Love on the Night Shift

by Radclyffe

  But there on the kitchen counter, clearly visible in the dim illumination from the undercounter lights, sat a pot of coffee on the coffeemaker. She tiptoed into the kitchen, pulled a mug off one of the hooks hanging under the counter, and poured herself a cup. The house was completely quiet as she padded down the hall, grabbed a sweatshirt, and carried her coffee out onto the back deck. Blake, similarly garbed in sweatpants and hoodie, lounged in an Adirondack chair with a mug in his hands. Abby sat down beside him.

  “You’re up awfully early,” she said.

  “I have to be at the hospital in an hour, and I was awake.” He lifted his shoulder. “Plus, I like it out here when the sun comes up, and it’s gonna be too cold to sit outside before too long.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and have an Indian summer,” Abby said, sipping the coffee. It was strong, just the way she liked it. She’d taught him well.

  “Something on your mind?” Abby asked when the silence stretched. Blake wasn’t usually such an early riser.

  “Not really,” Blake said.

  “Not really isn’t actually no,” Abby said.

  Blake laughed softly. “Something on yours?”

  Abby grinned. Smart-ass. “Yeah. You. How’s school?”

  “It’s only been two weeks. I can’t really be behind in anything yet.”

  “Okay, how were the first two weeks, then? And you’re never behind in your schoolwork.”

  “I like most of my teachers.” Another shrug. “I think the math teacher thinks we’re all morons—well, except for Taylor, of course, but other than that it’s okay.”

  “Okay is good,” Abby said slowly. “And the social situation?”

  Blake shifted in his chair, gave her a look. “You mean, is anybody giving me a hard time about being trans?”

  “That would be the gist of it, yup.”

  “Only the usual dickheads—and not much at all. Probably the same thing they do to every new kid.”

  “Who?” Abby sipped her coffee and concentrated on the mist rising from the cornfield, keeping her anger under wraps. This was about Blake’s feelings, not hers.

  “Just a couple of chickenshits who make a comment now and then when I walk past. You know the ones—from the fair.”

  Abby sighed. “I’m sorry. Which doesn’t help at all and doesn’t change anything, but I am.”

  “I know.” Blake gazed out over the pasture as the first streaks of red and orange broke in the sky. “A few other kids are curious, but they don’t know what to do about it, so they don’t say anything. Just a look when they think I’m not looking. But mostly, nobody cares.”

  “That’s good, then.” Probably as good as could be expected, but she still hated that he had to deal with any of it.

  “It’s good we came here,” Blake said.

  A tightness around Abby’s heart she hadn’t even known was there shattered as if a hammer had divided a length of chain with a single blow. “I’m glad. It seemed like a good idea…in theory. But it’s a lot to handle—new school, new friends, and new dickheads.”

  “The dickheads are all the same.” Blake grinned. “It’s a lot harder for people to get used to the change when they’ve known you a certain way for your whole life, and then you’re different.”

  “I think you’re right. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. And no excuse for ignorance.” She couldn’t quite hide her anger.

  He looked at her again, and again, she was taken by surprise by the change in his face and the maturity in his eyes. His jaw had started to get a little heavier, the way boys’ faces did as they moved out of adolescence, and any day now, he’d need to shave. “You never said it was hard for you.”

  Abby steadied her coffee cup on the arm of her chair with one hand and reached for his hand with the other. Their fingers clasped, and she gave his hand a little shake. “It’s not hard. It’s scary sometimes, because I don’t always know what’s the best thing to do.”

  “Me neither.”

  Abby smiled. “Well, you, me, and Flann can always figure that out.”

  “Is Flann going to be mad if Margie and I have sex?”

  “Well, okay,” Abby said on a long exhalation. “That’s a right-angle turn in the conversation. Are you planning to?”

  “We haven’t decided yet. We talked about it. But, you know, that’s a big thing.”

  “It is,” Abby said, ignoring the uncertainty swarming in her middle. “Can I ask you, are you in love with her?”

