Old Acquaintance Read online

  “Thank you,” Mary said. Then she hurried down the hall.

  Stopping at room six, she knocked on the door.

  “You can come in,” Ian called.

  She entered the room. Ian was sitting on an examination table, bare chested, his arm covered with gauze. “Mary!” he exclaimed, hopping off the bed and hurrying over to her. “You can’t be here. We don’t know what Tony—”

  “Tony’s gone, Ian,” she said. “We don’t ever have to worry about him again.”

  “Gone?” Ian asked, amazed. “How did you… Are you okay?”

  She nodded, surprised when she felt tears form in her eyes. She quickly brushed them away and nodded again. “It’s been a pretty long day,” she said, her voice breaking.

  He took her in his arms and hugged her. “Aye, it has at that,” he said.

  Stepping back, his hands still on her upper arms, he met her eyes. “Have you seen Bradley yet?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied, shaking her head. “I just got here.”

  “Ah, well then, let’s go search him out,” he said, leading her towards the door.

  “What about your shirt?” Mary asked.

  Ian shrugged. “Well, the one I came with is in the trash bin, cut in pieces and no good for anything anymore,” he explained. “And although I’ve had an army of nurses coming in and out of the room to check on me, none of them seem to be able to locate a shirt for me.”

  Mary couldn’t stop the grin. “I just bet they couldn’t,” she said.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Ian, the only thing better than the black shirt,” she teased, “is no shirt.”

  “Mary, you’re just flattering me,” he said. “I’m a fair mess, with my scrapes and bruises. No one in their right mind would find this body attractive.”

  She shook her head. “You just keep believing that.”

  Ian led her to the elevator, and they took it up to the third floor. “Rosie’s room is down this hall,” he said. “As far as I know, she hasn’t been able to see Stanley yet, and she’s frantic.”

  “I don’t blame her,” Mary replied. “I would be frantic too.” She stopped just before Rosie’s room and turned to Ian. “How is Stanley? Really?”

  He shook his head. “He’s not good,” he answered softly. “The doctors believe he might have suffered a heart attack during the fire. Then, there was a lack of oxygen because of the smoke. And on top of that, third degree burns. It all depends on how much his body can take.”

  Mary nodded, wiped away the escaping tears and took a deep breath. “He’s a fighter,” she said. “If nothing else, Stanley’s a fighter.”

  Ian nodded. “Aye, he is,” he agreed quietly. “Aye, he is.”

  Chapter Sixty-three

  “Oh, Mary,” Rosie cried. “It was so frightening. Stanley was inside the burning house, and I couldn’t get to him. I tried, but I just couldn’t.”

  Mary looked down at Rosie’s bandaged hands, burnt raw from her efforts to turn the searing doorknob, and wrapped her arms around her friend. “You did everything you could,” Mary said. “Stanley will be so proud of you when he hears how hard you tried.”

  “I shouldn’t have left him,” Rosie cried into Mary’s shoulder. “I should have gone into the hallway.”

  “Nonsense,” Mary replied gently. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do. Exactly what Stanley wanted you to do.”

  “I was so frightened, Mary,” Rosie admitted.

  “Well, of course you were,” Mary comforted. “Anyone would have been frightened in that situation. The fact that you got yourself out the window and around to the front of the house was amazing. And Ian told me that you gave them all the information they needed to get Stanley out. You saved his life, Rosie.”

  Rosie lifted her head and looked at Mary. “Really?” she asked, her voice shaking with hope.

  Mary nodded. “Really,” she said.

  Rosie seemed to relax at Mary’s words. “I had no idea,” she said, trying to muffle a yawn.

  “Why don’t you try to sleep for a little while?” Mary suggested. “There’s nothing that heals a body better than sleep.”

  Rosie nodded and settled back into the pillows. “That’s a good idea,” she said sleepily. “I’ll just take a nap.”

  Mary leaned forward and kissed Rosie’s cheek. “Sweet dreams,” she whispered.

