Chapter 21
twenty-one
MAYA
Of course I had to draw the fucking pediatric ward for my latest placement.
And today, it makes me want to quit nursing entirely.
“Maya?” Ethan’s voice is barely a whisper, his small hand cold in mine despite the three heated blankets we’ve piled on him. “Will you stay?”
The question shatters me, but I keep my voice steady and warm, the way I’ve been trained. “Of course, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.”
His mother, Rebecca, sits on his other side, her fingers trembling as she strokes his hair, or what’s left of it after months of chemo that ultimately failed. She hasn’t stopped touching him in the past hour, as if her hands alone could anchor him to this world.
His father, Marcus, stands at the foot of the bed, stone-faced and silent, but I can see the way his jaw is clenched to hold back the scream that wants to escape. It’s as if he feels that showing one moment of weakness would open up the floodgate on tears that have been trapped for weeks.
Ethan’s breathing has shifted to that particular rhythm I’ve learned to recognize—shallow, irregular, with longer and longer pauses between each inhale.
The death rattle, they call it in textbooks.
But textbooks don’t prepare you for how it sounds when it’s coming from a seven-year-old who spent last week telling you about his plans to be a dinosaur paleontologist.
“The machines,” Rebecca suddenly says, her voice cracking. “Can we… can we turn off the alarms? I don’t want his last…”
She can’t finish the sentence, so I just nod and reach over with my free hand to silence the monitors.
The sudden absence of beeping feels like a held breath, like the whole world has paused to witness this impossible moment.
In the quiet, Ethan’s labored breathing becomes the only sound, each exhale a little softer than the last.
“Tell me…” Ethan’s eyes flutter open, finding mine with effort. “Tell me about the angels again?”
My throat constricts. Last week, when his parents had been out of the room talking to the doctor, he’d asked if dying hurt.
I’d made up a story about angels who come to carry sick children to a place where nothing hurts anymore, where they can run and play without getting tired.
Not entirely professional, I know, but fuck professional when a dying child needs comfort more than truth.
“They’re here,” I whisper, managing to keep my voice from breaking. “They’re waiting just outside, and they’ve brought the softest wings to wrap you in.”
A ghost of a smile touches his cracked lips. “Will they… let me bring… Mr. Bones?”
Mr. Bones, the stuffed T-Rex that hasn’t left his bed since admission. “Of course they will,” I say. “Angels love dinosaurs.”
Rebecca lets out a sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob, pressing her face against Ethan’s shoulder. Marcus finally moves, coming around to place a hand on his wife’s back, his shoulders shaking now. He’s been an absolute rock, and watching him makes my mind flash to Maine supporting me at O’Neil’s?—
“I love you, Mommy,” Ethan breathes, interrupting my thoughts, each word requiring monumental effort. “Love you… Daddy.”
“We love you so much, baby,” Rebecca manages. “You’re our perfect, brave little boy.”
The pause between his breaths stretches longer.
Twenty seconds. Thirty.
His eyes drift closed.
His fingers in mine have gone completely slack.
“It’s OK,” I find myself saying, though I don’t know whether I’m talking to Ethan or his parents or myself. “It’s OK to let go. Your mom and dad will be OK.”
The lie burns my throat. They won’t be OK. They’ll never be OK again. But sometimes lies are the only mercy we have left to offer. And it gives me something to do as I watch this family shatter for no fault of their own, making me miss mine even more.
Would they even give a fuck if I was in this bed?
The thought is totally inappropriate, so I banish it, even as Rebecca’s keening wail cuts through me a moment later.
It’s a sound so primal and broken that it feels like it’s tearing something inside my chest. Marcus collapses into the chair, his stone facade crumbling as he reaches for his son’s still form.
I gently extract my hand from Ethan’s, standing on legs that feel disconnected from my body.
There are procedures now—time of death to note, paperwork to complete, and a doctor to notify.
But first, I reach down and carefully tuck Mr. Bones under Ethan’s arm, making sure the dinosaur is secure against his small body.
“Take all the time you need,” I tell his parents, though the words feel inadequate, insulting in their emptiness.
What time could ever be enough?
I make it to the hallway before my legs threaten to give out. The wall is cold against my back as I lean against it. My chest feels too tight, like my ribs have contracted around my lungs. The fluorescent lights blur as tears I refuse to let fall burn behind my eyes.
Seven years old. He was seven fucking years old.
The hallway is mercifully empty, the rest of the ward continuing its rhythm of controlled chaos. Somewhere, another child is crying about wanting to go home. Somewhere, another parent is getting good news. Somewhere, another nurse is holding another small hand and lying about angels.
I close my eyes, trying to breathe through the grief that’s threatening to crack my professional composure wide open, mixing with anger—at the world, for not figuring out a cure yet, at God, for taking this kid from the world, and at my parents, for thinking my profession is lesser or trivial and disowning me for it.
Well, fuck them.
Because I feel like I’m doing the most important job in the world.
And I’ve given a part of myself to it every day.
In the darkness behind my eyelids, I see Ethan’s face from last week, animated and bright as he explained the difference between a Triceratops and a Styracosaurus. I see his gap-toothed grin when I snuck him an extra pudding cup. I see?—
“Nurse Hayes.”
Dr. Harrison’s voice cuts through my spiral like a scalpel.
I open my eyes to find him standing there, his white coat pristine, his expression carved from ice.
He takes in my state—shoulders shaking slightly, red-rimmed eyes, the very picture of unprofessional emotional compromise—and his lips curl into a sneer.
“Pull yourself together.”
