Disguised Blessing Read online

  “Then they were right at the tower? Cars don’t explode?”

  Rick didn’t mind the questions. The rookies that scared him were the ones who came out of the tower convinced they knew it all. “I didn’t say that. And the minute you believe it, you’ll have one go up on you.”

  He opened the pickle jar and handed half a dozen to Paul to chop. “For an explosion to happen the tank has to be pressurized. If the vent got plugged somehow or the fill tube got closed off, theoretically, you could have it blow. In an accident, you’re more likely to be working with a ruptured tank and a rapid burn.

  “What you have to remember is that to the layperson, there’s not even a fine line between an explosion and a rapid burn. While nothing goes flying through the air with a rapid burn, it’s impressive as hell to see gasoline pouring out and burning everything in sight.”

  The captain’s phone rang in Rick’s office, interrupting the lesson. He wiped his hands. “I’ll be right back.”

  Lyn Cassidy from the Firefighters’ Burn Association skipped her usual meandering path to the reason for her call and got right to the point. “I have a big favor. I know I promised you could have the summer off, but I’m desperate. We had a girl come in a couple of days ago and no one is available to take her case until August.”

  Rick had graduated his last burn patient that past spring, a difficult case that had lasted four months past the prescribed twelve. The boy had years of treatment ahead of him, but was finally strong enough emotionally for Rick to step back and let him reach out to others.

  “What about Faith?” Both of the kids they’d taken care of last had graduated from the program at the same time.

  The Burn Association assigned member firefighters as mentors for burned children and their families. They acted as guides through the tangle of agencies and programs available to patients, and as sympathetic listeners when the child or parent simply needed someone to talk to. Rick was convinced the program worked as well as it did because of the care taken with the pairings. With few exceptions, they’d found that children related best to someone of the same sex.

  “She’s leaving for France next week.”

  “Sydney?”

  “Pregnant.”

  He hadn’t heard the news, and he put it in the back of his mind to call and congratulate her and Manuel when he got off the phone with Lyn. “How old is this girl?” The age made a big difference. There wasn’t as much psychological damage when the patient’s body image hadn’t been set mentally. The younger the kids were, the more readily they accepted the scars as part of their makeup. Once the image was set, the change could be, and often was, devastating.

  “Fifteen.”

  Rick flinched. “How bad is she?”

  “Twenty percent. Her back mostly. Some upper arm involvement, some neck, one forearm, but no buttocks or head.”

  “I’ve never worked with a girl that age. Would that be a problem?”

  “I don’t know. It may be,” she added with reluctant honesty. “You’re the only man I even considered asking. If you can’t take her, I’ll wait until Faith can.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Her mother says she’s outgoing and gregarious. Very pretty. A cheerleader, and an athlete. Good student. Popular. No steady boyfriend. Goes out a lot with friends but isn’t into the one-on-one yet.”

  “What happened?”

  “She was at a party at their vacation home near Tahoe with friends and her sweater caught on fire. She panicked and ran. She got quite a ways before one of the boys caught her. Her mom’s single, but there’s a fiancé. I’m not sure how much help he’s going to be, though. He seems a little skittish to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not the kind who comes through in a crisis. Every time I’ve been at the hospital, he’s off somewhere and the mother is looking for him.”

  “How is the mom handling it?”

  “She’s still in shock. I have a feeling there’s some guilt working in the mix, but she’s not talking about it. At least not to me.”

  “Can you give me a couple of hours to think about this?” He knew how to reach fifteen-year-old boys; he didn’t pretend to understand the first thing about girls that age.

  “I know I promised you the summer off…”

  He’d been remodeling his house for eight years. Somehow, despite his best intentions, life kept getting in the way. “That’s not it,” he said. “I just don’t want to step into something where I might do more harm than good.”

  “So you can’t talk boyfriends with her. You’re a hell of a lot better than no one being there at all. And if you think she needs to talk to a woman later, I’m sure Faith will give you a hand.”

  “I’d like to think about it tonight at least.”

  “That’s fine. But could you get back to me first thing in the morning?”

  “Why then?”

  “I have an appointment with the mother at ten. I’d like to be able to tell her when and if she can count on us.”

  “And if I say yes?”

  “Then I’ll call and tell her you’ll be taking the meeting.”

  Rick hesitated. “Actually, it might help me decide what to do if I talked to her and got a feel for the situation. Tell her to expect me, but don’t say anything about my being officially assigned yet.”

  “What if I tell her that you’re there for the initial hospital stay and let it go at that?”

  “Sounds good.” Rick hung up and immediately dialed his neighbor, Sandra Brahams. He’d scheduled a delivery from the lumberyard for the next morning and someone had to be there to sign the receipt.

  “You going to be home tomorrow morning—say, until around noon?” he said at her hello.

  She laughed. “It’s a good thing I know your voice. Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Who’s delivering what?”

  “Meeks Lumber is bringing a load of drywall and the redwood for the back deck.”

  “Where do you want it unloaded?”

  “The garage is okay.” He had someone coming that weekend to help him hang the drywall in the dining room and kitchen or he would have postponed the delivery.

