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Gerald and Linda had been divorced for 3 months now, and those 3 months had been the most freeing and trapping at the same time for Linda. She was finally free to be who she was; going as far as coming out to her father. She never considered that a possibility, she thought she would have to hide who she was until he died. Thankfully, that was not the case, though he doesn't particularly get it, he had the grandsons he wanted from her, so she can be with whoever she wanted now. The fears she had were often overwhelming, the anxiety attacks she would hide from her sons while making their lunch, the tears she shed before she slept wondering if she'd ever find love again, the conversations with her therapist where she tries to navigate a safe path forward that keeps separation between her harshest emotions and her sons livelihoods.
It was 11:30 in the morning on a Tuesday. The summer holidays were in full swing, her sons spending all their time running around the house and the backyard, rarely ever taking a break from playing all sorts of games for important things without their mother telling them to do so. Linda was grateful there was at least a few things they did remember to do themselves, or with each other's help. It gave Linda time to do the things she wanted, or just focus on specific things, like making the five of them lunch. She had settled on a pasta salad, easy to make, easy to eat on a hot summer day. The pasta had just finished boiling on the stove top, the lettuce leaves had been washed cut and mixed up, and the remaining vegetables and the tomatoes were washed and ready to be cut. Until, she looked up and out the window upon hearing a snap, and four sets of tears. She placed the knife down carefully and immediately ran out to the yard with kitchen roll in hand.
~
Her four boys were all piled together at the bottom of the big tree in their yard, one of the thicker, average length branches lay not to far away. She unwound kitchen roll to dry tears, hold against open wounds, and attempt to calm and assess each son the best she could. Of course, her medical knowledge was limited, so she couldn't tell whether swelling was just eventual bruising or broken appendages. Linda helped each of her son's to the living room one by one, hushing them gently and making sure they each got her undivided attention. The eventual conclusion was her eldest, Trent, was doing fairly better than her other three sons - probably due to his frequent rebellions while her and Gerald were still together. It had already been 40 minutes of her carting her sons inside and giving them the best medical attention she could give, but now she couldn't do anything further. She felt a little disappointed in herself, but she had to move on. Her phone was grabbed from the kitchen, the directions to St Damien's Hospital plugged into the satnav, her car keys attached to her belt loop through the carabiner she bought herself during her last weekly shop, finding it way more useful than having keys in a bag or her pockets. She pleaded with Trent to carry one of his brothers - with him eventually agreeing to carry River in exchange for some pocket money to see a movie with his friends on Friday. River's right leg was scratched and swollen, and he had a variety of smaller cuts and bruises that Linda had attempted to tend to. Meanwhile, the most Trent had was possibly a couple of bruises and a nose bleed that had died down by the time they were moving to the car. That left her with Jordan, who she had picked up and was now holding her tightly with his left arm, as his right arm was swollen much alike his youngest brothers leg, and his larger gashes and possible bruises too. On her other side, leaning into her while they walked out to the car was her other middle child Seaton. Seaton had taken the most wounds, but had no obvious swelling, her main concern was how often he said his head was hurting - nothing was visible and that worried Linda to hell and back. Once all four sons had clicked their seatbelts in, she hit go on the destination on the satnav and began one of the scariest drives of her life.
She had brought an extra roll of tissue, band-aids, and liquid Tylenol in a tote bag. Before everything, she'd be caught dead using a tote bag. Now, they were her favourite type of bag, they could fit so much for events like this. And by god was it needed, the 15 minute drive to the hospital ended up becoming 30 minutes of hell from traffic galore, meaning tissues and band-aids had to be replaced from bleeding on all four sons. She had pocketed a little bit of tissue to dab back her own tears from a panic attack threatening to externalise itself too. Thankfully, her sons remained happily talking throughout the chaos, and that served enough of a distraction to make the rest of the journey more comforting.
Then there was the 10 minute drive to find a parking spot, eventually one freed up, but it was well away from the entrance. Trent worked his way up to asking her for $50 for Friday now, but Linda couldn't care less at that point, she needed to get all four sons inside and seen by someone, she would take even a student nurse - something that would horrify her before but now Linda gets the importance of learning. She'd applied to the local community college to try get a degree in creative writing, a small pleasant past time of hers over the years that may be nice to pursue so she no longer has to rely on her father and whatever money Gerald gives her each week to care for the boys.