The words land like a slap. I stare at him, waiting for something else, some acknowledgment of what just happened in that room. Some recognition that a child just died, that parents just had their world obliterated, that maybe, just maybe, it’s OK to feel something about that.
Instead, he decides now is a good time for a lecture. “Loss is part of the job. If you fall apart every time a patient codes, you won’t last a year.”
“He was seven,” I manage to say, my voice barely above a whisper, even though I know it won’t change his mind.
“And tomorrow there will be a six-year-old, or an eight-year-old, or an infant.” His tone is clinical and matter-of-fact, as if we’re discussing lab results instead of dead children. “The family needs professionals right now, not more mourners, so your emotional indulgence helps no one.”
Emotional indulgence. The words echo my father’s voice so perfectly I almost look around to see if he’s materialized in the hallway.
“Clean yourself up and get back to work,” Harrison continues, already turning away. “There are living patients who need care.”
His footsteps echo down the hallway, each one a condemnation. I stand frozen, his judgment ringing in my ears like a death knell for everything I thought made me good at this job. The empathy I brought to Ethan’s bedside, the humanity I offered his parents, the tears threatening to fall.
Apparently, these aren’t strengths.
They’re weaknesses.
Flaws to be corrected.
Failures to be hidden.
Just like Mom always said.
The tears I’ve been fighting finally win.
The apartment door takes three tries to unlock because my hands won’t stop shaking. The fluorescent lights in the hallway blur through tears I refuse to let fall here, where someone might see. I finally manage to get the key in, turn it, and stumble inside.
Silence.
The kind of silence that presses against my eardrums like I’m underwater. No ESPN blaring from the living room. No sound of Maine singing off-key in the shower. No smell of Pizza Plus grease clinging to his work shirt. No comfortable presence of him.
Just nothing.
I should be relieved. I need the space to fall apart without an audience.
But the emptiness feels wrong.
Pull yourself together , Dr. Harrison’s voice echoes in my skull.
Except I’m not at work anymore. I’m home. Whatever the fuck that means when home is a place I share with someone I can’t even tell I’m in love with, in an apartment I have to struggle and scratch for because my parents cut me off, studying for a career they think is beneath me.
No , my mind wraps me in a mental hug. Beneath them.
I drop my bag by the door, and it lands with a thud that seems to echo forever.
The sound of Ethan’s breathing—that horrible, rattling wheeze—is still playing on a loop in my head.
I can still feel the cold of his fingers going slack in mine and still see Rebecca’s face crumpling as she realized her baby was gone.
The family needs professionals right now, not more mourners.
My legs carry me toward the kitchen on autopilot. I need water. Or wine. Or something stronger. Something to wash the taste of death out of my mouth, to burn away the image of a seven-year-old’s stuffed dinosaur tucked under his still arm.
But a shot of Maine’s cheap-ass bourbon does nothing for me.
Maybe support is what I need. A hug and a shoulder to cry on. So I pull out my phone, my thumb hovering over Sophie’s contact details. She’d come over, hold me while I cry, and tell me Harrison is a heartless prick and that feeling things makes me human.
But then I picture it: Sophie rushing over, probably dragging Mike with her because they’re joined at the hip now, Mike texting Maine, and Maine cutting his shift or his practice short and then coming home with that look of concern that’s been creeping into his eyes lately when he looks at me.
No, I can’t.
My thumb slides up to my family’s group chat instead. The last message is still mine, sitting there like a monument to my stupidity:
Thinking of you guys.
Read-receipts on.
No response.
A bitter laugh escapes me. What would I even say?
Hey Mom, hey Dad, a child died today, and I held his hand, and now my supervisor thinks I’m too emotional for this job, just like you always said I was too messy for our family. I hope you had a great time at the wedding you didn’t want me to come to!
They’d probably agree with Harrison, and tell me this is what I get for choosing such an undignified profession. For throwing away my Hayes legacy to wipe noses and hold hands. For hanging out in the dirt and the mess with real people, rather than playing god as a surgeon or a trial lawyer.
Fuck them.
The thought comes sharp and violent, cutting through the grief. They don’t get to judge me anymore. They don’t get to make me feel small for caring, for feeling, for being human. They made their choice when they cut me off and when they decided I wasn’t worth their love.
With Ethan’s death, it feels like something else died: any last hope I had of reconciling with them. Because I realize now that I don’t want their love if it comes with conditions. I don’t want their approval if it means killing the parts of me that feel too much, care too hard, love too deeply.
The realization should be freeing.
Instead, it’s the thing that finally breaks me.
My knees hit the kitchen floor hard enough to bruise. The cabinet is cold against my back as I slide down it, my scrubs catching on the handle of the lower drawer. The first sob rips out of me like something being torn from my chest—ugly, raw, animal.
I press my palms against my eyes, but it doesn’t stop the tears. They come in waves, for Ethan, who wanted to be a paleontologist. For Rebecca and Marcus, who will never be OK again. For all the children Harrison doesn’t want me to comfort because apparently it makes me unprofessional.
I curl into myself, arms wrapped around my knees, making myself as small as possible. Like if I compress enough, I might disappear entirely. Just cease to exist. No more Maya the disappointment. No more Maya the failure. No more Maya who feels too much and shows it all wrong.
The sobs shake my whole body, violent and uncontrolled. This isn’t pretty crying. This isn’t a single tear sliding gracefully down my cheek. This is ugly, messy, broken crying. The kind that makes your face swell and your nose run and your chest heave with the effort of breathing through it.
But there’s no one here to see it.