The Wish Lists Read online

  The Wish Lists

  By JM Spade

  Acknowledgements:

  I want to thank my family and friends for their support as I worked to finally craft my first novel. I have always dreamed of writing my own book and this dream has finally become a reality.

  Of course, I want to thank all of my parents. Without them, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

  I want to specifically thank:

  ➔ Kimberly Applebey

  ➔ Mary Jane Clark

  ➔ Melannie Canard

  ➔ my work wife, Marcía Ramsey

  ➔ Amber Blett

  ➔ Renee Uitto

  who helped me with suggestions, inspiration, and organizing my endless stream of ideas.

  I want to thank Leilani Ruesink for encouraging my creativity and love of writing from a very early age.

  I want to thank my husband and daughters who sacrificed their time with me while I wrote. I appreciate their love and support in all things I do.

  Ultimate thanks be to God.

  Love always, J.M.

  Contents

  The Wish Lists

  Acknowledgements:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 1

  How I Got Here

  I was in my thirties when I decided to go to nursing school. It took me that long to figure out what I was meant to do with my life. Many times during clinicals, I asked myself if I could have done it when I was younger, but the answer was always no. I was confident that if I had gone into nursing right out of high school, my nursing career wouldn’t have gone the same way. I wasn’t the same person then as I am now. Either way, I’d have been a fresh-faced new grad entering the nursing world.

  The difference is what I get out of it. How I react to patients, how they impact me, and how much I have to give to them. No doubt about it, my nursing career would not be the same if I’d have gone to nursing school earlier in life. Of course, I didn’t know all of this when I started. But at the end of the first year, I was 100% confident that this was how it was meant to be all along.

  After high school, I traveled the world using my dad’s checkbook. I had bucked the trend of college and flown by the seat of my pants. I’d grown up as a “rich kid” and having money for everything I wanted. It was such a thrill to go wherever the wind blew me and answer to no one. I had climbed the 669 steps to the top of the Eiffel tower, watched a real bullfight in Madrid, helped to build a church in Africa, kayaked in New Zealand, and hiked through the Amazon. I did many smaller things along the way like drinking beer in Berlin, riding a gondola in Venice, and watching an opera in Sydney. I made new friends when staying in hostels or couch surfing or sometimes even when sitting next to someone along the way. I felt free from the restraints I’d imagined were holding me back and I had flown like a free bird.

  That lasted all of six months before I received a phone call telling me it was time to come back down to Earth. I was being cut off. I had a month to get a job or my credit card would magically stop working. Realistically, that lifestyle wasn’t actually sustainable. By my dad’s standards, I was wasting my life and needed to come back home to get a job. In hindsight, he was right but I would never have admitted it to him. My dad would later admit that he had allowed me to go on my adventure because it was what he had always wished he could have done. Growing up, my father worked for everything he had. It was my turn to work for what I had.

  I had no choice but to return home after his phone call. It’s not like I could have spent my entire life traveling the world alone anyway. I’d had plenty of time for self-exploration, but at the end of each day, I was alone. The world seemed cold as I traversed it, watching couples in cafes or families trying to take selfies. My father was right and it was time to come home. The friendships I made were fleeting and my friendships back home were nothing more than sporadic phone calls and postcards. The adventure was breathtaking but would have been better if I’d have had someone to share it with. I’d spread my wings long enough.

  Home was a brick mansion at the end of a cul-de-sac in a fancy gated community. A housekeeper ensured that all 10,000 square feet were kept clean and tidy. The kitchen was filled with massive cabinets, granite countertops, and a fully stocked refrigerator. Our house also had a theater, a library, and an office that my dad was almost always found in. Staying up late reading books and doing homework as he worked at his mahogany desk were the memories I held close. The yard included a pool, fountains, and a rose garden. I never saw anyone swimming in the pool these days but it usually had a blown-up flamingo floating aimlessly.

  When I was in school, our house had seemed like party central. I always had friends over and my dad was always trying to impress some new client. Fancy dinner parties were something my dad and I enjoyed hosting. My first drink of champagne had come at the young age of thirteen while celebrating the opening of another branch of my dad’s company. No one noticed me sneak a bottle under the table and share it with my friend Emma. We drank ourselves silly and slept hard that night.

  It had been just Dad and me for a long time. He was my rock. If some boy had broken up with me, my dad was my shoulder to cry on. If my friends were assholes, my dad always had the wisdom to cheer me up. While I didn’t want him to be right about coming home, he had never led me astray before. He had let me spread my wings and fly right after high school. He’d never said anything negative about my carefree lifestyle I was living. He would ask me about my adventures and suggest new things and places for me to try.

  Dad had married my mother right out of college, and she had gotten pregnant within their first year of marriage. By the time I was five, she was an alcoholic. Sleeping all day and drinking into the wee hours of the night became an everyday occurrence. I hated when she drove me to school and tried my best to leave her alone when I was home.