  Lifting the control switch from the side of the bed, Mary turned down the lights, and then she quietly left the room.

  Bradley and Ian were in the hall, waiting for her.

  “She’s going to sleep for a little while,” Mary said.

  “I don’t know how you did it,” Bradley said, shaking his head. “I’ve been trying to convince her to sleep for the last hour.”

  “Well, I’m sure having someone reinforce that she’d done everything she could had a lot to do with it,” Mary said. “I didn’t even have to mention to her that Tony was gone.”

  Bradley nodded. “And that’s something we need to talk about,” he said.

  “Aye, I’m interested in hearing about how you did it too,” Ian agreed. He looked up and down the hall. “But where can we go to speak?”

  “There’s a private viewing room attached to Stanley’s isolation room,” Bradley said. “We could go up there, check on his progress and then have a conversation about what happened.” He looked over at Mary. “And I have a feeling I’m not going to be too thrilled with the story.”

  She sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I have the same feeling too.”

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Mary, Bradley and Ian took the elevator up to the fourth floor in silence. The elevator doors opened in front of the nurse’s station. One of the nurses looked up from her computer monitor and addressed Bradley.

  She shook her head sadly. “There’s been no change,” she said.

  “Thank you, “Bradley said. “We’re just going to sit in the observation room.”

  “Okay,” she replied. Then she looked at Ian. “Would you like something to wear? It gets cold in those observation rooms.”

  He smiled at her. “That would be much appreciated,” he said.

  She got up and walked to the back of the station, opened a large drawer and pulled out a sweatshirt with the hospital’s logo emblazoned on it. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “That will keep you warm.”

  He pulled it over his head and carefully pushed his arm through the sleeve. It was a little loose on him, but it was warm and soft.

  “Just don’t tell anyone I gave it to you,” she said with a warm smile.

  “Why?” Ian said. “I don’t want you to be in trouble for giving it to me. I’ll gladly pay for it.”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s not it,” she replied. “I have some colleagues who would have preferred to keep you shirtless.”

  Mary smiled and held back a laugh. “Thank you,” she said to the nurse. “Your secret is safe with us.”

  They walked down the hall, and Bradley opened the door to the observation area that corresponded to Stanley’s room. Mary gasped softly and walked over to the window. The purple bruises on Stanley’s face stood out boldly against the pale color of his skin. And oxygen mask covered his nose and his mouth, and a myriad of IV tubes and monitor wires traveled down alongside his body.

  “Where did they put his IVs?” Mary whispered.

  “In his leg,” Bradley replied. “There was no place on his arms that wasn’t burnt.”

  Stanley’s head was wrapped with gauze, and his arms, chest and torso were covered with a special blanket for burns. The only sign of life was the monitor in the corner that slowly registered his heart beat.

  She stared at Stanley, willing him to move, willing his eyes to open, but his condition didn’t change. “When will they know if he had a heart attack?” she asked.

  “They won’t know until he wakes up and they do an EKG,” Bradley said.

  She put her hand on his arm. “He will wake up,” she
said with determination. “He’s a fighter. He will wake up.”

  Bradley took a deep breath and nodded. Then he turned to her. “You would tell me, right?” he asked. “You would tell me if his spirit was no longer in his body.”

  She looked up at him. “Yes, of course, I would tell you,” she said.

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and then turned back to the window.

  After a few moments of silence, he turned back to her. “I don’t want to know,” he said.

  “What?” she replied, confused.

  “I don’t want to know what you did to get rid of Tony,” he said. “I’m grateful that he can’t do this to anyone else we love.”

  She wrapped her arms around his arm and leaned against him. “Me too,” she said, tears flowing freely. “Me too.”

  Chapter Sixty-five

  “Is Grandpa Stanley coming home for Christmas?” Clarissa asked as the family sat in the living room on Christmas Eve.

  “No, sweetheart,” Rosie said sadly. “He still has to be in the hospital.”

  “But it’s Christmas,” Clarissa replied, shaking her head. “He shouldn’t be alone on Christmas.”

