Page 39 of A Little Bit Uncertain

25

AUDRA

We got home far too late, and I was way out of sorts the following day. The physical exhaustion was one thing, but the cartwheels my mind was doing were another. Last night was nothing short of amazing. Things were just so much more fun with Donovan around. Even thinking about him made me break into a spontaneous grin.

But as high as I was after Vegas Night, work brought me right back down to Earth. The next few days, I worked overnight shifts, and they were particularly stressful ones. I swore that I saw Theo in the hospital parking lot again, but I convinced myself I was delusional from being overworked and just seeing things that weren’t there. The aggressive parents and the boy switched to the regular floor for a little while, but were coming back to the ICU, and of course, they were assigned to me. I’m not sure if the familiarity of my face emboldened the father to act the way he was, or if it was my gender, age, or what, but he sure was a dick. There were a few times I almost shouted at him, ‘I’M NOT THE DOCTOR…TAKE IT UP WITH HIM.’ But I didn’t. I always tried to approach it with grace and composure, but it was rough to get berated like that for the last however many shifts I’d been with him. Admin did nothing to have our back in those situations too.

“Don’t you know what you’re doing? How old are you? Why can’t you figure out what’s wrong with my son?” Every time the call button rang, my stomach dropped, and every time I went in, my body tensed up. Screw it. After the shift, I refused to work with him again. I didn’t get paid enough to deal with his shit, and even if I made millions, there is no excuse to treat another human like that.

As I was mounting my stand in my head and watching the clock tick down the last forty minutes of my shift, all the alarms started going off from that room. My feet were moving before I even registered it. The little boy was coding, and the survival rate for children coding was dismal. Our entire crew crashed on the room and worked on him. Tensions were through the roof, but our staff was top-notch. It is what we were trained to do, after all. Mom was screaming as she was being pulled away, and Dad was slinging insults at us as we worked. It was a horrific four minutes.

But it wasn’t his time. We successfully resuscitated him, and the decision was made to med-flight him to a level one pediatric hospital, something I had suggested a dozen times. As we prepped him for the move, the father caught my gaze from across the room. “I will never forgive you for this,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

I was confused, pumped full of adrenaline, and sick of the guy. Tensions were through the roof. “Excuse me? Never forgive me for what? Helping to save your child’s life?”

“You didn’t figure out what was wrong with him.” The man started to walk towards me.

My jaw hit the floor. “I am not the doctor. There is a team of specialists that have been working on this, and I am here to support them.”

He kept walking towards me, almost as if he was in a trance, “I have been in hell waiting for…”

Marcus, my co-worker, my six-foot-five coworker who could have moonlighted as an NFL linebacker, stood in front of me. “This stops now, Joe. Leave. Audra here is one of the best nurses on this staff. She is not the one responsible for the things happening to your son, nor is she the decision-maker in this hospital. I know this is hard, but you may not threaten or verbally abuse her, or anyone, like this.”

The entire room held its collective breath to see what happened next. Marcus dwarfed Joe, but when things were so volatile, anything could happen. “Right now, we are losing valuable time in getting your son help because you are threatening staff. It’d be pretty rough for your wife to be dealing with a child being air-lifted and a husband being booked at the station because I am about to call the authorities. Walk away and prepare yourself to go to Carolina Community Hospital. Your son is heading there.”

The dad’s eyes filled with tears before he stormed out. The boy’s mom mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ in my direction before following her husband.

Marcus turned to me and hugged me. “You ok?”

I couldn’t respond with words for fear my tears would spill, so I just nodded.

He glanced at the clock. “Your shift is over, yeah?” I nodded again. “How much charting do you have?”

“Just this. I’m caught up on everything else,” I managed to choke out.

“Go do that. We’ll take care of all the other things in here. I’m sorry you had to hear that. Do you want me to call the counselor?” I shook my head no, and I didn’t argue about other people picking up the mess in the room. Normally, I’d push to stay to do my part, but I was pretty shaken up. I hid to finish my charting, and then I took off. The adrenaline felt like it was still coursing through me. I tried my hardest to keep the tears at bay, but really, I just wanted a hug. Cora was dealing with fallout from Maverick leaving, so I didn’t want to add to her stress, and Jules was back in Havenswood. Maeve at the office was the logical choice. Although she wasn’t texting back, more than once she’d said to come by anyway if she didn’t answer, because she rarely heard her phone. There’s only been two other times I’ve shown up without confirmation, but I decided to do it again.

By the time I was in front of the building, I had already had a first cry in the sanctity of my car and was ready for my friend’s comfort. Taking a breath, I walked up the steps to the office and walked in. Maeve usually sat right in front, but she wasn’t there. Shit shit shit shit, my brain shouted at me. But the door had made too much noise for me to sneak back out and pretend I wasn’t there.

“Hello?” Donovan’s voice came from his office.

I tried to open my mouth to say something, but the whimper got caught in my throat. He came out, and his eyes got wide with concern as he looked at me and walked over, gently touching my shoulder. “Audra, what’s wrong?”

I tried to steady my words. “My little patient,” my lip wobbled. “He coded.”

“Oh, shit, Audra.” Donovan wrapped me up, and when he pulled me flush against him, I broke. Every tension from the last week came spilling out on Donovan’s expensive suit jacket as I sought comfort from his arms. Tears for that sick little boy, for Cora, for the stress of Theo, the asshole of a father I was dealing with, and for the admission in my heart that I might not love my job. Donovan just stood there, rubbing my back, comforting me as I shook. It was more than I could have asked for at that moment. He must have held me for five minutes before I caught my breath, which is a long time to cry into someone’s clothing without speaking. I needed that release, it would seem. When I finally got it together and could form words again. I spoke, “We resuscitated him, though. And he’s on his way to a hospital more equipped for him. But this particular patient has been a roller coaster, and it’s been so hard.” I wiped the wetness from under my eyes.

“That had to be horrible,” he responded empathetically.

“I’m so sorry. I assumed Maeve would be here, and this would be her. I just … I didn’t want to go home yet.” When I finally pulled away to look at him, he kept his hand on my shoulder, stopping me from fully disconnecting.

“No worries at all. I’m glad I was here. Maeve is over at the Quest doing a couple on-site check-ins. I know this sounds crazy, but want to take a quick walk with me? We can pop down to the shore. Just to walk out some of the things festering inside of you right now. The adrenaline and crash after something like that can be tough.”

“I … are you sure? I know you just got to work like an hour ago.” It surprised me that he would offer to do that, and I felt bad pulling him away. I’m sure he had important business things to do. What they were, I had no idea, but they had to be important.

“Eh, I’m kind of my own boss. A perk of my role is getting to go for beach walks at nine in the morning. I’d offer to get you coffee, but that’s going to have the opposite effect we’re going for. Want some water?” He grabbed a water bottle and held it out to me. “You should eat a little something, too. Is a banana ok?”

“Yeah, that’s great. This is so kind of you, Donovan. Thank you.” I was so taken aback by his thoughtfulness that I was almost speechless.