Mother's Promise Read online

  Her father had been a bully of the first order, always ordering others around, making fun of their failures, and taking personal credit for their successes.

  But Ben was not anything like her father, and Darcy could only imagine how he must have charmed the Mennonite woman. In the course of a walk from the hospital entrance to the chaplain’s office, he would have put her completely at ease. To that end, Darcy supposed that she owed him a debt of gratitude. Putting people at ease was not her strong suit.

  As Ben had pointed out, they were both workaholics. They spent hours together in meetings when the hospital was being built. Before the hospital food service was up and running, they had shared meals and coffee at a local neighborhood café. They had never had an actual date, but Darcy had high hopes that now that the hospital was open and fully staffed, that would change. Her invitation for pizza had been her first step in a targeted campaign to take her business relationship with Ben to another—more personal—level.

  The door to the office for spiritual care services was ajar. She could hear Paul Cox’s assistant, Eileen Walls, laughing. She tapped on the door and then entered the reception area. “Hello, Eileen,” she said before turning her attention to Rachel. “I’m Darcy Meekins, hospital administrator.” She extended her hand to the woman dressed in the garb of her faith. “And you must be the newest member of our team.”

  “Yes. Rachel. Rachel Kaufmann. I’m so glad to meet you in person,” the woman replied, pumping Darcy’s hand once and then releasing it.

  “I’ve been filling her in while we wait for Pastor Paul to get here,” Eileen explained. “That man needs three clocks to keep him on schedule.” She sighed.

  “I’m here,” a male voice boomed as Paul Cox came huffing his way through the door. He was a large man in both height and weight, and with his bushy gray hair and his pulpit voice, he had a way of filling up whatever space might be left in the small room of the outer office.

  Eileen made the introductions, and Darcy saw by Rachel’s broad smile that she was not any more immune to the minister’s charisma than anyone she’d ever seen him meet had been.

  “Now aren’t you just a breath of sunshine,” he exclaimed as he smiled down at Rachel. “It’s got to be ninety degrees out there and here you are looking fresh as a daisy.”

  Darcy stifled a groan. Paul Cox was given to clichés. It was part of the aw-shucks folksy persona that had made him so successful in his previous position at Sarasota Memorial Hospital before Ben persuaded him to jump ship and head up the team at Gulf Coast. Paul opened the door to his office and stepped aside to allow Rachel and her to enter ahead of him. “Hold any calls, Eileen,” he said, “unless …”

  “How many years have I been working for you, Pastor Paul?” Eileen said sweetly.

  Paul chuckled and gently closed the door. “Have a seat, ladies. Can I get anyone anything? Glass of water? How about a peppermint candy?” He indicated a covered dish on his desk filled with individually wrapped candies.

  Darcy was impatient to get down to business. She had another meeting in twenty minutes. She checked her watch and was a little annoyed that Rachel accepted the offer of water. But then Darcy glanced at her and realized the woman was nervous. And why not? Rachel Kaufmann had accepted a job by phone from over a thousand miles away and was only now facing the realities of that decision.

  “So, Rachel, how was your flight?” Paul asked as he handed her the water then sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk.

  “We did not make the trip on an airplane,” Rachel said after swallowing a sip of the water. “We came on the bus.”

  “My goodness, that must have taken days,” Paul exclaimed. “Have you had some time to rest up and get settled into—where are you living now?”

  Rachel smiled. “My son and I arrived on Friday. We are staying with friends. We had the weekend to rest.”

  “That’s right. Hester Steiner mentioned you were going to bunk in with her and John when I was there last week for the co-op board meeting. All settled in then?”

  “Our stay with the Steiners is temporary. Tonight Hester is taking me to look at a cottage that Mr. Shepherd has for rent.”

