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KERRY SAT ACROSS FROM Robb in the waiting room of the Tri-Valley Regional Medical Center. It was the closest facility the area had to a hospital. Justin leaned against the wall, his chin down, and cowboy hat cocked over his forehead. His eyes were closed, and his arms were folded over his chest. Kerry couldn’t get the words out of her head. This was all her fault. They echoed from the past. Pastor Don was her patient and her responsibility. She was being paid to provide in home care and she had made a huge mistake and left her patient completely unattended. She had not done her due diligence in taking care of him.
But if he was able to do more than stand, why had he not told her that? She had left him alone, he had fallen, and now the hospital just wanted to check for internal injuries. She was a failure.
“I thought he was only at the standing phase, where he only stands up from the bed, not walks across the room,” Robb muttered, clearly berating himself for the fall as well. “Our goal was to get him to ten stands per day. How many is he doing when no one is looking? That man is so stubborn, when he got something in his head, he was going to do it. His word was as good as a contract. If he said he was going to do it, he did it.”
The doctor stepped out of the large swinging hospital doors that led down the corridor to the ER.
Robb stood up. “Doctor Johnson, how is my dad?” he asked, shaking the doctor’s hand.
“He’s going to be fine,” the doctor said with a warm smile, her words rippling through the room in a wave of relief.
“He’s going to be fine,” Kerry repeated Dr. Johnson’s words, just to make sure she had heard them right the first time. “What happened?” Her voice was steady and controlled with a grace she didn’t feel in the slightest. That was her patient. She should’ve been with him she should not have thought that he was safe to leave alone.
This was all her fault.
“It was like you said, he fell while trying to walk. I’ve known Pastor Don a long time and I’m not surprised by this in the slightest,” Dr. Johnson said.
“I should not have left him alone,” she said.
“Now, Mrs. Foster, you can’t blame yourself for this.” Dr. Johnson reached out and grabbed her hand.
It took Kerry a moment to realize she was “Mrs. Foster.”
Robb looked down at her. “This isn’t about you,” he said. “I made the decision for us to go up on the high pastures and he made the decision to try and get out of bed on his own.”
The doctor smiled, holding up his hand towards Robb. But it wasn’t going to stop Kerry.
“I know it’s not about me,” she retorted. Robb’s words sounded harsh, but they helped wipe some of the fog out of her head. She knew it wasn’t about her.
“Now you two need to relax,” he said keeping his best ‘stay calm’ voice. “We’ll have your dad bandaged up and back with you in about half an hour.” He slowly backed up with an apologetic wave of his hand as if to say “newlyweds need alone time to sort things out” and he bowed out of the conversation.
Robb and Kerry sat in silence. “But, I appreciate you trying to apologize,” he said finally.
She cringed. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Well, to be clear you can’t apologize for endangering his life,” Robb pointed out. “We put him where we thought he would be safe. He was the one who moved, and he is a grown adult.”
Kerry’s face was blank. She had nothing. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had neglected her patient and that Robb would never forgive her or truly accept her apology.
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