by Cara Nelson
After the routine questions and forms, she settled in to a plastic chair to watch the news ticker on the TV. Vomiting children and a stabbing victim went in ahead of her. She gritted her teeth against the tears that kept coming, from the pain in her hand, and a whole lot of embarrassment about her overall life situation. She probably hadn’t ever felt this alone: waiting in a hospital by herself, cold in the overzealous air conditioning, thirsty and inexpressibly sad that no one had been there to take care of her. She reminded herself that she was an adult, but it didn’t help much.
When her name was finally called, she winced at the Abbracciabene and vowed to change it as soon as she could find the forms online. She trailed after the nurse who took her blood pressure and asked her a lot more questions about how she’d been hurt and if she had preexisting conditions. Becca decided at the last minute not to say that ‘Bad Judgment’ was her chronic problem. There probably wasn’t a medication for it anyway.
Chapter 2
Becca asked the nurse to turn off the light in her cubicle. She curled up on her side on the short examining table and clutched her bloody dishtowel. Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes and she indulged in a soft little sob. She was tired, her hand hurt, and she was by herself because she had made mistake after mistake, choice after choice that put her here. And, dammit, she felt sorry for herself. If two a.m. in an emergency room wasn’t an acceptable time for self-pity, she didn’t know what would be, so she let herself cry.
When the pitiless fluorescent lights flared to life above her, she blinked in dismay. A doctor in blue scrubs was pulling on fresh exam gloves with a stern expression.
“Chart says it’s your hand. Sit up,” he said perfunctorily.
“I’m Becca Bennett. I cut my hand unpacking my stuff at my sister’s. My boyfriend kicked me out,” she said a little pitifully, annoyed that he seemed so unsympathetic.
“Fine. Let’s see it.” He said, peeling the dishcloth away from the wound and dumping the towel in the trash beside him.
“That’s my sister’s!” She protested.
“She won’t want it with your blood all over it. Trust me. Now, what’d you do this with?”
“A box cutter. I was trying to get my stuff unpacked—”
“Were you high?”
“What? NO!”
“Drunk?”
“No.”
“Were you by yourself or did the boyfriend do this to you?”
“I’m alone. I was alone. He kicked me out, moved a younger girl in before I even got my clothes out of his closet.”
“Well, as tragic as that sounds, I have an OD in six and a woman whose husband just broke her jaw for her again in five, so let’s make this quick. If you’re clumsy, keep a jar of liquid bandage at the house so you don’t have to—”
“Wait, am I, like, disturbing you? I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. I figured if I left it too long, it would get infected and I’d go into septic shock or something. I came to the ER, which is where you’re supposed to go for medical attention. If I’m bothering you, just give me a fucking Barbie Band-Aid and I’ll leave.”
“Calm down. I’ll stitch you up. It’ll take five minutes. There are a lot more serious cases than this in the ER tonight. This is something you could handle yourself if you’re in the habit of—”
“In the habit of cutting myself with a utility knife? No. And I resent the implication that I’m clumsy and useless and should just fix this myself. If you can’t be compassionate, just shut up and do your damn job,” she huffed, tears threatening to fall again.
The doctor put down the gauze he’d been using to clean her cut, stripped off the gloves, and handed her a tissue. He dropped down on the stool, looking impossibly exhausted, and waited for her to calm down. She pulled off her scarf impatiently and dumped it on the table behind her, mopping her eyes with the thin hospital Kleenex and blowing her nose. She tried to smooth her hair back, a little embarrassed now.
“I’m okay now,” she said sheepishly.
“I’m sure I can find you a Barbie Band-Aid if it’s what you really want.” He offered with a small smile.
“How long have you been here?”
“What time is it? Two thirty...that puts me at about seventeen hours, then,” he said.
Becca noticed his bloodshot eyes, the tired slump of his broad shoulders, and she wanted to hug him. Three seconds ago he was being egotistical and hateful. Now she saw the strength, the exhaustion in every line of his lean body, and her heart went out to him.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’ve had kind of a rough day.”
