Chapter 1

Grant Townsend sat restlessly in the waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit at Trenton Memorial Hospital. Every hospital worker who passed by expected to approach him about his interest in the woman hit by the minivan.

The last place Grant expected to be on the 23rd of December was sitting in a hospital. He had attended the scene of a two-car accident and helped to aid a badly injured woman who had been struck by one of the vehicles.

He had the woman’s dog in his car and wanted to see about his care, but more importantly, if the woman had survived.

After a two-hour wait, a woman in nurse’s scrubs who was heavily pregnant approached him and asked, “Excuse me, Mr. Townsend?”

“Yes, I am,” he replied, standing to greet her. He noticed her eyes were red from crying.

“I’m Ellen Armstrong; Jennifer McDermott is my mother,” she said, offering her hand.

“Hi Ellen, I’m Grant Townsend, and I helped give your mom first aid at the accident scene. I was wondering and hoping she would be able to survive. After the ambulance left, I found her dog, and luckily he’s uninjured. I brought him with me to give to a family member.”

Ellen’s arms encircled his chest, temporarily pinning his arms to his sides. “Thank you, thank you so much, Mr. Townsend, you saved my mom’s life!” She offered, wiping away another tear. She’s alive and recovering in the Intensive Care Ward.”

“Is she expected to recover?” He hesitated to ask.

“Yes, thanks to you.”

“I wasn’t the only one who helped her.”

“You’re the only one who took the time to come here and ask about her condition.” She looked up to capitalize on his height.

“I know I’m not a family member, but it would greatly ease my mind if I could see her, even for just a few minutes. I have to see her with my own eyes to know that she’s okay.”

“I’ll make sure you can. Fortunately, I work in the Maternity Ward here at the hospital,” she said, rubbing her baby bump. “Please, follow me.”

“When are you due?” He inquired, walking beside her.

“I’m due about the end of February. My son, Tom, is five and doesn’t remember his grandpa. My dad died three years ago in a car accident. Today’s the third anniversary of his death. I would have been lost if my baby had to grow up without knowing its grandmother too.”

“That’s so sad, dying is bad enough; for it to happen just days before Christmas makes it even worse. I know the feeling. I also lost my wife just before Christmas three years ago.”

Ellen escorted Grant into the open-walled room. Tubes and wires ran to and from her body, replenishing it with liquid and monitoring her vital signs. He looked at her face; there were scratches on her right temple and cheekbone. He noticed a cast on her right wrist, likely broken. She had two small tubes feeding oxygen to her lungs through her nostrils.

“What are her injuries?”

“She suffered a broken right hip, several broken ribs, a broken right wrist from the impact of the van, and a concussion, likely from hitting the ground. The paramedics told me you found her with no pulse and not breathing.”

“I guess the impact of the van plus hitting the ground may have knocked her out and left her on her back, where she swallowed her tongue.”

“She didn’t actually swallow her tongue, but with her throat muscles so relaxed, it fell back far enough to cut off her breathing.”

“I had to stand by and watch her leave in the ambulance, hoping I’d done enough.” At least we gave her a fighting chance.”

“The paramedics said you did everything right,” she recalled as they entered the room.

“That’s hard to believe. My heart was racing so fast that I couldn’t tell if she had a pulse or not. Has she regained consciousness at all?”

“She’s in and out from the operation. She should hopefully wake up soon.”

Grant’s left hand rested on the bedsheet. “Is it okay if I touch her hand?”

“Of course you can,” she offered as she went to the other side of her bed.

He gently covered her frail-looking hand with his, and she suddenly jerked, making him react too. Jennifer’s eyes fluttered and partially opened. She seemed to look at Grant, trying to focus, then they closed again.

“I drive a transit bus for the city and would see your mom almost every day when she was walking her dog. We’d exchange waves and smiles. I nicknamed her Doris because she reminds me so much of the actress Doris Day. The highlight of my working day was seeing her smile and wave to me.”

“Yes, she’d been compared to Doris Day quite often. I remember her mentioning a bus driver who’d always wave to her. She must have been talking about you.”

Jennifer quietly moaned and groaned, slightly moving her head from side to side.

“After the ambulance headed towards the hospital, I began to look for her dog. I knew she wouldn’t be walking without him and found him cold and huddling in the dark beside the variety store. At first, he didn’t want to come to me until I waved the woman’s hat near him to smell her scent.”

“Max is normally a very friendly dog and must have been very scared. Thank you for finding him.”

Ellen’s pager beeped, and she looked at the screen. “I’m being paged back to work. The maternity ward is very busy tonight. The staff has joked that it was about nine months ago that we had that big power outage and that we would likely see a spike in baby births around Christmas time. There isn’t very much I can do for Mom right now except worry. I’m needed back at work. I’ll call the nurse’s station every so often to check up on her.”