Forty-two patients in fourteen hours.
A twelve-car pileup on Interstate 695 had kept the ER buzzing for the final three hours of her too-long shift. Half a dozen cops were still attempting to interview the victims capable of answering questions.
“Just another Saturday night in Charm City.” She reached for her car door, but something she saw out of the corner of her eye snagged her attention. “Oh, damn.”
Flat tire.
The second one this week. CJ heaved a disgusted breath. She had to get new tires.
Another reality hit on the heels of that one. She slapped her forehead with her hand. “Double damn.”
Who’d had time to get the other flat tire repaired? Certainly not a third-year resident who worked ten or more hours most days and who spent the rest of her time studying for boards.
Damn. Damn. Damn. Plowing her fingers through her hair, she pulled her ponytail free, glanced around the gloomy parking garage, and considered her options. Getting someone here to repair one or both tires would take hours on a Saturday night.
“Forget it.” She did an about-face and headed out of the parking garage. There was always a cab or two waiting within hailing distance of the ER entrance on East Monument Street. She’d get a ride home and deal with this in the morning when she’d had some sleep. Tomorrow was her first day off in two weeks. Too bad it was Sunday, because she had a million things to take care of and the business world of nine-to-fivers had no appreciation for her frenzied schedule.
She pushed through the north exit of the staff parking garage into the muggy night air. Someday, when she had money, she might actually have a decent ride. One with good tires. And reliable air-conditioning.
Such was the life of a medical resident—every aspect of one’s personal life was about the future.
Sweat had dampened her skin by the time she reached East Monument. At the ER’s street entrance, she stopped and stepped back from the curb before an arriving ambulance mowed her down. Lights and sirens, not good. Hard as she tried not to linger, her efforts were futile. Two of her colleagues rushed out to connect with the emerging paramedics and the patient strapped to the gurney.
CJ forced her attention back to the taxi a block or so beyond the ER’s drop-off point. The arriving patient was in good hands. CJ’s shift was over.
She had to learn that even the most committed physician needed boundaries. She couldn’t save the world alone. Especially without sleep.
At the passenger side of the taxi, CJ opened the rear door and gave her home address to the driver. She collapsed into the seat, tossed her purse aside, and snapped her safety belt into place. Blessed relief hissed past her lips.
Finally.
“Tough night?” The driver lowered the volume of the hip-hop radiating from the taxi’s speakers as he rolled out onto the deserted street.
“Long, long night,” CJ explained. But that was the reality of choosing a career in emergency medicine. The ER was not the place for those who preferred banking hours and neatly scheduled appointments. Strange. Maybe the reason she loved the adrenaline-charged life of an ER physician was related to her drama-filled childhood. Wasn’t all that one did connected in one way or another to the environment of the formative years?
Obviously, she’d been lunching with the psych residents way too much.
The driver had his own theories about tonight’s chaos. He offered a lengthy discourse of how the full moon always made the crazies come out. CJ didn’t bother telling him just how right he was.
The full moon—
Tires squealed. Metal crashed. CJ’s head jerked, then banged the window as the taxi absorbed the momentum of an oncoming car crossing the intersection against the light.
For an endless, paralyzing moment there was no movement, no sound, other than the murmur of the hip-hop still whispering from the speakers.
“Son of a bitch!” The driver whacked his fist against the dash.
CJ shook off the shock, released the safety belt, and rubbed at the dull ache in her right temple. The other car had broadsided the taxi. Both vehicles now sat in the middle of the intersection, steam rising from the hood of the offending vehicle.
Swearing profusely, the driver scrambled across the seat and out the passenger side door.
CJ shoved that hot bath out of her mind for the moment and flung her door open. She caught up with the furious taxi driver as he confronted the driver of the other car.
“You didn’t see the light? What are you? Blind?”
CJ looked from the dazed driver climbing from behind the steering wheel to the passenger emerging from the back seat. “You two okay?” she asked. Both occupants were male. Caucasian. Young, twenty, twenty-one.
“We gotta get to the hospital,” the passenger shouted at no one in particular. He turned all the way around, staggering drunkenly, as if he needed to get his bearings.
