The Nurse Who Saved Christmas

A loud ring sounded throughout the room. Abby jumped, looked around

and spotted Dirk’s house phone.

Should she answer? Probably not.

But as the shrill ringing sounded time and again, she decided whoever was calling must really need to talk to him, could possibly even be the hospital as he wouldn’t have heard his cell while in the shower.

“Hello?” she said, hoping she was doing the right thing by answering, but knowing at the moment she was the one outside her comfort zone.

Silence.

“Hello?” she repeated, guilt slamming her as surely as if she’d peeked inside a Christmas package. She should have just let the phone ring.

“I was trying to get in touch with Dirk Kelley,” a female voice said, sounding a little uncertain.

Whoever the caller was, she hadn’t said Dr. Kelley. She’d said Dirk. Abby’s guilt over answering the phone skyrocketed. As did her curiosity and some other green monster taking hold in her chest.

“Um, this is Dirk’s number. He’s not available at the moment. Could I take a message?”

A woman was calling Dirk. Who was she? Why was she calling? What right did Abby have to answer his phone, to take a message?

Every right, her heart shouted. She was pregnant with his baby, had spent the past several days in his company, working, volunteering, getting to know him, and he her.

Silence, then, “Who is this?”

Just exactly what Abby wanted to know, in reverse. But she bit her tongue. Dirk had had another life in Oak Park. Although they’d talked a lot over the past several days, he’d shared very little of that life with her. Had there been someone special? Someone he’d left behind?

The hurt she’d felt when she’d discovered he’d been married, had had a child, and she hadn’t known came back. Why had Dirk revealed so little of his past?

“Abby. I, uh, work with Dr Kelley.” Why had she called him Dr. Kelley? “We’re friends.” Why had she added that last? What she really wanted was to insist on knowing who the caller was and why she was calling Dirk.

“Oh,” the woman said, slowly, as if digesting Abby’s answer. “That’s nice. Where is my son that he can’t answer his cell or his home phone?”

Her son? This was Dirk’s mother!

“Uh,” Abby hedged, her face flaming. “He’s in the shower.”

“Really? Or is he just trying to avoid me insisting on him coming home for Christmas?”

“Dirk’s not planning to come home for Christmas?” Abby couldn’t fathom having a family and not wanting to spend the holidays with them. Was he not going home because of her pregnancy? Or because of the past?

“He’s volunteered to work on the holidays, hasn’t he?”

“He’s working on Christmas Eve,” she admitted. They both were. “He gets off at seven on Christmas morning.”

“I’d hoped…” His mother sighed. “No matter what I’d hoped. I’m going to have to face facts. If he refuses to come home, we’ll just have to bring Christmas to him. Tell me, Abby, just what’s your relationship with my son and how good are you at planning surprises?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ON SATURDAY, December twenty-second, Abby watched Dirk spoon a helping of green beans onto a cheap paper plate held by a rough-looking, unshaven, dirty man wearing multiple layers and carrying a toboggan.

Was he the last person to be served lunch?

They’d fed over two hundred today. Too many people with no homes, no food, no family, no Christmas.

She glanced around the dining area of the shelter. Smiling faces. Lots of smiling faces. And chatter. Being warm and having food in their bellies seemed to have turned up the noise level. Along with gift packages that included several basic amenities, baths were being offered. Several had taken the shelter up on that offer, but most had declined.

“This was a good work.”