She stopped keeping track of how many minutes had past once they got to the entrance, she used the breathing exercises she had been learning in her bi-weekly therapy sessions to maintain her composure and miraculously kept all four boys relatively calm too besides the small sobs they each let out every once in a while. She sat all four of them down together, in a place she could easily view from the queue for the reception desk, and gave them her phone to watch a show on. She had an old ballpoint pen in the pocket of the dark denim jeans she had on, and she wrote little notes on her hand and arm across the last few chaotic hours. The receptionist was a man with kind eyes, and a smile that seemed overly positive to Linda, but that's exactly what she needed to see to calm herself down more. He asked her what happened. She explained about her boys climbing a tree in the garden, how the branch they were all on collapsed and they had all fallen onto the ground below, how she did what she could but there were simply some things she didn't know, or just couldn't treat from home. He smiled up at Linda as he took notes on everything she said, made triage notes for all four boys, explained there may be a long wait but feel free to flag him down if any of them take a turn for the worse. Linda gulped at the thought of any of them taking a sudden turn for the worse. She was already terrified of even being here alone with them, let alone one of them suddenly getting worse now. But alas, all she could do was wait, and so she went and sat with her boys, watching people go in and out of the waiting room, listening for people's names be called, guessing what ailments people have.
Every once in a while, she'd hear a child being called back, and she never quite saw the woman who was looking after the child patients at all, all she saw was the swish of a ginger ponytail and the soft turquoise scrubs she wore. She knew Becky worked here from their few encounters over the years, but could she still be working here now. Linda let her thoughts be consumed by thinking about Becky Barnes, that was what brought her peace whilst waiting out the however much longer she'd be stuck here.
~
It had been maybe 2 or 3 hours, her boys complained of more pain regularly and she gave them the liquid Tylenol in her bag as per the advice of the receptionist, he had also given them ice packs to help soothe some of the worse of the swellings. River had began dosing a little bit, and the other three had taken to talking about one of the video games they had been playing over the last few days. Linda didn't really get it, but she did notice how Seaton was gradually saying less things, but as she was going to go flag it to the receptionist she made eye contact with the woman with the ginger ponytail right as she called for her boys to come with her.
It was indeed Becky Barnes, her enemy, the object of her thoughts for the many hours, by god it infuriated her. Nevertheless, she picked up Jordan, let Seaton curl into her side while they walked, and made sure Trent didn't wake River while they followed Becky to the treatment room. She informed Becky about her latest observation about Seaton as they walked and Becky nodded, took note on one of the four clipboards she was juggling. They eventually got to the room, the door sign reading "Dr Rebecca Barnes", Becky had gone all out and become a doctor. Linda couldn't help but admire her in that moment, Becky really paved her own way. There were only four seats in the room, so Linda put Jordan and Seaton into a chair each, then took River from Trent for him to take a seat, and finally woke River and sat him down too. She then took her spot, standing nearby, but no where in the way of Becky. Becky had a job to do, and it was not any sort of time to let any sort of feelings intervene.
Becky let her eyes follow Linda as she organised her boys into the seats. She had heard the news from some colleagues that were within the upper echelons of Hatchetfield society about the breakdown of Linda's marriage, and her coming out, and most notably her loosing most of her "stuck-up--ness" as one had referred to it. Never did she ever think she'd be sat looking at this reinvention of Linda Monroe, or she supposed Murray like back in high school now. She took mental note of the dark jeans cuffed above black ballet flats, about the white tank top with little blood stains on it, about the way her keys hung from a carabiner rather than tucked into her usual purses. In fact her usual purse had been replaced by a tote bag, and the usual dramatic cape or coat had been replaced by a dark green cardigan. No necklaces and no rings either, just a small pair of pearl earrings and a pair of sunglasses placed neatly upon her head, probably from driving here. She watched as Linda comforted her boys one last time before moving away to stand just behind them, maybe to keep away from herself, maybe to just give herself some space to breathe. The closest Becky ever got to single parenting was looking after some of her friends' kids when they went on couples retreats.
Alas, Becky did have four patients to look after, she couldn't just spend her time ogling at Linda. She assessed Linda's makeshift handiwork with the various cuts and scrapes, ordered for stitches for some of the deeper wounds, but just bandaids would do for the scrapes. She had nurses come take each of the boys for x-rays of swollen appendages, and sent for Seaton to have a CT for his head to evaluate for a possible concussion. She would email her colleagues under ortho and neuro to keep an eye for scans coming from all the Monroe boys that she may require follow-up on. All the meanwhile, Linda watched her like a hawk.
