by Devney Perry
“It’s stupid.” She swiped at her cheeks, letting one hiccup loose. “She’s on to better things. She needs to get back to being a kid again and out of this hospital. But I’m going to miss her.”
Luna had left today.
I’d met her only once. Last week, she’d peeked into my room when the door had been left open and invited herself inside. I hadn’t really wanted company but when a sixteen-year-old kid dressed like a rainbow shows up at your door with a sunshine smile, you don’t turn her away.
Luna had stayed for almost an hour, talking the entire time about her accident and her time at the hospital. She told me about her friends and the anxiety she had about returning to school.
But mostly, she talked about Sara.
Luna told me how Sara was the only nurse who always smiled when she came into a room. How Sara helped her with her homework and taught her how to play gin rummy. How just being around Sara made some of the pain go away.
She told me Sara was a hidden jewel—something I already knew.
With one hand waving and the other toying with her purple hair, Luna eventually returned to her room, and I realized she was a bit like Sara herself. When she left the room, the light faded.
Sara had been prepping for Luna’s discharge all week, spending her free time in Luna’s room. She’d stayed late last night to eat a farewell cake with Luna and her family. But none of it had made today any easier for her tender, gentle heart.
The first week I’d spent here had been a blur of pain and black, empty gaps. When I was awake, the agony was all I could think about. Not even the drugs could keep it at bay. The only other thing I felt was guilt. How many times had I wished that week that the explosion had taken me? How many times had I cursed myself for being a half-wit cop who deserved this mangled and melted skin?
How many times had I considered ending the pain myself?
Countless.
But then she came into my room. My light.
Her touch soothed the burns more than any cream or ointment on earth. Her voice was a dream, chasing away the dread and despair. When Sara was in the room, the pain was bearable. A second thought. It was easier to ignore as I studied her porcelain skin or the freckles dusting her nose. As I tried to decide if her ponytail was blond or red.
Sara. Even her name brought me comfort.
Did she have a man in her life? Would she cry when I left the hospital? Would I even be able to leave her behind?
“Want to sit?” I asked.
“Okay.” She nodded, but rather than going to her normal seat in the chair, she perched on the edge of the bed. It was an automatic, mindless move, but as she realized where she’d just sat, her eyes widened and she stood in a flash. “Oh, sorry.”
“No.” I shot out a hand, pinning hers to the hard mattress before she could leave. The movement made me flinch, the burns throbbing. “Ah, shit,” I hissed. “Please. Sit here.”
She sank down, careful not to get too close.
My eyes dropped to our hands, hers still trapped under mine. She’d touched me many times as my nurse, but this was different. This touch was charged with the electricity we’d both been pretending didn’t crackle between us when we were in the same room.
Her skin was soft, cooler than my own. It was flawless and smooth where mine was rough and broken. The burn on the back of my knuckles was hot pink. Her hand was the color of fresh vanilla ice cream.
Fuck, but she smelled good too. Like a summer breeze through a wheat field. Like sunshine and fresh orange juice, all mixed into one. I breathed it in so I wouldn’t forget when she was off shift later. The two days she’d spent off last week had been miserable.
“Your hand looks good,” she said.
“Almost back to normal.”
It was only a bad first-degree burn. A nuisance compared to the rest. But it had been tended to with Sara’s expert care like all the others, slathered with creams to reduce the chance of scarring and bandaged up until three days ago.
“If you keep it moisturized, I don’t think it will peel.”
“I’ll do my best.” I’d do whatever she told me to do. I’d endure a lifetime of pain if that meant lying here with her hand under mine. “No more crying, okay? I can’t take it.”
“I’ll try.” She gave me a small smile. “Is that just a guy thing? Not being able to see a girl cry.”
“No.” I ran my index finger up and over the hills of her knuckles. “I can handle tears. Just not yours.”
SARA
It was a good thing I was sitting or I might have fallen down. Never in my life had a man said something so sweet to me.
Milo’s finger continued to trace my knuckles. Tingles rolled to my elbow with every stroke. His skin was warm, hot compared to mine. His palm was wide and his fingers long. His hand engulfed my own, keeping it safe.