  “Malcolm Shepherd?” Darcy asked, her attention now riveted on this quiet-spoken woman, surprised that she had already connected with Ben Booker and Malcolm Shepherd. She felt a familiar tingle of alarm. Darcy had worked hard to establish herself in a career where she was in charge, where she reported only to the board of trustees. She was fiercely protective of that position. It had taken her some time to win the respect and support of Malcolm Shepherd, the president of the hospital’s board of directors.

  Now this woman was possibly going to be living next door to him? On his property?

  “You’ve met Malcolm?” she asked while at the same time assuring herself that Rachel with her prayer cap and her hands now folded piously in her lap was of no possible threat to her.

  Rachel smiled. “Only in the way I met both you and Dr. Booker before now. By the telephone interview. It is my friend Hester Steiner who has made the arrangements for me to see the guesthouse on Mr. Shepherd’s property.”

  “Excellent,” Paul boomed. “You’ll be close to the hospital. We do have emergencies and as the new kid on the block, those will most likely come your way.” He arched an eyebrow as if waiting to see how this bit of information would be received.

  “That would be fine,” Rachel replied and smiled. “What are my other duties?”

  “As I mentioned on the phone I want you to focus on the cases that come through our pediatrics wing while I handle the adult cases,” he said. “Right now we have more adult patients than children, so you’ll have some time to get your bearings. Anyway, I’m taking you at your word.”

  Obviously confused, Rachel looked up at him and then at Darcy.

  “You said on the phone that you liked working with children,” Paul reminded her. “And now that I’ve met you in person I think you might be exactly the right person for the job.”

  Darcy opened her mouth to object. Paul was getting ahead of himself. He could not possibly know if this woman had the special skills necessary to minister to children and their parents without at least supervising her work initially. He was already handing Rachel a folder and a pager.

  “You’ll need to wear this pager or have it handy even when you aren’t actually here at the hospital. If a kid comes in during the night or on the weekend, this thing will buzz.” He pushed a button to demonstrate. “You’ll see a number on the screen, and you’ll need to call that as soon as possible.”

  “I believe you mentioned that you had a child, Rachel.” Darcy felt the need to remind Paul that he should proceed more slowly here.

  “Yes. Justin.” Rachel’s smile brightened in exactly the same way that practically every mother Darcy had ever met came alive at the mention of her child—every mother that was, except hers.

  “And you are a single parent?”

  The smile faltered. “Ja.”

  Darcy could feel Paul’s eyes on her. “We are sorry for your loss, Rachel,” he said. Then turning his full attention back to the business at hand, he indicated the folder he’d handed her. “I took the liberty of putting together some information I thought might be useful in helping you get up to speed. Well, actually, Eileen put the information together at my request,” he admitted with a disarming chuckle. “That woman is my right arm. You need anything and can’t find me? Ask Eileen.”

  Rachel opened the folder and removed the top item—a two-page stapled paper entitled “Role of a Spiritual Care Counselor at Gulf Coast Medical Center.”

  “Paul, I wonder if I might have a copy of that,” Darcy asked, indicating the paper Rachel was scanning.

  “Sure.” He turned and shouted, “Eileen.”

  The door opened. “You have an intercom,” his assistant reminded him.

  “You know me and technical stuff,” he said with a boyish grin. “Can you make Darcy a copy of that?”
r />   Rachel quickly scanned the paper before handing it to Eileen and turning her attention back to Paul. “It all looks fine,” she said. “I’m certain to have questions as we get started.”

  “Well, of course you will,” Paul agreed. “And either Eileen or I will be right here to answer them. Maybe for the first few days we should plan to have lunch together.”

  “I’d like that—I would really appreciate it. Clearly I have a lot to learn.”

  “You’ll do fine.”

  Darcy glanced between them, wondering for a moment if they thought she’d left the room. She stood up. “I have another appointment. It was nice meeting you in person, Rachel. Welcome to Gulf Coast.”

  Rachel stood as well. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you both so much for giving me this opportunity.”

  “Now, Rachel, it’s you we should be thanking,” Paul said. “Isn’t that right, Darcy?” He walked her to the door.