“I’m sure you have. Let’s see the hand,” he said, vaulting resolutely off the stool and donning fresh gloves. “I’m Doctor Abrahemson. I can stitch up your hand. The nurse will give you some ibuprofen for the pain and a page of instructions on wound care.” He said with a sigh, trying to be patient, but the effort showed.
As he finished cleaning the deep cut, she winced and made a mewing sound that she tried to stifle. He paused.
“Hey,” he said, his voice softer now. “It’s going to be okay. I have to sew it up. Talk to me. It’ll help distract you.”
“Well, Dr. Abraham…”
“Abrahemson.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
“It’s German. And your name was something long and Italian, if I remember correctly.”
“It’s about to be Bennett.”
“Getting married?”
“No, but my sister is. I’m just changing my name because I’m an actress and I’m never going to get any really serious work with a long, unpronounceable name like Abbracciabene. I’m changing it to Bennett. This, week probably,” she told him, warming to the topic. “It’s time for a change. I was in this play, well, I was understudy, but then it flopped. I didn’t get the commercial I auditioned for. My boyfriend, who’s also my boss at Caliccio’s, the restaurant where I work, dumped me for a new waitress. So I’m moving into my sister’s place because fortunately she’s moving in with her fiancé. And then I nearly chopped off my hand trying to unpack my dishes.”
“So now you have to work for the ex-boyfriend and the new girlfriend?” he asked as he finished the stitches.
“Yeah. I’d like to quit because it’s going to be so awkward and miserable, but it’s not like I have all this acting work to fall back on or anything. So basically, everything just sucks right now,” she finished up.
“No, trust me, of everyone I’ve seen tonight, you have the good situation. Meth addicts, battered wives, abused kids. You see a lot in this job, and none of it’s good.”
“Your version of a pep talk makes me want to cut my wrists, doc,” she said wryly.
“Don’t. I’d just have to stitch them up again.” He had a dimple, she noticed.
“Don’t bother. I’ll just get my stuff and check out,” she said glumly, grabbing her purse. “Skip the ibuprofen. I’m clearly just a klutzy whiny nuisance to the medical field.”
“Stay there,” he barked. “The nurse will be with you shortly. There’s a procedure to these things.”
Becca sighed, about to protest, but didn’t budge. He yanked the curtain around her and turned around, working his way down.
After the nurse came, reeling off instructions, she grabbed her purse and prepared to head out. People around her were crying and groaning, and her nerves and heart were already frayed as it was.
“Doctor!” yelped a tiny voice.
Becca halted at her cubicle curtain, stopped in her tracks. She peeked around the curtain, not wanting to disrupt someone, but was startled by the scene before her.
Dr. Abrahemson knelt down beside a sobbing little girl whose arm was bandaged from fingers to shoulder. It made Becca’s stomach hurt to think what must have happened to her. Here he was, the man who had been so curt and derisive to her, deftly wrapping an identical gauze bandage around a baby doll’s right arm to match the patient’s.
“There. She’ll be good as new in a few
weeks. You take good care of this baby.” He handed the doll back to the wide-eyed child, who sniffed and nodded solemnly.
“Th-thank you,” she whispered at a nudge from the stern woman behind her. “I love you, Dr. Abe!” she burst out, hugging his neck with her one good arm, the doll crushed between them as the doctor embraced her. Becca saw his eyes squeeze tight shut, the muscle at his jaw tense for a moment before he released her.
“Now, Dana, I trust you’ll keep this child from having any more accidents,” he said to the woman as he stood up, iron in his voice. The woman nodded.
“Sure, doc. She’s just a clumsy one. I got six to keep an eye on, you know.” The woman shuffled out with the child.
