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“No, they just need boundaries set and to know you love them.”
“I do love them.” Jamie shook her head, but didn’t look convinced her love mattered to her girls.
“I know you do.” Melissa squeezed Jamie’s hand. “You’re a wonderful, caring mother.”
“I’m a terrible mother,” the woman sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“No, you’re an overwhelmed mother who is doing the best she can under the circumstances. Cindy and Amanda are dealing with emotions they’re too young to understand. Honestly, they need counseling and so do you.”
Jamie opened her mouth, but Melissa held up her hand.
“I know you’re doing all you can to just get to your chemotherapy. Perhaps the school system can arrange for a counselor to talk to the girls. I’d love them to see a grief specialist, but whatever we can get locally will have to do for now. Until you finish your chemotherapy.”
Jamie’s sobs worsened and her chest shook from her tears. “See, my girls need counseling, and I can’t even get them what they need. What kind of mother am I? They’d be better off without me.”
“That’s simply not true. No one can love Amanda and Cindy the way you do. You’re their mother. They need you.” Never had Melissa known Jamie to be so down, so piteous. “You will make it through this. Once you finish with the chemotherapy, you’ll start to feel better.”
“Once I finish with the chemotherapy, Dr Arnold is going to cut off my breast. I’m not even going to be a woman anymore.”
Melissa wrapped her arms around Jamie and let the woman cry. A good cry could accomplish things that sometimes weeks of therapy didn’t achieve.
When Jamie’s tears slowed, she swatted at her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have laid all this on you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just keep crying all the time. I don’t know why.”
“Honey, it’s normal for you to be depressed. You were still recovering from Roger’s death and coping with raising the girls by yourself. Then the cancer knocks you off your feet. What woman wouldn’t be upset? Maybe we should consider a short-term antidepressant.”
“Melissa?” Debbie poked her head back into the exam room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Cindy just threw up in the lobby. I’ve got her in the bathroom with a washcloth on her forehead.”
Jamie’s eyes glazed over with self-derision. “See, I was focused on me instead of taking care of her.”
Melissa pointed at Jamie. “You stay there. Lie down on the exam table if you’d like. I’ll check on Cindy and tell you what’s going on after I’ve examined her.”
Unfortunately Cindy Moss had caught the stomach virus and had been battling diarrhea most of the day without telling her mother. Jamie couldn’t deal with a sick child, neither did the woman need to be exposed to the germ with her immune system weakened from her chemotherapy.
Melissa’s office wasn’t really set up to double as a hospital ward, but she had on occasion given intravenous fluids via an IV, and kept the supplies on hand.
When Melissa checked the teenager, she was dehydrated. Melissa convinced Jamie to leave Cindy at the office for IV fluids overnight.
Several hours, a shot of Phenergan in her hip, and a bag of normal saline later, the girl was resting in a hospital cot in one of the exam rooms.
Melissa, on the other hand, hadn’t slept at all. She sat in a chair with the back of her head propped against the wall, watching over Jamie’s daughter.
She’d slowed the rate of Cindy’s IV fluids and the bag should last a couple of hours.
So much for that relaxing bath and a good night’s sleep, she thought wryly. Not that she’d probably have slept any better than she had any other night for the past month and a half.
In the dimly lit room, she glanced at her watch. After midnight.
Her hands cradled protectively over her belly, she closed her eyes, meaning to rest them only for a few minutes.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” an angry male voice asked.
Melissa jerked awake, her eyes popping open in startled fear. “James?”
“Yes, it’s me, but it could have been anyone. The front door wasn’t locked, Melissa. Anyone could have walked into this office and found you asleep.”
She blinked, trying to open her tired eyes, trying to convince herself that James towered over her, his face an angry red, chiding her for an unlocked door.
“I thought I locked it.” She glanced at her watch. After two, although she’d swear she’d just shut her eyes seconds ago.
