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The Healing Place
Leigh Bale
A Father Desperate To Save His DaughterDr. Emma Shields had to help him. Mark Williams had come to the gifted physician to heal his sick little girl. But Emma had suffered her own loss… Driven by the death of her son, Emma was determined to make Mark's daughter well.The devoted single father had come to her in his time of need and she couldn't let him down. Nor could she forget what they'd once shared…Now they faced new challenges. Together could they create a new place of faith, hope and love?
The Healing Place
Leigh Bale
Published by Steeple Hill Books
To Steve, Daniel and Marie, for standing
firmly against the maelstrom.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Acknowledgments
Also, my undying gratitude to Dan and
Marjorie Baird, Steve Burnett, Bill and
Clara Howard, Gary Jackson, Ren Johnson,
Wayne Johnson, George Keele, Koret Family
House, Michael Lehners, Make-A-Wish,
Alan Mentzer, Sue Ross, Justice Thomas Steffen,
Peter Umphress, Dennis Widdis, and Doctors
Mitchell Berger, Jay Chamberlain, Kathy Eckert,
Michael Edwards, John Shields, Joseph Walker
and their staffs. Thanks for being there.
Chapter One
Reno, Nevada
She couldn’t face going home tonight. Dr. Emma Shields scribbled notes on the last patient’s case file before she set it on top of the stack to be sorted by her office staff. She peered at the brass clock on the wall and blinked. Was it really that late? No wonder she was bleary-eyed. She sighed and returned her attention to her work. Anything to delay going to her lonely apartment.
A short knock sounded on the open door.
“Come in,” she called without looking up.
“You plan on staying here all night?”
Emma lifted her head. As she removed her reading glasses and dangled them from her fingers, she sat back in her comfy executive chair.
Too comfy. She stifled a yawn.
Sonja, her head nurse, stood in the doorway, prim and proper in her whites with red stars stamped on her smock. Sonja smoothed her graying hair and showed a crinkly smile.
“Nope, I’m about finished,” Emma replied. “What’s keeping you here so late?”
“I got those pathology reports you requested from Dr. Tanner and sorted them for tomorrow. You’ve already got your messages, so I think I’ll call it a night.”
“Good night.” Emma reached for another pile of paperwork stacked neatly on her desk.
Tidy and in control. That’s what her receptionist called her. Emma couldn’t help that she liked order. She’d had enough chaos in her life to last an eternity.
Sonja turned to leave, but paused. “Oh, before I forget, Mr. Williams called again.”
“Mr. Williams?” Emma shook her groggy head. “Remind me.”
“He has the little girl with a brain tumor. He’s called twice this week. He’s asked if we’ll work with his doctors at the University of California Hospital in San Francisco, to administer her chemotherapy protocol.”
“And did you tell him we deal only in adult oncology?”
“Yes, but he says you’re the doctor most highly recommended by Dr. Meacham, his neurosurgeon.”
“Larry Meacham?”
“None other.”
An impatient huff escaped Emma’s lips. “The next time I see Larry at a medical convention, I’ll have to remind him I don’t take pediatric cases anymore.”
Not since I lost Brian.
Sonja didn’t budge and Emma found it difficult to hide her irritation. “Where’s the tumor located?”
“It’s on the hypothalamus.”
Not good. The hypothalamus was a pea-size gland that told the pituitary gland what to do.
“Inoperable?”
Emma didn’t really need to ask. She’d seen it before in adult patients, time and time again, but this was an innocent child. God could be so unfair.
A rush of bitterness swept her. She’d grown comfortable with her anger and no longer tried to fight it.
Sonja nodded. “Yep, so they’re starting chemo.”
“What drugs will the child be on? How often do they need to be administered?”
“I’m not sure. He didn’t say.”
Emma tilted her head, longing to remove the too tight clip at the back of her neck and free her long hair. “No, I don’t want to take this patient.”
I can’t work with another child with cancer. I just can’t.
“But it’s so sad, Dr. Shields. The little girl’s a baby—only six years old.”
Emma’s heart squeezed. Brian had been five.
She shook her head. “I’m very sorry, but administering drugs to a growing child is a lot different than dealing with adults.”
“But she’s been through so much already. She had her first surgery here in Reno, then they rushed her to U.C.S.F. for a biopsy. She’s had several more surgeries since then, to drain cysts and install a VP shunt. Her father’s agreed to begin a chemo protocol as soon as he can find an oncologist. You know there isn’t a single pediatric oncologist in this city.”
Yes, Emma knew. “But there are five other doctors in Reno that specialize in adult oncology. Refer Mr. Williams to one of them.”
Sonja quirked her brows. “He’s already tried and they said no. If you’ll let me, I’ll take full charge of overseeing her protocol.”
Emma almost groaned. Certified to administer chemotherapy drugs, Sonja was one of the best nurses at her job. She was also too generous. A widow and grandmother of two, Sonja had been Brian’s nurse when he had been ill, caring for him tenderly, reassuring Emma that everything would turn out all right.
It hadn’t turned out all right and the night Brian died, Sonja had sobbed as bitterly as Emma.
Sonja smiled gently. “Losing ourselves in service to others is a great way to lift our own pain.”
A shadow of remorse crowded Emma’s mind. She served many patients every day—her bank account swelled with the results. But what good was money when she had no one to spend it on? What service had she done recently, just because someone needed her? Just because she could?
Nothing came to mind. Not since Brian. Because he blamed her for their son’s death, Emma’s husband had left her, too. Their marriage had been rocky long before Brian got sick, but the loss of their child had finished it. God had taken everything from her and then abandoned her.
No wonder I feel so lost and alone.
Her gaze shifted to a plaque on the wall, a wedding gift from her mother, three months before her death. Written by Adam Lindsay Gordon, it read, “Life is mostly froth and bubble, but one thing stands as stone. Kindness in another’s trouble; courage in one’s own.”
Emma crossed her legs and clasped the armrests of her chair. Courage? Kindness? She was fresh out of both.
She peered out the window at the evening sky, a darkening blue with tinges of pink and orange as the sun tucked itself behind the western mountains. Hadn’t she tried to do the right thing for Brian? And look what that had gotten her.
The death of her child, followed by a painful divorce.
“It would be so easy to help them,” Sonja prodded, undeterred by Emma’s frown.
“I said no.”
The words dropped like stone. This wasn’t her problem, nor her responsibility. God had put her through enough already.
Emma heard Sonja leave and she stared at the closed door. She couldn’t go through that hurt again. It was that simple.
The next afternoon things weren’t as simple as Emma hoped. Standing in the hallway of her medical office, she paused beside the closed door of an examination room to study the blood readings for her last patient of the day. Over the low hum of the busy office, she picked out Sonja’s voice coming from the front reception area.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Williams, but it’s like I told you this morning on the phone—Dr. Shields has such a heavy patient load already, it wouldn’t be fair to Angie.”
Angie. Was that the child’s name?
Emma paused, listening. She could hear the strain in Sonja’s voice. Sonja didn’t want to reject Mr. Williams, but Emma had given the nurse no choice.
“Have you tried Baker and Calloway’s office?” Sonja suggested another oncologist.
