10. Chicken Tenders
Chicken Tenders
NORA
When one of your patients crashes, your other beds don't empty out. The nurses around you absorb them until you're free. It happens fast, nobody thinks twice about it, and by the time the crisis is over, half the floor has touched charts that weren't theirs an hour ago.
Jen's patient in bay fifteen crashed around ten thirty on a Tuesday morning.
The rapid chime of the monitor alarm carried across the floor, then Jen's voice calling for help. Josie was moving before the alarm finished its second cycle.
"Jen, talk to me."
"She was stable twenty minutes ago. BP is dropping, she's altered, I can't get a response."
Sullivan was already at the bedside. "Bolus her. Push another set of labs and call the blood bank. Page ICU and tell them we need a bed."
Josie turned to the floor. "Nora, pick up Jen's fourteen. Low-acuity, abdominal pain, CT pending. Liz, cover sixteen."
"Got it."
The chart on the workstation told me what I needed. Forty-two-year-old woman, right lower quadrant pain, vitals stable, CT ordered but not yet done. Labs drawn on arrival, results pending. An anti-nausea medication had been administered for the patient's discomfort.
Bay fourteen's patient was awake and irritated. "When am I getting the scan?"
"Let me check on that for you."
Radiology was backed up. I called down and moved her up in the queue, then came back, updated the chart, and continued my rounds.
An hour later, Sullivan stopped at the nurses' station where I was charting.
"Bay fourteen." He didn't sit down. "Did you administer the Zofran?"
"No. The patient was already medicated when I picked her up."
"The chart shows eight milligrams IV. I ordered four."
I pulled up the medication administration record. He was right. Zofran, 8mg, IV push. Time-stamped before Josie reassigned the patient to me, during the window when bay fourteen was still Jen's.
"So we don't know what she actually received?" He looked at the screen, then at me. "Monitor her. Vitals every thirty minutes until we're confident there's no adverse reaction. And find out who entered it."
He walked away.
I went through the chart line by line. The original order was clear. Zofran 4mg IV push. The administration record showed 8mg. Jen's credentials were on the entry. It was her patient, her login, her timestamp.
But I was the nurse on this patient now. I'd picked up bay fourteen, read through the chart, and hadn't caught the discrepancy before Sullivan did. That was on me.
Jen was still working the crash in bay fifteen. When she finally came out, she was wrung out, running on adrenaline and muscle memory. I asked her about the Zofran entry.
"I might have," she said. "Honestly, Nora, I can't tell you. It was right before she crashed. I was in and out of three bays."
She didn't remember entering it. The credentials said she did, but she couldn't confirm whether the patient actually received four or eight. Neither could I. I corrected the entry, added a note, and flagged it for Josie. She looked at it, looked at me, and said she'd document it.
I found Gracelyn in the break room during her fifteen. She was eating a granola bar and scrolling her phone. I sat down across from her and told her what happened.
She set her phone down. "This has been happening with Liz and Jen."
"What do you mean?"
"Charting errors. Documentation that doesn't match orders.
" She lowered her voice. "Remember Josie's announcement about administration cracking down on error tracking?
That's because of Liz and Jen. Their charts are the ones flagging.
Josie told me, but don't say anything. She wasn't supposed to tell me either. "
"How many times?"
"Enough that administration noticed. That's all I know."
I sat with that. Jen's credentials were on the entry, but Sullivan had asked me about it, not Jen. I was the nurse on the patient when the discrepancy surfaced, and I'd missed it. That was the data point he'd walk away with.
Ian's birthday was in two weeks.
Before the fire, I wouldn't have needed to plan anything.
I'd have made his favorite dinner in our kitchen, bought a cake, lit the candles, and he'd have walked through the door already knowing what was waiting for him.
But we weren't under the same roof anymore.
He was at Jesse's and I was at Barb's, and if we wanted to see each other on his birthday, one of us had to pick up the phone.
I called him on the bus home from work. He picked up on the fourth ring.
"Hey. So your birthday's coming up. What do you want to do? I was thinking I'd take you somewhere. Dinner, your pick."
"Actually, I've got work that week. I just started and I don't want to ask for time off yet."
"On your birthday, Ian?"
"I know. But I'm still new. I don't want to make a bad impression."
I leaned my head against the window. We had never skipped his birthday.
I'd scraped together enough for a sheet cake from the grocery store the year I was broke.