  “I love her,” Blake said instantly.

  Abby smiled. “I know that.”

  “I love Dave too,” Blake said.

  “Are you thinking about having sex with Dave?” Abby said.

  Blake lifted his shoulder. “Sometimes, yeah. I think he’d be into it, but he doesn’t push. You know.”

  “Well, to answer your first question, no, Flann isn’t going to be mad. She’s probably going to be panicked because Margie’s her sister, and your sister’s not supposed to have sex. Plus you’re her kid, and your kid is definitely not supposed to have sex.”

  “Um, you know that’s crazy, right?”

  Abby laughed. “Yes, I do, but as your mother, I completely understand it.”

  “Well, it’s not happening yet. But, you know, someday.”

  “Well, when someday comes, or anytime before then, I’m here if you want to talk about it. And you know the drill. Safe sex, right?”

  “We all know that, Mom,” Blake said with a verbal eyeroll, as if Abby was hopelessly behind the times.

  And maybe she was, but she was catching up fast.

  * * *

  Shortly before seven, Blaise carried a cup of freshly brewed coffee into the ER conference room and sat down at the table. Blake Remy and Margie Rivers were already there, both looking bright-eyed and eager.

  “Morning!” they announced in unison, as if being there was the most exciting thing in their universe.

  “Morning,” Blaise said, consciously not asking about Taylor. Taylor was fine—undoubtedly fast asleep. A morning person she was not. Where she got that trait from, Blaise couldn’t fathom.

  Margie, Blaise noticed, had grown a few inches over the summer, and her always pretty face had begun to show the refined bone structure of the woman she was becoming. Blake’s voice had dropped further in just the last few weeks. He was turning into one of those effortlessly handsome types who were destined to break hearts. For an instant, she thought of another handsome heartbreaker and, just as quickly, put Grady McClure out of her mind.

  “You two still working with Val Valentine too?” Blaise asked.

  Margie rolled her eyes. “Blake is—on Sundays. He doesn’t have to stay home and help around the house.”

  Blake laughed. “My mother doesn’t make enough food on Sunday to feed an army for a week.”

  “Yeah—that’s because Flann comes home every Sunday that you guys don’t eat with us and grabs leftovers,” Margie said. “Abby doesn’t have to cook!”

  Mari Mateo, one of the ER PAs and the fiancée of Flann Rivers’s best friend, walked in on the end of Margie’s sentence. “You mean Glenn could be getting in on that, and I’m just finding out? Your mother is the best cook in…anywhere.”

  “You guys are always welcome.” Margie made a face but her eyes were shining. “We always have plenty.”

  Emery D’Angelo, the charge nurse for the day shift, strode in on the dot of seven. “Reinforcements have arrived,” he announced as he plopped down beside Blake. Six two, brawny build, and butter-soft tenor, he ran the ER like he’d run his hospital detail in the Army. Disciplined, organized, compassionate. “Hit it.”

  “Okay,” Mari said, tapping her tablet, “we’ve got six pendings who’ve already been worked up and are waiting for labs, X-rays, or consults.” She glanced at Blaise with a silent request for an update.

  They’d done this hundreds of times before and could read each other’s minds. Blaise went down the list, identifying each patient by nam
e, preliminary diagnosis, outstanding labs and X-rays, and pending consults as well as any new information that might’ve come in since Mari last saw them. Emery checked the information in his digital files and added whatever notes he needed.

  “The ER residents on call today are Marshall and Kwan,” Mari said when Blaise finished. “And you’ve got the other nurses, plus Blake and Margie.”

  Emery grunted. “Not too bad.”

  Blaise smothered a smile. Emery had been one of the holdouts opposed to the new emergency room training programs. He’d been a medic in Iraq and had been vocal in his opinion that civilian trainees were coddled, inexperienced, and too arrogant to learn from the people who really knew what they were talking about. Meaning, most of the time, him.

