Gary Leonard Oldman

How many roads you’ve traveled
How many dreams you’ve chased
across the sand and sky and gravel
Looking for one safe place
One safe place

When you break you’ll fall from grace
into the arms of understanding
looking for one safe place



Life is trial by fire
and love’s the sweetest taste
Now pray it takes us higher
to one safe place



Nora

Much needed rain pattered against the windows around Nora Sheehan’s tiny house outside of Santa Cruz. If she strained her ears she could hear the waves crashes down off the beach and the wind gust over the shoreline. Autumn was coming to her corner of California even if the air never got crisp like it did back on the East Coast. Her day had taken a turn down the road into the same monotony as it always had for the past is years. She had come out to the west coast because she thought it was where she belonged, right in the spotlight - basking in the ever present sunlight and the smiling faces of her fellow West Coasters. That had all come to a heart stopping stand still today when she’d gotten into work and had ended up pink slipped. It had been taped to the brass photo frame that held the last group shot her mother had snapped right before she’d left home. Something about ‘down sizing their entertainment agent base’ and taking the business in a different direction. Meaning Nora was officially out of a job once the man she’d been hired to act as a secretary for was let go. She wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact that she’d lied to her family and told them that she was the one with that was in the ‘entertainment business’ or the fact that she’d been let go without a severance package. True to her headstrong, not so laid back New England upbringing she’d called her boss out of the line of BS and told him to stuff his down sizing spiel right up where the sun don’t shine and that she certainly didn’t need his letter of recommendation to Laughlin and Seeger, a recruitment firm for the lesser known, less talented ‘talents’ that populated Hollywood and made up of nearly every non-speaking background characters for TV and made of Television film. There was no way in hell she was going to start over by playing ‘gopher girl’ for a bunch of snobs like them.


“Col, if you’re calling about that Stay Puft Man dream again it can wait until morning, m’kay?”

A crackle in the air on the line and a shuddering tearful sigh sounded across coasts and time lines. The glaring green numbers on the bedside clock made Nora’s heart clench and her stomach drop. ‘News after 7PM is never ever good news’ she could hear her mother’s voice in her head. Something was definitely wrong back home in Billport. Colleen might have been a tiny bit flighty but she would never have called Nora at 12:45 in the morning unless the world was ending. Given the three hour time difference it was only 9:45 back home, either way it something was catastrophically wrong.

“Nori it’s Ma…”

‘Please let her be okay, please please let her be okay.’
The eldest Sheehan sister prayed silently to herself as she untangled herself from her bedsheets and stumbled over to the closet to grab a suitcase as she strained to listen to Colleen’s strangled words. The telltale wheezing rasp foretold of an anxiety induced asthma attack was right around the corner.

“Col, you’re hyperventilating. Do you have your inhaler?”

“Ran…out…after…I…called Fi…”
Came the reply followed by more wheezing and the shift of the telephone. Somewhere in the background Nora could just make out the filler noise of St. Mary’s hospital, it was Wednesday and she had said she was on call all week in the Triage Unit, a switch up from her usual work in either the pediatric or maternity wards. They must have rolled Ma in just as Col punched in at Billport General. Lord knew the hospital was small enough, all you had to do was look down to the main entrance and you’d see who was being wheeled in from the nurse’s station.

“Col, you’re a nurse for God’s sake where’s your back up? What happened to Ma?”

“Can’t get one until six tomorrow morning, pharmacy’s out. She’s…had a heart attack. She’s not…she’s not. Nori she’s gone.”

For one sickening second Nora and Colleen’s collective world stopped, all the other could hear was the other on the opposite ends of the telephone. Dread, confusion, overwhelming sadness washed over both sisters as their world was irrevocably changed.

“I’m booking a flight out as soon as we hang up.”

“What about Fi? She’s all the way out in Lowell and who’s…who’s gonna get her? I mean…I can go it’s not that long a drive…but shouldn’t someone stay…with Ma?”


