3

Most mornings in the Hennessy residence started with the same rituals and the same fights. Rory and Kerry often raced to get to the bathroom before Bridget the diva began "perfecting" her ideal look. The whole process to become stunning to teenage boys took almost an hour started with a fifteen minute shower, most of the hot water in the house, twelve minutes of primping and preening and then most of the morning perfecting the "perfect" outfit, but this morning as Kerry first pounded for her turn to the shower, Bridget actually stopped and emerged five minutes from her shower.

"You're actually done already??"

"You say that like it's never happened before." Bridget was clad in her favorite flannel bathrobe and brushing her hair, but before Kerry could have her turn, Rory pushed past her and took the bathroom.

"Rory!!!" She pounded the door against his evil laughter.

"Kerry," Cate Hennessy tapped her middle child. "Go use mine before your father."

"Thanks, mom…" The insecure red-haired girl took what she could get. Clad in her hospital nursing scrubs, Cate checked her watch. This morning was going smoothly. She wasn't sure what had changed, but there was no fighting from the kids and things were running perfectly and in sync with each other for once. She was actually going to have time to eat breakfast this morning. Clad in his white t-shirt, sweat pants and house shoes, Paul was cooking a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, fried potatoes and oatmeal balanced equally between his wife and three progeny. Pouring herself a glass of orange juice, Cate beamed as Paul leaned to kiss her.

"Morning," He shined to his love. "Have you checked Bridget this morning?"

"Yeah," Cate sipped her juice and took a piece of toast. "Her heart sounded okay, but her pulse seemed fast."

"Of course it was fast," Paul smirked. "You keep your stethoscope in the refrigerator." He mimicked the shortness of breath from the cold instrument to his back.

"No, I don't…" Cate mused on his wit. "I keep it in the freezer."

"Morning," Bridget came ready for her day of school an hour earlier than usual. Cate was speechless; by now, she was screaming at her to get out of the bathroom to let Kerry have a chance. Pouring herself juice, Bridget sat and took her place at the breakfast line-up.

"Beej…" Paul looked up and shined on his favorite daughter. "You're looking good. Nice sweater, decent blue jeans, no flesh tones sticking out, a moderate amount of make-up." He paused and looked upon her bashful face. "Okay, who are you and what did you do to my daughter?!"

"Dad…" The girl brushed it off.

"Now, like I said, Bridget…" Cate reminded her daughter. "After school, I want you by the hospital for a check-up. Not just because of last night, but because you're due for one." She watched her daughter acknowledge her with her hand up. A few minutes more and Rory would be down the stairs slightly ahead of Kerry, but just to keep this from being a completely uneventful morning, they had to have their regular sibling opposition mired in twisted jest.

"Oh my god," Rory appeared to breakfast surprised and perplexed. "Who's this eating with us?" He stood aback. "Is Bridget actually ready for school on time?" His mother tossed the dishtowel at him to get him to shut up.

"Who are you and what did you do to our sister?!" Kerry involved herself in the discovery.

"Ha, ha…." Bridget sat quietly listening.

"Care-bear," Paul Hennessy turned next to try and break through Kerry's shell. "Did you hear anything from the writing contest?" He referred to a contest his newspaper was having between the schools for promising literary students. The Detroit Tribune had called upon Casey Burnette, a journalism teacher from the college and writer William Collins from Maine to look over and judge from some almost two hundred short stories and manuscripts from varied high school kids looking for work in the journalism or writing fields. The lucky teenage writer who won would get money for college and an internship for the paper.

"Yeah, but it probably won't get picked." Kerry ate her breakfast in her pajamas and robe before dressing for school. "William Samms also sent in a manuscript, and he's been writing a column in the school paper."

"Kerry, be positive." Bridget spoke up. "You're much more talented than he is. All he does is write ghost stories and stupid observations."

"Bridget," Rory lifted his head from sniffing the eggs his father had scrambled. "That was actually nice and supportive of Kerry." He paused. "Okay, I gotta ask, who are you and what did you do to our sister?!" Another dishtowel flew past his head.

"Kerry," Cate kissed her daughter's head. "You can be what you want."

"Daddy…." Bridget made her voice youthful and sugary sweet like the little girl she once was.

"What?" Paul reacted to that voice with his usual foreboding and annoying tact that he had when he knew his daughters wanted money.

