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53
Take Care of Business
Dominic
I was too afraid to breathe, so I waited quietly with my hand across my mouth.
The oxygen saturation bounced between absolute garbage and acceptable levels. Like a house of cards that could collapse at any moment, my patient’s vital signs teetered right above the okay-he-might-make-it-after-all end of terrible.
The next available helicopter was on its way from the state hospital to pick him up. Until it got here, though, the life of this man who lay in the same spot I did twenty years ago was in our hands.
He’d already gone pulseless more than I could count since he arrived. The slightest breeze across his face might disturb his injured brain enough to make it give up the fight. I couldn’t take my eyes off him because I could only imagine myself in his place, and how close I had been to dying finally became real to me. Maybe that’s why I worked a little harder for him than I usually would for someone in his condition. I was always looking backward to try to right the wrongs of my past.
My life was changing, though. That cynical doctor in me that would’ve written him off as a lost cause a few weeks ago didn’t live here anymore. Something inside me told me he would make it, not to worry, and I should grab that cup of coffee while I had a second.
As gently as possible, I backed away from the bed and held my breath. I hoped to God my phone didn’t start jingling again or another overhead page about nothing important disturbed the perfect silence the gentle hum of the vent motor made. But it was in that void of noise that I realized my greatest fear.
I don’t think anyone believed me when I said I had a sixth sense about things, but I was right more often than wrong.
Just as the adrenaline guiding my every thought and movement started to subside, pressure started on my back to tell me trouble was coming.
Every detail of the day Faith disappeared from my life was as clear to me then as they were when they happened. So when those familiar cold tingles spread all over me, sending every hair on my body on end, I went numb. Drawing my eyes away a little at a time, where Faith stood just outside the door was only an empty space now.
With one eye on my patient and one on where I was backing up, I came to the doorway. Spitting through my teeth at Kim, I motioned her to me with a head jerk. “Get over here.”
From the I-know-you’re-not-talking-to-me-in-that-tone look on her face, I understood she knew exactly what was on my mind. When I asked, “Where’s Faith?” she was already shaking her head and throwing her hand up to make me step back.
She shifted her eyes inside to the patient and crossed her arms, whisper-yelling back at me. “She asked me not to bother you until everything calmed down. So don’t jump down my throat. Okay?”
Faith kept my mother’s shenanigans to herself to protect me for decades now. But Kim had no problem at all telling me or anyone else she thought they were an asshole when they needed to hear it. To my great enjoyment, she’d told my mother a time or two when she’d crossed the line over the years.
Her face retreated a little as she cleared her throat, her bitchy edge softening. “So, your mom got admitted to observation a little bit ago.” Whatever my expression was, it made her smile and roll her eyes away. “She’s fine.” Using her baby voice, she pouted her lips back at me. “Just a little boo-boo on her head.”
The stress of working in a pressure cooker gave us all a little darker sense of humor than your average healthcare provider, sure. So, when I snickered at her smartass impression as I pulled off the yellow paper gown I kept warm with, she shrugged back at me. “But she was being a pain in the ass to all the staff and demanding to see you. So, Faith went down to keep everyone from choking her out.”
I peeled my gloves off and bunched them together. “Shit, I better head down there and make sure Mom didn’t eat her or something.”
Kim swung her finger back at me as she sank into the doorframe. “No can do, Doc. That patient with the chest tube should be coming any minute, and we’ll need everyone on the floor for when transport gets here.”
I flipped my arm to check the time until she poked my arm. “Faith is handling it.” I didn’t have the time or inclination to rehash my whole life story in the few minutes we had to explain why I needed to be there. But when I stepped out into the hall, ready to run, Kim pushed me back with her hand on my chest. “We all like Faith.” Her finger flipped between her and Mark as he got meds from the dispenser at the end of the counter. “She’s part of our team now, and none of us were just going to let her go deal with all that alone without checking up on her.”
She motioned to the nurses’ station with her head. “I called down there a few minutes ago, and the charge nurse said your mom’s being quiet now. Faith has everything under control.” Beating her fingernail into the metal frame, she nodded. “She’s got this, and we have her. So you can relax.”
Mark came through with an old-timey stainless steel rolling cart full of tubing and drugs, and Kim stepped back to let him go inside. “She understands how important your work is and only wants you to concentrate on what you’re doing.” The bell for the elevator dinged quietly in the darkened hallway, and she backed toward the sound of another bed coming around the corner. “Let her take care of your business so you can take care of everyone else’s.”
Faith told me we were partners in this life now, and I had no choice but to trust that she would hold herself together for me until I had time to rescue her.
I tossed my gloves in the trash and dumped a quick squirt of sanitizer on my hands before I slid on another pair. But as I waited for the nurses to move the patient to the other bed, I looked over at the staircase door and wondered if maybe Faith didn’t get the worst part of this deal tonight.
54
Too Far Gone
Dominic
The entire night was like a time warp. One second, the sun was setting over the town’s wreckage, and the next, stars twinkled back at me when I looked out the tall, narrow window in the hallway.
As it always did when I was hurrying to get back to Faith, everything took three times longer than it had to. So, I was already fired up to explode at the first person who crossed me.