Nora ran a slender hand through her riot of wavy dark curls and sighed. Deep down she knew that Colleen wouldn’t be okay to drive. Not after she’d had a nebulizer treatment and a dose or two of her inhaler meds. Colleen was the middle one, the one that was shoved out of the way to make way for Nora’s accomplishments and Fiona’s needs. Which was why she was always the mother hen of their tight knit little family, always making sure every one was provided for and putting herself last. She was the one with a sense of duty, a true sense of family and why she’d never left Billport in her entire life except to commute back and forth to Bangor to go to the nursing school there. She was the one that went over and checked on Ma no matter the weather and did the grocery shopping for her, took care of her when she was sick and took on an extra shift or two to help Ma cover the bills when money got tight and Fi’s room and board fees at Mass Uni were due. Something Nora knew that she should have done as she was the eldest but just couldn’t bring herself to do because money was tight for her too, hell Colleen was the one to quietly wire her money to cover her first phone bill when she moved out to Cali and she’d never once let on to Ma. Col was also the one to send care packages when they were truly needed the most by both Nora and Fiona. For once Nora was stepping up to plate and providing for her sister.

“I’ll book a flight from LA to Boston and I’ll rent a car. I’ll get her Col. You…you stay where you are and try and get ahold of Jim, okay?”

More wheezing and then another voice could be heard in the background, another nurse maybe? The tell tale hum of a nebulizer unit thrummed loudly and then faded for a moment.  Col came back on and her breathing wasn’t as labored, she still wheezed but she was much easier to understand.

“O-okay, Nor… love you…and tell Fi I love her too, okay?”

The sound of her sister’s voice should have calmed her but it didn’t. She’d never heard Colleen so lost, Nora could hear the hitch in Col’s voice. Words stuck in her throat as she tried to form a reply. Instead she simply hummed in response and answered with an “Love you too, Col…and I will…you’re right you know. You always are.”

Hurried she packed up her suitcases with numb hands, knowing deep down that she wouldn’t be coming back. Thank God her lease was up at the end of month she yanked the house key from her key ring and sighed as she mulled things over. She’d come this far in her life only to realize that she never should have left Maine behind. If she’d stayed maybe things wouldn’t have happened like they did.  So much for being the eldest sister, the crowning achievement, the self assured one, the one with her **** together and if Ma knew she was anything but she knew she’d have her ass handed to her on a silver platter.

Her thoughts drifted back to Ma, all alone in that rambling old cottage off of King Lane. The white clapboards peeling and the cornflower blue window panes bleached by the sun into the blue that matched her eyes. There had been much debate two years ago when Ma had called to tell her that she’d finally been convinced to paint everything white. Nora could almost smell the salt air that was so different than the air here on the west coast. She missed it’s tang and brashness as the winds changed with the tide below the rocky cliff line that was at the edge of the backyard just past the clothesline and the huge oak tree that housed a treehouse and the old tire swing both built lovingly by their Dad, Jim before their parents divorced and he moved over to Bangor full time. Their mother, Eileen was their touchstone, a mixture of hard edges and soft down, her backbone was made of steel; her outer shell almost impenetrable hiding her heart of gold. Something all three girls inherited in their own way. There was no way that she could truly be gone. They’d talked only last week and she had sounded just fine. She’d talked about her day and what she planned on doing for the weekend; the usual go over to Shaw’s and pick up odds and ends for dinner and then head over the church for bingo night. The pot had been up into the hundreds and it was for a good cause then on Saturday she planned on heading over to the St. Mary’s soup kitchen to volunteer. Sunday was always the same, up at dawn to pick up the house and get ready for church and then go to the ladies auxiliary meeting and meet up with Colleen for dinner after she’d gotten off work. Ma never seemed to want more than that, happy with her lot given she lived as average a life as any other Billport lady of a certain age. “Fifty-one for the last two years”

Ma would have said in that chuffed little lilting accent of hers that the girls had inherited as well even though Nora had done her damnedest to drop. Fiona’s had morphed into the spectrum of Maine and Massachusetts while Col’s had stayed ever the same much like the woman herself. Nimble fingers dialed the the number she’d memorized during her secretarial tenure.

