Chapter 16 #2
“Thanks!” She grabbed her bag and was gone, practically running toward the station door.
Ethan took his time with the end-of-shift routine and restocked the med supplies they’d used overnight.
Not much, it had been a quiet shift. A minor car accident on Highway 441, nobody seriously injured.
An elderly woman with chest pain that turned out to be indigestion.
A kid who’d fallen off his bike and needed three stitches.
Routine calls. Nothing that required the trauma kit or the advanced airway equipment.
He checked the oxygen tanks, noting the pressure levels in the log.
Replaced the one they’d used on the chest pain call, made sure the backup was secure in its bracket.
Wiped down the interior surfaces with disinfectant, the sharp chemical smell making his eyes water.
The stretcher rails. The cabinets. The floor where the kid had bled on it.
Just a few drops, but protocol was protocol.
Filled out the equipment log with meticulous precision, noting every bandage used, every IV bag opened, every medication administered.
The paperwork was tedious but necessary, part of the job that most EMTs hated but Ethan found oddly calming.
Numbers and checkboxes and yes-or-no questions.
Nothing ambiguous. Nothing that required him to feel anything.
The routine was soothing in a way. Predictable.
Controlled. No emotions, no complicated interpersonal dynamics, just tasks that needed completing.
Check the defibrillator battery. Fully charged, green light blinking steadily.
Inventory the medications in the controlled substances locker, double-checking the count against the log.
Secure the stretcher, making sure the locking mechanism engaged properly.
Each task was a small act of order imposed on chaos. Each checked box was proof that he could do something right, even if he’d screwed up everything that mattered in his personal life.
When he couldn’t put it off any longer, Ethan headed inside to the locker room. Changed out of his uniform into jeans and a flannel shirt, the same clothes he’d thrown on yesterday in his hurry to get to work.
He clocked out at 8:15 AM, nodded to the day shift crew coming in, and walked to his truck in the parking lot.
The drive home took twelve minutes of Ethan gripping the steering wheel and trying to figure out what he was going to say when he got there.
How to apologize. How to make it right. How to explain that he understood now, that he got it, that he was sorry for demanding she trust him when she had every reason not to trust anyone.
By the time he pulled into his driveway at 8:35, he still hadn’t found the words.
The house was dark. No lights in the windows, no movement visible through the curtains. Ethan’s truck engine ticked in the sudden silence as he turned it off, and for a moment he just sat there, staring at his own front door.
Maybe they were still asleep. It was early. The kids didn’t have school. They hadn’t enrolled yet and without ID, they couldn’t yet. Lydia was probably exhausted from the stress of yesterday. They were probably all curled up in bed, warm and safe.
Lydia’s car was gone.
Had Lydia done exactly what she’d been planning? She had packed up the kids, loaded the sedan, left while he was at work, and she had gone back to Ohio or somewhere else, somewhere far from Tom and far from Ethan and the mess he’d made of everything.
His hands shook as he unlocked the front door.
The silence inside was deafening.
“Lydia?” His voice echoed in the empty living room. “Kids?”
Nothing.
Ethan moved through the house like a ghost, checking rooms. The guest bedroom where Lydia slept. Bed made, nothing on the nightstand. The kids’ room. Beds made, toys put away. Bathroom empty. Living room empty.
The panic was rising now, cold and sharp in his throat. They were gone. She’d left. He’d pushed her away and now she was gone.
Then he saw it. A piece of paper on the kitchen table, weighted down with the salt shaker. Lydia’s handwriting, neat and careful.
Ethan grabbed it with shaking hands.
Ethan,
We’ve gone to the farmhouse to try to find any sort of paperwork or IDs in the boxes so I can go to the bank. Caleb offered to come with us (he showed up this morning, I think Michael might have sent him). We will be back by 9 AM so I can drop the kids off with Mrs. Figgs on the way to the bank.
I fed the kids breakfast before we left. There’s coffee made if you want it. I wasn’t sure what time your shift ended.
Thank you for everything.
Lydia
Relief flooded through him so intensely it made his knees weak. They hadn’t left. They were coming back. She’d left him a note, made him coffee, told him when to expect them.
But as Ethan read the note again, the relief began to curdle into something else. Something anxious and uncertain.
Thank you for everything.
The words were polite. Formal. The kind of thing you’d write to someone who’d done you a favor, not to someone you’d been kissing a couple of nights ago. Not to someone you’d had a fight with last night.
It sounded like goodbye.
Ethan set the note down with trembling hands and made his way to the coffee maker on autopilot. The pot was still warm. She must have made it right before they left. He poured himself a cup, and took a sip that burned his tongue.
The vending machine dinner from last night sat in his stomach like lead. He’d eaten it at 2 AM in the station break room, some kind of questionable burrito that had been sitting under the heat lamp for far too long. It had tasted like cardboard, but he’d been too numb to care.
He should eat something now. Real food. But the thought of it made him nauseous.
Toast. He could manage toast.