  One December day, she’s surprised me by packing my lunch. She had never packed my lunch before. She walked me next door and asked the neighbor to drive me to school. I remember the tear that rolled down her cheek as she kissed me goodbye. At the time, I hadn’t understood why she was crying as she sent me to school. When I returned home from school that day, she was gone. I didn’t begin to worry until the sun set and she wasn’t home yet. Eventually, I stopped waiting and stopped worrying.

  The void she left grew smaller year after year, but it was replaced by anger. Sometimes I wonder what she did that was so horrible she couldn’t stay. Even now, when I think about abandoning a child, my stomach drops as if I’d just crested the top of the roller coaster.

  Despite being ditched by my own mother, I felt I’d adapted well and had become a well-adjusted adult. However, I knew I had what must have been my mother’s spirit. Taking personality quizzes and job aptitude tests hadn’t seemed like my thing when I was in High School. I had good grades but I had enjoyed socializing and being a “free bird”. I had no responsibilities and no restrictions. A job was the last thing I’d thought of. A future had been so far from my mind and I lived day by day.

  I had been everyone’s friend and had been “too busy” to settle down. Sitting down in front of the computer filling out college applications had felt like being in handcuffs. With no one to make me fill
them out, deadlines came and went. My friends received acceptance letters and made plans. The same jealousy I had when their mothers picked them up from school, attended field trips, or helped with classroom parties, reared its ugly head.

  Returning home, I ended up finding a job working in a lawyer’s office as a secretary. Clients from all over the world were easy to relate to with my experience, but each day I found myself sitting at an oak desk with a computer and telephone from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Sometimes, I’d venture out on an errand and feel fresh air instead of the stuffy office space.

  I bought a house a short drive from the office and for the first time, I was living my dad’s version of my life. I ate the same lunch every day — peanut butter and jelly on white bread. I gained twenty pounds during the first year. I seemed to have everything I needed, and I was comfortable with this life. It wasn’t the exciting exploration of the world I had enjoyed those first few months out of high school, but it worked. The longer time went on, the more I realized that I couldn’t have continued my free-bird lifestyle forever. This was adulthood. It was time to settle down and develop my life.

  Then one day, the man I worked for was dead on the floor. After years of being his secretary, there he was, laying on the floor not breathing, and I had just stood there and stared at him like an idiot. It took me more than a few minutes to realize that I probably should call the police or something. I was absolutely frozen.

  Before I found him like that, I had attempted to transfer a call to him, but he hadn’t answered. I knocked on his door but opened it when he hadn’t responded to that either. I was going to tell him his wife was on line one and his mistress had called to say she was on her way with lunch. I could hear the phone ringing back telling me that his wife was still holding on line one but I couldn’t move.

  My eyes scanned the room and saw nothing out of place. I hadn’t heard anything abnormal from the room. No calls for help, no loud thumps. His window was closed and his blinds open. His computer sat open to Amazon and his cell phone laid on the desk. The room was eerily quiet. And there he was, dead on the floor.

  His mistress arrived at the same time as the police. She had crumpled to the ground as the police officer finally answered her frantic cries asking what happened. His wife never came to the office at all. I was confident they knew about each other and that was confirmed when both women attended his funeral. Of course, the wife sat in the front wearing a slim black dress complete with a black hat and veil. The mistress sat at the back wearing a gray suit jacket and skirt with her hair in a neat bun at the base of her neck. The women were easily twenty years apart in age and both had grief written all over their faces.

  At the graveside service, the wife spoke a few words, a poem was read by a grandson, and a hymn was sung quietly. Then, the wife tossed her handful of freshly dug dirt on the top of his casket. People followed suit and then quietly left for the luncheon. As the last of the people left, I saw the wife take a second handful of dirt and walk to the mistress.

  I thought she might throw it at her or sprinkle it over her head. Again, I was frozen to the spot watching as a million different scenarios played in my head - all of them vicious. Instead, the wife grabbed the mistresses’ hand, pulled it forward, and placed the handful of dirt into her outstretched hand. She then guided her gently toward the lowering casket and encouraged her to toss the dirt.

  Once the funeral was over, I realized that I no longer had a job. How can you still work as a secretary for a lawyer when that lawyer is six feet under with a granite stone above his head? I knew that all of his clients would be transferred to another practice and his small, cramped office would be leased to another business. What would I do next? Forty hours a week for years had just dissolved into emptiness. Feeling lost, I went to the only place that I could find answers.

  At home, I found my dad resting on the couch in the formal living room. My dad wasn’t one to sleep during the day or even to rest on the couch, and I was immediately alarmed. It was a weekday and I wondered what appointments he must be missing and how many phone calls and emails he probably had piled up by this point. I gently woke him and felt a flood of relief when he opened his eyes and smiled at me. After a moment, the smile faded and his eyes flashed panic as he asked me to call him an ambulance because he couldn’t feel his legs.

