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I’ve never been around children and having Elsie and Ralph visit me today only reinforces that I’ve missed the very years Elliot’s children are currently living with my own daughter. She was a four-year-old like them once. A five-year-old. Six. And yet I know nothing of her. Nothing about her. I don’t even know the colour of her hair.
I wonder if the stack of letters I left scattered on the kitchen island holds the answers. Scarlet said they did.
I have so many questions, and yet I can’t find it in me to get angry at her for not being here to tell me the answers.
Scarlet
Night shifts are my preferred working hours. It’s the only time I can be here guilt free. The only time when the most important people in my life rest their heads on pillows, and I can stop worrying. The hospital never stops. It’s always here waiting for me, always pure chaos. And when it isn’t, you can find it. Seek it out or wait. It comes. Every time.
“So, I’m waiting on blood work for the patient in bay three. Five came down from recovery around two hours ago and is managing with the pain fab for now. We have a new patient in two. She’s likely to be on the schedule for surgery first thing so nil by mouth from midnight.”
“Perfect,” I say, finishing off jotting down the information Deanna has given me for handover. “I don’t suppose you know how the guy in room three is doing?”
“Room three.” She frowns, scribbling something on her list. “The guy who came off the bike?”
“Yeah.” I school my features in a bid to seem as interested as I would be in any other patient.
“He’s doing good from what I know. I think Annie has been keeping an eye on him for most of today.”
“Annie?”
“Yeah. She mentioned he’ll be discharged by the end of the week.”
“Already?” So, they won’t be operating.
Deanna doesn’t say anything more as she disappears down the corridor and toward our office to collect her things.
I just sit and stare toward his room.
I can’t help but think he’s struggling mentally. He’s very quiet. Is that normal?
I swallow down the nervous energy stirring at the base of my throat.
There’s always that one patient. Every ward has them, and every ward dreads them. Tonight, my one patient, the man yelling at me not to come near him while gripping the rails of his bed in tight fists, his name is Mick.
“Mr Evelly, please calm down so that I can speak to you.”
“Get out.”
I take a step backward, knowing there’s a fine line between respecting his personal space and the chances of him tearing his stitches if he doesn’t calm down. All was fine when I left the ward for my break, and yet when I came back, I found the FY2 doctor with a nasty gouge down her arm and Mick in his bed yelling at anyone that tried to get close.
“I’ll leave if you can promise me you’ll stop thrashing around in that bed. You’re pulling on your stitches and risking opening your wound. Calm down, Mr Evelly, and let us help you.”
He looks to his forearm, his eyes narrowed on the covered wound. His body gradually stills.
“I’ll give you a minute,” I tell him. “You can call us in if you need us.”
I step out of his bay and drag the curtain around, instantly locking eyes with the shocked woman in the bay opposite.
“Are you okay?” I ask, refraining from blowing out the sigh I want to. I walk to the lady’s bay. “Would you prefer your curtain to be pulled around for a little while?”
“No, no, that’s okay, my love.” She looks around me at Mick’s bay. “Is that young doctor okay?”
“She’ll be fine,” I reassure her.
“He grabbed her. She was only checking his arm, and he reacted as if she’d been the one to put him in that bed.” She looks up at me, her face sad. “You wonder what did put him in the bed with a temper like that.”
I grimace and look behind me. The silence from the other side of the curtain is deafening. “Why don’t you get some sleep while it’s quiet. I’ll be around if you need me before Dr Bondry comes back.”
