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  “I’m just saying it is possible to be happy. There are those few lucky people who actually find the one and live long lives of contentment together.”

  “I don’t know if I even believe in finding ‘the one’,” she admitted in defeat. “The whole concept of thinking that in the whole wide world of seven billion people, there’s only one out there that’s perfect for me? Those are the most horrible odds I’ve ever heard.”

  She had a good point.

  “Sure, there are certain people you’re more compatible with than others and you may even luck into finding one of them and being happy-ish until one of you dies, but at what cost?”

  The nail technician pulled my feet out of the warm sudsy water, drying them off before setting them on the footrest one by one as I listened to my friend rant and ramble.

  “My career is important to me!” she barked, as if she needed to convince me. “My social life, my independence, my…space.”

  “And all of those things would be casualties if you fell in love?” I challenged while my polish was being applied. “What about wanting to share your life achievements and adventures with a companion? What about it being more about the journey than the finish line?”

  “Hold on…” she interrupted, facing me in confrontation.

  Here it comes.

  “This is mighty philosophical for someone who’s not in any kind of relationship herself. What about Miss Workaholic over here doling out the romance advice like she’s Dr. Phil instead of Dr. Fine?”

  “Okay, okay. That’s enough.”

  “No, hold up—what about sharing your life achievements and adventures with someone? What about your journey?”

  “We’re talking about you right now, not me,” I countered. “You’re the one who brought luggage to my house a few hours ago seeking refuge.”

  “Oh my God.” She inhaled sharply. “What am I going to do? He can’t come home and see all of my things gone.”

  “Wait, what?” I faltered. “So, you’re not moving out?”

  “Hell no!” she exclaimed, looking at me like I had just sprouted a second head. “I can’t leave. If I leave now, he’ll know something’s up. He’ll know I found the ring. He can’t know I found that ring.”

  “And why can’t he know that?” I questioned as the woman carefully put my flip-flops back on my feet without messing up the newly painted polish.

  “Because then he won’t ask me to marry him!”

  “You’re making no sense whatsoever,” I declared, enunciating each word slowly and clearly. “First you need space and pack your stuff, scared of a proposal, and now you love him and want him to propose?”

  “No. Well, yes, I guess…sort of.”

  “You are so weird.” I resigned myself to leaning back and enjoying the lotion being applied to my legs while Rowan continued to vent.

  Chapter 5

  Andie

  It didn’t feel like enough time had passed since my horrific shift but sure enough, Tuesday had arrived, my next scheduled workday. My cell phone vibrated on my bedside table while playing some incessant music in place of an alarm clock, rudely yanking me out of my dream. I heard my father’s voice like it was right next to me shouting, “Time to make the doughnuts!” A doughnut actually sounded pretty good. I normally didn’t eat like that, generally sticking to a healthier diet, but I occasionally indulged.

  My thoughts drifted back to Rowan and I hoped everything had gone well after she left the day before. Despite her promise to feed me, we rushed from the nail salon back to my house to retrieve her luggage so she could try to beat Richard back home and unpack everything before he ever knew about her freak-out. Apparently, she was successful and he was none the wiser about the whole ordeal, or at least I assumed so since I hadn’t heard otherwise.

  After scarfing down some chicken salad, I’d rallied from my exhaustion and ended up having a somewhat productive day. I got two loads of laundry done and even managed to pick up some Brussels sprouts for my mother, dropping them off at her house in the early evening. Finally falling asleep during some crime drama show, I was thankful I’d gotten a solid night of sleep, never knowing what kind of day the emergency room would bring.

  Glancing outside, I saw that the weather looked nice and I had a few extra minutes of time, so I opted to ride my bicycle to work. I packed my lunch and also packed an extra brown bag for Mel in case I saw him on the way. Mel was my favorite homeless friend who tended to stay around the Springfield area. I saw him often when coming and going from work and sometimes when I randomly decided to jog around the neighborhood. He was a tough nut to crack. I was pretty sure he hated me at first and I thought he was trying to run me off by barking curse words and insults at me, but I wasn’t exactly sure. I thought he had a kindness behind his eyes. So, I remained positive and friendly, and eventually he warmed up to me. I was pretty confident now that he suffered from mental illness of some kind. He’d alluded to a military background and sometimes talked about a daughter who lived up north; apparently I favored her. He was a huge guy with an intimidating presence but a kind soul if you took the time to speak to him.