  By the end of the day, I had learned that my dad had been treating cancer for the last three months without breathing a word of it to anyone. He felt strongly that he could treat it and continue on with all the things he had always done and therefore, no one needed to know. But now I knew. I also knew I wouldn’t let him face this alone. It was in this moment of holding his hand and looking into his tired eyes that the answers had fallen into place for me. I wanted to be the one taking care of him. I wanted to take care of all people. I wanted to become a nurse.

  It was a three-year journey from realization to graduation. I busted my ass taking the pre-reqs, applying to every nursing school within an acceptable distance, and then studying like crazy once in the program. It had tested me in ways I didn’t know were possible and I grew a strong hatred for nursing care plans.

  Dad had been doing well with chemotherapy and had reluctantly taken a passenger seat to running his company. He had hired nursing staff to care for him around the clock, but when I got home from class or clinicals, I forced the nurse to take a break and to let me care for him until I had to study. Sometimes, he would help me study my flashcards until one of us could no longer keep our eyes open. There had been much to learn about nursing and Dad was more than willing to help me learn it. The happiness I saw in his eyes was my driving motivation. He had worked hard for the life I had been living and it pleased him to see I’d found a passion for myself.

  I graduated from nursing school on a warm January day. Dad had entered remission and begun working again the previous month. I passed my NCLEX on my first attempt and there were so many paths I could go down that I again felt free. I could do whatever type of nursing I wanted and no one was trying to tell me what to do.

  I’d sequestered myself in my room the following Monday morning in an attempt to apply for jobs and find “my destiny.” Euphoric, I felt eighteen all over again. The world was at my fingertips. Travel nursing would take me all over the country to experience new places and new things like I had before. The emergency room would keep me on my toes and using all of my nursing skills. Pediatrics would be a world I’d only dabbled in, never having had children of my own. Surgery felt too sterile and structured for my current state of being. Home care, hospice, general medicine, doctor’s office, recovery, urgent care, trauma care… The possibilities were endless.

  When I typed “nurse” into my search bar, three thousand pages of job postings appeared within two seconds. Browsing the first few pages, I noticed that many of them had things in common. I had to decide where I wanted to work and then narrow down who exactly I wanted to be taking care of. If I were honest, a list of my priorities was probably a better way to narrow it down. I wanted to find something with a great schedule. I wasn’t worried about pay or benefits like most of my classmates had been. I didn’t want to have to drive a bunch of places. This eliminated home care and hospice. I wanted to go someplace where I would get experiences.

  Applied and accepted, I found myself dressed in scrubs and entering an “eat your young” world that literally made me want to shit my pants. All of that freedom I’d felt was gone the first time I entered the hospital armed with a license. Nursing school was supposed to prepare me for what I was about to do, wasn’t it? I watched people walk by with purpose in their steps and there I was with my lunchbox, praying to God that nobody would die on my first day.

  I had completed the hospital-wide orientation sessions the week before and today, I was to report directly to my new unit. I’d be spending thirty-six to forty hours a week here. My stomach wanted to expel everything I had eaten for breakfast. Why couldn’t I be one of those over-confident women that thoug
ht they knew all the answers and signed up for every new opportunity like their life depended on it?

  During clinicals, most of the instructors had nothing but positive things to say about me. This was shocking since I’d seen how well some of my classmates handled situations and performed skills while I struggled and took longer to perform the same tasks. There had been that time at clinicals when the instructor had asked me to hang a bag of IV antibiotics and I had excitedly agreed. Before I finished studying the drug information, she began to pepper me with questions. Not allowing me to get a word in to answer the questions completely, she had reprimanded me and sent me away. My classmate hung the bag in my place.

  Chapter 2

  First Month: March (Part I)

  The Palliative Care Unit at McKinley Baptist Hospital, or PCU as the nurses called it, was a 20-bed unit that held patients who had chronic diseases and serious illnesses. I liked that the focus of the PCU was on symptom management and improving the quality of life for the patients. Unlike hospice, some of the patients would continue to receive curative treatment. I knew I’d be dealing with things like cancer, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, dementia, and things like that. I thought the variety might be something I would enjoy, not to mention it sounded like a slower paced environment than an emergency room.

  The unit was set up in a square with a large nursing station in the center. A small nutrition room, medication room, breakroom, and a few offices were scattered between patient rooms. From where one sat at the nursing station, you could keep an eye on over half of the patients at any given time. Each room had its own bathroom, television, sleeper sofa, and a glass sliding door that faced the nursing station. There were no smells and no alarms heard as you walked in the hall. The goal of the unit had been to make patients feel comfortable. In the midst of all that, I felt extremely uncomfortable. I reminded myself that I could do this and entered the unit.