Chapter 70
Garrett
These kinds of patients were always the worst.
Not the drunk ones. Not the ones caught in the throes of addiction, the disease forcing them to do shitty, deceitful things in an attempt to assuage the pain of withdrawal. Not even the hypochondriacs or demanding ones beat these. No, it was the quiet patients with haunted eyes that killed me every time.
Mrs Curtis said very little when I entered her bay, but the way she jumped, then shrank back against the bed, told me everything I needed to know. If that wasn’t enough, the bruises all over her body screamed it at me. Her husband, a big prick that stood too close, staring down at her with hard eyes, his hands forming fists and then relaxing, only to clench again, he made clear what he’d done, even if he was unaware of it.
Do a mandatory report of domestic violence, I thought, creating myself a checklist. Anything rather than see Katie there on bed, her beautiful brown eyes looking at me with the same kind of hurt as Mrs Curtis. Take some observations and?—
“Can we get out of here?” Mr Curtis, I presumed, huffed, his big boy act ruined by the furtive way he looked past me and out to the ward. “She’s fine.”
“That’s what the doctors will determine,” I said in my best arsehole whisperer voice. “Now, Mrs Curtis?—”
“Talk to me, mate.” Australians used the word mate to refer to their best friends or worst enemies. “You got anything you want to say?” The challenge was evident in his tone, the way his chin lifted. “You say it to me.”
“Right.” I was tired, too bloody tired, but of course, I still had work to do. That exhaustion, the hopelessness I felt all the way home, threatened to break me right now, but I wouldn’t due to the likes of Mr Curtis. Men that beat up women, abused them? There had to be a special kind of hell for them if there was any justice in the world. “Well, I need to do some observations.” I held up the blood pressure monitor and clipboard. “Take your blood pressure, temperature?—”
“You’re wasting these people’s time, you know that, right?” The fact the man dared to use such a scathing tone in front of a complete stranger had my hackles raising. Abusers could escalate and it felt like this man’s control was fraying by the second. “The emergency department is packed with people that really need help and you had to come in here?—”
It felt like his hand moved like a glacier, too slow, too ponderously, but with a power that had its own inertia. Too tired to default to my usual professional manner, my hand shot out, stopping him from grabbing her arm by taking control of his. My thumb pressed down into the sensitive muscles just above the ulnar, grinding into the bones until the man was forced to snatch his hand back as if stung.
“What the fuck…?” The curtain around the bay was whisked back and a doctor walked in, taking in the entire scene with a slight frown. “We’re going.” He went to wrench his wife from the bed. “Not staying around here letting some pussy nurse manhandle me.”
“What…?” the doctor frowned, then stepped out and looked down the hallway. “Security!”
“Security? Security?” Mr Curtis shouted. “What the fuck do we need security for? To take this prick away from grabbing me? I want him charged!”
Half an hour later, I was standing in Cora’s office, before her desk, waiting for her to turn up and discipline me like a naughty schoolboy. Sure enough, her door was wrenched open and she marched in, a pinched expression on her face. My union rep was with her, but the look on the woman’s face didn’t fill me with hope.
“Any reason why you would assault a patient?” Looked like we were getting right down to brass tacks. Cora sat down in her chair, but didn’t indicate I was to do the same. Her head came to rest on her hands as she stared me down. “I understand the situation was a difficult one.”
“Curtis has been charged with domestic violence,” the union rep said almost apologetically. “He’d breached an Aggravated Violence Order.”
“But that doesn’t mean my staff need to act like judge, jury and executioner.” Cora scowled at me before looking down at her computer. “You have a clean record with no previous incidents.”
Yes, I fucking did. Every day I did my job, pushed myself to be my best, not that it made a difference.
“But this…” A sharp shake of Cora’s head let me know how this was going to go. “I’ll need to put you on administrative leave while we investigate the situation.”
Why did that feel like a death sentence and a relief all at the same time?
That gave me pause.
You shouldn’t feel that way about a job, right? To be looking frantically for a way out, like a rat trapped in a maze, all while trying to do your best to navigate its twists and turns as fast as you can.
“Paid leave,” the union rep said firmly. “Curtis obviously bashed his wife.”
“Allegedly.” Cora said that far too primly, setting the pens and paperwork on her desk in perfect right angles to each other. “The matter is for the police to deal with, but Garrett’s actions, they could affect the case, let alone re-traumatising the poor victim.”
The two of them talked about how things would go, haggling like two women at market. I just watched them talk and talk, not really hearing the words. It was a meaningless, discordant tune, one that was joined by a far off orchestra. The sound of voices beyond the door, one blaring over the PA system. The beep of heart rate monitors, the wail of sirens, they washed over me. It was a massive sea of noise and I was drowning in it.
That was when I took a step backwards.
That’s what you did when a tidal wave was rushing forward for you. You got the hell out of its path, didn’t just stand there and let it swallow you whole. Cora broke off and frowned as she watched me move closer to the door.
“Garrett…” The union rep’s voice was gentle. It was the same tone we used when patients were panicking, designed to help their nervous system reset. “It’s OK.”