  Hating to wear scrubs out in public, I threw on workout pants and a tank top, and with my work clothes and shoes in my backpack, I took off. A few blocks away, I took a slight detour to the left toward Klutho Park in search of my sweet friend. He was sitting in the middle of a field of clover, his grocery basket of belongings close by. His eyes were closed and his face was upturned, soaking in the sunlight, so peaceful that I hated to interrupt the moment. But, I had to get to work.

  “Mel?” I ventured softly.

  His eyes opened and he turned to me with a smile on his face. “Dr. Andie! How are you today?”

  “I’m well, thank you. How’s life treating you?”

  “Oh, you know—same shit, different day.” I chuckled at his blunt and crude way of viewing life. “Are you headed to save the world?”

  “Well, not quite the world, maybe just a few people.”

  “One at a time, doc.”

  “I can’t stay long, but I haven’t seen you in a while so I rode over and thought I might try to find you.”

  “And here I am.”

  Twisting my backpack around to the front of my body, I began to unzip it. “I brought you something to eat too.”

  “Aww, doc, you know you don’t have to do that. I do just fine out here on my own.”

  “I know, but I made this really good chicken salad and didn’t have anyone to share it with. You do like chicken salad, right?”

  He grinned and reached his hand out to accept my sandwich. “Sho do. Thanks for this.”

  “Thank you for not making me waste my leftovers,” I replied with a smile. “There are a few other things in here too.” I tossed him the brown paper bag and turned the handlebars of my bike in the opposite direction, about to pedal off.

  The bag rustled as he opened it to find the other items, and as I left he shouted, “Aww, man, doc—fresh fruit? You’re killin’ me!”

  “Not a chance, Mel!” I shouted over my shoulder. “I’m saving you. Eat the fruit!”

  When I arrived at the hospital a few minutes later, the ER seemed pretty calm. Dismounting my bicycle, I walked it right through the double doors and straight past the triage desk. Even with a bike lock, I knew not to leave it outside in this neighborhood. It wouldn’t last two hours. So, even though it was frowned upon, I always wheeled it into my call room and no one really seemed to care enough to say anything to me about it.

  Changing into my scrubs and shoes, I put my hair up and exited the room to find out what the day had in store. The outgoing call team was already gathered and had started reporting on patients when I approached. As I straddled an empty chair, I spotted Rowan opposite me, and she smiled excitedly. I grinned in reciprocation and tried to pay attention to what the lead trauma physician was talking about. He concluded his report on that patient and started updating us on the next one, who I instantly recogniz
ed to be my MVA from the other night.

  Knowing I would be the one to round on him later that day, I was anxious to get a complete picture of his condition. He had been making sporadic appearances in my thoughts since Monday, and I was eager to get him out of my head.

  “Thirty-five-year-old male in ICU room seven. Vaughn Bennett. He’s still in critical condition but stable, on the vent since coding in the ER prior to surgery. Vent settings are eight hundred, SIMV of twelve, fifty percent, and plus five. His sats have been holding in the low nineties but we haven’t been able to try to wean him yet.”

  I notated all the information in my notepad, knowing that just because he was currently stable, that didn’t mean he’d stay that way.

  “H and H are stable at nine point two and thirty-one point eight, that’s after four units PRBCs and six units fresh frozen plasma.”

  “Sounds like we had a bleeder, all right,” another ER doctor interjected.

  “Yeah, Dr. Fine and Dr. Bowers did a great job with the ruptured spleen and liver laceration before Dr. Coston went in to repair a tear in the pericardial sac. He’s lucky to be alive.”

