Five

Emily’s day and a half off from work went by too quickly. She was beginning to find that the long shifts, the nights especially, were harder and harder to recover from. It used to be that a quick nap would be all she needed to switch back from nights to the land of the living, but lately, it was taking a day or more with more hours spent asleep than awake.

Friday at noon, she was expected back at work. She dragged herself out of bed at eleven, in a surly mood, having crawled back in as soon as the twins climbed on the school bus. She was tired, and she’d had such a good evening with the kids that she was loath to miss yet another one, even though she knew they were in good hands. Ellen told her they were planning on renting a movie and having a popcorn party. Tonight, Emily would have vastly preferred to be home with them.

She wanted even more to be back at home when she pulled into the parking lot at the hospital and saw an ambulance in the bay. It meant action. Damn it, she’d been counting on a night of sore throats and alcohol poisoning; recipe medicine that took little brainpower after ten years. Emergency room staff were a superstitious lot, and an ambulance at the beginning of the shift was a bad omen.

Sure enough, the team was in the throes of a full-tilt Code Blue, complete with CPR on a fat, naked octogenarian, accompanied by the wailing of his scantily-clad, hysterical twenty-something girlfriend. Emily suppressed a rueful grin as she caught the eye of Doug Sheridan, who was holding defibrillator paddles over the patient’s chest. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, indicating for all the world that the man was already dead, but that they were running the code for the sake of the widow. Or, in this case, for the inamorata. The widow would doubtlessly be in later, to claim the body.

Emily walked past the trauma room, certain that they had it under control. She changed into scrubs and a lab coat, and pulled her masses of flame-coloured curls off her face and bound them in a knot at the back of her head where they would stay out of the way. She rubbed her freckled face with her hands. Cloudy grey eyes gazed back at her as she took one last look in the mirror, and squared her shoulders with a deep sigh. She pushed through the doors and out into the chaos.

Once Doug had called the time of death on his code, he came out to the desk where Emily was looking through charts.

“Have you been here since Thursday night?” she asked, seeing the two-day beard on his chin, and fatigue in the slope of his shoulders.

“Yup. We’ve gotta talk to administration about these rotations. This is ridiculous,” he replied.

“Not safe, anyway,” she complied. “What have we got tonight?”

“Well, the needless to say the guy in the trauma room won’t be needing much attention. His girlfriend might, though.” Doug yawned. “God, she’s younger than my daughter. What the hell is she doing with a guy like that? He had to be eighty.”

Emily laughed. “I’m guessing he was rich. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” he said. “There’s a twelve-year-old kid in the suture room with a ten centimeter lac to his right forearm. Took a spill off his bike into some glass. Needs stitches. There are a couple of weak-and-dizzy little old ladies, and a hot appy waiting for a transfer to a surgical bed in the city. They’re on their way.”

“Sounds ok to me,” she said, looking around the department. It was small, usually fairly quiet, and felt like a second home after all this time. She poured a dose of typically bad coffee into a chipped mug, and felt herself ramping up to work mode.

“Ok, then. Good night. I think Joe Harris is coming in at six or eight tonight.”

“Good. Friday night it’s always good to have another pair of hands. Have a good rest, Doug.”

Emily waved and tossed back her vile coffee and shuddered with the effort of choking it down. The coffee, bad as it was, and the prospect of a second attending physician on duty with her that night cheered her immensely. She went to work.

At six, Joe arrived. Emily was glad; Joe was a capable doctor, one of her attending physicians when she’d been a resident in this very hospital. He was fast, knowledgeable, and well-liked by his colleagues. On the far side of fifty, he had a shock of white hair that made him look a bit older, and the little old ladies simply adored him. They worked well together, as they had for years, and when midnight rolled around, the triage board was clear and the waiting room, quiet.

“Why don’t you head home, Em?” Joe suggested.

“I’m on until six, Joe.” Emily said, sinking wearily to a chair behind the desk.

“You have a pager, right? I’ll call if anything comes up I can’t handle.” Joe squeezed her shoulder. “You look exhausted, Em. I know you did a double this week. We’re ok here. Go get some sleep.”

Emily let herself slump back into the chair. A shower, and a few hours in her bed would be heaven. Like an early birthday present. Emily’s mind, teetering on the brink of sleep, tried irrelevantly, and unsuccessfully, to remember her birthdate. She rubbed her face and pressed her fingertips to her temples, looking up at Joe gratefully.

“Ok, Joe. Thanks. I could really use a few hours. Call me for the smallest thing, I’m ten minutes away.” She pushed herself up from the chair and it felt as if her body was suddenly twice as heavy as it had been a few minutes ago.

She went into the locker room and grabbed her purse, not bothering to change out of her scrubs. No one bled or puked on me tonight, she rationalized. I’m clean enough to go home.

As she passed the desk, Sarah, on her fourth night shift in a row, looked at her with what Emily thought might be envy. “Hey, wait a sec,” she called after Emily.

“Hey,” Emily replied, pausing by the desk.

“You’ll never guess who stopped in earlier,” Sarah said, the dimple at the corner of her mouth twitching with a suppressed grin.

“Who?” Emil asked wearily, trying her best to be polite when all she could think about was her bed.

“Trent Buchanan.” Sarah said, with the slightest tug at the corners of her mouth. Emily, though exhausted, could tell her best friend was holding something back, saving the best for last.

“Oh,” Emily replied, unimpressed. “Cool.” Who cares? She thought inwardly. What’s your point?

“Yes, cool. He asked for you!” Sarah was positively vibrating with excitement. “He called you ‘that feisty red-headed doctor’. I am so jealous! He is extremely hot.” Sarah did a little excited dance.

“Well, I hope you sent him packing. I like the song, but his coming in here last night was absolutely inappropriate. I have nothing to say to him,” Emily said irritably as she waved and turned to go.

“Come on, Em! He called you ‘feisty’! That’s way better than ‘bitchy’.” Sarah said with a grin.

“Feisty, bitchy, it all means the same thing. I know what you’re hinting at, Sar, but I’m not in the market.” Emily called back as she walked out the door, into the night. Dear Sarah. Well-meaning, but never widowed. She had no idea, Emily thought, that it wasn’t simply a case of ‘snapping out of it’ and jumping back into the dating scene. Emily was still raw inside. She felt Thomas’s absence daily. She knew it intellectually, but every once in a while the finality of his death would hit her and open her up all over again. She had to admit it was happening less frequently, but it still happened, and in a way, she was reticent to let go of that ache, that physical sense that something was missing. If that feeling left, she believed, he would be truly gone. As long as I hurt, she thought, he’s still here.

Sarah was a good friend, and a good sympathizer. It was what made her a good nurse, too. But although Emily appreciated that her friend had her best interests at heart, she knew that Sarah was grasping at straws, desperate to see her friend happy again. Emily was not convinced, however, that she ever truly would be.

Even still, Emily found herself humming the tune from ‘Some Day’ by Uptown as she walked through the automatic doors of the hospital and headed for the parking lot. Between complete exhaustion, preoccupation, and her singing quietly to herself, she hardly registered the man leaning against the hood of a car, watching the hospital doors. The man stood and called to her as she approached.