5. Visiting Hours
Visiting Hours
NORA
I woke up with someone's hand holding mine.
For a few seconds I didn't know where I was. The ceiling was white. Something beeped to my right, and the air had that sharp antiseptic edge I knew from twelve-hour shifts. Hospital. I was in a hospital.
Then it came back. All of it, all at once. The smoke pouring under my bedroom door. The orange glow at the bottom of the stairs. Being lifted off the ground and carried through heat by a man I—
"Nora." Ian's voice cracked on my name.
He was in the chair beside the bed, hunched forward with his elbows on the mattress, my hand gripped in both of his. He was wearing a T-shirt I'd never seen, too big across the shoulders, and his sneakers were still on with the laces loose. A hospital blanket was balled up behind him in the chair.
"You're finally awake."
"Hey." My throat was raw. Every word scraped. "I'm here."
He dropped his forehead against our hands. His shoulders shook once, then steadied. When he looked up his eyes were red, and he wiped his face with the back of his wrist, quick, like he didn't want me to see it.
"Don't ever do that to me again."
"Do what? Get trapped in a fire?"
"Be unconscious for two days." His grip tightened on my hand. "The doctor kept telling me your oxygen levels were improving and you were stable, and I just sat here watching you breathe and waiting for you to wake up."
Two days. I had been out for two days.
"Why aren't you in school?"
He stared at me. "Are you serious right now?"
"It's a weekday, Ian."
"Our house burned down. You're in a hospital bed with a tube in your nose, and you're asking me why I'm not in class?"
He was right. The question was absurd. But it was the only one I knew how to ask, because asking it meant things were still normal, and if things were still normal, then everything was going to be fine.
"Have you eaten?"
"Yes."
"Does the school know you're here?"
"I called them. I handled it." He sat back in the chair.
"Nurse Josie brought me food. She got me a blanket, a pillow, and a towel so I could clean up.
She set me up right here and told me you were going to be fine.
" He pointed to the corner of the room, where I could see a folded towel on a shelf next to a tupperware container.
"She checked on you every couple of hours. "
That was Josie. On the floor she ran a department with twenty-two years of authority and a look that could stop a resident mid-sentence. Off the floor, she brought a sixteen-year-old boy a pillow and a hot meal from her own kitchen and told him his sister was going to make it.
"What happened to the house?"
He was quiet for a moment. "It's gone, Nora."
I already knew. The orange glow at the bottom of the stairs, the sound the house made while I crouched by the window, how fast the smoke had been moving. But hearing him say it was different.
"Everything?"
"The fire department said the first floor was fully involved by the time they got there. The structure's still standing, but there's nothing left inside. Everything in it is gone."
Our parents' things. The photo albums I kept in the hall closet.
My father's fountain pen. My mother's recipe notebook, the one she kept in a drawer in the kitchen, her handwriting on every page.
My crystals on the shelf, right where I left them.
Thirty years of a family in that house, every mark a small history nobody else would ever know.
I pushed it down. There would be time to feel it later. Right now Ian was sitting in a borrowed shirt in a hospital chair, watching my face for a sign of what came next, and he needed me to be the person who had the answer.
"We'll figure this out."
He nodded.
"Jesse's family said I can stay with them," he said. "Until we figure things out."
"That's good. That's really good, Ian."
He picked at the blanket edge. "What about you?"
"I'll sort something out once I'm discharged. Don't worry about me."
"You always say that."
"And I always do, don't I?"
He almost smiled. It didn't quite land, but I could see it trying.
I held his hand and watched the monitor trace my heartbeat in green. For a few minutes neither of us said anything, and the quiet felt like enough.
The door opened and Gracelyn stepped in, still in her scrubs, her badge swinging from the lanyard around her neck. She stopped when she saw me sitting up.
"Oh, thank God." She crossed the room and hugged me, careful of the IV line, her arms tight around my shoulders. "I was so worried about you."
"I'm okay."
"You were unconscious for two days, Nora. That is not okay." She pulled back and assessed me like a patient. "How do you feel?"
"My throat hurts. My chest is tight. Everything else is fine."
"They had you on a ventilator the first night. The smoke inhalation was bad."
