Country Lovin': Chapter One

She had paced the waiting room of the third floor surgical unit of the Luther Hospital millions of times. She stopped, looked at the fake plants which had been arranged beautifully in the center of the waiting room. She had been there since seven thirty the night before. Her body was weighing heavy with fatigue. She had worked all day the day before and hadn't been home for five minutes when she got the call from her sister, Nadine.

"Will you calm down, Val? You aren't doing us any justice you know." Nadine said looking up from her romance novel, that she had been busy reading. "Sit down, you're beginning to make me nervous."

With a heavy sigh, Valene sat down next to her sister. Valene was the eldest of her and her two other siblings, Nadine and Derek. She was twenty-six, Nadine was twenty-four, and Derek was twenty-one. She stood again and walked to her bag in the chair across from hers. She pulled her pack of ciggarettes from it, and yanked a ciggarette from it. She searched the bag for her lighter and finally found it. "I'm going outside. I need a smoke." With that, Valene walked to the elevator and went down to the lobby.

The outside was cool. Valene had forgotten her jacket and was cursing herself every step she took away from the hospital. It was the beginning of spring. It should've been automatic for her to grab her jacket, but she couldn't help it, her mind was occupied by other things. One thing, for example, her father. He had been diagnosed with cancer almost seven months ago. It was cancer of the lungs, from smoking. And ironically, she had begun to smoke when her mother had died of lung cancer almost ten years ago.

Once she was at the designated area for smokers, she lit her cigarette and took a long drag from it. She let it out slowly, trying to savor the tackey tobacco taste. She closed her eyes and sat down on the bench. She was still wearing the navy pant suit she had worn for work the day before. She didn't have the time nor the energy to change. Nadine had brought some clothes and some of her things that morning, but Val couldn't bring herself to leave the hospital or be out of the waiting room for one minute; this was her first time leaving.

The air was chilly and the sun was covered by the clouds. It made it look as though it was almost evening, when it was almost four in the afternoon. Valene took another drag from the cigarette and her mind went involuntarily from her father to her boyfriend, Brad Henderson. She and him had been dating for almost two years. He had been the preppy jock in high school. He was three years older than her, and still looked as much of a jocky prep as he did back in high school. He still had his blonde hair, baby blue eyes, muscular figure, and that beautiful tan.

She remembered when he had come up to her. They had just finished their aerobics class, and both of them were sweaty and tired. She had noticed him before, but she had never thought in a million--no, a billion--years would he ever come up to her and ask her out. Ever since then, they had gone out to lunch after every class and went to dinner every Monday and Thursday night.

Sighing deeply, she took another drag from her cigarette, then threw it to the ground. She stomped on it with the tip of her high heeled shoe. Her chocolate brown hair fell from her back to her shoulder. She ran her hands through her hair and stood up. She needed that; it kept her calm and collected. Or so she let herself believe.

As she walked back towards the front doors of the hospital, she looked up at the sky. Her mind drifted back to her father, and she sighed deeply again. She had her father had never really been close like he had been with Derek. Of course, Derek was a boy, and she figured that was supposed to be natural. It had been her who had been very close to her mother. Nadine hadn't really been close to either of them. She was the middle child, and from what she had said to everyone, that entitled her to be the rebel child. So she had been.

Nadine and Derek were still sitting. Derek hadn't spoken a word since arriving late last night. He had just finished college the previous summer and was working at the IBM building as a computer programmer. He'd make it somewhere in life, Valene had always thought. Their father wouldn't want anything less from his children. He wanted all of his children to make it somewhere in life. Warren Zimmerman had always compared their life to his at their age. He had worked as a farmer boy, then moved to the city, where he had hoped to make more money to help support their family. He had worked in an Italian restaurant, where he had made it to top chef.

Warren always wanted to see his children make more of themselves. Make more money, so they didn't have to live in crummy mildew, rat infested apartments that they had to. Valene had been five when they moved to New York City. Nadine had been three, and their mother, Vicky, had been pregnant with Derek. She didn't remember anything of living on a small ranch house in Oaklahoma. All she knew, was where she lived now. The great New York City, the land of opportunity.

"Feel better?" Nadine said. Her eyes were still fixed into the book she was reading. Derek had moved to a chair next to her duffle, and was trying to read a sports magazine, but Val noticed that his eyes drifted towards the doors where the doctor would be coming through when he'd be talking with him.

"Where the hell is that doctor?" He asked suddenly. He didn't bother to close the magazine when he tossed it back onto the table, knocking another flimsy magazine to the floor.

"Derek--" Nadine began, but was unable to finish. Derek held out his hand, which meant that he didn't want to hear it. He was so much like his father that it scared her. He shared his father's rich dark brown hair, blue eyes, and broad shoulders and height.

"He should be out here, dammit! He's been in there almost five friggen hours!" He exclaimed. He placed both hands on his hips. After a couple of minutes, guilt and grief filled his eyes, his features, and his body, and he sank into a chair and placed his face in his hands.

Nadine closed her book, placing a piece of paper, which looked to once have belonged inside a magazine, inside, and hurrying over to Derek, where she placed an arm around his shoulders, and pulled him to her. Valene just sighed and sank into a chair. This wasn't how she had planned her life. She had hoped that her father would be able to see her marry. To see them all marry. To see his grandchildren. Their mother had never even seen them graduate. She had passed away two months after Christmas, Valene's senior year in high school.