‘Tradewinds Air, this is Thelma speaking how may I help you today?”

“Hello, I’d like to book the first none stop to Boston please. Immediately.”




Fiona

“Great, it’s only a little after seven and here I am locking myself away from all the fun.”

Cackles and whoops filled the dorm as the bass thudded somewhere downstairs. The air was rife with the scent of pot and cigarette smoke as a hundred or so U Mass college kids milled about moving to the music, trying to put the make on one another or get so plastered they could barely remember their own names. Fiona Sheehan, however,  was not one of them. Holed up in the room that was rightfully hers tonight she attempted to study for her last two finals before the semester let out for the summer. She had a feeling that she had aced her Psychics, Psych and her Women’s Lib finals but her English Classics and her Journalism Ethics were the ones that were given her the most grief at the moment. Professor Denny, as cool and far out as he was was tough one when it came to grading, particularly on the Don Quixote material and Gardner was even more brutal when it came to the subject of finals essays, the topics were always unknown until the day of. Despite being a strict B and moderately high C student with a mind for many subjects when they interested her she yet to actually choose a major she felt comfortable enough with dedicating her life to. Nora had been a communications major when she’d gone to Wiltshire University just twenty minutes from home. Colleen had known right from her Freshman year of high school that she had wanted to be a nurse and true to form she enrolled in Bangor school of Nursing, graduating with honors four years later. Her sisters had always known what they had wanted to do, always had a plan. Fiona, meanwhile still had her heart set on marrying a rockstar and following her favorite bands around the country, just going with the flow. Ma had put the kibosh on her cross country trek to follow Quigley’s Bloom on tour and the mere idea of moving out to Seattle to experience the grunge scene was dead in the water so she’d dragged her feet for a year or so and then enrolled at the only place that would take her, U-Mass and hoped that would make Ma happy. It hadn’t. Nearly two and half years in and still telling her mother that she was still undecided left an odd taste in her mouth and a sinking feeling all around her. She was nearly three hours away from home give or take and Fiona still felt like she wasn’t far enough.

“God, for a two hundred dollar textbook you’d think the table of contents would be laid out better.”

She muttered to herself before she reached for her pile of notes and her neon highlighter. Carefully tracing bright pink lines over the section of legal pad she needed Fiona observed her work and sighed before re-reading the passage one last time and praying to the all mighty academic gods that it would meld into her brain before her 9AM final tomorrow morning. The steady thrum of what sounded like Soundgarden pounded up through the floor. Heaving one last sigh she plodded on, only half wishing she was downstairs perfecting her keg stand abilities and showing every one up with her kickass beer pong talents. Somewhere between cramming ancient names of writers she’d never read again and outdated psych theories into her already aching head she must have nodded off. A solid thump from the other side of the worn oak door plastered with posters and fashion ads she heard her name being called. It couldn’t have been Jenny the RA, last Fiona knew she was downstairs overseeing the keg placements.

“Sheehan open up, you’ve got a phone call and it’s important.”

Checking the clock on her nightstand she noticed that it was only 8:30. Running a hand through her tangled red locks she stretched and reached for the phone perched on the desk and pressed the flashing button for line two.

“ I got it, ‘lo?”

For a split second she thought she was being pranked because the noises on the other end of the phone sounded downright animalistic. The background noise only gave away the location as a hospital.

“F..Fiona.”

Colleen. Her voice hoarse and a wheeze creeping into her chest Fiona’s stomach clenched as she broke out into a cold sweat.  Colleen only called on Saturday evenings at six on the dot. It was Tuesday. She’d just gotten Col’s last care package from home and the cranberry hermit cookies sat in the cheery little tin they always came shipped in with a little note telling her that Col and Ma loved her and to remember to call and let them know when term was over so Col could come and pick her up.