"They'll be okay, Linda, you don't need to glare at me like that."
"You're a doctor now?" Linda asked.
"Yeah," Becky stated, "I like it more than nursing."
"Good for you, Barnes."
"How about you? What's got the great Linda Monroe busy?" Becky generally knew small talk wasn't her strongest point, but she was curious about Linda's day to day life.
"A lot of chasing after the mess of four troublemakers," Linda paused before she spoke again, "But I'm trying new things too, like I applied for community college as stupid as it sounds."
"Hey, stupid is totally not a word I'd use to describe you."
"Thought you hated me, Barnes. Stupid is totally a word you'd use to describe me."
"That was before," Becky looked up from her notes on the boys, "Right now I think you need a friend, I mean I run around paediatric wings for hours a day and I barely manage 20 minutes with one patient, I have no idea how you cope 24/7 with 4 boys."
"God, yeah, boys," Linda started shaking a little, "I don't know how I'm gonna explain this out to my dad," Linda started pacing the room, "Let alone their dad, I mean god how do you just say 'Hi your sons climbed a tree and I need help with the medical bills'".
Becky took the initiative to stand up and lead Linda to sit in the chair closest to her desk, then sit back down in her desk chair and wheel herself over, placing a hand against Linda's cheek before speaking softly, "Remember way back when I climbed a tree and didn't come down for two days."
Linda snapped out of her little down spiral and looked Becky in her eyes, they were the same soft blue that she remembered, then she giggled, "There must be something about knowing me and climbing trees."
Becky giggled a little too, "Well hopefully they don't do it again and learned their lesson like I did. And hey, you're smiling again too, feels like it's been a while since I've seen you smile."
Linda realised she was smiling too, she hadn't smiled a genuine smile for months, there was the pretend ones she put on for people, but nothing like the one she had on her face right now.
"It's been rough for me these last couple of months, I mean I used to call you the train wreck, but I take that back now, I'm the train wreck and your some beautiful angel that got absolutely blessed."
"Even calling me beautiful," Becky tried to hide the fact she was flustered, "Something really changed with you Miss Murray, but I wouldn't say train wreck. Maybe a minor curve in the smooth flowing river that you're used to, but the river is still gorgeous so you shouldn't worry as much."
Linda took a moment to absorb the metaphor and smiled even more when her boys all came back with their casts and bandages adorned with little stickers and signatures from what she only assumed were the nurses Becky had gotten to take care of the boys.
Linda made the boys thank Dr Barnes, and Dr Barnes also signed their casts and bandages which made Linda smile a bit more. She also took Linda's hand and pressed a post-it into it, thanking Linda for her patience. Linda put the post-it into her pocket and thanked Becky for their conversation, thankfully the boys were too busy to bother asking for details.
~
By the time Linda had gotten her boys home, the pasta and salad items had gone lukewarm with the heat but the boys didn't seem to care and asked for it to be made anyways, so she did exactly that. She even had some herself, and it wasn't as awful as she initially thought. She let herself relax between her boys as they watched some sort of superhero movie together after the long day before helping them all to bed.
Once she had confirmed all four were asleep, she remembered the post-it note from Becky in her pocket. She unfurled it and read it.
"Call me sometime - B.B <3"
With a phone number scrawled neatly underneath.
Linda immediately ran down to the kitchen and grabbed her phone, plugging in Becky's number and texting her.
"Hi, Linda if you couldn't guess. Boys are doing great, just got them to sleep. I'm doing good too, I think you were right about me needing some friends right now, if you wouldn't mind of course?"
~
Becky had gotten home after a long and strenuous shift, she worked another 5 hours after her run in with Linda, and the entire time she couldn't help but think about the blonde woman.
She grabbed whatever leftovers she could from the fridge, fed her gorgeous tabby cat Leo, and sat down on her bed to eat when her phone pinged off with a text.
She read the text over twice. Linda had actually texted her back, she did actually text her.
Becky texted Linda back after a little freak out, of course.
"Hi Lin, if I can call you that, good to know you're all doing well. and being your friend would be an honour. hell, im off Friday if you don't have plans, we can go to beanies???"
Linda replied almost immediately.
"Trent's already busy, so I'll see if I can shed the other three round my dad's. Would be nice to just be adults."
Becky giggled before replying.
"Sure, it's a date."
Both women flustered up at that, and both fell asleep dreaming and hoping Friday would come sooner.