Chapter 17
The red line flattens. Anguish floods my bones. Sorrow drowns my blood.
The patient is gone.
We lost him, a thirty-four-year-old man named Blake Treehorn.
All the medicine, all the paddles, all the speeding ambulances, all the nurses and doctors here at Mercy, and we couldn’t save his life.
I exhale heavily. One of the nurses makes the sign of the cross. Another runs her hand gently along the patient’s arm. I look at my watch and confirm the time of death.
“One thirty-five p.m.,” I say, and the nurse records the information in his chart. I scrub a hand over my jaw as a profound sense of both sadness and failure digs deep into my flesh. I’ll be signing his death certificate shortly.
David, another ER doc who worked to save him too, claps me on the back. “We did our best,” he mumbles.
“Yeah.”
That’s the thing. We did. The paramedics barreled in fifteen minutes ago with a man who worked at an office building ten blocks away.
During a routine Wednesday afternoon meeting, Blake clutched his chest and complained of pain.
He collapsed seconds later, and his coworkers called 911.
He’d been fading when he arrived, and we’d fought like hell to save the guy.
Thirty minutes later, he’s dead in his early thirties on a hospital bed in an emergency room in the middle of Manhattan.
“Life is short, man,” David says, his tone heavy.
“It sure is,” I say with a sigh.
I’ve lost patients before. Every doctor has. Last year, we said good-bye to more people than I wanted to count. It’s part of the job. I get that, and I can live with it. It’s what I signed up for.
But I’m only human, and I’m not as steel as I pretend to be. This one hits me hard. Blake was young and healthy. I heard one of his coworkers say he’d gone running with him the other morning.
There’s no time to sit with these churning emotions, though. When the charge nurse informs me there are multiple gunshot wounds coming in, I have to pretend I’m Teflon.
That’s how the rest of the afternoon unfurls.
Like a parade of pain and heartache. No sex wounds, no amusing tales, no naughty moments that make for funny stories with friends.
It’s all too fucking real. One of the gunshot victims dies from blood loss.
A patient who seemed to be improving after coming in yesterday with a stroke passes on.
By the time my shift finally ends, I sink down on the bench in the locker room, so ready to be done with the Grim Reaper today.
But I just sit. I can’t move yet. A leaden weight has settled deep in my gut.
I drop my forehead to my hand and let the gloom spread through me.
Sometimes I am good at separating work from my emotions.
But sometimes work is emotional. As much as I pride myself on the ability to wear blinders, the fact is my business is one of life and death.
And death sucks.
The door creaks open and David trudges in. “Want to get a beer?”
I raise my face. “Pretty sure you meant whiskey.”
A small smile cracks on his tired face. “Make it a double.”
“You’re on.”
And that’s how I find myself at Speakeasy in Midtown at five p.m. We trade war stories and talk sports, and it eases some of the day from my shoulders.
When we finish, David tips his chin and pushes his glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose. “And on that note, I should head home to the woman.”
I clasp his hand in a good-bye shake, and when I leave, that last word resonates with me. There’s one woman I want to see.
Josie closes late on Wednesdays so I catch the subway and exit at Seventy-Second.
When I walk along the block where she works, the early evening crowds thickening around me, I swear I can feel the clouds lift and my heart start to lighten just from knowing I’ll see her.
Josie is my sunshine in this rain-soaked day.
As the smooth, intelligent voice of the audiobook narrator in my ears delves into the physics of perpetual motion, I pass a flower shop, spotting a bouquet of daisies.
For the briefest of seconds, an idea takes hold.
But I smash it, scoffing at myself. I’m only going to say hi to her.
Bringing her flowers would be something one of her cheeseball dates would do.
I’m not dating her. I don’t have to worry if she’ll be in my life tomorrow, or the next day, or the next year.
She is in my life because she’s my friend, and that’s why I’m the one who gets to see her, who gets to stop by her work, who gets to hang out with her.
The rest of the assholes aren’t good enough to even get past a first date.
But she does like flowers.
I stop, turn around, and buy the daisies from her friend Lily’s shop.
I haven’t met Lily before, but the brunette who helps me is sweet and outgoing, so I assume she must be Josie’s friend.
And I hope she sorts out the situation with her dickhead boyfriend, because whoever he is, he needs to treat her better.
“The flowers are beautiful. Have a great evening,” I say, since the least I can do is be a considerate customer.
“You, too,” she says with a friendly wave.