  Abby had made it clear to everyone that the training program was going forward and that she expected everyone to contribute to the education of the residents. Emery hadn’t seemed to have any issues with the new PA training program, perhaps because he saw those non-physician but highly trained professionals to be more like himself. Regardless, he was doing his job, and Blaise had no complaints. He’d even softened up a little bit in the last couple of weeks after having worked more closely with some of the residents. Fortunately, most of them were wise enough to take the advice of people who knew more about some things than they did. That helped a lot.

  “What about Wilbur Hopkins,” Mari asked. “Do we have any word on his status?”

  “I checked with the OR forty-five minutes ago,” Blaise said, “and they were near to finishing.”

  “Long case,” Mari said.

  “Yes, they had to put in an aortic bifurcation graft, so he clearly had a lot of damage.”

  “Long recovery too,” Emery said.

  Blaise and the other ER staff always tried to get follow-up on the patients they referred for admission or surgery. They weren’t just a way station on the path to some other caretaker. They were part of a team, even if they weren’t physically involved with the patient’s care after they left the emergency room. They wanted to know that their part in the patient’s care had been appropriate, that everything had been done that should’ve been done, and they often followed the critical patients during their hospital stay and updated one another informally. Abby encouraged it and, at weekly rounds, reviewed all the admissions through the emergency room and expected updates on patient care. Like Emery, some of the veteran staff had complained about the extra work at first, but not nearly as many as had complained about the training program. They’d already been doing their own follow-up, and having it formalized hadn’t changed anything.

  “I’m going to stop by the OR when I leave this morning,” Blaise said. “His wife is waiting upstairs, and I talked to her on the telephone, so I’ll check in with her.”

  “That’s great.” Mari closed her tablet. “I think that covers it, then.”

  “All right”—Emery stood, motioning to Blake and Margie—“let’s go find the docs and get you two assigned.”

  “Have a good one,” Mari and Blaise said together.

  Blaise rinsed her cup in the sink and put it on the sideboard. “You need a ride?”

  “No,” Mari said, “Glenn is picking me up, and we’re going out for breakfast.”

  “I’ll see you Sunday, then.”

  “Okay…Wait, are you going the party at the Homestead tonight?” Mari asked.

  “Is everyone in town going?” Blaise asked.

  Mari grinned. “You know Glenn and I will be. Come with.”

  Blaise hesitated. Abby had invited her. Suddenly the prospect of a Saturday night doing laundry wasn’t very appealing. “I just might.”

  Mari grinned. “Great. Because you’re right. Everyone will be there.”

  Blaise wondered if that included newcomers, like a certain dark-haired, sexy attending. Not that she really cared, not at all.

  Chapter Five

  Patty, one of the OR supervisors, was at the OR desk when Blaise entered.

  “Aren’t you just about ready to go home?” Blaise asked.

  Patty gave her a look. “Soon. I’m waiting until OR seven clears out. Once housekeeping starts on it, I’m outta here.”

  She glanced at the row of monitors that showed all of the individual operating rooms, and Blaise craned her neck to take a peek. She watched Grady and Pedro Alvarez, the vascular surgeon and—she squinted to make out the third surgeon—surgery resident Courtney Valentine coordinate moving Wilbur Hopkins from the operating room table into an ICU bed. The anesthesiologist guided his head during the transfer to keep the breathing tube in place and then hooked him back up to a portable ventilator. The OR nurses checked to be sure that all his lines, catheters, drainage tubes, and other essential equipment followed onto the bed with him. The ICU resident who had come to help transport, along with Grady and Courtney, pushed the bed out of the room. Within seconds, the operating room was empty except for the hampers filled with linens and surgical gowns, the stainless steel buckets holding bloody sponges, soiled dressing wrappers, and the detritus left over from starting IVs, hanging IV bags, and opening instrument packs, and random bits of trash on the floor.

