A Striking Resemblance

I let out a sigh of relief. "You're the best. Will you make the meetings tomorrow?"

"Absolutely. And I won't be alone. We will bring coffee and snacks. What do you have for infrastructure? It's a concert hall, right? So, you have seats. Do you have audio equipment they will let you use? Do you know the owners?"

It was my turn to laugh. "Yeah, we've met. Getting them to let me use whatever I need isn't a problem. Having one of the owners on-site trying to run everything might be. He's my father and saying that he likes to be involved would be an understatement."

"Okay. That's not the worst thing in the world. I'll be there about an hour early for the first meeting. I'll send you the email with the recording information in about ten minutes."

It turned out that I was wrong; we needed to have three meetings, not two. I somehow thought that we could split the third shift workers between an early meeting and a late meeting, but the numbers didn't work out. In spite of doing our best to stress the importance of showing up, I had to make a lot of phone calls and speak to people who wouldn't be there. I had taken a personal day so I could get everything done. I called others who had taken personal days, were sick, or were on vacation.

I spent a lot of the time at the hall before the first meeting fretting about whether I had done everything that I was supposed to do. I listened to my recording at least four times and castigated myself for not emphasizing this or underscoring that. Ginny showed up early, as she had promised, and she had a small crew with her. As they hauled in the coffee and doughnuts, they were surprised to see four large urns already percolating and an array of pastries on folding tables. She looked over at me with a raised eyebrow.

I shrugged. "I warned you. Dads. What can you do?"

She laughed. "Definitely not a problem. We could never have too many doughnuts and his look better than ours, anyway."

The two of us greeted people as they entered and soon got things underway. I wasn't fond of public speaking and there were hundreds of people there, but I referred to my notes when I had to and muddled my way through.

"So, that's the results of the informal meetings. We had two official meetings, which were even less informative. We're going to take a vote on whether or not to strike, but first we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Hopefully, you all know Ginny from the union and to my left is Haliaka, our hired gun for financials. Anyone have anything they'd like to ask?"

Dad had hired some of the kids who used the skate park part of the property to help out, because of course he did. As people stood, the kids ran over with a microphone. I chose one at random.

"I think I missed something. Earlier, did you say that they wanted to wait seven years before we got what we were asking for?"

It seemed like a lot of people had the same question or concern or sense of outrage. There was grumbling throughout the hall and other people who were waiting for their chance to talk started doing so without the microphone. Ginny managed to calm people down before I answered.

"Look, I'm trying to be neutral here and just give you the facts. I don't want my opinion to come into this, but yeah, it's sort of hard to stay neutral. They wanted to phase things in over a total of seven years, which seems insulting."

Someone from the back shouted out. "Not as insulting as them lying about how much money they're taking in."

I shrugged. "I can't say that I disagree with you."

It took another hour for us to answer all of their questions and finally got down to voting. Ginny and her assistants ran things. It was smoother than most federal elections, which was sad in a way. They were pros and knew what they were doing. They even had someone there videotaping everything in case the hospital wanted to claim shenanigans of some sort.

We repeated this twice more for the other shifts, and I became increasingly grateful for Dad's coffee. He had new food brought in for each meeting. I guess it was good to be rich. At the end of the day I was absolutely exhausted. After getting some sleep, I went into work and before my shift, I spoke to Henry.

"I'd like to set up a meeting for this evening with management. An official meeting."

"Listen, you weren't here yesterday, but I have the revised financials available whenever you want them. I'm sure we don't need to make any meeting official. What if you just grab a couple people and I'll grab a couple people and we'll hash things out."

I shook my head. "No. I'm making a request on the record for an official meeting this evening. Some people from the union will be here as well."

"Okay. I can see where this is going. I'm sorry we couldn't handle things ourselves. Seven-o-clock work?"

"Fine."

When I took my lunch, I again went to the bistro across the street. I ordered the exact same thing as last time, thanked the woman for the cookies again and gave her my cell number.

"It wouldn't be ethical for me to give you any information before management received it, but if you call me at eight-thirty I can let you know what's happening."