Just like that, Becca plummeted into love. This time, with a doctor who thought she was a spoiled princess whining over a paper cut. A man who’d take time in the eighteenth hour of his ER shift to bend down and make a bandage for a baby doll to soothe a crying child. Tears pricked her eyes again: not an impatient, cocky doctor, but a downtrodden hero, a knight.
She nearly ran to him and kissed him. Only the fact that he had been so stern with her held her back and she left the hospital without saying another word to him. She did, however, have a lot of words for herself on the drive home. How she could approach him, make him see her for who she was: another believer broken down by life.
Becca tumbled into bed at the apartment. When she woke, she called her sister.
“Hey, Han!” she bounced.
“Good morning, Becca. You slept late,” Hannah muttered, glancing at the clock that read six in the morning.
“I was up till after three. I had to go to the ER.”
“Oh my lord, are you okay? What happened? Did you try to use the stove?”
“No, and for your information, I know how to cook. None of your kitchen appliances attacked me. I was opening a box and the knife slipped. I’m fine. I just had to go get stitches.”
“You should have called me! I would have gone with you!” Hannah clucked.
“I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”
“You promise you’re okay?”
“Yeah. For sure. I just wanted to talk to you about your bachelorette night. I need a final guest list. I know you, me, Annelise, Shannon, your friend Joanie, but why do I have to invite Cynthia?”
“I like Cynthia. Why shouldn’t I have her?”
“Because she’s your ex-husband’s sister.”
“If she doesn’t hold it against me that I divorced her brother, why should I blame her for being related to him? She’s an awesome person and I love her. She stays on the list. What about Katie?”
“Ugh! Katie, our cousin?”
“Yes. We only have one cousin, babe, it’s not like we can forget to include her.”
“But she’s so uptight. She won’t enjoy it, and I don’t want her judging me.”
“If she comes to the bachelorette night, she’s guilty by association and automatically forbidden to judge any of us, I swear. Do you have her number?”
“Yuck.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Anything else?”
“No. I mean, the doctor who stitched me up was really hot, but that doesn’t qualify as news, probably.”
“Sure it does. I figured after the Chris episode you’d be single for a while. Why am I not surprised you’re looking for a replacement?”
“Because love finds you in the most unexpected places, Han.”
“Love? I thought you just said he was hot. It’s not the same thing, you know.”
“Of course I know that. He’s tall and good looking—“
“Is that all? There’s loads of those around.”
“He bandaged a doll’s arm. This kid was crying and she was all bandaged up her arm. He bent down and made a matching bandage on her doll to stop her from crying.” Becca practically swooned.
“So he’s a decent person. Just because he wasn’t mean to a sick kid doesn’t make him your soul mate.”
“You are so cynical. How are you even engaged?”
“I have a ring to prove it, trust me. I just don’t want you throwing yourself at some doctor because you got dumped.”
“Honestly, Hannah, is that really what you think of me? That I can’t go twenty-four hours on my own without jumping on the first guy who walks by? Because I’m a lot stronger than that. This doctor was just very kind to an injured child, and he didn’t take any crap off me, and he had gorgeous blue eyes. I wouldn’t mind playing doctor with him.” She grinned.
“Becca, just go slow with this one. You can stay at the apartment as long as you want. Seriously, years. It’s fine. There’s no rush to move in with anyone else. Promise you’ll take care of yourself.”
“Only if you’ll stop fussing over me.” Becca rolled her eyes and hung up the phone.
Chapter 3
Harrison Abrahemson shoved a hand through his dark hair in frustration. He was a couple of weeks overdue for a haircut...he could tell by the way his hair was curling up at the ends. He dodged into the locker room and, finding it empty, punched his metal locker door as hard as he could.
“God DAMN it,” he said, digging his phone out of his locker and dialing a number.
He waited for the automated menu, pressed in the right codes from memory.
