Dr. Forget-Me-Not

“Isn’t he coming, Melody?” April asked her, the small voice echoing with the same concern that she herself felt. The five-year-old had decided to keep vigil with her today, unofficially appointing herself Dr. Stewart’s keeper.

Melanie came away from the window. Staring out into the parking lot wasn’t going to make the man appear any faster—if at all.

“I don’t know, honey,” she answered.

“But he said he would,” April said plaintively.

It was obvious that the little girl had taken the doctor’s word to be as good as a promise. But then, Melanie reminded herself, according to what she’d said, the little girl still believed in Santa Claus. Apparently the doctor’s word fell into the same category as the legendary elf did.

“Yes, he did,” Melanie agreed, searching for a way to let the little girl down gently. “Maybe he called Miss Polly to say he was running late.”

“How can he do that?” April asked, her face scrunching up as she tried to wrap her little mind around the phrase. “If he’s running, how can he be late?” she asked, confused.

“I’m afraid it’s something grown-ups do all the time, sweetie,” Melanie said evasively. “Tell you what. You stay here and keep on watching for him,” she instructed, turning April back toward the large window facing the parking lot. She felt having her here, standing watch, was better than having April listen in on the conversation she was going to have with the director. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay!” April agreed, squaring her small shoulders as she stared out the window, as intent as any soldier standing guard. “He’ll be here, I know he will,” were the words that followed Melanie out of the room.

“If he’s not,” Melanie murmured under her breath, “I’ll kill him.” It would be justifiable payback for breaking April’s heart.

Melanie turned the corner just as the director was walking out of her office. A near collision was barely avoided and only because Melanie’s reflexes were sharp enough for her to take a quick step back before it was too late.

Her hand flying to her chest, the tall, thin woman dragged in a quick, loud breath.

“I was just coming to look for you,” Polly declared breathlessly.

“Well, here I am,” Melanie announced, spreading her hands wide like a performer who had executed a particularly clever dance step.

She was stalling and she knew it, Melanie thought, dropping her hands to her sides. Stalling because she didn’t want to hear what she knew was coming.

Raising her head, she looked the director in the eye. “He called, didn’t he?” she asked. “Dr. Stewart,” she added in case her question sounded too ambiguous.

Just because she was thinking of the doctor didn’t mean that Polly was. The woman did handle all facets of the shelter, from taking in donations to finding extra beds when the shelter was already past its quota of homeless occupants. In between was everything else, including making sure there was enough food on hand as well as all the other bare necessities that running the shelter entailed.

The look in Polly’s eyes was a mixture of distress and sympathy. “Just now. He said that something had come up and he couldn’t make it.”

Since it was already almost an hour past the time that Dr. Stewart should have been here, Melanie murmured, “Better late than never, I suppose. So when is he coming?” she asked. She wanted to be able to give April and the others a new date.

Polly shook her head. “He didn’t say anything about that.”

Melanie looked at her in surprise. The question came out before she could think to stop it. “You didn’t ask him?”

“I didn’t get a chance,” Polly confessed. “I’m afraid he hung up right after saying he was sorry.”

“Right,” Melanie muttered under her breath. “I just bet he was.”

Polly had been in charge of the shelter for a dozen years and had become accustomed to dealing with other people’s disappointments as well as her own. She apparently survived by always looking at the positive side.

“We were lucky that he came when he did,” she told Melanie.

But Melanie was angry. Angry at the doctor for breaking his promise to the shelter, but most of all, angry that he had in effect broken his promise to April because the little girl had taken him at his word when he’d said he was returning Friday—which was today.

“We’d be luckier if he honored his word and came back,” Melanie bit off.

“A volunteer is under no legal obligation to put in any specified amount of time here,” Polly pointed out. “Just because he came once doesn’t mean that he has to come again.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Melanie agreed. “But most people with a conscience would come back, especially if they said they would.” Turning on her heel, she started back down the hall.

“Melanie, where are you going?” Polly called after her nervously.

“Out,” Melanie answered, never breaking stride or turning around. “To cool off.”

And she knew exactly how to cool off.

She slowed down only long enough to tell April that she was going to go talk to Dr. Stewart.

“Why can’t you talk to him here?” April asked, following her to the front door.

There were times when April was just too inquisitive, she thought. “Because he isn’t here yet and if I wait for him to get here, I might forget what I want to say to him.”

“Maybe you should write it down,” April piped up helpfully. “That way you won’t forget.”

Melanie paused at the front door and kissed the top of her unofficial shadow’s head. This was the little girl she was never going to have. The kind of little girl she and Jeremy would have loved to have had as they started a family.

Tears smarted at the corners of her eyes and she blinked hard to keep them at bay. “This way is faster, trust me,” she told April.

With that, she was out the door and heading to her car.

In all fairness, she knew what Polly had said was absolutely true. Mitchell Stewart had no legal obligation to show up at the shelter ever again if he didn’t want to, even though he’d said he would. He’d signed no contract, was paid no stipend.

But how could a man just turn his back on people he knew were waiting for him? Didn’t he have a conscience? Didn’t the idea of a moral obligation mean anything to the man?

She gunned her car as she pulled out onto the street.

Maybe it didn’t mean anything to him, but in that case, he had to find out that there were consequences for being so damn coldhearted. If nothing else, calling him out and telling him what she thought of him would make her feel better.

As sometimes happened, the traffic gods were on the side of the angels. Melanie made every light that was between the shelter and Bedford Memorial Hospital. Which in turn meant that she got from point A to point B in record time.

After pulling onto the hospital compound, Melanie drove the serpentine route around the main building to the small parking area in the rear reserved strictly for emergency room patients and the people who’d brought them.

Once she threw the car into Park and pulled up the emergency brake, Melanie jumped out of her vehicle and hurried in through the double electronic doors. They hadn’t even opened up fully before she zipped through them and into the building.

The lone receptionist at the outpatient desk glanced up when he saw her hurrying toward him. Dressed in blue scrubs and looking as if he desperately needed a nap, the young man asked her, “What are you here for?” His fingers were poised over the keyboard as he waited for an answer to input.

“Dr. Stewart’s head,” she shot over her shoulder as she hurried past him and over to the door which allowed admittance into the actual ER salon.

Ordinarily locked, it had just opened to allow a heavyset patient to walk out, presumably on his way home. Melanie wiggled by the man and managed to get into the ER just before the doors shut again.

Safe for now, she buttonholed the first hospital employee she saw—an orderly—and said, “I’m looking for Dr. Stewart.” When she’d called the hospital on her way over, she’d been told he was still on the premises, working in the ER. “Can you tell me where he is?”