I looked at Ian. He was still in the chair, watching, and I could see the two days on him. The dark under his eyes. He'd been sitting in that chair since Monday.
"Ian. Go to Jesse's."
"I'm fine."
"You've been here for two days. Go take a shower, sleep in an actual bed. I'm awake. Gracelyn's here."
He looked at Gracelyn. She nodded at him.
He stood up slowly, like the chair had shaped itself around him. He slung his backpack over one shoulder and stopped at the side of the bed.
"I'll come back tomorrow."
"I know you will."
He squeezed my hand once, quick, and left.
Gracelyn shook her head. "I can't believe I'm visiting you as a patient. This is very strange."
"It's strange from this side too."
She leaned back on her hands. "Oh, by the way. Knox Sullivan from Station 110 has been coming by for the past two days asking how you are. Josie won't let him in until you're awake and up for visitors." She looked at me. "Are you up for it?"
Knox Sullivan. That was his name. Where had I heard that name before?
"Sure, I guess."
"I'll tell Josie on my way out." She squeezed my hand. "Get some rest. I mean it."
She hugged me on her way out. I watched the door close behind her and lay back against the pillow.
The room was quiet. Just the monitor, the air from the cannula, and the sounds of the floor beyond the door.
My mind was already moving. Insurance. The fire report.
Ian's school records. Replacement IDs, replacement everything.
Where I was going to live when they discharged me.
What I was going to wear out of this building.
The list kept growing and I hadn't even started.
He came the next day.
I was sitting up in bed with the fire investigator's forms spread across my lap when someone knocked.
"Come in."
The door opened, and a man stepped in. Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair. He was in jeans and a clean shirt, and he stood in the doorway like he wasn't sure he should be there.
"Hi," he said. "Should I come back another time?"
Then I saw the scar on his neck.
I'd been searching for that scar on every firefighter I came across. On the street, at the hospital, wondering if the man I held together in that parking lot ever made it out alive.
Now he was here. He was alive.
"No, no." I sat up straighter. "I'm glad you came."
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. His hands went into his pockets.
I remembered his jaw, his dark eyes looking up at me from the pavement. I didn't remember him being this handsome.
Neither of us said anything. He was looking at me and I was looking at him.
"How are you feeling?"
"Ready to get out of here. It's strange being on this side of it. I'm used to being the nurse, not the patient."
He smiled. "Must be strange."
"You have no idea." I smiled, but it faded. "I want to thank you. For getting me out of that fire."
"I was just doing my job."
"Still. Thank you."
He smiled. Then he went quiet, like he was working up to something.
"I don't know if you remember me," he said. "And it's fine if you don't. It's been a long time. But two years ago, you saved my life. You held my neck together in a parking lot until the helicopter got there. I never forgot you."
I never forgot you either.
"I was never able to thank you for that. So when I saw you the other day, I was happy to see you." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Of course, it's terrible what happened to your house — everything about it—"
He stopped. He cleared his throat.
"I just wanted to come by and check on you. Make sure you're fine. And if you ever need help with anything, you can always call me."
He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and held it out to me. I took it. His name, in neat compact handwriting, and a phone number.
"Thank you, Knox."
He held my gaze for a beat longer, then he caught himself.
"I should let you rest. You've still got a lot of recovering to do."
"Yes. Thank you for stopping by."
He walked out and closed the door behind him. Gently, like he didn't want to disturb anything.
I looked at the slip of paper in my hand.
I picked up my phone from the side table. The only thing from the fire that survived. I typed the number in and sent a message.
NORA
It was really nice to see you, Knox.
KNOX
Rest up, Nora.
I stayed five more days at the hospital. They wanted to monitor my oxygen levels, repeat the chest X-ray, make sure my lungs were clearing. I slept, filled out forms, and stared at the ceiling. Hospital time moved differently from the patient side. The hours stretched.
Knox texted me every day to ask how I was feeling, had I eaten, did I need anything. It became the thing I looked forward to most. Even though he wasn't there, it felt like I had company all day.
On the fourth day, he walked through the door with two cups of coffee because I'd mentioned the hospital's was undrinkable.