  He proceeded to list off the other injuries, including a fractured right fibula, three fractured ribs, and a mild to moderate traumatic brain injury. I wanted to get my hands on that head CT first since it had been haunting me. I knew we had needed to get to the OR when we did, but you always question what’s the more critical priority. The remainder of the report was concluded and I arose to walk away, eager to get up to the ICU.

  “Andie, hold up,” I heard behind me. Rowan was scurrying to catch up with me. “Where are you going?”

  “ICU,” I responded, still walking away. “I want to round on my patient from the other night.” I paused to glance at my notes. “Bennett.”

  The name didn’t sound familiar.

  “Oh. Can I walk with you?”

  “Sure.”

  Rowan promptly started in on telling me all about Richard getting home just as she was putting the last of her toiletries back into the bathroom. “I can’t believe I made it. He doesn’t suspect a thing.”

  “That’s good, I guess.” My mind was preoccupied, and I really had to struggle to feign any sort of interest in her relationship woes in that moment.

  “It is. Listen, I’m sorry about that whole deal. I was just freaking out.”

  “It’s okay. You’re allowed to freak out from time to time. But, perhaps a phone call would be a little more reasonable next time. I can try to talk you off the ledge before you pack up all of your stuff,” I teased as the elevators dinged, signaling our arrival. I swiped my badge for admittance onto the locked unit and the immediate onslaught of sounds was intense: IV pumps beeping in tune with ventilator dings and monitor bells, all the chimes and alarms assaulting my ears all at once. Normal people didn’t understand how medical professionals could stand the overstimulation all day, but you eventually get used to it.

  Rowan excused herself to say hello to one of her friends and I rounded the corner to see that room seven was empty of any other staff or visitors. Relieved, I slowly entered the room and quietly closed the door behind me. The smooth and steady rhythm of his ventilator breathing air into his lungs was calming. The uneasiness I felt in the moment was strange, and I forced myself to shake it off. Sitting down next to his bedside, I opened his chart, which I had swiped from the rack at the nurses’ station before walking in.

  On paper, he was absolutely lucky to be alive. So much was going on that it was challenging to focus on one injury being more paramount than another. Fishing under the radiology tab, I found the CT scan of the head that had been done after surgery.

  Soft tissue swelling, 8mm skull fracture, intracranial hematoma, suspected diffuse axonal injury…

  It wasn’t the worst head CT I had ever seen, but it certainly wasn’t the best. A glance at the labs was reassuring, and I was ready to see just what we were dealing with.

  Rising from my chair, I finally looked at him—really looked at him. He had tubes coming out of everywhere, including an ICP bolt measuring the pressure in his head, which I assumed Dr. Bowers had placed to monitor any increases. I could see that he was pretty beaten up. Scrapes of road rash were all over his face, neck, and arms. I searched his face for anything familiar, but nothing sparked in my mind. This complete stranger before me was just that—a stranger. I lowered the blanket down, leaving just his thin gown between my cold stethoscope and his skin, and put the buds into my ears. Leaning over, I placed the bell near his heart but over a touch because of the chest dressing still in place over the sternum. I heard a strong and steady beat return. Next, I moved the bell over the lungs, first starting with the left upper and then lower, followed by his right upper and then lower, all clear and even. When attempting to listen to the back of his lungs, I had to move his hospital gown to hear better. His skin looked awful with bruises all along his rib cage. It looked as if he had been beaten with a bat. When my fingertips touched his clammy skin, I noticed a slight reaction, such a minimal flinch that I almost didn’t notice. The stethoscope didn’t seem to elicit the same response. Once I was satisfied with his heart and lung sounds, I moved on to a head-to-toe physical examination. The curtain was closed already, allowing for privacy, so I carefully lifted the lower part of his gown above his torso, exposing his abdomen. His dressing was in place over his vertical abdominal surgical wound and looked to be dry and intact. I listened to his bowel sounds with my stethoscope and noted the pink-tinged serosanguinous drainage in his JP drain. All the while, his monitors sang a steady rhythm of vital signs and breaths.