Valene placed her face in her hands and closed her eyes. She so badly wanted to see her father. She wanted to talk with him, see how he was feeling; she wanted to see if he was all right. She didn't want to lose him. She didn't want to lose him the same way she had lost her mother. That had been so rough, so hard to get through. If it hadn't been for her father, she didn't know where she'd be, or how she'd be.

"Miss. Valene Zimmerman?" The tone of his voice brought her back from the horrid thoughts which raced through her mind. Her head snapped up and she eyed the doctor standing before her. His eyes weren't filled with that of happiness or relief, but of sadness and grief.

"Yes?" She stood and wiped her hands on her pants. She walked up to the doctor. Derek and Nadine were looking up at them.

"Uh, I'm not sure how to explain this to you, but in our attempts to locate the cancer growth in your father's lungs...before we could remove it, your father...well, your father passed on." He said it finally.

The doctor's words felt like a smack in the face. She placed her hand over her mouth. She looked over at Derek and Nadine, who's eyes were filled with tears. Valene wanted to cry, but the tears weren't coming. She wanted to feel something, but it wasn't registering; not yet. "You're lying." Val turned her head and noticed that it had come from Derek's mouth.

"He can't be dead. You're lying." Derek had stood. His eyes were overflowing with tears. A tear trickled down his cheek. "Why couldn't you save him? Why the hell didn't you try harder?" After he finished, he strode out of the waiting room.

The doctor's eyes were filled with hurt. Valene knew that this hurt the doctor to tell them. He didn't want to tell them, and Valene knew it. "I'm really sorry. I tried. I really did. I wanted to make sure that he was...I had hoped to save him. I had been so surprised at this new growth. I thought that we could get it. I had hoped that we could."

Nadine stood and placed a hand on the shoulder of the doctor. "It's okay. Derek...he's just upset. They were extremely close." The doctor nodded, turned and walked away.

Valene sighed, walked around Nadine and picked up her duffle bag. "I have to...uh, get heading home. Will you come with me to the funeral parlor tomorrow?" Nadine tried to put on a small smile. A tear trickled down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away.

"Sure. I'll give you a call in the morning. Tell, Brad I said hi, won't you?" Nadine replied. Her dirty blonde hair was in a disaray. She had been working at the firm over night the night before, and her body ached with fatigue as well as Valene's.

"I will." Valene gave her sister a kiss on the cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow then. I have to call everyone. That's going to be so hard." Val finished with a sigh.

"Tomorrow."

Valene turned on her heel, and walked out of the waiting room. She needed to get away from here as quickly as possible. She needed to try to rid her mind of this horrid event. She hoped that Brad would be home. She needed his consoling. She needed his arms around her. She needed him.

º º º º º º º

A small smile spread to her lips when she saw that a light was on in her apartment. She was happy. Well, about having Brad there for her, anyway. She walked into the lobby of the apartment building and walked past the register desk, without waving to Ms. Lutinburg, the receptionist, and hurried to the elevator.

She sighed heavily when she opened the door to her apartment. Brad was sitting on the couch watching television. It looked like the news. The weatherman was on, talking about a heat wave that would be coming at the later part of this week.

"Brad?" She said with a soft sigh at the end. She noticed that she had had sighed more times in this one day that she had in her entire life. She placed her duffle on the kitchen table.

Brad looked around. His eyes didn't light up as they normally did. Instead, he turned the television as the weatherman changed that to of the newscaster. He had begun to tell of a murder which had happened on the East side of New York City. He stood up and crossed the living room.

"How are you?" He saw the look on her face and changed his line of questioning. "How is your father?"

Tears flooded her eyes and Brad pulled her close to him. "I'm so sorry, Val. I hadn't even suspected that this would be the night." He said.

She wrinkled her nose and pulled back away from him. "What are you talking about? Not suspecting that this would be the night?" She crossed her arms in front of her.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He turned away and walked to the windows. "Don't think of me as shallow okay?" He stated as he turned around.

Valene found herself getting more confused as this conversation continued. "What are you getting at, Brad? Will you please give me the benefit of telling me?"

He nodded and walked back over to her. "I've been thinking this over; for a long time. I've sensed that the passion that we had...it has dwindled. I think that that is all we had. I don't even think it was love; just sex." He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Just sex? Is that what you believe? And you've decided to tell me now? After what just happened to my father? Jesus, Brad. You couldn't even pretend to love me for tonight? You're such a shallow, heartless bastard. I want you out of my apartment. Don't ever call me, don't talk to me. I want you to leave the key here." She turned away from him. She walked to the kitchen table, lifted her duffle bag onto her shoulders and walked past him. "Just sex. How the hell could you stand there and say that to me." She muttered hatefully.

As she heard the front door slam, she threw her duffle bag onto the floor. Tears flowed down her cheeks. How could this happen to her? Why today? Today was just not her day. Not her day at all. She removed her clothes. She put on a long, oversized t-shirt, and brushed through her hair. She hadn't brushed it in almost two days.

She carefull wiped her eyes and pulled back the sheets. She was at least glad her father saw her happy. He didn't have to see her crying over a man. She vowed, right then and there, that she'd never cry over another man. Not ever again. It wasn't her style. It wasn't woman or lady like. If there was such a difference.

She knew that it was almost six thirty and that it was time when others had dinner, but she hadn't slept in almost forty-eight hours, and she needed the sleep. She felt the sleep weighing down her eye lids. She tried to keep them open, but after a hard try and a good five minutes, the sleep took over and she closed her eyes.

"Country Lovin': Chapter Two"