Chapter 32 Sloane
Sloane
If you stand on the roof of St. Peter’s of Mercy Hospital at night, the view is incredible.
Back when Alexis and I were kids, my father used to bring us up here sometimes when his shifts were quiet.
The doctors would turn a blind eye—Alan Romera was a beloved employee, a radiologist for thirty-five years in the very place where I now work.
He moved out to private practice in L.A.
long before I ever showed my face here as a clueless intern, but his name still means something in these hallways. He could get away with anything.
His favorite time to bring us up here was when it snowed.
A common enough occurrence, but it would still have my sister and me jumping out of our skins with excitement.
The soft white flakes spinning dizzily from the vast sky, the thick blanket of cloud that incubated the world…
it was thrilling. We would stand for hours, necks burning from craning them back for so long, until our bodies went numb, and Dad would usher us inside before one of us got sick.
Memories like that rush back, knocking the wind out of me every time I come up here.
I push them down tonight, though. It isn’t snowing, it’s raining, and we’re waiting on a trauma to come in.
It makes me feel sick, the waiting. The adrenaline I need to think, act, move quickly is already pulsing around my body, useless until I can actually see what we’re dealing with.
The wind howls, driving the rain sideways, lashing our bodies, soaking surgical gowns.
Oliver stands with me, waiting patiently.
He’s a good friend, a good man. Funny, smart, attractive, a terrible flirt. It’s a miracle he’s single.
In the distance, a volley of mechanical sound reverberates off the city’s high-rises. “Hear that? The helo.” Oliver nudges me with his elbow. “Can’t be more than a mile out. Hit the elevator.”
The elevator has been held on this floor for the past ten minutes, doors closed. The nursing team are waiting with a gurney and life-support gear inside, all nice and warm and dry. Time for those bastards to get wet, too.
I jog back to the steel doors and hit the call button just as a powerful gust of wind blows, hurling freezing water into the faces of the three young nurses laughing and joking inside.
Mikey the intern stops what he was doing, frozen in place.
His hands are locked behind his head, hips thrust forward, bottom lip caught between his teeth.
“You auditioning as a male stripper, Hoxam?” I yell over the wind and rain.
“No. No! Sorry, Dr. Romera, it—”
“Won’t happen again?”
“No! No, ma’am. Never.”
Ma’am? Fuck me. I’m twenty-six years old, and these idiots think I’m ancient. “Well, when you feel like pretending to be a doctor again, maybe you can move your ass. The helo’s on approach.”
I’ll give him one thing: Mikey Hoxam is either a bag of nerves or a complete goof-off, but he gets a ten out of ten for enthusiasm. He’s the first out of the elevator, pushing the gurney onto the rooftop. The helicopter’s wheels are on the tarmac by the time we all reach Oliver.
“You ready?” he yells to me.
“Yes, sir!” Mikey yells right back. Oliver gives him a look that would strip paint clean off wood. The intern realizes his mistake and has the common sense to blush. I can’t help but smirk.
“Yeah, I’m ready! Let’s go!” We rush the helicopter doors. Two paramedics clamber out, lifting a backboard behind them, its cargo small and fragile.
“Maisie Richards, seven years old. Hypothermic. Deep laceration to right thigh. Found seizing face down in the bath. Unconscious. Pulse is still tachy. Coded en route. Shocked twice.”
“Okay, let’s get her inside!”
Oliver and the crash team hunker down underneath the whipping rotor blades of the helicopter as they take charge of the patient and rush back toward the elevator. I turn back to the paramedics gathering their stuff from the medevac. “Where are the parents?”
The first paramedic, a woman with frown lines carved deep between her brows, sighs frustratedly. “Who knows? Neighbor was dropping food round for the kid. Let themselves in when Maisie didn’t answer. Found her in the tub.”
“What? She was on her own?”
The medic shakes her head like she can hardly believe it herself.
“Romera! Come on!” Oliver is holding the elevator door open. I run, almost missing the ride down as the doors slide closed.