Chapter 9
“We’re going to send you for an echocardiogram, Mr. Rath. Your heart is still harboring a little arrhythmia. We just want to make sure it isn’t something that needs a deeper look, okay?” I tell the fifty-something-year-old electrician who has been in my care for eight days. He came in with third degree electrical burns, and his heart has been acting up since, which isn’t uncommon.
“Whatever you tell me, Vi.” He grins. His pain is a lot better now.
“All right, someone will be in to help you into the wheelchair in a few minutes,” I tell him, pulling the latex gloves from my hands and popping them with my disposable gown into the soiled bin at the edge of the semi-private room.
I duck out and enter in the meds I just administered into the rolling computer outside his door. It’s a quiet night, I only have two patients in my wing right now, so I’ve been able to pay close attention to them, which is the way I like it.
I make my way to the nurses’ station and sit down behind the desk, picking up what’s left of my iced coffee. I don’t normally drink caffeine at night but the first night of my six-night stretch is always the worst. I rotate through one overnight shift of six nights per month, which is better than my previous every other week cycle.
I’m hoping with this new schedule I won’t be zombie mom half the time. I pull my phone out. 9:30 p.m. I quickly text my mom.
How’d she go down?
Mom
Just fine, darlin.
I sigh in relief, hoping we’re on the right track now with bedtime.
Thanks.
Mom
At some point you’re gonna have to stop thanking me for watching after my own grandbaby. It’s my job and I love it.
I smile.
Thanks.
Mom
I laugh.
Mom
Besides I can catch up on housewives this way, your dad will never watch it with me.
I laugh and stuff my phone in the back pocket of my scrubs as the desk phone rings from the ER.
Casey, the other nurse on my floor, answers it. I semi listen as I add some notes to Mr. Rath’s chart.
“They didn’t ice him, did they? I’ve been telling the fieldies not to do that, it always makes it worse,” Casey says to the other end of the line. That gets my attention. Fieldies means medics with the woodland firefighting crew.
“Fieldies did everything they could.” A memory of hearing that when Jacob came into the hospital flashes through my mind. I blink and try to take a deep breath, it doesn’t come.
Something happened on the line. I’ve been watching the fires burning in Skykomish all week. I know our local hotshots are on it because my dad has been talking about it. My blood instantly starts racing at the thought of someone I know being hurt or worse. The familiar crushing weight settles in my chest. I try to breathe and remind myself that Casey is too calm for it to be really bad. Whoever it is, he must be okay. Right?
Casey asks a few more questions as I listen intently. Her short red bob is tucked behind her ear. I catalogue the things she says in the conversation.
Second degree burns, patient’s left leg, minimal to no third degree, scattered first and second degree to the upper arm and shoulder. Ten percent of his body surface is affected. Mild steam burns in various places, smoke inhalation. Male, Caucasian, twenty-eight.
My stomach drops as I try to remember the ages of all the guys on King’s crew. Is anyone else twenty-eight but him?
I can’t think. I get up and try to remember how to breathe as I move behind the chair to watch her open her screen, trying to get a look at his file. She hangs up and looks up at me before I can read his name.
“They’re sending up a hotshot. It’s Rowan Kingsley.”
I physically feel the blood drain from my face as my heart pounds in my ears and my whole body grows hot.
“There’s something else, Vi…he fell into an ash pit.”
The tightness takes over my chest before the words have even left her mouth. Every vision I’ve had of how I imagined Jacob’s last moments to be, plays through my mind. I will my knees and my voice to stay strong as I speak. I knew when taking this job that I could see this. I’ve been talking myself up about it for a month.
“We’ll put him in 306-A, he’ll be the only one in there. He may be up quite a bit through the night with the pain.” I hear myself talking to her, but my voice has the same weird echo around it that I always get when I’m willing my head to stay straight, like I’m listening to myself talk, not actually commanding my brain. It’s almost robotic.
“Vi? Are you okay?” she asks, standing.
My eyes flit to hers, they’re lined with concern. I realize I’m still white knuckling her chair and panting. I let go and flex my hands. Another day. This is another day’s problem.
“Yeah, I just…how are they saying he’s doing?” I ask her, laser focused and intent on thinking of him like any other patient. I have a job to do.
She reaches out and rubs my arm. “He’s stable.” She knows I know him—everyone does. And she knows what happened to my brother was similar. Only he wasn’t so lucky.
I breathe out a shaky breath and nod. “Okay, then. Let’s get his room ready. How long?” I ask her
“Ten to fifteen minutes,” she says, noting the room in his chart.
“I’ll grab some supplies,” I tell her, needing a second alone to compose myself before I see him.
I make my way to the supply room and close the door behind me leaning on it, begging my heart rate to come down.
