Chapter 32 #2
I laughed bitterly, the sound harsh in the dim bar. "I thought I was being supportive. I thought I was fighting for her. Instead, I handed them proof that she was 'too emotional' to handle command, that she needed her boyfriend to fight her battles."
Kellen listened without interruption, his expression never changing.
"She lost the promotion," I whispered. "They gave it to some political asshole who plays golf with the brass. And when she found out about the letter... she looked at me like I'd betrayed her. Like I'd destroyed everything she'd worked for." My voice cracked completely. "Because I had."
Kellen kept listening, pouring me another drink when my glass emptied, his expression implacable. When I finally finished, he was quiet for a long moment.
"You think you're the first nurse to lose a patient to something you couldn't control?" he asked finally. "Or the first man to destroy something he loved by trying to protect it?"
"It feels like it."
"It always does." He took a small sip from his glass. "The patient, that's the job. Sometimes we lose them no matter what we do. But the woman..." He paused, studying me with those flat eyes. "That's harder. That's the kind of mistake that comes from caring too much and understanding too little."
I felt fresh tears start, but he wasn't done.
"You want to hear about failure, Jimmy? Real failure?"
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"You remember when those basketball players got shot?" he said. "You'd have been in, oh … high school, maybe middle school. It was national news."
I nodded vaguely, my memory conjuring fragments of news reports, images of a campus in lockdown.
"I was the charge nurse that night," Kellen continued, his voice maintaining that same flat monotone that somehow made the words more chilling.
"When they came in. Kids, all of them just barely old enough to vote.
The EMS captain, it was her first night after her promotion, and that's what she got thrown into. "
He took another small sip of bourbon, his eyes focused on something beyond the stained walls of the bar.
"It was bad. I'm sure I don't have to go into the details with you. But one of them... one of the kids was effectively black-tag when he came in. We tried anyway, of course. We always try. But sometimes..." He shrugged, the gesture carrying the weight of a thousand failed attempts at salvation.
I found myself leaning forward, drawn into the story despite my growing intoxication.
"I'm at the charge desk," Kellen went on, "and the secretary goes white.
Tells me there's a call I have to take. It's one of the kids' fathers.
Says he's been trying to call his son, text his son.
Says his son always answers his calls, always answers his texts, and now he's not.
Says he heard something about a shooting at a pick-up court near campus. "
Kellen's hand, I noticed, was trembling slightly as he lifted his glass. It was the first crack I'd ever seen in his emotional armor.
"Now, I have no reason to disbelieve this guy is who he says he is.
And, of course, I found out later he is the kid's dad.
But I can't take that for granted. I have no way to verify it, and the kid doesn't have any next of kin listed in our system because he's never been a patient before.
Gunshot trauma, first time through our doors. "
He paused, and for a moment I thought I saw something that might have been moisture in his eyes.
"So I've got a father who I know has had his world destroyed. No parent should outlive their children. And I'm listening to him on the phone, not even begging, just... 'My son always answers. Please.'"
The words hung in the air between us, heavy with implications I was only beginning to understand.
"I have to be circumspect, of course," Kellen continued.
"I have to give a non-answer. HIPAA, protocols, all the legal bullshit that keeps the hospital from getting sued.
But the father... he takes my non-answer as an indication that his son isn't in our ER, that he might just be okay.
In a more rational state, he would have understood what I was really saying.
He probably logically knew what was true.
But when you're desperate, you'll grab onto any reason not to believe the worst."
Kellen's voice dropped even lower, and I had to strain to hear him over the ambient noise of the bar.
"I gave him hope when I should have found a way to prepare him. I made it worse by trying to follow the rules. And that kid died on the table twenty minutes later while his father was probably thinking his son was going to be okay."
I felt something crack open in my chest. The bourbon burned, but not as much as the image Kellen had painted — a father racing through the night, clinging to false hope because a nurse had been too careful in order to be kind.
"That's just one," Kellen said, refilling both our glasses.
"One incident out of dozens, hundreds like it.
I had a two-year-old once. Mom's boyfriend got angry at him for crying.