“Colly? Are you okay?”

More sobs, those gut wrenching sobs that Fiona had only heard once before and prayed she’d never ever hear from her sister ever again.

“Fiona..Ma…”

A rasping breath in and then shakily let out as Colleen tried to calm herself into forming coherent sentences. The line crackled as her sister shifted the phone for a moment. Fiona’s own heart was beating a million miles a minute and her mind zipping to each and every horrible possibility.

“Ma’s heart gave out, Fi…”

Sinking whirling dread formed a poisonous ball in Fiona’s belly. Shaking her head as she felt the familiar burn of tears behind her eyes.

“No, Doctor Wagner just refilled her medication. You called last week and told me, Colly.”

“She was down at the church helping set up for the bingo night and she collapsed..”

“But the church is like, what? Seven miles from the hospital? Can’t they put her on a respirator or a machine or something?”

“They did everything they could, Fi.”

“No they didn’t! If they did she’d still be here! Why didn’t you help her? How could you just let her die?!”

Hurling the receiver away and then picking it up once more just to slam it down into the cradle, once, twice, three times. Hoping every time that this was some sick demented dream she was having from too many late nights spent studying and too much pot on the weekends. She found herself on her feet and grabbing all the clothes she could, dirty, clean it didn’t matter they all went into her worn duffel bag. A swirl of memories flooded her mind as she sank down on her knees as she reached under her bed for the last of her clothes. Somehow they’d always ended up under there and she was never why.

‘Fiona Marie Sheehan you are the Queen of the dust bunnies, you know that?’
She could hear Ma saying as she let out a little laugh with a shake of her head.
In an instant Fiona found herself curled into a ball next to her duffel unable to cry. instead she rocked herself and hummed a melody from her childhood. Something about ships and seabirds. It always sounded so much nicer when Ma sang it though, now it sounded sadder, colder, foreign.



Colleen

“Well I don’t see why I need to be kept for observation. I’m fine, really. It was only a little tumble.”

Colleen, or as she was known to her patients as Nurse Sheehan, arched a dark brow and kept her steady green gaze on the elderly woman, Mrs. Evie Williams from just around the lane over at Col’s mother’s place. A sudden dizzy spell had sent the old woman into a tumble down the last three stairs of her rambling old victorian and here she was, a few superficial scrapes and a bruised ego to go along with a night hold for observation because of the goose egg that was forming on her wrinkled forehead.

“I know it was but Mrs. Williams we’ve got to keep you just in case. Hey, think of it this way, you’ve got cable and staff at your beck and call. Can’t get much better than that can it?”

Mrs. Williams’ face brightened as she mulled over the thought of having someone to wait on her hand and food and rewarded Colleen with a small smile.

“I suppose you’re right, dear.”

Colleen returned the smile as she did a final check of the woman’s vitals and fluffed her pillows and covered her with a light blanket.

“Alright, I think you’re set for the night but if you need anything press the green button on the side of the bed, okay?”

Mrs. Williams nodded before settling back and clicking on the television to catch the tail end of some game show promising heaps of cash for trivia knowledge. Heaving a sigh as she closed the door to room 143 Colleen checked her watch. Seven forty-five. Nearly time for her dinner hour and then another eleven hours to go before a week off. God, the laundry she had to do when she got home. Not to mention the grocery shopping. Eh, they could wait until the tomorrow anyway. She had decided as she sat down for a quiet moment to double check the various charts that were left to pile up at the nurse’s station. She was half way through a double check of the prescribed medications for three different patients when she heard a call come over radio from local EMT branch. Female. early fifties. cardiac infarction be on stand by. It wasn’t uncommon for heart attacks to happen but something in the pit of Colleen’s stomach told her to ask the location from which the patient was coming from and when Susan, the other nurse working the shift with Colleen had told her from the church she felt a knot form. Billport was tiny and there was only one church in the entire town. St. Mary’s. Of which the local soup kitchen had taken it’s name.