I close my eyes, inhaling for five, exhaling for five. Too many memories of him wash through my mind in real-time as I grab a plastic bin to fill with some necessities, wondering what happened, or how he got out of the pit. I tell myself he’s okay and that he’s just like any other patient. I repeat it over and over until I almost believe it.
When I get to King’s room, Casey is done making up his bed. I set everything I grabbed onto his bedside tray, knowing we’ll go through it quickly.
“I just need a few more minutes here, do you want to go down and meet them in the bay?” Casey asks as she finishes up, turning the overhead light on and closing the blinds.
“Yeah,” I tell her “I’ve got it.”
She nods. “When I’m through here, I’ll go check on D Wing. Call me if you need me.”
“Thanks,” I tell her, leaving the room, I look down at my hands, shaking. I will them to steady.
The wait at the trauma bay seems endless. I fiddle with the drawstring of my pants, tighten my ponytail, drum my fingers on the desk, a million more questions and thoughts running through my head until I think I may drive myself crazy, and finally, I’m pacing. The noise around me is constant yet blends as I remember the last time I paced in a hospital like this.
I’m going to be his nurse. I’ll do my job and do it the way I always do.
I look at the clock above the main desk. Shit, I think it’s only been five minutes. I’m letting my past trauma over Jacob cloud this situation, I know I am. I don’t even know King anymore, his being injured shouldn’t affect me like this.
But it does .
If I can just see him… just get an idea that he’ll be ok , then I’ll be fine , I tell myself as I continue my figure eight around the bay.
The elevator doors opening is an almost deafening sound, kind of like a vacuum sucking the air from me. I’m not prepared for the way the sight of King laying on that bed rips my chest wide open and tears my heart into a million pieces. His blue eyes are closed. He's been changed into a hospital gown, but his face is dirty and covered in soot from the field, and his hair is caked in sweat, mussed and knotted. I can see the area on his good arm they scrubbed clean in order to get an IV in near his hand. His left arm is bandaged, mostly his upper bicep and shoulder. I take in where his burns are as I’m briefed by the ER nurse who accompanied him up. She walks with me as a porter pushes King.
“Dr. Grayson says your doc up here will want to assess him for skin grafts.” She mentions one of the ER docs who must have treated King.
“Is she thinking he’ll need some?” I ask.
The moment I speak King’s eyes slightly flutter open, and that damn lopsided smirk, although a little dozy this time, appears on his face.
Someone’s got some good pain meds in him.
“She didn’t seem to think so but it’s hard to tell yet,” the nurse offers.
I glance down at King as we walk. His left leg is out from under the blanket, already having been wrapped and treated by the ER staff. There are spots the gauze doesn’t cover, those areas look like they have patches of first-degree burns, angry and pink. His good arm even has some first degree burns on it. The ER nurse tells me his second-degree wounds have been cleaned and coated in Xylocaine jelly for pain.
“That must have been quite the job for you guys down there, getting him clean,” I say, gesturing to his filthy appearance.
“Uh…ya.” She laughs.
“Our doc up here will probably give it until tomorrow to assess,” I say back to her.
King’s eyes open a little more with my voice. Groggy, but just as blue as always. They’re bloodshot, and I wonder when the last time he actually slept well was.
“Hey, Vi,” King mumbles. “You look really fucking pretty.”
The ER nurse stops talking and eyes me up, I feel my cheeks flush.
“He was my brother’s friend,” I offer awkwardly.
“I was your friend too, until I fucked up and?—”
“Okay, let’s just get you settled.” I talk over him nervously, just hoping he’ll shut up. If he wasn’t already injured, I would smack him.
I look back at the ER nurse, she rolls her eyes and ignores our back and forth.
“He’s good and stable, we just gave him some morphine.”
That explains it.
“This stuff is the tits, Vi…I don’t feel anything.” Rowan gives me a very high thumbs up with his good hand, his eyes closed and his bottom lip between his teeth.
Christ almighty.
The nurse and I chat as the porter positions King’s bed into place. I work to hang his IV fluids up, hoping if no one says anything, King will just keep his thoughts to himself until I can get her out of here.
King mumbles something, but I can’t quite make it out. His tanned and soot covered skin is such a stark contrast to the gown and his good arm is propped up, strong and defined, even in rest. My brother’s tattoo is front and center, causing my chest to tighten as I take it in, reminding me once again that Jacob didn’t end up so lucky. I have a moment of sympathy rush through me thinking about King seeing Jacob in those moments and the demons he must live with.
I squeeze my eyes shut and take a breath in the dimly lit room.
“I’ll leave you to it,” the nurse says, a hint of a grin playing at the corners of her weathered eyes. “He’s all yours.”
I offer her a friendly smile. Outside, I’m the picture of composure, but inside, I’m wondering how the hell I’m going to make it through what looks like at least a week of me giving Rowan Kingsley close, personal care.