Turned off the safety on their water heater, threw the kid in the bathtub, gave him third-degree burns.
Had to watch that kid suffer for weeks."
His voice never changed, never wavered from that same flat delivery, but I could see the cost of each memory in the lines around his eyes.
"There’s a local politician. Had to report him to Adult Protective Services for how he was treating his elderly mother.
Abuse, neglect, the works. But I still get to watch his campaign commercials every election season, see him talking about family values and community service, and I can't say a goddamn thing. "
The bourbon was hitting me hard now, making everything feel loose and unmoored. I was crying without realizing when it had started, tears streaming down my face as the weight of his words sank in.
"The job will eat you alive if you let it," Kellen said, his voice carrying a weariness that seemed to come from his bones. "It ate me. Look at me, Dalton. This is what it looks like when you let the job win."
I looked at him — really looked at him — and saw not just the emotionally distant charge nurse I'd worked with for years, but a man who'd been hollowed out by too many impossible choices, too many moments when doing the right thing felt indistinguishable from inflicting cruelty.
"But you don't have to do what I did," he said, his eyes meeting mine for the first time since we'd sat down. "You need someone. Like that firefighter. I saw how you looked at her."
The mention of Izzy hit me like a physical blow. I felt my face crumple, the careful control I'd maintained for weeks finally beginning to crack completely.
"I destroyed that," I sobbed. "I tried to help her and I destroyed everything."
"Maybe," Kellen said. "Or maybe you made a mistake that can be fixed. Believe it or not, I feel the same way about my wife, even after seventeen years, even if it doesn't show. She's the only thing that keeps me from truly becoming... this."
He gestured at himself, a bitter smile flickering across his face.
"Don't lose yourself," he said quietly. "And don't you dare lose that." His voice dropped even lower. "It’s okay, son."
The words undid me entirely. This broken, distant man — who I'd never seen show a single emotion, who moved through the hospital like a competent ghost — had just claimed me as family. I started crying harder, raw, ugly sobs that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than my chest.
“Atta boy,” Kellen said magnanimously, patting me on the shoulder. “Let it all out.”
"Hey." A voice cut through my grief — not Kellen's, but someone else's. "What's wrong with your friend? Can't handle his liquor?"
I looked up through my tears to see a man standing beside our table, probably in his fifties, wearing a stained Carhartt work shirt and the kind of sneer that suggested he'd been looking for trouble all evening. He reeked of cheap beer and bad decisions.
"Nothing wrong with him," Kellen said, his voice carrying that same flat authority it always did.
"Looks like he's having a breakdown to me," the man continued, his voice getting louder. "Maybe you should take him home before he starts crying all over everyone."
I felt Kellen go very still, even across the table. When I looked at him, his expression hadn't changed, but something dangerous had entered his eyes.
"I think you should walk away, pal," Kellen said quietly.
"What if I don't want to?" The drunk took a step closer, apparently mistaking Kellen's calm for weakness. "What if I think you and your crying boyfriend should find somewhere else to — "
It happened so fast I almost missed it. One moment, the drunk was standing there running his mouth; the next Kellen had him by the scruff of his shirt as he lifted the man slightly off his feet.
"I’m sorry. You were saying?" Kellen's voice was perfectly calm. Conversational, even … which somehow made it more terrifying.
The drunk's reply came in a whisper. "N-n-nothing, I didn’t mean nothing by it."
Kellen held him there for another moment, then released him. The man stumbled backward, surprise still evident on his face.
"That’s what I thought," Kellen said, settling back into the booth as if nothing had happened.
The drunk looked like he was considering saying something else, then thought better of it and retreated quickly to the far end of the bar. Around us, the other patrons had gone very quiet, all of them suddenly finding their drinks fascinating.
I stared at Kellen in shock. "Jesus Christ."
"Finish your drink, it’s expensive as hell," he said calmly, almost with a yawn. "About time we go, anyway."
The bourbon was hitting me hard now, making the room spin slightly. I drained my glass and tried to stand, only to discover that my legs weren't quite working the way they should.
"Whoa," I said, grabbing the table for support.