I'd argued him out of "birthdays are for babies" when he was thirteen.
The year our mother died and neither of us felt like celebrating anything, I made him dinner, lit a candle, and sang to him in our empty kitchen.
It didn't matter what was happening. You showed up.
"Besides, I was planning to take you out for dinner when I get my first paycheck."
"Ian, you don't have to do that."
"I want to. I'll have my own money." There was something in his voice I hadn't heard before. Pride, maybe. Or the shape of it. "Let me do this, Nora."
His own money. My little brother wanted to take me out to dinner with his own money. Somewhere between the cereal bowls on the living room floor and this phone call, he'd started becoming someone I didn't get to watch happen. I couldn't stop it. I wasn't sure I was supposed to.
"That sounds really nice, Ian. Thank you."
"Cool. I'll text you about the weekend."
"Okay. Love you."
"Love you too."
I put my phone in my lap and watched the city slide past the window.
My phone buzzed when I walked through the door at Barb's.
KNOX
Have you made a decision on the car yet?
NORA
That was a long bus ride home. I'm seriously considering the Corolla.
KNOX
Want me to call Ray and tell him we'll pick it up?
NORA
Yes please.
KNOX
I'm off Thursday. You?
I pulled up my schedule. Thursday was clear.
NORA
Yeah. Why?
KNOX
I'll take you to Ray's. And we can hit that diner after.
NORA
The one near CCMC?
KNOX
Noon. I'll pick you up.
I set the phone on the nightstand, opened the window Knox had fixed, and let the evening air come through. The backyard was quiet. The garden was filling in along the fence line. Down the hall, Lori's music was playing through her door.
Thursday felt like a long way off.
Knox pulled into Barb's driveway at noon. I climbed into the passenger seat and he pulled out before I had my seatbelt clicked.
"You're punctual," I said.
"Firefighter thing."
Ray already had the paperwork ready when we arrived. I signed everything, handed over the check, and Ray dropped the keys in my palm.
"She's all yours. You need anything, you know where I am."
Knox walked around the Corolla one more time while I sat in the driver's seat and adjusted the mirrors. It smelled like the same detail spray from the test drive. The engine turned over clean.
"Follow me," Knox said. "The diner's close."
The diner was a few blocks from CCMC, on a corner across from a gas station. I recognized it before we parked. Gracelyn had brought me here after a shift back in April.
I didn't say anything. Knox had his window down and was looking for a spot, and there was something in how he'd said "The diner's close" that told me this wasn't about the food.
We parked side by side in the lot. Knox held the door for me, and as I stepped through, a man carrying a takeout bag pushed out from the other side.
Knox's hand caught my waist and pulled me into him before I registered what happened.
My shoulder pressed against his chest. His hand stayed longer than it needed to.
"Sorry about that," the man muttered, already past us.
Knox let go. "You okay?"
"Yeah." My voice came out quieter than I meant it to.
I walked in first.
Liz and Jen were sitting at the counter.
I saw them before they saw me. Liz had a coffee in front of her. Jen was scrolling her phone. Then Liz looked up, and our eyes met.
I looked away and pretended I hadn't seen them. Out of the corner of my eye, Liz tapped Jen's shoulder and pointed. I didn't want to explain anything to either of them, so I turned my attention back to Knox.
His eyes went to a booth in the back corner, the one closest to the kitchen. He swallowed, and then he walked to a booth by the window and sat down.
"Haven't been here in a while," he said.
I slid in across from him and picked up the menu.
Knox wasn't looking at his. He was looking at the booth in the corner again.
"My brother used to bring me here after school," he said.
"Fridays. Every week. We'd sit back there and order a banana split that was too big for two people, and we'd still try to finish the whole thing.
" He turned his water glass on the table.
"My mom used to get on him for ruining my appetite before dinner.
He never argued with her about it. We'd be right back in that same booth the next Friday. "
"What's his name?"
"Gage." He said it quietly. "He was five years older. He died when I was twelve."
The diner hummed around us. I let a few seconds pass before I said anything.
"I'm sorry, Knox."
He nodded. Then he picked up his menu like he'd said what he came here to say and the next thing on the list was lunch.
"I'd like to try that banana split," I said.
Something eased in his face. He set the menu down and leaned back. "Alright. We'll get one." He flipped the menu over and scanned the other side. "What about the tenders? Anything look good?"