by Holly Rayner
Jamie shrugged his little shoulders. “My dad’s a doctor.”
“Is that right?” I asked. “Is he a good doctor?”
Jamie nodded and smiled. “The best.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I bet he will be so proud to hear about how brave you were.”
I offered him a choice of five different bandages and he chose lime green. I smoothed it over the inch-long cut on his forehead and crumpled the trash in my hand. Just as I was about to stand up, Jamie lunged forward and wrapped his skinny arms around my neck.
“Thank you.”
Before I could even return his hug, he had pulled away from me, jumped down from the seat, and trotted back towards the rear of the bus. While I helped the kids in the front, the bus driver—now completely calm and under control—had taken to singing a song with the kids.
Sirens broke through the singing and within the next thirty seconds, every little face on the bus was pressed against the foggy windows to watch as the ambulance and police cars arrived on the scene, lights flashing. I met the paramedics outside.
“I bandaged up a few kids, but otherwise, everything seems fine.”
As I finished talking, I realized I recognized one of the paramedics. I didn’t know his name, but I’d run across him a time or two in the emergency room. He tipped his head to me in recognition and understanding and jogged towards the bus.
And just like that, my duty was done.
I sunk down into the driver’s seat of my car feeling entirely drained. Seeing the accident, I’d gone into full-on nurse mode, but now that everything was handled and I was once again off duty, the eighteen hours I’d been awake were more than catching up with me.
My body was on autopilot for the rest of the drive. When I got home at just past eight in the morning, the lack of lights on in the house and in Greg’s room told me he was still asleep. I washed my face in the sink, ditched my scrubs in the hamper next to my door, and replaced them with flannel pajamas, and then dove beneath the covers and fell instantly into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter 2
Greg was in the kitchen when I woke up. He was munching on almonds while playing some ridiculous medieval-themed game on his phone.
“Save any damsels in distress?” I asked, pulling open the fridge and almost crying with relief when I saw the tacos still in the fridge. I’d been so exhausted when I got home that hunger had taken a backseat to sleep—meaning I was moments away from fainting if I didn’t get some fuel in my body immediately.
Greg sighed. “It’s a tower defense game. I don’t save damsels, I defend my village from attack.”
“And I assume a damsel or two lives in your village? And I assume they are very pleased that you’ve saved them from being attacked?”
“How can you be so annoying right after you wake up?” he asked, throwing an almond at my back.
“It’s a skill.”
I kicked the fridge door closed with my foot and dropped my load of leftover tacos, chips, and salsa on the counter.
“Tacos for breakfast?” Greg asked, a sneer in his voice.
“It’s the middle of the afternoon,” I said.
“But it’s your breakfast time,” he countered. “Tacos first thing after you wake up is gross.”
“Tell that to my stomach. I’ve been thinking about these tacos for hours.”
I wasn’t at all ashamed to admit it. I’d tagged along with Greg and a few of his friends to a taco truck the day before, and it was one of the best pork tacos I’d ever eaten in my life. Even now, with the bag coated in grease and chunks of soggy chips left floating in the salsa, I was beyond excited to eat.
“My sister, ladies and gentlemen,” Greg said, holding both hands out to me as if he were showing off a prize-winning pig at the state fair.
Humoring him, I turned around and bowed dramatically several times.
Once I’d microwaved my food, I dropped down into the chair across from Greg and took a large, greasy bite. It was fantastic.
“Do you wanna do something today?” Greg asked. He pushed his phone away and grabbed a random piece of mail from the pile in the center of the table and began folding it into an origami swam—a skill we’d both learned at the same summer camp.
“Like what?”
“I’m going to go to the stadium to run stairs in a bit. You could join me?”
Greg was in constant motion these days. He worked out for an hour every day, rain or shine. But more than that, he fidgeted all the time. When he was sitting down with nothing to do, his mind wandered to drugs. So, he made origami swans and played video games and flipped quarters. It irritated me, but a brother with some nervous ticks was better than a brother who was addicted to drugs.
“Hard pass,” I said, shaking my head so my hair fell over my shoulder and nearly dipped into my cup of salsa.
“A little exercise would be good for you,” he said.
“Excuse me, but my job is exercise. I was on my feet for sixteen hours yesterday. I have legs like a dancer.” This wasn’t completely true, but no one could tell the difference in scrubs.
He groaned and reached for his phone, typing something in and scrolling, eyes squinted. “What about a movie, then? Or a concert? It says there’ll be some local bands playing at a theater downtown tonight.”
“What says that?”
He turned his phone to show me he was reading the local-news section of paper.
“You have a subscription to the newspaper?” I was beyond surprised. Greg had never been much of a reader or someone interested in keeping up with the news.
“It’s a free trial, but yeah, I’m thinking about subscribing. So, movie? Concert?” he asked.
I glanced at the clock above the stove. “I have to work in three hours.”
He groaned again. “You could have said that earlier. But really, it’s my fault. I should have assumed. You’re always working.”