"I appreciate it." She had a frown, and it hit me again that the strike wasn't just impacting us. The woman glanced outside and saw a couple of empty tables. "Why don't you grab a table and I'll bring out your food when it's ready."

I walked outside and sat down and immediately heard a voice.

"Hey, lady, are you following me?"

I quickly turned around and noticed Steve sitting at a table behind me, eating a sandwich.

Smiling, I rolled my eyes. "Okay, I guess I deserved that. Nope. Just getting lunch."

He pushed out a chair with his foot. "Me too. Sit down. We can discuss my beautiful granddaughter."

I thought about it for a second before taking the offered seat. Why not? He seemed like a nice enough guy, and I could use the distraction.

We enjoyed our lunch together and Steve was exactly who he should have been; a doting grandfather. I smiled as I saw him pause after showing me the fifth picture of Lucinda. He held his finger over the screen and he was clearly ready to show me more photos before realizing I may not have the same obsession with the little girl that he did. Steve reluctantly put his phone down and asked me about my day.

"Stressful. You'll know why tomorrow. I can't really say anything."

"Gotcha."

I'd expected more. I thought he might push for an explanation or be slightly annoyed at how vague I was. Neither was on the table. He just accepted what I said and shifted the topic to the food.

When we were done, I headed back to the hospital while he walked over to the parking lot. I looked behind me to see him walking to a work truck. He didn't check me out as I walked away. I wasn't sure if I was relieved or insulted.

The people that I worked with were professionals. They had to be. Patient's lives were in our hands. So, they did their job and, when appropriate, they did with a smile on their face. But there was also a grim determination. A feeling of solidarity filled every hall of the hospital.

I wasn't getting questions anymore, which was a relief. Instead, I get a nod from Janice in maintenance or Charlie from food prep. Our announcement would be official at the meeting, but everyone knew what was coming.

When I got off, I went out to my car, lowered the seat and got an hours' worth of sleep. Haliaka had texted me and I answered once I woke up. She wanted to know if I needed her at the meeting.

Thank you, but I'll be fine. The union is sending in their big guns. I'm probably not even needed.

She replied almost immediately.

Okay. Good luck.

I turned on the radio and closed my eyes for another forty-five minutes. Finally, I took a deep breath and headed back into the hospital.

This time, the meeting wasn't just populated by management and union members. The hospital had members of the Board of Directors there and all of our union bigwigs had shown up. Honestly, it was much ado about nothing. We were going to verbally announce our intent to strike, provide them with the letter that said the same thing almost verbatim and was signed by the appropriate people and then leave.

I took a chair at the end of the table and sat waiting for the brief meeting to be over. When Lyle Collins saw me, he smiled and headed my way. I wasn't sure, but I believed that he was legal counsel for the hospital. A good-looking man, he had silver hair and was approaching sixty. His suit likely cost more than my wardrobe. He took a seat next to me and leaned in, smiling with blindingly white teeth.

"Ms. Acton, I wish we were seeing each other again under better circumstances. In all honesty, most of the people on our side haven't been through a strike like this. You have the benefit of the expertise of your union. I'm afraid you may have the upper hand on us. If you're trying to get something done and you can't reach someone on our side, please give me a call." He handed me his card. "As you can imagine, we'd love to have any issues resolved as quickly as possible. If you wouldn't mind, please let your colleagues know that there is no rancor on our end. I hope you know how much I respect what the nurses do day in and day out."

I would've liked to have hated him. He was one of those people that were just too perfect. He was handsome; he was successful; he was charming, but worst of all, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. He probably really meant it. I'd seen him spending time talking to guys in maintenance about the Rockies and I'd seen him walking the families of patients to where they needed to be. Not giving them directions, but actually walking them.

I took his card and reluctantly thanked him. I'd much prefer to have a villain to rant against.

As I'd expected, the meeting was over in less than ten minutes. Both sides had designated contact people and promises were made to set up preliminary discussions in forty-eight hours.

