Page 28 of Fighting For You

Liz and Jen came in together. Liz touched my arm. "So glad you're okay, Nora. We were worried about you."

"Really good to have you back," Jen added.

I thanked them and kept moving. They sounded like they meant it. They also sounded like Liz and Jen, which meant I'd never quite know for sure, and today wasn't the day I was going to try to figure it out.

The shift moved the way first shifts back always do. Everything was familiar and everything was slightly off, like coming home to furniture someone had rearranged by two inches. My hands remembered the work. My body remembered the pace. But I was half a step behind all morning, recalibrating, finding my rhythm again.

Harlan caught me at the nurses' station around ten.

"Avery. Good to see you upright." He leaned against the counter. "Are you sure you're ready to be back on this floor?"

"Josie cleared me."

"That's not what I asked."

I looked at him. "I'm ready, Dr. Harlan."

"Good. Bay twelve needs a second set of vitals before I discharge him. And welcome back."

By the afternoon, the half-step had closed. The rooms came and went. The work filled in around me the way it always did, and by four o'clock I'd stopped thinking about whether I could do this and started thinking about what was next.

I finished my charting at seven and gave bedside report to the night nurse taking my bays. By the time I got to the locker room, Liz and Jen were already leaving because Jen apparently had a "hot date."

"So are you still looking for a new place?" Lori was changing her shoes when I sat down across from her.

"Yeah. A friend's been sending me listings for two-bedrooms, but my brother just told me he's not moving back in for a while. He took a summer job and they're giving him a room."

"So you just need something for yourself?"

"For the summer, at least. Until Ian comes back for school and we can find a place together."

Lori stopped lacing her shoe and looked up. "One of my roommates just moved out. She went to live with her boyfriend. There's a free room in our house."

"Are you serious?"

"I can talk to our landlady if you want it. She hasn't started looking for anyone new yet."

"Lori, that would be amazing."

"Fair warning, it's a little far from the hospital, so the commute takes some getting used to. But it's worth it. The landlady is really nice, keeps the house well maintained. There are some repairs here and there, but nothing major. And there's a backyard with a garden, so it actually feels like a real home."

I could picture it already. A room that was mine. A garden. Someone who kept the place up instead of letting it fall apart.

"I love it."

Lori smiled. "I'll tell her not to look for new tenants."

"Thank you, Lori. Seriously."

"Of course." She finished tying her shoe and stood up. "I'll let you know. Maybe you can come by next time we're both off so I can show you the room?"

"That's great! Thanks, Lori."

The next time we were both off, Lori drove me to see the room.

The house was on a street I never would have found on my own. Quiet neighborhood, set back from the main road, a block where families walked their kids to the park after dinner and people left their porch lights on for each other. The houses were older but kept up, with trimmed hedges and cars in the driveways and the feeling of people who had been there a long time.

Lori pulled up to a pale yellow house at the end of the block. Five bedrooms, she'd told me on the drive over. The front porch had flowers lining both sides of the steps, bright and deliberate, and the walkway was swept clean.