  “He won’t be alone, sweetheart,” Mary said. “We’re all going to take turns watching over him.”

  Clarissa smiled at Mary. “And when he wakes up, he’s going to see the card I made him, right?” she asked.

  “Yes, he is,” Bradley said. “And if that doesn’t cheer him up, I don’t know what will.”

  Rosie wept softly and tried to pull a tissue from a box with her bandaged hands. Mary quickly reached over, pulled one out for her and placed it in between her fingers. Rosie blotted the tears from her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “I miss Grandpa Stanley, too,” Clarissa said, walking over to Rosie and giving her a hug.

  Rosie smiled, her eyes moist with tears. “Yes, dear,” she said. “We all miss Grandpa Stanley.”

  Ian came across the room, bent over and kissed Rosie on the top of her head. “I’ll be leaving for my turn,” he said. “And I’ll tell him I’m making googly eyes at his wife. That’ll wake him up for sure.”

  Rosie reached up and patted Ian’s arm. “And then he’ll call you a foreigner,” she said with a sad laugh.

  “Aye,” Ian replied, his voice breaking. “And he’ll tell me I have a funny accent.”

  He took a deep breath, dashed the tears away and stood.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for Christmas?” Mary asked.

  He came to her and gave her a hug. “No, darling, I need to be back in Chicago,” he said. “So, I’ll take my turn with Stanley and then I’ll be on the road.”

  Bradley walked over and hugged Ian. “Merry Christmas.”

  Ian smiled. “Merry Christmas to you too.”

  Mike glided over to Ian. “If you need anything,” he said, “anything at all, call me.”

  Ian nodded. “I’ll just call out your name,” he began.

  Mike grinned. “And you know, wherever I am.”

  “You’ll come running,” Ian finished. He smiled at the angel. “Merry Christmas, Mike.”

  “Merry Christmas to you, too,” Mike said.

  Rosie turned to Mary. “I do think it’s odd that Ian talks to himself that way,” she whispered. “Do you think the smoke effected his brain somehow?”

  In spite of herself, Mary laughed, and she shook her head. “No, I think he’s fine,” she said. “He’s just speaking with Mike.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Rosie said. “You know, it would be much easier to remember that he’s in the room if he would just show himself.” She paused for a moment. “Or perhaps he could wear a ribbon or a bell.”

  Ian glanced over at Mary and winked. “Aye,” he agreed with Rosie. “Or, better yet, a tartan.”

  “I’m not wearing one of those Scottish skirts,” Mike replied. Then he smiled at his friends. “I just don’t have the legs for it.”

  Laughing, Ian walked over to Clarissa and squatted down next to her. “Merry Christmas, little darling,” he said.

  She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Merry Christmas, Uncle Ian,” she said. “I love you.”

  He smiled and kissed her cheek. “I love you, too,” he said.

  “When are you coming back?” she asked.

  “Well, for sure I’ll come when Mikey’s born,” he said. “And that’s not too far away, is it?”

  “Just three weeks away,” Clarissa said. “And then I get to be a sister.”

  “That’s amazing,” he said. “I’ll be back in three weeks then.”

  Clarissa peeked over her shoulder at her mom, then smiled at Ian. “Unless he’s late,” she said with a grin.

  “Clarissa,” Mary said with mock sternness. “I thought we discussed that we would never mention that option in this house.”

  Clarissa smiled widely. “Oh, I forgot,” she teased.

  “Good thing Santa is already on his way,” Mary teased back. “Or you, young lady, would have a couple of coal lumps in your stocking.”

  Ian gave her one more quick hug and then stood, gathering his suitcase and coat. Mary walked him to the door. “I have the next shift,” she said. “So, perhaps I’ll see you again tonight.”

  “If not,” he replied, “take care of yourself and Mikey.” Then he lowered his voice and leaned in next to her. “And never, ever tell Bradley about what happened between you and Tony.”

  She nodded. “I agree,” she said. “He’d probably take my Louisville Slugger away from me.”

