Twenty minutes later, she was back on her feet with her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of chamomile tea. I’d put the call line in her phone, she’d stopped trembling, and a little color was returning to her cheeks. Only one other nurse was in the room with us now, having replaced the previous, unhelpful two from before. That nurse was Tanya, a trim black woman in her mid-40s who’d worked in trauma hospitals almost as long as Brinley had been alive. Tanya was my favorite coworker. She was great under pressure, had an excellent bedside manner, and knew more about treating people in emergency situations than most doctors we worked with.
Right now, she was standing with Brinley near the window, talking quietly, one hand gripping the younger woman’s shoulder. I tuned in and out as I gathered mine and Brinley’s stuff, trusting Tanya to know all the right words to use as she coaxed Brinley back from the brink.
“You did so well,” I heard her say. “And I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass to make you feel better. I’ve seen other nurses with more experience freeze up during nights like this, but you kept your shit together and did what you had to.” She turned to me. “Back me up, Aly.”
I slung Brinley’s bag over my shoulder and joined them. “She’s not lying,” I said. “You crushed it, from what I saw. And it’s totally normal to break down a little afterward. All that adrenaline built up too high, and your cortisol levels probably went bananas. There’s no shame in disappearing into a miniature stress coma. I still do it, too, on really bad nights.”
Brinley paled. “I thought tonight was really bad.”
Whoops. Time to backtrack.
“It was,” I said. “I just meant I didn’t see the worst this time. I think you and Mallory did.”
She let out a shaky breath. “Oh. Okay.”
Tanya turned back to her. “Now, Aly’s gonna give you a ride home. Her shift is over, too.”
Brinley looked between us. “But my car is here.”
Tanya nodded. “Yes, but we don’t think you should drive right now.”
Brinley seemed to see the wisdom in that. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I checked your schedule. We’re both on shift at the same time tomorrow, so I’ll give you a lift back. You parked in the employee lot?”
She nodded.
“Your car should be fine there. Do you need to get anything out of it?”
She frowned. “I don’t think so?”
Tanya plucked the tea from her hands. “Then you two should get out of here while you can.”
“Thank you,” I mouthed at her.
She nodded.
It wasn’t uncommon to get roped into a few more hours of work if you loitered too long after your shift ended because someone always needed an extra set of hands or more people were required to help stabilize a patient. Brinley wasn’t in any shape for that, and I’d been here four extra hours already. It was time to go.
I steered Brinley toward the exit, and we took the back way out to avoid running into anyone else. She was quiet as we walked but looked much better than when I first saw her, so I took that as a good sign.
“Do you live with anyone?” I asked her.
“My boyfriend,” she said.
“Is he home right now?” I didn’t love the idea of leaving her alone if he wasn’t.
She nodded. “He is. I texted him at the end of my shift before I sat down, and, well. You saw.”
“Talking about it helps,” I told her. “I’m not sure if your boyfriend is squeamish, but telling him about what you went through tonight could get some of it out of your head.”
“I’m not sure,” she said, her voice laced with indecision.
“You don’t have to go into detail. Just the basics. And I put my number in your phone along with the therapist line, so you can always call me too.”
She shot me a relieved look. “Thank you. I don’t think he’d get it. You know?”
I nodded. I did know. Unlike Brinley, I was single…ish, but even when I had partners, I didn’t talk shop with them. I never dated seriously – I was too career-focused for that right now – and talking about a bad day or how sad it was when I lost a patient felt like the kind of thing you saved for a significant other. Mostly, I spilled my guts to therapists or other nurses, and from the look on Brinley’s face, I could tell she would be the same. Civilians, as we called non-healthcare or emergency workers, didn’t get it a lot of the time.
We chatted more on the way home about safer topics like the latest TV show everyone was watching to distract ourselves from the night we’d had. By the time I dropped Brinley off at her townhouse, the sun was starting to rise over the city, glinting off the distant high-rises and painting the clouds a macabre ombre that ranged from the deep purple of new bruises to the arterial red of freshly spilled blood.
God, I’m morbid this morning, I thought, pulling my eyes from the sky.
I’d spent so much time trying to help and then distract Brinley that I hadn’t processed my own shitshow of a night. There was a guy who’d gotten stabbed three times, a woman with a broken wrist, bloody nose, and a guilty-looking husband who wouldn’t let her speak for herself, and a two-year-old with RSV so bad he had to be med-flighted to the children’s hospital.
The worst was the homeless man with frostbite. Not because it was an extreme case – his frostbite was relatively mild, and he’d keep all his toes – but because no one else in my rotation wanted to go in his room because he smelled so bad, complaining loudly enough in the hall outside that he probably heard them. It both broke my heart and pissed me off, so I sent the others running and took care of him myself.
Those were the kind of cases that stuck with me now, not the overly gory ones, but the sad ones. I fixated on them. Where was that man’s family? Were they looking for him? What about the woman being abused by her husband? Would she be able to get out before he hurt her again?
My drive home passed in a blur as these thoughts filled my head, and before I knew it, I was pulling into my driveway. The street was dark enough that my house was lit up by twinkling string lights. It was well into the second week of January, but a few of my neighbors still had their holiday decorations up, so I wasn’t rushing to take mine down. Seeing those lights flashing merrily in the pre-dawn gloom was precisely the kind of pick-me-up I needed – anything to keep the darkness at bay.
I turned my car off and got out. My house wasn’t much, just a small two-bedroom craftsman-style cottage in a semi-safe neighborhood, but it was all mine, and I was damn proud of the work I’d done fixing it up and putting my unique stamp on the place. The siding was an antique pale blue-green, the trim was a warm white, and the small front deck looked festive and inviting thanks to the holiday-themed welcome sign and the Christmas tree that sparkled with tinsel and decorations.
Inside, it was just as merry. I didn’t have any family left that mattered, and decking my house out top to bottom in seasonal décor was how I distracted myself from the depressing fact that I either spent the holidays alone or working every year.
A loud yowl split the air as I closed the door behind me and kicked off my shoes.
Well, I wasn’t entirely alone. I did have Fred to keep me company. He must have been fast asleep on my bed when I walked in because his yowling started farther away and then rose in pitch and volume as he raced toward me, like an ambulance screaming down a highway.
Man, he’s loud when he’s angry, I thought. If he kept this up, my nearest neighbors were going to start thinking I hurt him.
“Oh my god, Fred,” I said as my long-haired black and white cat raced around the corner. “You’re fine. I’m only a few hours late this time.”