But it wasn’t. I felt it now, everything I’d been trying so damn hard to keep down. This was wrong. I didn’t need to be polite and professional around dicks like Curtis. I’d worked hard to make sure my body was strong. What was the point of that if it wasn’t to drag fucks like him around the back of the hospital and beat the shit out of him until he never dared raise his hand against a woman again? Of course, that was when my phone buzzed. I pulled it out and then looked blankly at the screen.
We’re going to Katie’s , Rhys had written. Rhett’s quit. I told Drew to buy me out of the gym. We need to talk about what to do with the house.
I blinked, feeling like I’d somehow walked in the middle of a conversation.
Or? I typed out.
Or you can come with us. I watched the bubble appear and something loosened the god awful pressure in my chest, letting me take a full breath. Leave your shit job behind. Each one of us likes to help people. How about we help the most important person in our life?
When? I asked.
Now, came his reply. We’re out front, Gar.
“I need to go.” That came out all croaky, but I didn’t bother to clear my throat, heading to the door.
“You’re on administrative leave, Garrett!” Cora snapped. “Until an investigation is complete.”
She was going to make me jump through hoops, flex her muscles just to make herself feel big by making me small. I shook my head.
“Don’t bother.” Finally, finally I felt like the haze in my head was clearing. “Because I quit.”
Both women called after me as I strode out the door, but they weren’t the ones that mattered. Katie did. I walked past hospital beds, other nurses and doctors, but didn’t respond as they turned to stare. Just keep on walking, I thought, to Katie. Beyond the doors, out into the night, my bag left in my locker, but I couldn’t bring myself to go back to get it. The hospital was like quicksand, ready to suck me back in. Instead, I breathed in the night air with greedy gulps.
“Well, we got him outside.” Rhys appeared, a broad smirk on his face. “That’s promising.”
“We need to make a decision,” Rhett said. “The right one, this time.”
“I apologised,” I snapped, all the frustration I tried to tamp down coming bubbling up. “I fucked up, and I apologised and?—”
“Now you need to put your money where your mouth is.” Rhett frowned. “Your body? That saying makes no damn sense.”
“What Mr Roboto is saying is words are cheap, Garrett.” Rhys stepped forward. “Action talks and bullshit walks. We just need to know, are you full of shit or are you a man of your word?”
“We can’t do this without you,” Rhys said. “Who’s going to patch us up after we undoubtably have an industrial accident on the work site?”
“Speak for yourself,” Rhett said, shooting him a dark look. “I use proper PPE and follow safety protocols.”
“Who’s going to annoy the shit out of Katie’s nan, co-opting her kitchen to cook amazing meals made from local ingredients? No more farmers’ markets needed when you live on a damn farm.”
“You need me to be the farm medic?” I asked, finding myself smiling despite everything.
“We need you to show Katie how serious we are about her,” Rhett replied. “We screwed shit up with Natasha. Let’s not make the same mistake twice.”
He was about to come with us. I saw it in the way he took a step forward, the first one in the right direction, but of course that was the moment some officious cow came marching out of the emergency department.
“Look, you have an acts of service kink,” Rhys said.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“It used to be enough for you making sure we ate, had showers and cleaned up after ourselves, but really you wanted more.” Rhys peered into my eyes. “Someone you can pour all that love into and get just as much back. Working here is gonna kill you. You know it and I know it. It’s just a matter of when. Don’t you want to put the burden down?” I glanced back at the hospital for just a moment. “Don’t you want to choose Katie?”
“And what if she doesn’t want me?” I barely whispered that. “I fucked up?—”
“So make it up to her,” Rhett replied. “Walking away from this shithole, that’d be a helluva good first step. Each one of us wants someone to love and something meaningful to do. Maybe…Maybe we can find a way to do that together.”
I couldn’t answer them straight away. All the habitual bullshit that kept me in this place was weighing me down. It was like concrete blocks tied to my feet, dragging me back under the waves. But I couldn’t let it. Not for myself. Rhys was right, there was something about that perfect and total surrender of my ego to a greater cause that was endlessly seductive, but for Katie… I wrenched off my scrub top and let it fall from my fingers.
“Let’s go and get our girl.”
It was midmorning when we rolled up the driveway to the farm. Bronson came bounding out, barking to alert everyone inside that we were here. Katie came stumbling out, still dressed in her PJ’s, her eyes slightly red and swollen. They blinked right now, as if unable to believe what she was seeing and that had me striding across the driveway to pull her close.
“You want to build a shelter here? We’re here to help.” I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, closing my eyes for just a second to breathe in her perfume. “We’ll always be here for you.” I pulled back for just a second. “If you want us to.”
“Told you it’d all work out.”
Her nanna stood there with a smug smile on her face, right as her husband emerged.
“So we’ve got another couple of visitors?” He looked us up and down. “You lot look like strong types. What do you know about feeding cattle?”
“Nothing,” I replied, “but we’ll learn. Whatever it takes to make this work, we’ll learn.”