  I got my pen light out as well as my Wartenberg wheel and moved to the foot of the bed, careful to not disturb the cast his right leg was in due to the fractured fibula. Uncovering his feet from beneath the blanket, I could see that his toes were getting good circulation. As I ran the wheel along the part of his sole not obscured by the casting, his toes immediately curled, which was exactly the response I was hoping for. His reflexes were normal considering the level of sedation he had to be on to tolerate the ventilator, so I repositioned the blanket and walked up toward the head of the bed.

  I hadn’t spoken a word to him yet and while he was unconscious, it didn’t feel right to me.

  “Mr. Bennett,” I said softly, “I’m Dr. Fine. I operated on you when you came in the other night, after your accident.” The room wasn’t silent because of the machines, but there was eeriness to the empty silence. It wasn’t like I expected him to sit right up and carry on a conversation with me, but still.

  This is stupid.

  I clicked my pen light on and gently opened the eyelids of his right eye with my left hand, shining the light into his pupils from the side, crossing into his field of vision. His pupil had a smooth, brisk reaction, and I exhaled in relief.

  Repeating the action on his left eye, I was met with the same response.

  He has beautiful eyes.

  Wait, what? What the hell is wrong with me?

  I stood a moment, looking at his face, so broken and beaten by the car accident, and I reached down to take his hand into mine.

  “We’re going to take great care of you, Mr. Bennett. Just rest now.”

  He didn’t grasp my hand in return but I felt a jolt of energy pass between us—a connection. An unusual wave of familiarity came over me, making my stomach flip. Glancing up at the telemetry monitor, I saw an instant spike in his heart rate from the low eighties to just over one hundred.

  “Can you hear me?” I asked him, sounding absurd to myself. “Mr. Bennett, can you squeeze my hand?”

  Nothing happened, but his pulse remained in the one hundreds.

  “It’s okay. Your brain needs to rest and your body needs to heal. Don’t try to fight this. Just sleep.”

  My attempt at being soothing and comforting was thwarted by a nurse bursting into the room, causing me to snatch my hand away in a rush. I shouldn’t have been embarrassed—I wasn’t doing anything wrong or unpr
ofessional.

  “Oh, Dr. Fine! Sorry, I didn’t think anyone was in here,” the nurse explained. “Should I come back?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m almost done.” With one last glance at his monitor, I saw that his pulse was back down to the low nineties. “Has he been responding to any verbal stimuli yet?”

  “None at all. I was his nurse yesterday too, not much of anything.”

  “Has he had any family come in? Next of kin? A spouse?” The question was a completely appropriate one for his physician to be asking, but as the words left my mouth, I felt insecure about them. I didn’t want to look like I was asking for the wrong reasons.

  You are LOSING it.

  “No, ma’am. I don’t think they were ever able to notify any next of kin or family. He wasn’t in the system so he doesn’t have any emergency contact.”

  “How did they identify him at all?”

  “His wallet was found at the scene of the accident, I guess.”

  I hadn’t even asked that night, so focused on fixing his injuries and not recognizing that this was a person—someone’s son or brother, maybe someone’s husband. That thought put a bad taste into my mouth, which made me feel like a fool.

  Needing to get out of that room and avoid making a total idiot of myself, I gave the nurse verbal orders before walking out.

  “He needs a complete bed bath and dressing change for his abdominal wound, and I’m ordering a repeat head CT for this afternoon.”

  As I hightailed it out of there, I nearly knocked someone over rounding the corner.

  “Whoa there!” Rowan bellowed. “Slow down. You trying to kill somebody?” I looked up and her face was lighthearted and joking, but I wasn’t in the mood, not to mention we were in a critical care unit where people actually were dying. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Yes you are…Dr. Fine,” she quipped while wriggling her brows, finding herself hilarious.

  I began walking away, eager to get off the unit and maybe get some fresh air. She followed close behind me and persisted in nagging me.