Chapter 11
Lana continued tospend the next few days doing some deep thinking, getting up her resolve to tell Ryatt how much she liked him. Just so much was going on right now in her life—with Ryatt, with confronting her fears, and with this place being so busy. At one point in time, she had jokingly asked Dani if she needed to hire more staff.
Dani smiled and then nodded. “I do. I’m working on it, but it’s hard to find the person with the right fit as well as the skills needed to do this job. We’re a family here,” she murmured. “And so I need to find the right people.”
“Oh, I get it,” Lana agreed. “And you’re right. Hathaway House is a family, and the people here trust us, and they trust us to bring on the right people to work with them.”
“You don’t realize just how many different kinds of people there are until you work in a place like this. And how different everybody’s point of view and their mind-set, their beliefs, all are. And how their beliefs affect their work. I mean, it just goes on and on,” Dani explained. “And, most of the time, I do pretty well in choosing some really great people to have on board, but, at the moment, I’m running a little thin on a starting pool of the right people to consider hiring.”
“I hear you there,” Lana murmured. “And, of course, then there’s the training to make sure that, regardless of the viewpoint, they still toe the company line.”
At that, Dani laughed. “Isn’t that the truth? And I have to admit. A few times where we had trouble with staff was with people who just didn’t have the same heartwarming empathythat we needed them to have and to share with the patients. That’s when I know I’ve rushed my hiring process. So I don’t do that anymore. It’s not worth it. And it’s also hard for me to lay off people and to explain to them how they were not a good fit.”
“I can imagine,” Lana murmured. “You also come from the heart, so telling people a truth they don’t want to hear has to be rough.”
“It is,” she agreed, “but sometimes people leave for reasons that you didn’t even see coming. I had one nurse who left because she couldn’t handle all the injuries. It just broke her heart every time she saw somebody. She couldn’t see the good in what we were doing here at Hathaway. Instead all she saw were the broken people who arrived and not the heartwarming heroes who left. I’m sad for her,” Dani said quietly. “It’s got to be tough on her because she’s always looking on the negative side of life. And thankfully you’re always on the positive side of life,” Dani said, with a smile. “Although you seem to be a little more depressed lately.”
“Well, not depressed,” Lana stated, “not even melancholic, maybe more contemplative.”
“Ah, and that means relationship questions again.”
She rolled her eyes at Dani. “No, not always,” she said in protest.
“Almost always,” Dani replied, “and, in your case, definitely. It’s Ryatt, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “I mean, he talks a lot now about getting his future together and what he’ll do and, you know, dealing with life after being here.”
“Which is all positive,” she murmured. “And you still have a job, but, if you need to leave, as much as I’ll be heartbroken, I will understand.”
“And I wouldn’t want to leave,” she told Dani, “but I’m not sure how I could even possibly stay around, depending on what his plans are.”
“But why worry about it until you know what his plans are?” Dani noted. “And maybe he’ll surprise you. Maybe he’ll stay in town.”
“That would be nice,” she murmured. “I would really like that.”
“And it’s a testament to you that you want to continue working here,” Dani remarked quietly. “And people like you, ones who come from the heart? We always need more of them here.”
“And maybe that’s what I need to tell him too,” she noted. “It does feel like home for me here.”
“And that’s good because we need you to feel like home because then you will stay here.” Dani laughed. “Our hearts will be broken if you decide to leave.”
“Well, it’s not what I’m planning on doing. I don’t even know that leaving is part of the options,” she said, “because I’ll only leave if I can’t find a way to convince him to stay. And I don’t even know that we’re there yet.”
“Listen to you,” Dani noted quietly. She leaned over and gave her friend a hug. “You’re already talking about your future with him down the road and how to make it work. You’re all but married in your mind already.”
“And is that wrong?” she asked anxiously. “I feel like I’m jumping the gun.”
“No, because your heart’s already happy and settled, so it’s just waiting for you to get your act together and to line everything up for it.”
Lana burst out laughing. “You know what? I kind of understand what you’re saying. It’s just so… you know most people don’t talk like that.”
“Isn’t that too bad,” Dani murmured. “I think there’s a lot of room in the world for real discussions to happen.”
“I just need to talk to him some more,” Lana murmured.
Dani laughed. “You absolutely do need to talk to him some more,” she agreed, with a gentle smile. “Just make sure that the discussion is honest and doesn’t upset him.”
Lana winced at that. “Of course that ends up being the bottom line, doesn’t it?”