‘Please don’t let it be Ma. Please please please don’t let it be Ma.’
Colleen found herself praying as she saw the flashing red and blue lights flare up out front and a flurry of sound and movement overwhelmed her. Billport General, or as it was now known, County Home Hospital, was a tiny but well equipped hospital that had treated it’s fair share of major emergencies since it served not only Billport but three other counties neighboring the town. At this very moment it’s head charge nurse was beside herself when she spotted a familiar shock of blonde bouffant laid out on the gurney having her vitals taken. They still couldn’t get a steady reading and she was now officially rushed into a private triage suite as the OR was being prepped. Familiar brown eyes met hers as she stood there shaking trying to grasp her mother’s wrist to read a pulse. For one sickening second she couldn’t find it. Watching with tear dimmed eyes as her colleagues tried their best to do their jobs, what she should be able to do, Colleen felt lost.

“Colleen. Colleen. Nurse Sheehan. I’ve got to ask you to step out.”

She knew those eyes but for a split second she couldn’t place them in the fog that had drifted into her mind. She recognized the calm voice. The kind boyish face that was framed with a carefully coiffed thick head of chestnut colored hair. Jerry. Dr. Houseman. The transplant from Vermont. He’d been working their for the past four years and he was still razzed by the locals as being a “newbie.” A quiet amicable friendship had formed between the two of them after the last full moon Saturday night when it seemed like every emergency in the state of Maine was occurring in their backyard.

“But she’s my mother. I have to…”

“No, no you don’t. Policy says we can’t let you.”

With that he gently escorted her out into the waiting area and went back into the triage suite to do his very best to get her mother stable. A steady flat beep sounded and a barking order for a crash cart sounded but Colleen was oblivious to it. She’d seen her fair share of flat lines and knew that more often then not they weren’t able to be saved no matter how experienced or qualified you were to try and revive them. Seven times they tried only to have that steady beep fill the room. Nothing could be done. Eileen Sheehan was gone and her middle daughter didn’t need to be told twice as she heard the time being called. She’d always hated that part. Jerry was sitting next to her explaining what had happened and what they had tried but it hadn’t taken. Colleen nodded as she felt the familiar tightening in her own chest. Wheezing filled her ears as tears welled up in her eyes. Jerry had gone from holding and patting her hand to pulling her in for a hug, consoling her just as she had done for him a year earlier when he’d gotten the phone call about his grandfather. The smell of his aftershave and murmurings of reassurance didn’t do much to console her but she thanked him anyway as she tried to compose herself as best she could before reaching for the inhaler in the pocket of her baby pink scrubs. She hadn’t taken note of the measured doses and soon found her heart hammering against her ribs as she tried to dial her younger sister Fiona who was away at college. Two rings turned to three and just as she was about to hang up someone, not Fiona, answered.

“May I speak to Fiona Sheehan, please? It’s her sister…and it’s an..
What was it? An emergency? Ma was gone. But yes, it was still a family emergency.

“It’s a family emergency.”

The thrum of the line clicked and whirred reminding Colleen of all those harsh winters when all three girls lived at home. They always marvel at the height of the snow and thrill of being bundled up and running head long into it. The wind stinging their cheeks a brilliant shade of red as they zipped down McCavish Hill which was right to the left of the property they called home. They’d spent hours and hours outside and never tired of the endless snowball fights and having to lug the toboggan back up the hill, usually with Fi on the back because she had always been so tiny and Ma had always told them that they needed to watch out of her.

“It’s what sisters do, y’know?”
She’d said as she had bundled Nora and then Colleen tightly into their winter jackets and snow pants, wrapping handmade scarves around their necks and fastening mittens and plopping hats onto their heads. They had nodded and each given her a hug before darting out the door.