“That’s completely not true,” I said around my mouthful of taco. “I have a few days off every week.”
“But you’re basically nocturnal. When you are off, you sleep all day and wake up in the afternoon.”
“Only every other month,” I reminded him. I alternated night shift and day shift on an every-other-month basis. When I did work nights, I liked to switch my sleep schedule for the entire month, even on the days I was off. Otherwise, I was in a permanent state of jet lag all month. I’d explained all of this to Greg before; he was just being grouchy because I couldn’t hang out with him.
“You should really try and take some time off,” he said. “You deserve a vacation. Maybe something tropical. You’re a workaholic.”
“I am not!”
Before I had time to formulate a solid argument, Greg raised his eyebrows at something on his phone and then slid it across the table to me. I focused on the screen, but it still took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at.
It was an over-the-shoulder shot of me placing a bandage on the forehead of the little blond boy from the bus, Jamie. It looked like it was taken from the vantage point of the bus driver. The newspaper’s heading was across the top of the page, so the driver must have submitted the photo for the article.
There were a couple of short sentences typed below the photo. An as-of-yet unidentified nurse stopped to help children after their school bus had crashed into a light pole. No serious injuries were reported. More on this story and staying safe in inclement weather in tomorrow’s paper.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” Greg asked as I slid the phone back to him.
I nodded. “Yeah, but I was there for ten minutes. The crash happened right in front of me. I don’t even know how they got the picture.”
Greg pursed his lips.
“What was I supposed to do, leave the kids to fend for themselves?” I asked. “Any normal person would have stopped to help.”
“Fair enough, but my point still stands. Outside of nursing, your social life is sad.”
“Harsh!” I
folded up the last few bites of my taco in the greasy wrapper and tossed it into the trash can beneath the sink.
“The truth hurts, sis. Aside from my friends, who do you hang out with?”
“Your friends are my friends, too.” I crossed my arms and leaned back against the kitchen counter, not liking where this conversation was headed.
The truth was, I didn’t have many friendships. I hadn’t maintained many friendships from high school, and all of my college friends had moved away. Making friends as an adult was hard, especially when all of your work friends were always at work and unavailable to hang out. As a nurse, that was simply the nature of the job.
“I’m not saying they aren’t, but I’m the beginning and end of your social life. And even I’m feeling a bit neglected here,” Greg said, scooting his chair away from the table and moving to stand in front of me.
Greg grabbed my shoulders lightly and squeezed. “I’m only saying that you need to make time for a life. There has to be something more for you than work and sleep. Like, friends and hobbies and a boyfriend.”
I choked out a laugh and shrugged out of his grip. “Okay, now you sound like Mom.” Our mom had always been cold and vocal, which made for an interesting combination. The fact that I was thirty-two and unmarried was as much a disappointment to her as Greg’s drug addiction. She never missed an opportunity to let me know that my biological clock was ticking and my skin elasticity wouldn’t last forever.
Greg held up both hands in surrender. “I just want you to enjoy your life.”
“I am enjoying it,” I assured him. “I love my work. Some days, I love it enough that it doesn’t feel like work at all.”
Greg smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, that’s great. I’m glad you have something you’re passionate about. Most people would do anything for that.”
I wanted to ask Greg what he was passionate about. He’d lost his job as a graphic designer when his addiction got bad and I hadn’t seen him do so much as a sketch in the entire time he’d been living with me. I had no idea what his plan was, or if he even had one.
Part of me was afraid he’d tell me that drugs were his passion. I knew that was ridiculous, but it was a real enough concern that it kept me from voicing the question.
Chapter 3
The first few days of every month were always the same. I drank incredible amounts of coffee in an attempt to stave off the jet-lag-type feelings that arose each time I had to completely shift my schedule from night to day or vice versa. But there was also something nice about having such a complete shift in my schedule. It kept the job interesting. The nicest thing about switching to days was that the patients were all awake while I was working, so I got to talk to them more and get to know them better.
When visiting hours opened up, the hallways were full and stayed that way until the afternoon lull—by then, a lot of the patients were ready for a nap, or at least a break in the constant flood of visitors. Currently, it was six at night and the floor seemed unusually quiet. The nurse’s station, usually a buzz of energy, had gone silent. Ciara was doing some paperwork online, Liza was restocking the supply closet, and everyone else was making rounds.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I’d finished my rounds and there was nothing to do. I decided to go on my break a little early and head to the nurse’s station to check if there were any donuts leftover from the box that someone had brought in that morning and grab another cup of coffee. Then, my phone buzzed against my thigh. When I pulled it out and checked the name, I groaned.
I forced a smile as I pressed “accept” and held it to my ear.
“Hi, Mom!” I said cheerily. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to my mother—it’s just that I didn’t want to talk to her about Greg. And that was all she wanted to talk about these days.
“Jess. How is he doing?” she asked.
“Who?”
She clacked her tongue. “Don’t be smart. Is he doing okay?”
“Yes, he’s fine,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve promised you a million times that I would call if I thought anything was wrong. To my knowledge, he is on the straight and narrow.”
