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But the promise I made my mother weighed heavily on me. I said I would take care of my sister, and no matter how bad she got, I was going to try to keep that promise. I even had an extra savings fund set aside as an emergency to rescue her should she be somewhere across the country and need a plane ticket home.
All this led to me much preferring the company of wildlife. Rabbits didn’t have such problems. Neither did hawks. I could watch them, track them, and tag them manually and then continue digitally after the tag. I spent hours in front of the large computer screen, imagining what their life was like as they made their way through the mountains.
It brought me peace.
I walked back into my cabin after a long day outside and shook off the cold. It was chilly out there, and I hadn’t brought a jacket heavy enough for it. It was an oversight I rarely made, but one of the wolves I had been tracking for months had shown up near my cabin. I ran out to find him without grabbing my backpack, only taking the small duffel. It was enough to do my job, but by the time I got home, I was cold, hungry, and ready to relax.
One of the upsides of having all the tech lying around for the job was that I had created my own satellite rig. The service was expensive, but it was necessary for work and thus a write-off. That meant I could kick off my shoes, warm them by a roaring fire, and enjoy watching dumb television for a while.
Growing up, I hadn’t really watched much TV, but as an adult, with nothing much better to do in my evenings, I was catching up on culturally important shows and movies with the help of a list from the internet. It was methodical, like most things I did, but I enjoyed it. I put on an episode of a show that didn’t require my full attention and made myself dinner.
My cooking expertise wasn’t deep, but I could cook meats pretty well. And pasta always went well with meat. A half hour of cooking later, I sat in my chair and cracked open a beer. The pasta reminded me of something, and I was trying to remember what it was. Finally, it hit me, and I let myself wonder.
The night I had taken the only girl that ever penetrated my bubble out to dinner, I had a dish very similar to the one I had now, only I didn’t eat a bite. Dee and I spent the night with each other in the back of my old car, and I’d never felt closer to wanting a normal life than right then.
Dee showed up in my thoughts often, and I always dashed them away. She was somewhere down there in Ashford, I knew. But she hated me. With good reason. Thoughts about her always ended up the same way. Wistful, sad, and eventually, frustratedly pushing them away.
6
DEE
I worked so hard for my new job and the tiny, ancient computer that I clocked in on being difficult would not change that fact. I clicked the button twice, and the screen didn’t budge. Waiting a beat, I tried again, and this time it worked. I was officially clocked in, and I made my way back to the nurses’ break room on my floor. After working from home for the past two years, I was finally in a hospital.
It was a small hospital but part of the same network as one that was a dozen or so miles further out of town which was much bigger. That meant that while it was small, it was outfitted with some of the best equipment available and worked as a satellite for the big hospital. Apparently, that didn’t include the clock-in computers at the front desk of each floor. I was fairly certain running anything more complicated than solitaire might completely destroy it.
My locker was one of the first in the row, and I opened it and shoved my backpack in. I knew it was probably a little bit immature to still carry a backpack around. Ladies carried purses, as my mother would say. But I found purses limiting and annoying, and I much preferred sticking all my things into a backpack and carrying that around instead. If someone thought I was a student, so what?
A couple of the nurses who were clocking out were in the break room, sipping coffee and gossiping. I commiserated with overnight nurses on their dedication to coffee drinking. It was no longer a way to perk up; it was absolutely essential to being functionally awake at all. I could drink coffee and go to sleep twenty minutes later, and when I used to work the swing shifts or overnight, I would.