  Darcy shot him a look of warning. Rachel was a new employee on probation. Statements like that could make it harder down the road if they needed to let her go. “We’ll talk later,” she said.

  But Paul just patted her shoulder in that paternal way he had. “She’s going to do fine,” he replied as he took the papers Eileen handed him. He gave the copy to Darcy and carried the original back inside his office to hand to Rachel.

  Darcy felt dismissed as the office door closed behind him, and yet she had been the one to end the meeting. No, it wasn’t that I felt dismissed, she thought as she hurried off to her next appointment. Left out. That was it. As if once more in her life she had done all the right things and still she did not feel part of the inner circle.

  Rachel and Paul had connected almost on sight. Darcy had never in her life known that kind of instant connection—not with school friends, not with her college roommates, not with co-workers, not even with her own family.

  Rachel’s first day on the job was flying by. After her meeting with Darcy and Paul, Eileen had guided her to the Human Resources department where Mark Boynton had taken her through the details of being an employee at Gulf Coast.

  “There’s a dress code,” he had said at one point, and then he’d looked up at her and his cheeks had turned a fiery red. “You’ll be fine,” he amended before turning his attention back to the employee handbook that he had insisted on going over page by page.

  There were papers to sign followed by a tour of the entire facility that left her head spinning. So many corridors. So many people coming and going in all directions. So much suffering on the cancer wing and then utter joy when they walked through the maternity wing. There she witnessed a man in the midst of a throng of well-wishers in the waiting room as he held up his phone to show pictures of his newborn child. They passed two hospital rooms occupied by mothers nursing their babies.

  “Children’s wing is across this skywalk,” Mark told her. “Patients who come here as well as friends and family have their own separate chapel.” He opened the door to a small room that took her breath away.

  The chapel he’d shown her in the main part of the hospital had been generic, with stained glass windows in a geometric design that lined the two side walls. The front of the room was furnished with a small lectern and a simple wooden table that held a vase of fresh flowers. The rest of the carpeted room had been furnished with three rows of chairs—four chairs per row to each side of a center aisle. The low-level lighting created an atmosphere of peace and quiet, a haven to escape the noise, bright lights, and fast-paced activity outside the double cypress doors.

  But, although it was also a small room, the children’s chapel was filled with natural light from a trio of frosted skylights above and windows that looked out onto the manicured grounds of the medical center’s campus all around. The floor was tile interrupted by two circles of bright-colored square cushions.

  “The children who are able to do so will sit on the cushions,” Mark explained. “Those gaps in between are for children in wheelchairs. Those chairs against the walls are for times like Christmas when we might have a special program, or they could be used for a memorial service if necessary. The room will be used for multiple purposes.” He pointed to a second door. “In there is a room where family and friends can get away if they need to cry or pray or simply escape the clamor,” he explained.

  “It’s wonderful,” Rachel told him. “Thank you so much for taking the time to show me around.”

  Mark smiled. “Hey, from what I hear this is where you’re likely to spend a good amount of your time.” He led the way back into the children’s area and opened a narrow door concealed as part of the wall. “Locked storage for whatever you might want to keep here,” he said, taking out a plastic bag that held a clown’s red rubber nose and a chartreuse frizzy wig. “Pastor Paul’s,” he explained. “He sometimes wears them when he’s on his rounds.” He placed the items back in the closet and closed and locked the door before handing her the key.

  On their way out, Rachel couldn’t help but notice a small silver plaque that read CHAPEL OF HOPE: A GIFT OF MALCOLM, SHARON, AND SALLY SHEPHERD.

  “There’s an activity room across the hall here.” Mark pointed to an open door, beyond which Rachel could see an area set up with a quartet of computers, an area for crafts, and some colorful plastic toys geared toward toddlers.

  “And that’s pretty much the grand tour,” Mark said. He glanced at his watch. “Oops. I promised to have you back fifteen minutes ago. Eileen wants to get you set up in your office.”

