Chapter 44
Now
In order to push through her next ER shift, Annie drinks too much coffee.
Another week has passed. She keeps daydreaming of a life with Walker—-waking up to his gentle grey eyes, drinking morning
coffee off the bow of their fictional sailboat-home. That time they had sex—-was sex even the right word for it?—-in the berth of Polaris so many years ago surfaces obsessively in her mind. When she relives it, half of her sparks with longing and the other flips
inside out with shame. She’s with Evan now. He’s the one that knows her. And the more likely reality is that Walker is dead and Annie is delusional and should probably see
a psychiatrist.
If Evan looks too closely, he will see this insanity, won’t he? Everything Isaac has ever told him about her will be correct.
She’s not ready for that. So she’s been avoiding Evan in a way she never has before—-stealing away to the beach, getting up
earlier than him, or drowning herself in work.
It’s her seventh shift in a row. In the rapid assessment zone, the place is a mess with all of the usual things. Patients arrive with their wound infections and fractures. Head injuries, toddlers with coughs. Annie moves from room to room. She forgets to drink water for the entire afternoon.
“Honestly, Annie,” Hazel says, looking at the nursing station monitor. Annie clicks the next chart and MACLEOD shows up under
bed 18.
“Did the nurse already discharge bed 3?” Annie asks.
Hazel lowers her glasses. Her short grey hair is styled in curling-iron ringlets. Her lips are expertly painted with lipstick.
“Go home, already,” she says.
Annie starts reading the next triage notes. She’s not present. What mistakes is she making? Several times today, she ended
up in the wrong room with the wrong patient or found herself in the stockroom but forgot why she was there. She picked the
worst choice from the vending machine at lunch and ate half of it anyway: dry ham on cardboardy bread.
“Just a few more. The waiting room is packed,” Annie says.
“I worry about you.” Hazel gives her that look. “You don’t look well, honey. What happened when you saw the doctor?”
“They gave me some iron.”
“And?”
“My hemoglobin came up.”
Hazel puts her glasses on top of her head. “Maybe you should take some time off. You never take vacation.”
Annie bites the inside of her cheek. If she stops, she might lose the energy to keep going.
“If I was off work, I’d just stew at home,” Annie says, avoiding Hazel’s eyes, clicking randomly through tabs on the computer
screen. It isn’t true, what she said. She would not stew at home. She’d spend all her time at the beach, wandering, collecting
matching shells, swimming the high tides.
Hazel stands and comes around the desk. “Do you want another coffee at least?”
“I should probably eat some real food.” She digs through her bag to retrieve the rest of the ham sandwich.
“A fantastic reason to come home for dinner.” It’s Evan’s voice. Annie turns and he is there: in jeans and a black puffy jacket, jingling his car keys.
“Was giving her a piece of my mind again,” Hazel says.
“What’d she do this time?” He rubs Annie’s back in his usual overlapping circles. Sand dollar drawings, he always said. Doubles.
She leans into him.
“Her iron’s low.”
His hand stops moving.
“Make sure she does something about that, Evan,” Hazel says over her shoulder as she walks down the hallway toward the cafeteria.
“And take her home while you’re at it. We got this.”
Evan crosses his arms. “Absolutely,” he says.
“Hi,” Annie says, stepping back an inch to face him.
“You got bloodwork done?”
“I did.” Annie unwraps the rest of the ham sandwich. “This is practically desiccated.”
“Were you going to tell me?”
She tosses the sandwich in the garbage. “Would it kill them to add some mayonnaise?”
A nurse comes behind Evan with an empty stretcher. The end bumps into the back of his thigh. “Sorry,” she says. “Traffic jam.
Need to get by.”
Evan takes Annie’s hand and pulls her into the side hallway. “Please talk to me,” he says. “Are you sick?”
His eyes don’t leave hers. Those long black eyelashes—-it reminds her of when he was a nine-year-old boy, scrubbing oysters
on the beach, shucking and eating them on the spot. He gave her the best ones.
“I’m not sick,” she says. “I didn’t want you to worry.”
“I’m already worried.”
“I’m managing.”
“I don’t want you to manage.”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“I want you to be happy.”
“Sorry. Coming through this way now.” The nurse is back, manoeuvring another stretcher.
“Glad you’re getting a room finally, Mr. Simmons,” Annie says. He’s been in the hallway for two hours, writhing with a kidney
stone. She untangles his IV tubing as he wheels by.
Evan pulls her back in front of the nursing station. “Annie. Look at me. Can we get out of here?” he asks. “We really need
to.”
Hazel’s phone rings and another clerical staff picks it up. “Dr. MacLeod—-line two. It’s radiology.”
Evan groans.
A second phone line rings somewhere at the back of the nursing station.
“Dr. MacLeod,” another nurse says. “It’s med surg on line three. Can you go check an ECG over there?”
“I just need a minute,” Annie says to everyone, to the walls, to the ceiling.
She escapes to the bathroom at the back of the department and locks the door behind her. She turns on the tap and waits for
the hot water. The unscented soap foams between her fingers. When she’s done, she splashes her face.
In the mirror, a woman looks back—-one with exhausted and sunken eyes. Her skin is red and chafed—-is that hives?—-around
the neckline of her scrubs. Annie doesn’t recognize her.