  Ian studied her for a long moment. “At the very least,” he said. He leaned forward and placed another kiss on her cheek. “Be well.”

  “You too,” she replied. “And try to be happy.”

  Chapter Sixty-six

  Mary walked down the deserted hospital hallway, the slap of her boots echoing against the tiled floor. There were signs of the holidays in the lobby and on office doors, but there was generally little joy in a hospital on Christmas Eve.

  She reached the elevator bank and automatically pressed the button for the fourth floor. She had been up to Stanley’s room so many times in the past few days that she could probably find her way in her sleep.

  When the door closed, she leaned against the back wall. It had been an exhausting day, getting everything ready for their celebration tomorrow. She smiled fondly as she thought about Bradley struggling through the assembly instructions of Clarissa’s Christmas gift. When she left, he was muttering some very unChristmas-like words. And, for some reason, he didn’t seem to appreciate her reminder that Santa was listening.

  Still chuckling when the door opened, her mood quickly shifted when she saw the look of the nurse on shift.

  “Stanley?” she asked.

  “He’s had some respiratory issues tonight,” she said. “His blood pressure has also been fluctuating, and his heart rate slowed.”

  “Should I get his wife?” Mary asked.

  “I don’t know,” the nurse replied. “This could be his body giving up the fight, or it could be just a weird fluctuation. Why don’t you go see him and then you can decide.”

  She hurried down the hall to his room. He was no longer in isolation, so they could actually sit next to his bed and talk to him. The door was slightly ajar, but the curtain had been drawn across it. She started to enter, then paused when she heard Ian’s voice. He was softly singing to Stanley.

  “And there's a hand, my trusty friend!

  And give us a hand of yours!

  And we'll take a deep draught of good-will

  For long, long ago.

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And never brought to mind?

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And auld lang syne.”

  She quietly entered the room to find Ian crying softly at Stanley’s bedside. He looked up when she came towards him. “He’s naught but an old, grumpy coot,” he whispered. “But he’s the closest I
’ve had to a da in a long time.”

  She pulled up a chair next to him and nodded. “I know,” she said, placing his hand over hers. “Do you think we need to call Rosie?”

  He took a deep breath, wiped his tears with his sleeve and nodded sadly. “Aye, I wouldna have her miss the last moments with him,” he said. He stood up and nodded. “I’ll make the call. You take some time with him.”

  She moved into the chair closest to Stanley and took his bandaged hand in hers. “Stanley,” she whispered. “You can’t give up. You have to fight. We need you here.” Her voice cracked, and tears began to flow. “I need you here. You have to teach Mikey how to fish. You have to tell Clarissa about the old days. You have to be part of our family.”

  She laid her head down on the blanket and cried softly. “You can’t die, Stanley,” she wept softly. “Please God, don’t let him die.”

  And then she smelled it again. Fresh pine and vanilla. She immediately sat up and saw that on the other side of Stanley’s bed stood the Spirit of Christmas.

  “It’s midnight, Mary, on Christmas Eve,” he said. “A time of miracles.”

  He looked down at Stanley and smiled kindly. “Even though he was a grumbler, he’s always been on my good list,” he said.

  “You really have a list?” Mary whispered.

  He laughed softly. “No, my dear, I don’t,” he replied. “But I do get to sometimes grant wishes. What would you like for Christmas, my dear?”

  “Can you?” she stammered, afraid to hope. “Please. Save Stanley.”

  He smiled at her, and Mary felt his goodness fill her heart. “Blessed Christmas,” he said, then he paused, put his hand in his pocket and placed something on the corner of the bed. “Oh, by the way, this is for Bradley.”

  When he lifted his hand, she saw a duplicate of the antique Christmas ornament that had been destroyed. She looked up to thank him but he was already gone.

  Then Mary felt pressure on her hand and, in disbelief, looked up to see Stanley looking at her. He reached up, pulled the oxygen mask away from his face and grumbled, “How come I’m hooked up to all these dang-blasted contraptions?” he asked, his voice weak.