Page 36 of The Launch

Edwina blows out a long breath as she looks down the hall in one direction and then in the other to make sure they’re alone.“You know, Josephine, it’s been a long day. Anytime there’s a full moon things get crazy around here.”

“So that’s true then—about full moons and more accidents and births?”

“Oh, definitely.” Edwina nods as she clips a ballpoint pen to the chain that hangs around her neck. “There’s more of everything, but always more drama.”

Jo keeps this in mind as she floats from room to room, handing out bottles of juice, packets of pecan sandies, and reading materials to the various patients—some familiar faces, and some new since her last shift. When she gets to Mr. D’s room, she pauses, pulling the two new books she’s brought for him from the bottom shelf of the cart. She’s hidden them there beneath a pile of discarded magazines so that no one would see them and ask to read the books she’d earmarked for Mr. Dandridge.

“Good afternoon,” Jo says, peering in as she knocks. She pushes the door open tentatively. “It’s Josephine.”

Mr. Dandridge is fast asleep. Jo is disappointed; visiting Mr. D has quickly become her favorite part of coming to the hospital. Since she’s already finished the entire floor and has been saving Mr. D’s room for last so that she can sit and visit, she creeps all the way in, leaving her cart near the bathroom door and taking the seat next to his bed. She takes the time to breathe in and out, sending good and positive thoughts towards Mr. Dandridge as he sleeps, and hoping for him to make a full recovery from whatever ails him.

“Ah, an angel has fallen from heaven while I slumbered,” he says, startling Jo from her meditative state.

“Oh! Mr. Dandridge!” Jo stands up from the chair, tucking her shirt in and making sure she’s presentable. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” he assures her. “Please sit again. Waking up and finding you here has been the best part of my day—maybe even of my week. Wait—let me think about it for a second,” he says, putting a finger to his lips as he considers the week and all that it’s entailed. “Yep. Best part of the whole week.” Mr. Dandridge looks right at Jo with a big grin. “And how are things for you, Josephine?”

Jo exhales as she sinks back into the chair, putting her hands between her knees. Her shoulders roll forward. “Things are challenging right now,” she admits. “My husband is out of town, and I’m just…”

Mr. Dandridge frowns and looks as though he’s trying to sit up in his bed. “You’re afraid to be alone, Josephine? Are you worried you’re not safe?”

Jo’s insides melt. Sweet Mr. Dandridge, with his shock of white hair and his mottled and spotted skin, is ready to climb out of bed and do his duty to protect her and make her feel safe, and she can hardly stand it.

Jo puts out a hand and touches his arm. “No, no—it’s not that. The children and I are getting by just fine on our own. In fact, we’re having a bit of fun,” she admits with a quirk of her lips. “We’re eating what we call ‘fun food’ for dinners, and watching TV together in the evenings. It’s like we’re on a campout or a vacation. Do you know what I mean?”

“Of course, of course,” he says, waving his gnarled hand at her. “Everyone feels that way when they get a little change to the routine. Naturally you miss the person who is always at your side, but the beauty is that yougetto miss them, and then they come home and things go back to normal. Whenever my darling wife used to leave to visit her sister in California, I’d go down to the nearest ballpark where the kids played baseball, and I’d order three hotdogs and sit on the bleachers and eat them all for dinner.” He grins like a naughty little boy admitting a secret.“Then I’d go home, take a package of cookies and a stack of comic books to bed with me, and I’d read until I fell asleep. Of course I always cleaned up before she came back home and I told her I ate the meatloaf and peas or the chicken cutlet dinner at the diner in our town every night, and she was never the wiser.” Mr. D reaches out and taps his closed fist on Jo’s hand like they’re co-conspirators. “I bet your guy is the same way: if you left town, he’d eat hot dogs for dinner and drink a beer in the bathtub. So you letting the kids have a bit of fun is just par for the course.”

Jo smiles at him. “Thanks, Mr. D. I know he’ll come home and things will be back to normal before I know it, it’s just…he’s gone to Arizona.”

“Hot there this time of year,” Mr. Dandridge says noncommittally.

“Mmm.” Jo nods as she chews her bottom lip. “It is. But…I hate dumping my personal life on you. In fact, I shouldn’t.” Jo stands up resolutely, ready to hand Mr. Dandridge his books and make her exit so that he can rest.

“You sit yourself down, miss,” Mr. Dandridge says in what Jo imagines was his commanding teacher voice from his years in the classroom. Without argument, Jo sits. “You are not bothering me with your personal life. In fact, I have come to relish our friendship, and I appreciate you trusting me with the details of your lovely life.” He looks at her and holds her gaze. “Now, what is going on with your husband in Arizona.”

Jo sighs and lets go of the tension in her shoulders. “He was married to someone else before he met me.” She looks at her lap and twists her wedding band in circles as the story spills forth. When she’s done talking, Mr. Dandridge is still watching her from his hospital bed. He turns and looks out the window for a long moment.

“I see,” he says, thinking. “Well. Never underestimate the power of first love.” As if realizing that he may have saidsomething to offend or upset Jo, he turns quickly to look at her. “Which is not to say that he’s there because hestillloves her, but Jo, the first person you give your heart to is always special. They stay with you. They linger.”

She knows he’s right, but there’s always been a dark, jealous, petty little corner of her heart that hates Margaret for getting there before she did. The grown up part of Jo is ashamed of this, but she can’t help the fact that it’s true.

“Who was your first love?” Mr. Dandridge asks her.

Jo blows out a breath that lifts her wispy hair away from her forehead. “Oh, jeez,” she says with a laugh. “Ralph Putnam.”

Douglas Dandridge looks at her expectantly. “He sounds like a dandy. Go on.”

Jo giggles. “He was definitely not a dandy. He was the star basketball player at my high school, and I thought for sure we’d get married and have children and live happily ever after.”

“And yet your last name is Booker, so…”

“Precisely.” Jo shoots him a knowing look. “So Ralph Putnam asked me to be his date to the winter formal when we were sixteen, and of course I said yes and then immediately started choosing what song we’d dance to at our wedding.”

Dandridge gives an amused huff. “I spent far too many years around teenagers not to have seen this play out a time or two.”

Jo nods. “So then you can imagine what happened: Ralph picked me up for the dance, and I’d gone all out. My mother had made me a pink chiffon dress with a gathered waist, and I had an orchid in my hair. I’d practiced dancing with my younger sister for weeks, and I was ready for the most magical night of my life.”

“Oh no.” Mr. D winces as if he’s in physical pain. “Not the most magical night of your life then?”

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