  Patty let out a long sigh as two housekeeping staffers moved into camera range with mops and huge wheeled trash bins filled with red bags, denoting contaminated contents for disposal. “That’s it for me. What are you doing up here? Oh, are you looking for Wilbur’s wife?”

  “I thought I would stop by and see her. Is that okay?”

  “Of course. I’m sure she’d like that. Pedro’s probably going out to talk to her, soon as he changes into clean scrubs. Or else McClure will when she gets Wilbur settled in the ICU.”

  “How did it go?” Blaise asked, hoping she sounded nonchalant. It was an appropriate question and something Wilbur’s wife would want to know. She wasn’t really asking for information about Grady.

  “It was a tough case, but from what I could see when I peeked my head in a few times, and what I heard from the OR nurses when they took a break, it was going fine. McClure apparently has really good hands, and Pedro is a magician, so Wilbur should do really well. But you know how it is—if the patient’s got bad vessels in his belly, he’s got bad vessels everywhere, so until he’s out of the ICU it’s never a sure thing.”

  “I know. I can tell his wife that everything went well and that Dr. Alvarez or Dr. McClure will be out to talk to her, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Blaise was always careful to be certain that she gave the appropriate message to the patient’s family and didn’t relay any information that might contradict what the surgeon would tell them, or want them to know, at any certain point. She paused. “So McClure looks like a good addition.”

  “Flann has never missed,” Patty said as they walked out into the hall. “When she hires someone new, they’re always the best.” She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t particularly swing in McClure’s direction, but if I did, she’s easy to look at, a real charmer, and I think even a couple of the nurses who wouldn’t ordinarily be interested were taken with her.”

  Blaise bit her lip to hold back a retort. She knew it was just a coincidence, because it couldn’t be anything else, but Grady just reminded her far too much of things—of people—she really wanted to forget. She wished she hadn’t asked.

  “Well,” she said briskly, “I know you want to get home, and I have to eventually collect my daughter.” She laughed. “Although I doubt I’ll hear from her for a few hours yet.”

  Patty stopped by the OR locker room. “Have a good one, and thanks for getting Wilbur up here so quickly.”

  “Anytime.” Blaise crossed the hall to the surgical waiting room and poked her head inside. The only person there was a middle-aged woman in a red flannel shirt, navy blue pants, and calf-high muck boots. She’d probably grabbed the closest thing she could on the way out of her house in a hurry, and her barn boots would’ve been right by the door.

  “Mrs. Hopkins?” Blaise asked.
r />   The woman got to her feet. “Yes, I’m Cindy Hopkins. My husband, is he—”

  Blaise quickly joined her. “He’s on his way to the intensive care unit. His surgery is finished. The OR nurses tell me that it went very well, and one of the doctors will be out to give you more information very soon.”

  “Oh,” Cindy said, reaching for the arm of the chair where she’d been sitting. “That’s…that’s good.”

  Blaise slipped a hand under her elbow. “Why don’t you go ahead and sit down again. It’s been a very long night.”

  “Thank you,” Cindy Hopkins said.

  “I’ll get you something to drink. Water? Coffee?”

  “Just…just some water would be good,” Cindy said.

  “I got it,” Grady McClure said from behind Blaise. As Blaise turned to watch, she filled one of the disposable cups from the water cooler and carried it over to Cindy. “Here you go.”

  Cindy glanced up at her, her eyes widening slightly. “Thank you.”

  Grady crouched low enough to put her eyes at the same level as Cindy’s. “I’m Dr. McClure,” Grady said.

  “My husband’s surgeon,” Mrs. Hopkins said.

  “One of them, yes, ma’am,” Grady said. “Dr. Alvarez is the vascular surgeon, and he’ll be by to talk to you as well. I just wanted you to know that your husband is being made comfortable in the ICU right now, and when the nurses have him all settled, which will probably take close to half an hour, one of them will be out to let you know when you’ll be able to see him for just a couple of minutes. He won’t be awake yet and he may not know you’re there, but he might, so if you touch his hand and talk to him, he’ll know.”