In the meantime, unofficial commitments were made for the nurses to do the best they could to update procedure manuals. Nurses from around the country would be hired on short-term contracts and brought in to replace us. That may have sounded bad to outsiders, but we knew the reality. The patients weren't going to leave the hospital with us. They were still going to need care, and we had a moral obligation to make sure that they got the best care possible.

The minute that the meeting was over, the phone chain started, pre-prepared emails were sent out to newspapers, radio stations and television stations and any sister unions were informed.

As I got to my car, I called over to the bistro.

"Hi, I was there earlier? I'm one of the nurses. I just wanted to let you know that we're going on strike in exactly ten days. We have comprehensive policy manuals for our replacements. I'll keep your menu in there for them and we'll also have people outside striking, so hopefully, you guys won't be hit too hard."

I was a point of contact for the nurses and I was also listed as someone media could reach out to, but I was fifth or sixth down the line on that list. People might be contacting me, but it was going to be a lot better than it had been during the lead up to our vote. I felt oddly relaxed as I drove home. We weren't in limbo anymore. This was actually happening.

STEVE

I gave one of our new guys a twenty and sent him over to the bistro to pick up coffee for all of us. Schlepping a ton of coffee was a job for someone who was new and had two arms. He came back babbling about how the nurses were on strike. I assumed that was what Shelley had been talking about. Grabbing my coffee, I made sure that the guys were doing what they should be doing before I took a walk around the building. There was nobody out there on the picket line.

I called my contact with hospital maintenance.

"Hey, Steve. What can I do for you?"

"Are the nurses on strike?"

"Not yet. By law, they have to give ten days notice. It lets the hospital bring in new people so there's no problems with patients. But yeah, they made the announcement last night, so it's in the works."

"Okay, thanks."

After hanging up, I cursed under my breath. I went back and told the guys what was going on.

"I'll call the office and see what I can do about overtime. I want as much of this done as possible before the strike starts. I don't know what our policy is about crossing picket lines, but if anyone has strong feelings one way or the other, let me know. We'll talk about it. Let's get to work.

Getting any serious work done before they started their strike was going to be impossible, but I didn't mention that. The hospital was old and the Board of Directors was cheap. They should have been having regular work done on their power grid, but they kept letting it slide until they had no choice but to call us. To think that we could make a serious dent in the problems in ten days was a joke.

I spent fifty percent of my days working, fifty percent finding things that needed to be done at Mrs. McLarty's house and fifty percent of my time answering texts from Gus who was asking for pictures of his daughter. My son would have been irked by my lack of literalism when describing how a hundred and fifty percent of my day was filled, but it was what it felt like. I had an endless stream of photos of my granddaughter on my phone to keep Gus satisfied.

I got some overtime approved, but not as much as I would've liked. I wasn't the only one who realized that no matter what we did, ten days wasn't going to be enough.

It would've been a hell of a lot easier if the people at the hospital realized that. As each day before the strike ticked off, the pressure increased for us to get the work done. Five days of my guys busting their ass had gone by working ten to twelve hours a day before one of the idiots from hospital management got into a screaming match with me.

As soon as I saw Michael Crawford walking towards me, I rolled my eyes. He had a ridiculously elaborate title, something like Director of Physical Properties, but in reality he was the Property Manager for the hospital. I knew that he had been catching a lot of crap for allowing things to get into the shape they were in, but that certainly wasn't our fault.

He wanted everything done yesterday, wouldn't move on the budget, and thought he could do everyone's job better than they could. His arrogance was astonishing. Crawford got right up in my face, ripped off his sunglasses with a snarl, and started his diatribe.

"How the hell did you get your job? You're out here screwing with trees when you should be working on the junction boxes. We need this wrapped up and over with ASAP. I know you're not going to have everything done by the start of the strike, but you could at least make enough progress that I could bring it to the board as a bit of good news."

I took two steps back. "The reason we're dealing with the trees is because their roots are destabilizing the poles that feed the power to the hospital. That should have been handled years ago. There are twenty-three trees bordering the property, and we're only dealing with four of them."