“Yes, I’d like to make a report. As an emergency room physician I am a mandated reporter. My name is Harrison Abrahemson, and I work at Central Hospital. My report concerns the minor child Deonte Richmond, birth date 07/16/09. This is my third report. He was in my ER again tonight, this time with a broken collarbone and dislocated shoulder. There are distinctive marks on his left upper arm that could only be the handprint of an adult. Someone, namely his drunken father Deonte Senior, jerked this kid’s arm out of the socket and snapped his collarbone. I want a child welfare call in the next twenty-four hours. I have the names of other personnel who saw the child, and they’re willing to give their names as well,” he rattled off woodenly.
Abe listened as the social worker took his report, made him repeat details, assured him they would take care of it. They hadn’t taken care of it the two times previous, he knew, because the laws protected child beaters, not kids. Even though he knew that this was as hard for the social workers whose hands were tied as it was for him, he couldn’t stifle a sigh of frustration. He struggled to think of a good reason he shouldn’t beat Deonte Richmond, Sr. to a bloody pulp the next time he came in with some bullshit story about how his son had fallen down the stairs again. He felt there might be a certain satisfaction of yanking that man’s arm right out of the rotator cuff himself ,but he knew he wouldn’t stop there. He wouldn’t be able to do any good for these kids who needed medical care if he was in prison for killing an abusive father.
After the melodramatic girl with the cut on her hand, there had been the heroin overdose who slipped his restraints and punched a nurse, the girl who got stabbed by her boyfriend, who evidently also enjoyed burning her with cigarettes, and then Deonte, Jr. There were days when Abe felt like he was really helping people, patching them up and sending them off to be more careful. Then, there were days like this one. The stabbing victim had wanted her boyfriend in the cubicle to hold her hand while she was examined...she’d be going home with him in a day or two once she was on the mend. The overdose would come out of his sedation and leave the hospital looking for his next fix. Abe knew that DJ would get smacked around the next time his dad got his hands on a bottle of anything cheap.
Abe had chosen emergency medicine because he wanted to use his skill at fixing things where it was most needed. There was just so much he couldn’t fix, so many wounds that were deeper than antiseptic and stitches could reach. Today he was nobody’s hero. Today he was bailing water out of a sinking boat; he was Sisyphus condemned to the ceaseless battle of rolling a boulder uphill.
Head in his hands, he took a long breath and started to strip off his scrubs. Emptying the pockets, he found two ink pens, a gum wrapper, and the balled-up
scarf that actress had left behind. He’d picked it up when he pulled the curtain aside and found her gone. Knowing she hadn’t meant to leave it, Abe considered giving it to the front desk in case she came back looking for it. It was a ridiculous thing—all greens and yellows in a riotous floral pattern. Frivolous and bright, and with absolutely no right to be in such a hopeless place as Harrison Abrahemson’s emergency room after nineteen hours on duty. For some reason, he was loathe to let it go, to turn it over to Agnes, the front desk nurse. He knew she’d throw it away if the girl didn’t come back in twenty-four hours. They only came back if they forgot an iPhone, she always said.
There was a spot on the scarf, two small dots of her blood from where she’d pulled it off her neck. He remembered then. He’d had a funny impulse to kiss her hand when he finished stitching it. Abe wasn’t a sentimental man, the sort who went around kissing hands or wasting sympathy on people who would always land on their feet. He had been overtired and was taken momentarily by the need to comfort her somehow. Obviously it was just a sign of exhaustion, he thought. Still, after he changed into his street clothes, he snagged the girl’s chart off the rack and punched her contact number into his phone. He biked home, and before he even got in the shower, he dialed her up.
“Hi!” A bright voice answered. “This is Becca. I can’t answer right now. If this is my big break and you’re calling about a job, please press 1 and leave a message! If it’s personal, press two and let me know what’s up. Otherwise, if it’s a wrong number, hang up already...I’m a struggling actress and I don’t have unlimited cell minutes, you know! Just kidding, have a great day! Bye.” He had never in his life heard such a lengthy, bubbly inbox message.
