“You didn’t figure out what was wrong with him.” The man started to walktowards 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 jacketas 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 offerto 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.
He took the banana off the top of his desk, that was clearly his breakfast or snack, and we walked the couple of blocks to the shore through the park. It was a beautiful spring morning, and the sun was peeking through the cloud canopy, warming the world up. Donovan was right. I was already feeling more balanced as we hit the path right next to the sand, and I was looking at the sun glittering on the water.
“You okay?” He broke the silence.
Normally, people talk to me about things. It’s not often those roles were reversed, and I certainly don’t open up to people who aren’t in my tightest inner circle. But something about him made me feel so at ease that I found myself unloading. “I am just having so many feelings right now. I feel sick for this little boy who is just not getting better. His father, Joe, has been horrible to me almost the entire time they’ve been in and out of the hospital. Which, on some level, I get. We have not been treating him the right way, and I’ve been saying that to my uppers, but it had fallen on deaf ears. I thought he might physically assault me today after that sweet boy coded.”
Donovan stopped and turned to me. “What do you mean, almost physically assaulted you?”
“I mean, he didn’t, but he was approaching me and was almost trancelike, slinging insults at me. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Sure, you hear the horror stories ofpeople in the hospital snapping, but no one I know has ever personally experienced it. It was always a friend-of-a-friend kind of thing. Multiple times, I’ve asked the charge nurse to not assign me to him because the dad has taken up using me as a verbal punching bag, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m a woman or younger…”
There was a darkness on his face and in his eyes that I hadn’t seen. “Why didn’t the charge nurse move you when you asked?”
I shrugged, “Low seniority? She knows I won’t make waves? I don’t know. We are perpetually short-staffed. I mean, yesterday, I wasn’t even supposed to be there. I had picked up a shift.”
“Can you file a complaint or something?”