“ ‘Lo?”

Colleen was snapped out of her revery at the sound of her younger sister’s voice.  She was willing herself not to cry. But the lump in her throat betrayed her as her voice hitched.

“F-fiona. It’s Ma…”

Colleen’s heart was pounding so hard she was almost positive that Fiona could hear it through the phone all the way in Boston. How the hell did you tell your sister that your mother was dead?

“Is she okay? Did she fall or something?”

“No…Fi…Ma’s heart gave out.”

A flurry of obscenities could be heard as Colleen held the receiver away from her ear. Each word cutting her deeper and deeper. She knew she would have reacted the same way had it been her in Fiona’s shoes, if she was without medical training.

“Fi, they did everything they could. Nothing..could be done.”

“No they didn’t! You’re a nurse, Colleen! You should have known what to do and you let her die! How could you?!”

Fiona’s words deafened her, her mind spun and then there was a bang. The line went dead and the prerecorded operator’s message came on asking her to hang up and try again.  Numbly she reached for the disconnect and pushed it before dialing her oldest sister. After a five minute phone conversation Noreen had been much more understanding, Colleen hadn’t thought she would be for some reason but she was.It hadn’t helped that given the stress of the situation Colleen had nearly turned blue on the phone. Her asthma had kicked in and now she sat listening to her eldest sister make plans to pick up Fiona once her plane landed.

“Nori, you’ve gotta call her…she hung up on me and…I think she hates me…”

A pause in the shift of Noreen’s phone.

“Oh Col, don’t say that. You know how Fi handles stress, she’s in shock that’s all.”

Wiping her eyes with the tissue Jerry had offered her, why he was still there she’d never know, and sighed.

“I tried to tell her they did everything they could but…you know Fi, she wouldn’t listen. You want me to call Jim or do you wanna do it?”

Colleen sounded weary, even to herself and Noreen agreed. Perhaps it was for the best if Col reached out to their father, after all the eldest daughter and their father weren’t on great speaking terms as it was.

“I’ll be…where the hell will I be?”
Colleen stopped for a moment and thought over her schedule. Her mind felt sluggish and her heart heavy.  Checking the clock she sighed. She’d be home.

“I’ll be home, my place I mean.”

“You moved out of Ma’s?”

“Yeah, about seven months ago. Check the notecard I sent you last week, it’s got my new number on it.”

Noreen shuffled through her papers and found it with a chuckle.

“Got it and I never did say thank you for those brownies you sent..or the check to cover my phone bill and groceries. You never did tell Ma did you?”

“Hell no, she’d had smacked me into next week. I love you, Nori. Safe travels, okay? and…tell Fi I love her?”

Noreen shifted the phone one final time and said she would.
“Love you too, Colly. Fi does too.”

One final goodbye and Colleen was left sidelined as the hustle and bustle of the hospital continued around her, she’d never felt more like an outsider then in that moment. Eyes swimming with tears she found her feet and went into the room where her mother’s body was. Unhooked from machines and covered with a stark white sheet. Reaching out to uncover her face she could have screamed. That wasn’t Ma’s face. It looked to drawn, old. She looked for a split second like she sleeping as Colleen reached out to hold her hand one last time.

“I’m sorry, Ma. I’m so sorry.”

Tears slid down her cheeks as she brushed back the stray hair from her mother’s face, much like Eileen used to do for her when she was small. Their nightly ritual Ma had called it as she’d tucked each of the girls in for the night. She was startled at how cool her mother’s forehead felt. She knew it would happen but not this quickly.

An arm wrapped itself around her shoulder as she was led away from the tiny bed.

“You haven nothing to be sorry for, Colleen. Nothing.”

Jerry again, kind brown eyes tinged with sorrow as he eased her into the staff lounge and poured her a cup of fresh tea. She watched him put in a generous dollop of honey and a squeeze of lemon. How in the world has he known she preferred tea over coffee let alone the ratios of lemon to honey? Curious man that Jerry Houseman.

