Free Miracles in the ER by Robert D. Lesslie

began to pray, his words measured, peaceful—words of hope and faith and love. And words of thanksgiving for this man, forever delivered from his pain and suffering. Then there was John’s last breath—a final amen .
    We were silent. I knew we were standing on holy ground.

To Have and to Hold
    Lori Davidson closed the curtain of room 4 and walked over to the nurses’ station.
    “What’s the matter?” Amy Connors had twisted around in her chair and was looking up at the nurse. I glanced at her too, and saw the troubled look on her face.
    Lori put an index finger to her pursed lips and shook her head. Once she was in the chair beside Amy and had put the chart of room 4 on the counter, she leaned close to the secretary and said, “This woman is in trouble.” She tapped the clipboard quietly and again shook her head.
    Amy shifted in her chair, straining to read the information on the chart.
    “‘Stephanie Evans, forty-two-year-old female. Headache and chest pain.’ Is she having a heart attack?” Amy looked up at the nurse and reached for her telephone.
    “No, she’s not having a heart attack.” Lori’s voice was flat, distant. “She’s not even having any chest pain.”
    This was unusual behavior for the nurse. I reached over the counter and she handed me the chart.
    Vital signs were fine. No fever or rapid heart rate. I didn’t see any red flags on the info sheet.
    Lori quietly stood, caught my eye, and motioned with her head to the medicine room. I followed her across the hall, the clipboard of room 4 still in my hand. She stood near the window, gazing out onto the ER parking lot. When she turned around, there were tears in her eyes.
    “Sometimes it all comes back, and I…have a hard time handling it.”
    I looked around for some Kleenex, couldn’t find any, and handed her some dressing gauze—and waited.
    “You remember my sister, don’t you?” She dabbed at her eyes and sniffed.
    “Angie? Sure, I remember her.” Lori had brought her sister to one of our Christmas parties a few years ago. “Does she still live in Charleston?”
    “No, she left Charleston last summer and moved in with our parents in Virginia. She and her two children.”
    That was odd. She was married, and Lori would have told us had anything happened to her sister’s husband.
    “What about—”
    “Angie left her husband. Finally.” Her face flushed and she tossed the gauze into a nearby trash can. “Finally.”
    I leaned back against the counter and studied her knitted brow and narrowed eyes. This was the angriest I had ever seen her.
    “Her husband beat her.” The words burst from her lips. “And she just took it. It went on for months before we knew about it. But she couldn’t hide a fractured cheekbone. When our father found out, I thought he was going to kill him. But it was textbook. Angie blamed herself, said she must have done something to deserve it. Angie of all people! She was a basketball and track star in high school, missed being valedictorian by half a point, and she was homecoming queen. She never had an issue with self-esteem. But when it came to this…I didn’t understand. None of us did.”
    She sighed and stared down at the floor, silent.
    After a moment, I asked, “What was the breaking point? What made her leave him?”
    Lori looked at me, her eyes misting again. “He hurt one of the children—twisted Jake’s arm and almost broke it. Angie was in the car with the kids and on the road before her husband could turn around.”
    “And you think…” I held up Stephanie Evans’s chart.
    “Her husband is abusing her.” Lori’s words were measured, convicted. “I looked for an opportunity to ask her about it, but she kept deflecting me, changing the subject. You’ll see when you talk with her. You’ll know. You might want to ask her why she’s wearing a turtlenecked sweater in the middle of summer.”
    All of the warning signs were there. Stephanie Evans never made eye contact with me. Her