Story Of The Week – In An Instant!

Story Of The Week

In An Instant!

by Alisa Murray

I was walking down the corridor of the hospital where I worked when I spotted a tall, handsome policeman talking to a fellow nurse whom I disliked intensely.  I felt immediate envy as they stood laughing at what appeared to be a private joke.

When I passed them, he stopped in the middle of a sentence and spoke to me with an admiring look.  I mumbled a faint greeting, without looking at him, because I was certain he was only being polite.

However, I was so taken by his good looks, that I took a detour from my intended mission, to stop my knees from wobbling.  I popped into a nearby patient’s room and fell up against the door in a pretend faint. The patient was an elderly woman named Mrs. Brooks, whom I doted on at every opportunity.  She was full of life and very spunky, and I loved talking to her. When she asked if I was okay, I laughed and told her that I had just spotted the man of my dreams laughing and grinning with the enemy.

She laughed heartily as I told her about the handsome stranger in the hallway and his obvious affinity for my nemesis.  I also told her how the sight of him had made my knees buckle.  And then for some inexplicable reason, I began to talk about my long search for a companion and my bitter divorce. 

She listened intently as I spoke sadly of how my trust in my husband had been shattered when I came home early from work and caught him down in the basement with another woman, who turned out to be my neighbor.  Tears begin to form in my eyes, as I recalled his cold reaction to being caught, and his subsequent anger.

 As Mrs. Brooks rubbed my hand gently with soothing words of comfort, the door suddenly opened, and in walked the policeman I had just seen in the hallway.  When he saw me, he flashed a big grin, as Mrs. Brooks introduced him as her grandson.  I was so shocked, I couldn’t speak.  When he began to flirt and tease me about snubbing him in the hallway, I almost died when Mrs. Brooks told him that I had been just as impressed as he was and that I had come into her room after almost fainting at the sight of him.  It turned out that he was talking to the other nurse about his grandmother’s condition.

We ended up laughing hysterically, when Mrs. Brooks sat up in bed with a proud look and stated, “I should have known you were talking about my grandson when you came in here because he’s the spittin’ image of his grandfather.”

By the time, I left the room, I had a date for dinner that evening and a feeling of warmth that I hadn’t felt in a long time. When I passed “the enemy” (my fellow nurse) in the hallway, I smiled at her for the first time in months, and she returned the smile.

Later that night when I met Mrs. Brooks’ grandson for dinner, I knew instantly that this man was truly the man of my dreams, and when we married a year later, Mrs. Brooks became the grandmother I’d never had.