“Thanks.”

He plopped himself down across from her, his own steaming cup of tea set in front of him. Taking a sip he grimaced as he got a mouthful of coffee grounds.

“That’s why I’m glad I’m a tea fan. You’ve got some grounds in your teeth.”

Colleen said as she passed him a napkin and collected his cup getting up to start a fresh pot.

“I’m so sorry about you mother…if there’s anything you need…”
He was first to offer his condolences to her, not Stevens who had done the chest compressions and barked out orders. Stevens always had been a **** but Colleen had never voice her opinion.  Lump forming in her throat and her eyes welling up again she nodded her thanks.

“Thanks, Dr. Houseman.”

“It’s Jerry, Colleen.”

“Thanks, Jerry.”

The light on the coffeemaker blinked and the carafe filled. Pouring him a cup as he had done for her she carefully stirred in three sugars and handed it to him with another nod of thanks.

“I think I’ll be punching out…I’ve got a few more phone calls to make and I’m pretty sure Jim’s not going to have anything remotely nice to say about my mother. So I’d do better taking that sort of verbal abuse in private.”

Jerry had nodded. He remembered her telling him all about Jimmy Sheehan when she’d driven him clear across three states when he’s gotten the news of his grandfather’s passing last year. It was then that he had realized just how different their lives had been. He’d been raised in a liberal Jewish household in the the inner city and she  and her sisters had been raised in a staunch Catholic place where as a children they were encouraged to go out and brave the natural world teeming with greenery and postcard like vistas. But sadly her father had ruled her young life with an iron fist and verbal abuse. It hadn’t helped that he’d like to drink. Well, until her mother had not so quietly put her foot down and divorced him. Throwing him out into the middle of the street and threatening to castrate him if he ever set foot on her front porch ever again. Despite all that Colleen’s life had molded her into a deeply compassionate person. She had found herself totally immersed in a world of mourning that wasn’t like her own and had even joined him in sitting Shiva with his family. She had driven him back a week later and then made a charitable contribution in granddad’s name not three days later to a synagogue over in Bangor. Jerry’s mind still boggled at that. No one could be truly be that nice, could they?

“If he gets too mouthy just hang up. You and your sisters don’t need that. Not now.”

Patting him on the shoulder one final time Colleen nodded.

“I’ll keep that in mind and thank you…for everything.”

Not ten minutes later Jerry Houseman watched the dark-haired nurse walk out the front entrance and out to her car as the sun peeked over the horizon. He kicked himself and silently gave the finger to fate. He had just gotten up the stones enough to actually ask Colleen out and here she was dealing with her mother’s untimely demise. He had met Eileen Sheehan numerous times and had immediately taken a liking to the older woman. She was a spitfire with a compassionate heart. She’d always ask him how his mother was and if he’d been eating enough. When Colleen had first introduced them to one another she had invited him over to her cottage for a proper home cooked meal, he had taken her up on the offer and was surprised to find an honest to God pot roast with potatoes and gravy awaiting him. She had given him a wink and said that he could use some fattening up and that she hoped everything was to his liking. Every day after that Colleen would drop familiar Tupperware containers into the fridge marked strictly  for him to take home.

“She’s like everybody’s Mom around here.”
Colleen had said only last week as she had dropped off a tray of homemade cookies to the nurse’s station. Turning back to go finish his rounds he passed the tiny dimly lit room and saw two orderlies carefully moving the sheet covered form and he felt a twinge in his own chest.

“I’ll take her down, Greg.”
He’d said to the taller greying orderly as they moved her to the gurney.  Silently he walked Eileen to the basement level. Once there in front of door seven he sighed.

“You were one hell of a lady, Ms. Sheehan. You’re going to be missed more then you'll ever know. Baruch dayan ha’emet.”
Gently he eased her into the cooler unit and shut the door softly pausing only to wipe stray tears from his eyes.