"Daddy," Bridget looked to her oatmeal as she stirred it around. "As long as I'm getting checked up, would you get a doctor's appointment if I asked you?"

"Bridget," Cate stopped and looked to her blonde daughter amidst her usual morning distractions. Even Paul was put off by that request. "What makes you think your father should see a doctor?"

"Well," Bridget spooned and ate a spoon of oatmeal. "I was reading some of your medical books the other day, and I thought I recognized some symptoms Dad had the other day. It would really make me happy if he made an appointment too and had a cardio-pulmonary arthroscopy of the aorta done."

Breakfast conversation stopped and everyone looked at Bridget. Rory had a mouthful of scrambled eggs and a piece of bacon in his teeth. Kerry had a spoonful of oatmeal barely up to her open mouth and Paul had stopped in mid-pour from filling juice into his morning glass. The Hennessy house was at a stunned silence realizing Bridget was actually concerned with someone else.

"I don't know what scares me more." Kerry finally broke the silence. "That she actually said it right or that she actually read a book."

"Bridget," Cate exchanged looks with Paul and put down some dirty dishes into the sink. "A cardio-pulmonary arthroscopy of the aorta is extremely invasive surgery. It would involve pushing a tiny camera into your father's heart to look for something that wouldn't even be there."

"I don't want to lose dad." Bridget answered distressed. "I can't explain why, but I think he should to have it done. Lots of girls my age lose their fathers over heart problems that could have been detected earlier. I don't want to be one of them."

"Beej," Paul Hennessy felt close to his daughter and drifted even closer to her to assure her with a hug. "I'm a very healthy virile man. You're not going to lose me."

"But you'll have it done, won't you, daddy?"

"What, well, I…" Paul looked to Cate then his kids. He loved them so much. "Sure, Beej, I'll get a check-up too. I'll set an appointment with Ted."

"I've got to be going." Cate paused and looked to her family. "My lord, I'm actually getting in early to work!" She kissed her husband and looked back at her kids with fond thoughts, pausing to look at Bridget as she as a mother noticed something, undetectably different about her. She was her daughter all right, but she had another personality this morning. She wasn't sure what to make of it, but it was going to be at the top of her mind through the day as she guided patients and dealt with doctors. Two of the better St. Thomas Hospital physicians around her were Dr. Elizabeth Masterson, a recent hardworking addition, and Dr. John Dorian, a youthful seasoned physician just out of internship. They both treated Cate as their peers, trusting her and often sharing lives. Liz cared and loved all her patients, and John lived by belief that humor was the best medicine using the Hippocratic oath and the most recent comedy at the theatres to treat the sick and injured. No day was ever regular. Cate was always taking time between convalescents and accident victims. When two members of the Sawyer family were admitted after a vehicular accident with two drunken teenagers, Cate was there when the old man was admitted with broken bones and illusions of a blonde savior.

"She was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen." Emmett Sawyer looked up to Cate from beyond the oxygen tubes over his face. "I thought I was going to die, but she got me out of the car before it burst into flames and then flew off in to the sky." His bright blue eyes looked away wistfully as if he was still seeing his angelic savior in his mind.

"Did she?" Cate passed on his hallucination, checked his pulse and updated his chart. "Turn down his morphine drip." She told an attending nurse and turned to head out of the ICU. Pushing through two swinging doors into a corridor leading to a waiting room at one end and patient rooms into the other direction, she turned to the nurse's station and signed her additions to the patient's chart.

"Excuse me?"

"Yes," Cate looked to Mr. Sawyer's brunette middle-aged daughter.

"My father," Louise Sawyer sported a broken arm from her car accident. Her father had been driving when the van with the two boys went through a stoplight and flipped over their car. They didn't survive the crash. "Is he okay?"

"He'll be okay." Cate assured the woman. "You're lucky someone was there to help your dad out of the car. I heard the traffic officer say your car was totaled."

"That's the weirdest thing…" Louise spoke frankly. "She wasn't there at first. I mean… we were going through the light when those boys struck us, and this blonde young lady in a superhero costume and cape dropped down by me, pulled the door off and got me out before helping my dad before flying away. I know it sounds crazy, but she was real." She looked away from Cate. "That's her!!!" Cate's eyes turned and looked down the hall.

"Hi mom." Bridget waved at her mom the length of the hallway next to Dr. Masterson. It was time for her check-up.

"Bridget??!" Cate asked out loud.