I leave the store.
As I near Josie’s bakery, a whole squadron of nerves launches in my chest. My heart speeds up. This doesn’t just feel like nerves from the day. This feels like something else entirely. Something I haven’t felt in a long time. Something that’s good, but terribly dangerous at the same damn time.
Gripping the bouquet tighter, I push open the yellow door to the Sunshine Bakery.
Josie works alone, bending to take a huge slice of chocolate cake from the glass counter.
She stands, sets it in a white bakery box, and hands it to the customer, a thin redhead wearing jeans and heels.
The customer rubs her hands together. “I can’t wait.
This is my favorite cake in all of New York City. ”
Josie tilts her head and flashes the woman a wide, genuine smile. “I’m so happy to hear that. You deserve a slice today,” she says, then tells her the amount.
Josie’s hair is swept back in a pink-checked bandana, her bangs showing. Her T-shirt is orange, with the cheery sun logo of her store. Bangles slip and slide on her wrist. When the customer leaves, Josie’s eyes find mine, and they light up.
“Hey you!” she calls out and slinks around the counter to give me a hug. We don’t usually hug when we see each other, but maybe her arms are around me because I don’t stop by her work that often. Or maybe she senses that I need it.
“Hey,” I say, then I steal a quick inhale. Today she is cake. She is frosting. She is sugar and everything good in the world, and all those strange sensations descend on me once more as my heart beats weirdly faster.
When we separate, she arches an eyebrow. “What brings you to these environs, stranger? I’m about to close up.”
I clear my throat and thrust the flowers at her.
Her smile grows even bigger. She dips her nose to the petals and inhales. “I love them. My favorite.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to take them home. To make our place cheery,” she says as she heads to the door, locks it, and flips the sign to say “Closed.”
When she turns around to meet my gaze, I sink down at one of the tables and drag a hand through my hair.
“Uh-oh,” she says, joining me and setting down the bouquet. “Bad day at work?”
I nod.
She brings her chair even closer. “I’m guessing that means a real bad day, not a bad day like someone-at-the-hospital-ate-your-tuna-fish-sandwich-in-the-break-room-fridge bad day?”
“I hate tuna fish sandwiches.”
She laughs. “Me, too.” She takes a beat. “Tell me what happened.”
So I do.
And when I’m done, I feel a hell of a lot better, and lighter, and happier than I did after having drinks with David. No disrespect to the dude. He’s a cool cat.
But he’s not Josie, and she’s quickly become the person I want to talk to.
Scratch that. She’s been that person for a long time.
Especially since she’s a great listener, and she has access to much better medicine than I do some days. The strawberry shortcake cupcake I eat as we walk home can cure almost any sadness.
* * *
Later, I lie awake in bed.
Darkness has fallen over our home. Moonlight cuts through the blinds, casting stripes of light over the navy bedspread. Outside, a horn bleats and a garbage truck slogs along the avenue, lifting and dumping, lifting and dumping.
I flip to my side, the sheets slipping to my waist.
The green lights on the clock flash 11:55 at me.
But I can’t fall asleep easily like I usually do.
I can’t blame the events at Mercy. I’ve had to let them go.
Tomorrow is another day, and I need to be sharp for whatever comes my way.
I’m not a superstitious man, but bad news comes in waves, so I need to be girded for a possible roulette wheel of destruction tomorrow.
So it’s not the patients—may Blake, and the gunshot guy, too, rest in peace—that I’m thinking of anymore.
It’s the woman on the other side of this wall. What’s keeping me up is the part of me that insisted on seeing her at the end of the day. The part that demanded I go to Sunshine Bakery, that I buy her flowers, that I tell her what happened.
I squeeze my eyes closed, imagining a patient is presenting with the same symptoms I have. What would I conclude?
I list them in my head—heart beating faster unexpectedly, nerves appearing incon-fucking-veniently, desire to see the woman after a shitty day.
When I get to the last one, I stop. On desire. Because there’s the embodiment of it in my doorway.
In shadows, she stands. She raises her hand and waves. “Hey,” she says softly.
“Hey.”
“You awake?”
“No. I’m sound asleep.”
She laughs and leans her shoulder against the doorframe. She’s in her usual asleep attire. Boy shorts, like the kind you’d find in a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. Material as thin as a spider web, and just as wispy. She pairs them with a loose pink scoop-neck shirt. No bra.
I’m so fucking screwed.