He stepped forward, closing that gap I had created. Some spittle flew as he continued his rant. "Just do what I'm telling you. Forget the trees for now. If you wanted to do some thinking, you should have gone to college instead of swinging a shovel." He looked down at where my arm should be. "And I have no idea how you would even do that."

Trying to control my anger, I leaned back. "I have an MS in Material Sciences and Engineering, a BS in Construction Management, and AS's in both Civil Engineering Technology and Architectural Technology. That enough college for you? And take two steps back. Don't let the one arm slow you down. If you want to swing, then swing. Otherwise, keep a civil tongue in your mouth when you're talking to me. My guys have been busting their ass. We're ahead of schedule. I don't need you on our backs. You have no idea what you're talking about and you're too stupid to realize that."

He stood there, mouth agape, and stared at me. I could almost read his mind. He was the great man with the fancy title. How dare I talk back to him? I turned and walked away.

"Where do you think you're going? We're not done here!"

I spoke over my shoulder as I continued to walk. "Feel free to continue without me."

I was in a bad mood for the rest of the day and things only turned around when I got home, showered and headed next-door to Mrs. McLarty's place. I was going to have to stop thinking of it that way. Now that the baby had arrived, it seemed much more firmly to be Gus and Shannon's home. Still, a couple of decades of conditioning was hard to break. We didn't have much family, and Mrs. McLarty had been an adoptive grandmother for Gus.

Marianne opened the door for me when I knocked.

"Stephen."

"Marianne."

That woman always seemed to have a stick up her butt. I knew that something had gone on between her and Shannon years ago, but she seemed to be making a determined effort to be a better grandmother than she had been a mother. She stayed with Shannon four days a week and only went home to her husband when Liz came by. Shannon was closer to her Aunt Liz than she was to Marianne, and that had to rankle. Her aunt had her own difficulties, though. She was still recently married, had adopted a teenager from California, and was a senior partner in her own law firm. Spending three days a week with her niece couldn't have been convenient.

"Here to see Lucinda?"

I didn't realize that I was smiling until I saw Marianne's eyes soften as she gave me a small smile in response.

"Yeah, if it's okay. Am I interrupting anything?"

She patted me on the shoulder, which was a lot more affection than I had ever received from her before. I had always felt that she was quietly judging me in her supercilious way.

"You're a good grandfather. Were you aware that I had purchased a house for Shannon and Gus a block away from my own? It was perfect for a new family. There's a nearby park, it's a gated community, security is excellent, and the local schools are the best in the area. Of course, Lucinda will be going to a private school, but still. Anyway, I bought the home. Why not? It was perfect in every way. What I forgot was how stubborn your son is. He's almost as stubborn as my daughter. Both of them loved this home. And it's fine. There's nothing wrong with it... It's just not what it could be, if that makes sense.

"So, I had to live with it. It was bad enough knowing that Gus would be gone. Then we were dealing with Lucinda's heart. Now my daughter would be living on the opposite end of town in a home that wasn't...Well, wasn't optimal. You know what made it bearable? You. And your eccentric father. I couldn't help but worry. It's what mothers do. But I knew if the two of you were next door, my Shannon would be safe. They are in the TV room. Go spend time with your granddaughter."

I just nodded. That may have been the longest conversation I ever had with Marianne, and I practically said nothing. It was certainly the deepest conversation we'd ever had. I didn't know how to react or what to say, so I just smiled, patted her arm and walked to the TV room. Shannon was holding her daughter as I walked into the room. The volume was low on the TV and my daughter-in-law seemed tired but content.

As I watched the two of them, every frustration, every residual bit of anger, every worry flew from my mind on gossamer wings.

"You doing okay, Shan?

She smiled up at me. "Fine. Sit down and hold your granddaughter."

I did, and all was right with the world.

A few hours later I was back at home, lying in bed and relaxing. My window was open, and the air was cool, but not brisk. Shannon was playing her violin and I could hear the music floating through the air, gently rising on unseen currents. I thought of all the years of Gus playing his trumpet on our back porch, as Mrs. McLarty would sit in her backyard with a blanket and her cat as she listened.