  Mark made one more stop at the nurses’ station and introduced Rachel to the staff on duty. Then as they retraced their steps back through the corridor lined with patients’ rooms, they couldn’t help noticing that most were empty. “They’ll fill up,” Mark said as if she had asked. They rounded a corner, and she glanced into a room where a child was watching cartoons. The boy, who could not have been more than seven, glanced over at her, and Rachel smiled and waved at him.

  As they approached the entrance to the skywalk, they passed a room where the window blinds were closed. When she looked closer Rachel saw the silhouette of a small body lying in bed surrounded by a network of tubes. The child was linked to a series of machines blinking their neon signals and wheezing their rhythmic codes. She could barely make out the form of a woman sitting by the bedside, her head resting on her hand.

  Rachel’s longing to stop and offer the woman some comfort was huge, but Mark was already several steps ahead of her. The one thing that Rachel had grasped after the two hours she had spent with this young man was that a hospital this large had rules and routines—protocol, Mark called it. It would not do to start following her instincts—at least not until she had learned those guidelines.

  Back in the spiritual care department, Eileen showed her to a small cubicle next to the reception desk. There was already a nameplate on the cloth wall of the divider that read RACHEL KAUFMANN, CHILD LIFE SPECIALIST.

  “That’s your new title,” Eileen explained when she saw that Rachel had paused to study the sign. “Human Resources seems to have this need to keep reinventing labels for what people do around here. Pay it no mind. When the rubber meets the road, you are a chaplain, just like Paul Cox is.”

  “But Pastor Cox is an ordained minister and board certified.” Rachel remembered the neatly framed degrees and certification documents she’d noticed on the wall of Paul’s office.

  “Thus his position as senior chaplain. The bottom line is that we all work from the same basic creed—you, Paul, and even me.” She pointed to a framed poster on the wall, entitled OUR MISSION.

  Rachel stepped closer to read it.

  The spiritual care services of Gulf Coast Medical Center provide support and comfort that respects the full diversity of spiritual values to our patients, the family and friends of those patients, and to members of our staff twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.

  Eileen reached around her and picked up a laminated bookmark from a clear plastic holder on the counter. Sh
e handed the bookmark to Rachel, who saw that it repeated the mission statement and also included information for contacting members of their staff when needed.

  “That’s impressive,” Rachel said.

  “And ambitious, especially when it looked like maybe it would be Paul doing all the work. But you’re here now,” she added brightly. “Come check out your cubicle and let me know if you need anything in the way of supplies or a different chair or more storage above the desk. Anything at all.”

  Rachel stepped into the small space and opened the top drawer of a two-drawer file cabinet. It had already been stocked with hanging file folders in a rainbow of colors. She opened one of the overhead bins above her desk. There she found legal pads, pens, a stapler and staple remover, scissors, paper clips, and notepads in a variety of sizes. There was a telephone with an intimidating row of buttons in addition to the usual numerical keypad. And all the while she tried to ignore the computer that dominated the corner where her built-in desk wrapped itself past the window and onto the solid wall. She knew the basics of how to use a computer. In the school system she had been responsible for inserting data, but beyond that she wasn’t exactly computer savvy.

  “Do not ask me to explain why they would situate your computer and chair so that you are looking out into daylight. Talk about a headache in the making.” Eileen frowned, but then she took a step closer to the window and her features softened. “On the other hand, it is a lovely view with the serenity garden and all.”

  “It’s very nice,” Rachel assured her.

  Eileen pulled her gaze away from the tropical scene outside and glanced around. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Paul wants to meet with you at noon. And then somebody from I.T. will be by at four to finish setting up your phone and computer.”

  “I.T.?”

  “Information Technology. The computer and phone geeks.”

  “I see.”

  “There’s coffee and tea behind the counter in my space. If you need anything, give me a shout.” Her warm brown eyes sparkled with merriment as she indicated the open space above the cloth-covered divider separating them. “I’m right over the fence here.”