“Good, good,” she hummed.
Our conversation dropped into an awkward lull. We’d never had much in common. My father and I shared a love of trivia and reading; he was always giving me his old copies of literary magazines after marking which stories I should read. It gave us something to talk about when he called—though he rarely did, because we both also shared a distaste of talking on the phone.
“Greg sent me the article of you in the paper,” she said.
It took me a moment to realize what she was talking about. “The picture?”
“Yes. Why didn’t you tell us about it?”
Oh, God. She was going to have a thousand copies printed so she could cut out the article and send it to every relative in existence.
“I didn’t tell anyone about it,” I said. “In fact, I didn’t even know about it. The bus driver sent my picture to the paper for the article without my permission.”
“Good, he should have. You’re a hero.”
“I applied a few bandages,” I said.
“I sent a copy to Jeremy,” she said. I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Who’s Jeremy?”
“Ellen Grayson’s son? She helps with the children’s ministry at the church? He’s newly single and quite a catch.”
The name registered dimly in the back of my mind, and then, horror struck.
“Ellen Grayson? The elderly woman who works in the nursery?”
My mother hummed an assent.
“She’s like, eighty!” I protested. “How old is her son?”
The long pause before her answer told me everything I needed to know.
“He is a young-looking fifty. A very lovely man.”
I groaned. “You sent an article about me to a random man I’ve never met? And—oh my God—I just realized what you meant. By ‘newly single’ you meant divorced, right? You sent my picture to a divorced fifty-year-old. Are you serious?”
“Jess, you’re only young once, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Trust me.” My mom was the kind of woman who refused to tell anyone her age and pulled the skin at her temples taut every time she looked in a mirror. Life for her essentially ended after thirty-five.
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, Mom. But I have to go. I’m at work.”
“No surprise there,” she said under her breath, though loud enough that she could be certain I’d heard it. Then, she sighed and put on a chipper voice. “Okay. Well, send my love to Greg. I love you, and I’ll talk to you soon.”
The conversation with my mother had cured me from the need of more caffeine—the embarrassment and frustration would definitely be enough to power me through the afternoon—so I bypassed the nurse’s station and knocked on the door to room 208.
“Hello?”
“Jess!”
I poked my head around the corner to see Alice sitting up in bed, her mom in front of her holding a handful of cards. They were playing a matching game. Alice had a cannula in her nose and a giraffe-printed scarf wrapped around her neck.
“How are you feeling today?” I asked, sitting on the edge of her bed. “How are your treatments going?”
“I don’t like the shaky vest. It makes me cough.” She wrinkled her forehead and shook her head.
I patted her shoulder. “I know, but it helps get all the mucus out of your lungs, and right now, you need all the extra help.”
“I know,” she said, twisting her lips to one side and sighing in an inevitable kind of way. “The doctor says doing the treatments twice a day might help me get out in time for my party.”
“You’re having a party?”
“Well, it’s not my party. My best friend Alyssa is having a birthday party in ten days, and she’s taking everyone to Stacey Play.”
I looked from Alice to her mom and back again. “Who
’s Stacey Play?”
Alice’s eyes widened in horror and she reached across the bed towards her mom, fingers grabbing. “Can I have your phone? I have to show Nurse Jess a Stacey Play video.”
Her mom laughed and dug the phone from her back pocket. “You have no idea what can of worms you just opened.”
Within the next minute, I was watching a video of a pre-teen girl with blue and pink pigtails singing and dancing across a stage decorated with furry rainbows and unicorn horns.
When it was finished, I said, “Well, I can see why you’re so excited. That looks like a lot of fun.”
She nodded, eyes wide. “It’ll be the best.”
Her mom smoothed her hair down. “I know you’re excited, but getting healthy is the most important thing, right?”
Alice became noticeably more somber. “Right.”
I wanted to pull out her mom’s phone again and put on another Stacey Play video or anything that would put the smile back on her face. The most important thing in Alice’s life should have been her best friend’s birthday party, not her lung function.
“I wish I could dance like Stacey Play,” I said.
Alice looked at me and tilted her head.
“I’m a terrible dancer,” I said, shaking my head. “In that video you showed me, Stacey Play looked like a great dancer.”
“She is.” Alice sat up on her knees, eyes wide. “I’ve memorized the whole routine.”
“Really?” I asked, standing up and shaking out my arms and legs. “Would you care to show me?”
Alice didn’t say a word, but she scrambled out from under the covers and tightened her polka-dotted robe around herself. For the next ten minutes, she walked me step by step through the turns, high kicks, and arm flourishes of Stacey Play’s most popular song, beaming the entire time. When I left, her mom mouthed a “thank you” to me over Alice’s head.
“Jess?”
I stuttered to a stop at the sound of my name and spun around. It was Mike Antione, the hospital manager. He rarely left the administrative offices, usually reaching out via email when he had something he needed to discuss. Seeing him in our department and looking for me felt ominous.
