thinking the answer is yes.”

David paused and looked around him. For a long, strange moment he didn’t recognize his surroundings. It wasn’t at all what he expected to see. There was an image in his mind; it started fading almost as soon as he noticed it, but it was there long enough for him to recognize a hospital emergency room.

He sagged and sat down, still feeling confused. It was like he could hear their voices echoing: doctors and nurses, sharp but calm and in control, rattling off orders, following routines and procedures that were so well-practiced they had become ingrained.

That’s what had happened here. In an emergency, his reflexes took over and he hadn’t time to wonder or second-guess himself.

Lauren settled down beside him. They sat in silence for a few minutes as the chattering crowd processed what had happened. Pete and Rev. Parrish dealt with all the well-wishers, keeping them from tiring out Mr. Mitchell as they waited for the helicopter.

Then Lauren said, “So you’re remembering things?”

“Just a few flashes. I saw the ER. I could sort of hear the voices of doctors and nurses working together on a busy night.”

“You’re a doctor.”

“Or maybe a nurse,” he pointed out.

Lauren shook her head and laughed a little. “Somewhere on the Upper East Side, my father is smiling and he doesn’t know why,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She paused again. “You seemed like a different person while you were handling that emergency.”

“Different how?”

“Confident. Focused. In command.”

“Is that good different or bad different?”

“Neither. Just different different.”

He held out his hand to her and she took it. He felt calmer and more grounded the instant that they touched. It’s true, he had felt different. It was like for the past day, he had been living with only one part of his heart and mind, and now another part had woken up. But this part loved Lauren, too – he was sure of it.

Someone brought them plates of food, and then other people came up to thank him, and to ask him questions that he still couldn’t answer, and soon they heard the sound of the helicopter approaching.

Chapter 10

Lauren had half been expecting that David would ask to leave with Mr. Mitchell – that once he’d recovered some sense of his place in the world, he’d ditch her and this town as quickly as he could.

But he seemed perfectly content to stay, and so after all the excitement was over, Lauren thought again about something that had been nagging at her all morning.

“Hey David,” she said. “Do you want to go on a hike with me?”

“Sure,” he said, looking a little puzzled. “Where and why?”

“I want to check out some of the higher spots around town, to see if I can get a cell signal from the next valley over.”

“For the emergency planning team, or because you want to make a call?”

“I have to admit, my main goal is to call my parents. I’m sure they are completely flipping out by now.” Lauren couldn’t help but give a resigned sigh.

“Sounds like there’s a story there?”

“I’ll tell you while we hike.”

Lauren stopped at home to grab her backpack with emergency supplies and a topo map, then set out for the trail that ran up the ridge behind the Valentis’ house.

“So, my parents … where to start? They love me and want what’s best for me; I just keep reminding myself of that, and it makes the other stuff a bit easier to take.”

“Like what stuff?”

Lauren sighed again. She sighed a lot when it came to her parents.

“They really don’t understand what the hell I’m doing in the Park Service. My parents care a lot about achievement. And I don’t mean to say they’re shallow, because they’re really not – they just like accomplishments that are measurable and recognizable, and if they happen to be accomplishments that are rewarded with lots of money, that’s great too. But the money is just, like, a side effect of winning.”

“What do they do?”

“My dad’s an endocrinologist and my mom’s a civil engineer.”

“So they both help people, in a way.”

“Exactly! It’s not like they’re hedge fund managers. But they care a lot about honors and promotions and reputations and all those outward signs of doing something that matters. When I decided to major in environmental education back in college, it broke their brains. What kind of job would I get? What were the opportunities for advancement? Wasn’t there some road to becoming a World-Renowned Expert in the field? Eventually they comforted themselves with the idea that I would someday go get a PhD and become some sort of professor or researcher. Where they got this idea, I don’t know, because I never once suggested it.”

“No grad school plans for you?”

“I might like to get a Masters. But just so that I can get better at what I’m already doing: helping people experience the joy of wilderness. My job makes me happy every day.”

“And that doesn’t make
them
happy?”

“Mostly it makes them confused. And when they’re confused, they get nervous. They worry about me enough as it is, even without catastrophic floods and power failures.”

“So that little comment about your dad...?”

Lauren could feel herself blushing. She kind of wished she’d kept her mouth shut, but she decided to go ahead and own it.

“If they knew I was dating a doctor? They’d definitely worry less.” She smiled and looked over her shoulder as she said it, checking his reaction. David smiled back, his grin just a little bit suggestive. Lauren paused to let him catch up, then sneaked her arm around his back. He put his arm around her shoulder and they walked on like that.

In for a penny, in for a pound
, thought Lauren, and said, “And if it turns out that you’re Jewish, my parents will consider their prayers to be entirely answered.”

“Well, I don’t know that I’m
not
Jewish …”

“Works for me, either way!” she laughed.

They had made their way through town and down a little alley. Lauren had to poke around through some bushes before she found the trail, little more than a deer track that neighborhood kids sometimes used. Ella said that before the Valentis built their house there, the point overlooking the town had been a favorite teen party spot.

It was a steep scramble up the hill, and although the trees shaded the path, they also blocked the breeze, and the day was hot and humid. Before long she felt the itchy trickle of sweat running down her back. It was such a relief to break out of the trees when they reached the ridge line, Lauren dropped her backpack and flung her arms out wide to let the wind cool her as much as it could. Then she lifted the heavy mass of her curls off her neck.

She opened her eyes to find David standing before her, looking mesmerized and hungry. She glanced down; oops, the pose really highlighted her assets, so to speak. But as David came closer and reverently lifted his hands to her hips, she really didn’t feel too sorry.