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ONE
NORA
“Wasn’t there anything else you could have done?” came the all-to-familiar question from grieving parents.
Nora always thought she was mentally ready for it and knew how to answer, but she had never gotten used to seeing the loss mixed with disbelief in each parent’s eyes, leading up to her having to tell them the worst news imaginable to a parent.
Your child has passed, and there was nothing we could do.
It never ceased to cause tears to lodge in her throat, and she wished she could say anything but that.
Nora forced down her own emotions. “No, unfortunately not. The infection spread too rapidly, causing Valerie’s system to shut down.”
She watched the mother fall apart in her husband’s arms as the realization sank in. And all Nora was allowed to do was stand there and say she would give them a moment.
This was a picture Nora had seen more than her share of times.
After she said her practiced line, she turned and went around the corner to shed her own tears for the family.
She loved her job but hated it. When it was good, it was great. But when it was bad, it literally meant death. She used to be able to handle most of these situations better, but since her own mother passed away, Nora had been having a hard time keeping it together.
She was one of the most devoted pediatric nurses at the hospital, and she cared deeply for all those she took into her care. But she had become more withdrawn since losing her mother, which made her feel even colder, but she saw no other way.
All she could think these days was, “If it can be loved, it can be lost.” And that fear meant she didn’t know how to love anymore. Or maybe she was just too scared to try. Wasn’t it the same difference in the end?
Once she pulled herself together, she peeked around the corner at the parents.
The father’s eyes swam with his own devastation, but he let the tears drip silently down his face as he stayed strong and held his wife. She gasped for air with her own grieving sobs.
Nora gulped and leaned back against the wall.
This was getting harder and harder to handle. Barely twenty-seven years old, she already felt the weight of the world on her.
She wasn’t just emotionally exhausted by the losses she had witnessed and recently suffered herself. She was physically depleted as well. She wasn’t sleeping or eating like she should, and when she did find a moment to rest, the looming debt she owed for school and just to live slammed her.
Nora closed her eyes and asked herself if this was something she really wanted to keep doing. Nothing was going to bring her more joy than helping children. But she simply wasn’t making enough money, and the downside seemed to be getting more overwhelming the more time she spent here.
This was a question she had been dwelling on for a while. She had even started looking at other nursing jobs in the help wanted ads, hoping something might jump out at her. She needed better pay and less stress because her current situation was slowly killing her.
Nora’s inner contemplation was interrupted by the father coming to find her and discuss further action.
The mother stayed by the chairs while her husband did the questioning. Nora felt a flash of guilt every time the mother’s gaze pierced her, sensing the judgmental eyes that asked if Nora had done enough.
Nora never knew how to explain that she had given everything she had.
But it was never enough, and it got a little harder to face every day.
* * *
Nora droppedher bag on the floor of her apartment before she flipped on the lights and made her way to her bedroom.
She was drained, as usual. She wanted comfy clothes and tea. “Then I’ll look online for more job postings,” she promised herself. That had become the unwinding routine as of late.
Nora grabbed her reliable sweats and a baggy T-shirt as she discarded her bra and headed to the bathroom.
She pulled her blond hair out of its tight ponytail and massaged her scalp.
After quickly running a brush through it, she made her tea and finally sat on the couch with her laptop. She clicked the TV on to a show she had seen a thousand times and searched job postings as the noise buzzed in the background.