  “Overtime?”

  Sandra knew his schedule almost as well as he did. They shared a golden-Lab mix named Blue that lived at her and Walt’s house when Rick was working and at Rick’s whenever the dog saw his truck in the driveway. “A new kid came into the hospital a couple of nights ago. I have a meeting with the mother and her fiancé at ten.”

  “I thought you said you were taking a couple of months off.”

  “Yeah, well, you know how that goes.” In the background Rick saw the hall lights go on, the precursor to the bells going off for an alarm. “Gotta go, Sandra. There’s a run coming in.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Rick headed for the kitchen to help put the food away. The rookie sported a grin, the rest of the crew a look of acceptance. Rick shoved the potato salad in the refrigerator and went to the computer for the printout of the details of the call. He gave the address to Steve and told his crew that they were responding to a woman locked out of her car.

  Steve pulled into the parking lot of the Bel Air Supermarket, the one where they shopped for the firehouse. Rick looked around for a blue Acura and spotted it on the far side by the cleaners.

  “Did you get the chicken off the barbecue?” Steve asked Rick.

  “Not me.” Rick opened his microphone and looked at the back seat. “Either one of you get the chicken?”

  “Uh-uh,” Janet said.

  “What chicken?” Paul asked.

  “Maybe we’d better order a pizza before we leave,” Rick said.

  “Shit—not again.” Steve groaned. “I hate pizza.”

  “Let’s see…” Rick held up his hands and moved them as if weighing the options. “Burned chicken…pizza. It’s your call.”

  “What about Chinese?”

  “Not enough money in the food fund.”

  “
Jesus—what happened to it? We were fifty dollars to the good last time I looked.”

  “That standing rib roast we had last shift wiped us out.”

  “Uh…Capt’n…,” Paul said. “I think there’s someone trying to get your attention.”

  Rick looked up to see a woman standing beside the blue Acura. He assumed she was the owner. She glared at him, her hands on her hips, her mouth rapidly moving, her eyes full of fire. To Steve he said, “You suppose she’s telling us we’re not moving fast enough to suit her?”

  “Nah—she’s probably saying she left a chicken on the barbecue and wants to get home before it burns.”

  Rick laughed. “Only an idiot would do something like that.”

  5

  RICK NODDED TO THE RECEPTIONIST AS HE ENTERED the lobby of the Shriner’s hospital and headed for the elevators. He loved this building. Where most hospitals were closed and cramped, here the architect had provided a wall of windows six stories high that made the trees and clouds seem a part of the enormous second-floor playroom, and gave the children’s minds freedom while their injuries kept them confined.

  He stopped by the nurses’ break room and grabbed a cup of coffee—a prop to give a comfortable, relaxed impression when he first met Catherine Miller and her fiancé, Tom Adams. He wanted them to see him as an insider, a part of the hospital routine, someone they could trust without hesitation in an emergency. He’d discovered years earlier that it was the simple things that made a difference where trust was involved, the sense of belonging that came with a ceramic mug instead of a paper cup, the confidence to perch on the corner of a desk in a physician’s office rather than a chair. By breaking down that initial barrier as quickly as possible, he could get down to his real job—helping Lynda get on with her life.

  Today the meeting was scheduled in Marcia Randolph’s office. She was the chief of plastic surgery and a long-time friend. Marcia’s assistant, a young woman just beginning to show her pregnancy, smiled when she saw Rick.

  “She’s waiting for you.”

  Rick glanced at the clock on the back wall. He was ten minutes early. “Has she been here long?”

  “About five minutes.”

  Indicating her expanding stomach, he asked, “Did you get Marcia’s approval for that?”

  She laughed. “She did make me promise I’d be back. She even told me she’d get me a raise so Mike could stay home and take care of the baby.”

  His hand on the office door, he added, “See what happens when you make yourself indispensable?”

  “Think I should start goofing off?”

  “Sure—just don’t tell Marcia I said so.” He was careful to lose the smile before he went inside.

  A woman he guessed to be in her late thirties stood at the window, so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t hear him enter. She was dressed in white linen slacks and a soft yellow sleeveless top that looked more like a vest than a shirt. She wore her hair in a sleek cut that skimmed shoulders tanned an unnatural shade of brown. The tan surprised Rick. She was obviously from money and at an age when a woman worried more about wrinkles than golden skin.

  “Excuse me,” he said in a soft voice, trying not to startle her.

  She turned to him and forced a polite smile, her eyes hollow and sunken from lack of sleep. “Are you the firefighter?”

  He came forward and extended his hand. “Rick Sawyer.”

  “Catherine Miller.”

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  He’d confused her. “What?”

  “The view. I saw you looking out the window when I came in.”

  She turned to look again as if seeing the view for the first time. “Yes, it is.”

  “Can I get you something while we’re waiting? A cup of coffee? Tea?”

  “Someone else is coming?”

  Over the years Rick had dealt with a lot of parents of burned children, had seen every degree of grief, yet the initial meeting still had the same sobering effect on him. Their fear and doubt, often laced with a pervasive guilt, were palpable, impossible to ignore.