He handed me one and sat in the chair beside my bed, and we talked for an hour.
He told me about the station. I told him about the paperwork piling up.
It was easy in a way I wasn't expecting.
On the fifth day, they discharged me.
"You're off my schedule until further notice." Josie handled the discharge herself. "I don't want to see you on that floor until you can take a full breath without thinking about it."
"Josie, I can be back in a week."
"You can be back when your lungs say you can be back." She looked at me over her glasses. "Deal with your paperwork. Deal with your house. Deal with your brother. The floor will be here when you're ready."
"Thank you. For everything."
Gracelyn offered me her couch. I told her I didn't want to impose. She told me it wasn't up for discussion, and she was right. It wasn't like I had anywhere else to go.
Her apartment was on the second floor of a building off Nellis. One bedroom, a kitchen that opened into the living room, a narrow balcony off the back. She walked me through it room by room.
"Bathroom's through there. Towels in the closet, use whichever. Kitchen's all yours. Anything in the fridge, you eat it. Don't ask, don't keep score."
She stopped in the living room. The couch was already made up with a blanket and a pillow.
"It's not much," she said. "But I hope it's okay."
"It's more than okay." I looked at her. "Thank you for taking me in, Gracelyn."
She moved to the kitchen, filled the kettle, and set it on the stove.
"So Ian's staying at his friend's house?"
"Yeah. Until we figure this out. Jesse's place is close to school, so it's better for him."
She pulled a box of crackers from the cabinet and put them on the counter between us.
"That's nice of his friends."
"He's a good kid."
She leaned against the counter.
"Any updates from the fire investigator?"
"They're saying it's arson. Some neighborhood kids."
She shook her head. "Kids these days."
I went quiet. Gracelyn didn't fill the silence. She reached across the counter and took my hand.
"I'm here for you," she said. "Whatever you need. You can stay here however long."
"Thank you, Gracelyn. I'll make it up to you."
"Don't think about it. It's nice to have someone in this apartment other than me." She let go of my hand and turned to the fridge. "And since I'm the host, I'm going to make you a welcome feast."
"A feast?"
"I'm Filipino. We don't let our guests starve."
That night, Gracelyn taught me how to make a few dishes from her hometown in her small kitchen, the two of us side by side at the stove while she told me stories about learning these recipes from her mother.
It felt different to be on the receiving end of someone's care. I wasn't used to someone fussing over me, and I didn't know what to do with it except stand there and let her.
A house fire doesn't just take your things. It takes your proof that you exist.
My driver's license, my Social Security card, my birth certificate, Ian's birth certificate, my nursing license, my BLS and ACLS certification cards, the deed to the house. All of it was in a filing cabinet in the hallway closet, and the hallway closet was gone.
I sat at Gracelyn's kitchen table with a legal pad and her laptop and started making calls. Everything required the fire incident report, which was still being compiled. Every replacement document required identification, and my identification had burned with the house.
I needed my license to get my birth certificate, my birth certificate to get my Social Security card, my Social Security card to get my license. The system assumed you had at least one piece of the puzzle to start with. I had none of them.
Every person I spoke to was sympathetic and unhelpful. They had their process. The process did not have a box for "everything burned."
I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes. The list was two pages long and growing.
I picked up my phone and started scrolling through rental listings. I couldn't stay on Gracelyn's couch forever, and I couldn't ask Jesse's family to keep housing Ian. I needed to find somewhere for both of us.
I was looking through the photos of a listing in Fremont when a notification popped up.
KNOX
How's the new place?
NORA
It's not really a new place. My coworker's letting me stay on her couch while I figure things out for me and my brother.
KNOX
I think I might be able to help with that. Let me ask around.
NORA
You don't have to do that, Knox.
KNOX
I'm doing it anyway.
I stared at the screen for a long time.
It had been a few days, and I was already looking forward to hearing from him, already smiling at my phone on Gracelyn's couch like a teenager. I caught myself and put the phone down.
That's not ridiculous, is it?
Women met men in bars every night and went home with them. Why was I beating myself up for liking someone who had been nothing but kind to me?
KNOX
Text you later. Tones dropped.
NORA
Be safe.
KNOX
I will.