Read Online Patient One by Leonard Goldberg - Free Book Online Page B

number. Juanita Cruz picked up on the first ring. In the background, David heard the sound of a television set tuned to a Spanish channel.
    “The Ballineau residence,” Juanita answered.
    “Hey, Juanita,” David said. “Is everything okay?”
    “Everything is fine,” Juanita replied. “Your daughter is hard at work on her homework.” There was a pause before she asked, “Is something wrong, Dr. Ballineau?”
    “Only that I will be home very late tonight,” David told her. “We have an emergency at the hospital and it looks like I’ll be here for the next two hours. There’s no way I’ll be able to tuck Kit in tonight.”
    Juanita waited before answering. “She will be disappointed.”
    “I know.”
    “And she will worry.”
    “I know that, too.”
    Juanita paused again, then said, “I will tell her that you will kiss her forehead while she is asleep.”
    “Good,” David said, thinking how wise and caring Juanita was, and how fortunate they were to have her.
    “Hold while I get the little one for you.”
    David grinned to himself. “The little one” was Juanita’s pet name for Kit, and she never addressed her by any other title, even though Kit insisted she was almost a teenager and that Juanita would have to accept that fact.
    “Fine,” Juanita had said. “I will call you ‘the little one who is now almost a teenager.’”
    Juanita had come to work for them six months after Kit was born. The kind, strong woman had left an abusive husband in Costa Rica and had emigrated to America with a young daughter who became a registered nurse and currently worked at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. When David’s wife died, he asked Juanita to move into the guest house and look after Kit full time. Juanita was delighted to do so, since she was living alone in an apartment then. And she loved Kit almost as much as she loved her own daughter.
    “Hi, Dad,” Kit said as she came on the phone.
    “Hi, beautiful,” David answered. “What are you doing?”
    “Homework. We’re studying the bees.”
    “Bees, eh?”
    “Yeah. Did you know we’d all be dead in four years if the bees suddenly disappeared?”
    “You don’t say.”
    “Ah-huh,” Kit went on. “Without bees there’d be no pollination and without pollination there’d be no plants and without plants there’d be no food and all the animals would die.”
    “Wow!” David enthused. “And we’d all be gone in four years, huh?”
    “That’s what the teacher said, but he was just quoting Albert Einstein.”
    David shook his head admiringly, now envisioning his daughter with her raven hair, cream-colored skin, and sky-blue eyes. She was just gorgeous. And smart as a whip, making all As and always on the honor roll. And she was starting to like boys almost as much as she liked soccer. Oh, Marianne! David thought sadly, now seeing his dead wife in his mind’s eye. You’re missing so much.
    “Dad?” Kit broke the silence.
    “Yeah?”
    “Why the phone call?”
    “I have an emergency at the hospital,” he explained. “Someone very, very important is really sick, so I’ll be getting home late and won’t be able to tuck you in.”
    “Oh,” Kit said, her voice barely audible.
    David’s heart sank. His daughter sounded so let down.
    “I can stay up and wait for you,” Kit offered.
    “That’s not a good idea,” David said. “I won’t be home until after one or two o’clock, and you need your sleep. Remember, you’ve got a big soccer game tomorrow afternoon.”
    “You’re right,” Kit agreed, brightening up a little. “You’ll be there for the game, won’t you?”
    “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” David promised. “Now you finish your homework and crawl under the covers and have sweet dreams.”
    “I love you, Dad.”
    “I love you too, Kitten.”
    David put his cell phone away, still feeling guilty about not being home with his daughter to kiss her goodnight. His absence would only remind Kit that, unlike most other