  He used to try to ease the families through the worst times by assuring them it would get better, that it always did. Finally he’d understood the journey itself was part of the healing process and could only be understood in hindsight.

  “I thought your fiancé wanted to be here, too.”

  “He said not to wait for him—that he could get tied up this morning.”

  Rick gave her a moment to elaborate, to let her know he would listen to anything she wanted to tell him. When she chose not to say anything more, he said, “Then why don’t we get started.”

  She moved from the window to a chair at the desk. Instead of sitting on the other side, or on the desk itself, which would have put him above her, Rick took the chair next to hers. “I’m not sure how much you’ve been told about my role in Lynda’s recovery, so I’ll give you a quick rundown.” He told her in simple terms, leaving out the names of the agencies and people who would help her while letting her know she was not alone.

  “Have you met Lynda?”

  “I thought I’d stop by when we’re through here.”

  “She’s having her dressings changed. That’s why I came upstairs early.” Catherine folded her hands in her lap and stared at them. “They give her something for pain and a drug that induces temporary amnesia…” She stopped and took a deep breath before going on. “She’ll ask me about it someday, but I don’t think I’ll tell her what it was like. For either of us.”

  Rick had heard enough. He didn’t need to know anything more about Catherine to know he could work with her. She was the kind of woman who would be there for her daughter in the hard times ahead.

  “I understand Lynda is on the honor roll,” he said, purposely changing the subject.

  The quick answering smile transformed her face. Rick was taken aback at the difference. A little sleep, a little makeup, and Catherine Miller wouldn’t just be a pretty woman, she’d be someone people turned to look at twice when she passed. “She’s made it every year since third grade.”

  Catherine leaned forward and for the first time looked at Rick as if she were actually seeing him. “She’s a remarkable young woman. I’ll do whatever it takes to make her whole again. And I mean that—whatever it takes.”

  “What do you mean by whole?” Rick asked carefully. If Catherine believed she could bargain or buy her way into returning Lynda to the girl she’d once been, she was in for a crushing disappointment. Lynda could be as smart, as funny, as personable as before, but she could not have her body restored. She would always be scarred. How those scars affected her mind depended in large part on Catherine.

  “I want her to be as confident as she was before she was burned. She has to know that her scars don’t matter. And not just in her mind, but in her heart.”

  A fierceness accompanied Catherine’s words. She was helpless to do anything to help Lynda now, but that didn’t keep her from mapping their future. Rick not only liked this woman, he admired her.

  “It won’t be easy,” he said. “Lynda has a set body image and it’s going to be hard for her to accept a new one.” Pimples created a crisis in a teen’s life; the scars from a burn could be devastating and often created a personality change.

  A sound in the outer office distracted Catherine. She waited expectantly, hopefully, and then with a small shrug said, “I’m sorry, I thought it might be Tom.”

  “We can finish this later when he’s here,” Rick offered. “I have this afternoon free. I could come back then.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  “I don’t mind. Just give me a time.”

  She considered his request. “Is there a number where I could reach you? I really would like Tom to hear what you have to say and I don’t want you to have to say it twice.”

  He dug a card out of his wallet and gave it to her. “My station number, home number, and pager number are on there. I’ll bring a firefighter calend
ar that will let you know when you can reach me at work. I’m available whenever you want to call, day or night.”

  “Goodness—you make it sound as if we’ll be taking over your life.” She looked at the card. “You’re a captain? What does that mean?”

  He smiled. “I get to sit in the front of the fire engine instead of the back and I don’t have to drive.”

  “I’m sure it’s a little more demanding than that.” She stared at the card as if memorizing it. “I see by your home phone that you live in Placer County.”

  “Loomis.”

  “We’re in Granite Bay.”

  “Is that where Lynda goes to high school?” He was there to find out about her, not talk about himself.

  Catherine nodded. “She’ll be a junior this fall.”

  “Did she skip a grade?”

  “She’ll be sixteen in November.”

  Six months away. That would be a rough birthday. “Is she active in school?”

  Catherine tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, recoiling at its silky feel, so different from Lynda’s…not the way it had once been, but the way it was now. But how had it been? Three days wasn’t enough time to forget. The immediacy of the moment, no matter how compelling its nature, couldn’t erase the lifetime that had gone before. She would remember. She just needed a little time.

  “She’s into everything—choir, soccer, drama, cheerleading.” Catherine heard the pride in her voice, and under ordinary circumstances would have added something about how messy Lynda kept her room or the countless battles they fought over the telephone. Catherine would clean up after Lynda the rest of their lives, she would give up her elaborate wedding and elope, live on a desert island, anything, if she could just go back and change one thing: the sweater.

  If only she hadn’t made Lynda take the sweater. The memory snatched her out of the present and brought her into a world on a different plane, one she would inhabit in her mind forever. She shook herself free and forced a smile, unable to tell if it reached her lips until she saw Rick respond.

  “With all that activity, she must have a strong network of friends.”