Once a Widow by Lee Roberts Page A

picked up his bag and went out.
    The summer dawn was merging into sunshine when he parked his car behind the hospital in the space reserved for doctors. He entered a door beside the emergency ambulance ramp, went up a short flight of steps, entered the south wing and stopped at Miss James’ desk.
    She gazed at him sleepily and yawned. “Mrs. Malone is being prepared. It won’t be long.”
    “How come you’re still on duty?” he asked curiously.
    “Oh, Polly Nichols called in—she’s sick. So we’re doubling up until Snoopy Grange can get one of the part-time replacements in. Thank goodness it was a quiet night.”
    “Time and a half for you,” Shannon said, grinning.
    “You can have it—I like my sleep better.” Miss James yawned again as Shannon moved away.
    He entered the main corridor, passed the cashier’s office, empty at this time of the morning, and stopped in the doorway of a small waiting lounge beyond the main entrance. Ed Malone sat there, a tall, bony, sunburned man dressed in a flannel shirt and blue jeans. He was smoking a cigarette and said quietly, “Hi, Doc. I hope it’s a boy this time. That’ll even things up.”
    “Five girls and five boys,” Shannon said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
    Malone shifted in his chair. “Doc, I know I ain’t paid you for the last one yet, but my corn was burned out this year and—”
    “I’m not worrying,” Shannon broke in. “I’ll tell you what; if it’s a boy this time, he’s on me.”
    “No, sir!” Malone said emphatically. “I pay my bills.”
    “Have it your own way. Who’s with the kids?”
    “My oldest girl—she’s almost thirteen, you know.”
    “Thirteen?” Shannon was surprised. Malone’s oldest daughter was the first baby he’d delivered after setting up practice in Harbor City. Where had the years gone?
    “Yep,” Malone said. “Susie will be thirteen next September the nineteenth. Getting to be big, too, like her mother.”
    “Take it easy, Ed,” Shannon said and headed for the doctor’s dressing room.
    Five minutes later he stood in the clear white light of the delivery room while a dark-eyed nurse gazed at him over her mask. Alice Malone lay between them, huge beneath a sheet. There was sweat on her fat, pleasant face, but she smiled at Shannon. He touched her hand. “Ready, Alice?”
    She nodded, her teeth biting at her lower lip. Shannon went to work.
    Within fifteen minutes he stood in the corridor, his mask loosened and hanging over his chest. He lit a cigarette and went to the lounge, nodding at nurses and several other doctors on the way. Ed Malone stood up and gazed at him expectantly. Shannon said, “Congratulations, Ed. A boy.”
    “And Alice is all right?”
    “She’s fine. You can see her pretty soon, and the boy, too. Over eight pounds.”
    Silently Malone gripped the doctor’s hand and Shannon saw the relief in the man’s eyes. He also saw the happiness, and the admiration. He knew that look; it was one of the intangible things in a doctor’s life which partly compensated for the inevitable times when all his skill and training and knowledge were not enough. He turned away, faintly embarrassed.
    The morning sun was shining brightly through the windows at the end of the south wing as he stood by Miss James’ desk and gave instructions for the postnatal care of Mrs. Malone.
    “Okay, Professor,” Miss James said. “By the way, you look kind of beat up. Haggard is the word, I’d say.”
    “What about you, my dear?” Shannon glanced at a clock on the wall behind Miss James’ desk. Five minutes after six. The surgery on Lewis Sprang was scheduled for seven-thirty. No point now, he thought, in returning home to try for another half hour’s sleep. After the surgery, he had other patients in the hospital to see, including the strange woman with the alleged loss of memory. Then house calls, which would take him until noon, followed by office hours, afternoon and evening. He touched his bristly