I shouldn’t be holding his hand—or letting him hold mine. I shouldn’t be enjoying it this much. But I couldn’t slip away. Like his sweet words, I’d never had a man touch me like this before. Like my hand was a priceless work of art to be protected, not just an appendage of bones and tendons and muscle.
I’d dated a guy in college for about three months. He’d hold my hand whenever we were walking to class, but it had never felt like this.
“We’re back.” The door opened behind me and I leapt from the bed, slipping my hand free.
I darted to the sink, my cheeks aflame, just as Teresa and Kirk walked into the room.
“Hey,” Milo muttered. He sounded irritated and disappointed.
I smiled.
When the blush left my cheeks, I turned and greeted Milo’s parents. “Hi. How was lunch?”
“Hi, Sara.” Kirk walked to the window, leaning against the sill as he patted his flat belly. “Lunch was breakfast and I had one too many pancakes.”
Kirk was lean and tall, like Milo, with a caring face and welcoming eyes. There was no mistaking father and son with their same straight nose. Kirk kept his brown hair short, like Milo’s, except his hairline had receded into a deep M shape.
“I brought you another strawberry smoothie,” Teresa told Milo, setting down the cup. The straw still had an inch of paper on the end.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Teresa went to the chair and sat down, sipping from her own Oreo milkshake as Milo started in on his pink smoothie. Her eyes were the same coffee shade as Milo’s, and when she smiled, it was impossible not to smile back.
“We’d like to talk to you both.” Kirk crossed his ankles as he leaned deeper against the windowsill.
Talk to us both? Oh, no. My heart jumped up into my throat. Had they noticed the attraction between Milo and me? Had they deciphered the reason I popped into his room so often was only so I could see his face? Did they think I was an unprofessional, silly girl who couldn’t control her feelings?
They wouldn’t be wrong. Still, I craved their approval.
I gulped. Milo set down his smoothie and nodded at Kirk. “What’s up?”
“We’ve listened to what you’ve had to say, and you’re right.” Kirk glanced at Teresa. “There’s not much we can do here. So we’re going home.”
Relief swayed me on my feet. This wasn’t about me and Milo. I wanted to bring my hand to my racing heart, but I left it palmed against my side.
“Good,” Milo said. “Thank you.”
“Before we go, I just want to make sure you’ll be fine on your own.” Teresa looked to me, her eyes pleading for honesty. “I can stay if you think it’s best.”
“I promise we’ll take good care of him. And if anything happens, you’ll be my first phone call.”
Teresa and Kirk stayed while I changed Milo’s dressings. Then I bid them farewell, going across the unit to help Kym finish up with her patients for the day. With Luna gone and no new admits, things were too quiet on my side of the unit.
I worked hard, passing a couple of hours until I retreated to the nurses station to update patient charts.
“
Sara?” I glanced up from the computer screen to see Teresa and Kirk, their coats draped over their arms and Teresa’s eyes damp from crying.
“Are you leaving?” I stood from my chair and made my way around the counter.
“We’re out of here.” Kirk nodded. “We’re hoping to drive halfway home tonight and stay in Missoula.”
“Travel safe.”
That was my standard farewell because I wasn’t sure what else to say. See you soon. It was a pleasure meeting you. Neither of those seemed to fit. As long as Milo’s recovery was on track, they wouldn’t need to come back here. And though it had been a pleasure meeting them, I didn’t want to sound like I was glad Milo had been burned in that explosion.
So I simply smiled, watching as Milo’s parents went to the bank of elevators and waited until one arrived. As they stepped inside, they waved one last time before the silver doors closed shut.
I sat down, mindlessly staring at the computer’s screen. Two good-byes in one day. No wonder my heart was heavy.
Would I ever see Kirk or Teresa again? Probably not. And even though she’d promised to keep in touch, I doubted I’d hear from Luna again either.
She was nervous about going back into the real world, about showing people her scars. But she had a strength I envied. Luna carried herself with a youthful confidence that my sixteen-year-old self would have found intimidating and alluring. Even after her accident.
Luna would flourish, of that I was sure. The party we’d had for her last night had been bittersweet. I was excited for her to start on this new journey and embrace the woman she’d become. I was sad I wouldn’t get to see her grow.
The elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and Connie stepped out, ready for her shift.
After exchanging notes on patients and making a lap of rounds with the evening crew, Kym and I turned over the unit and went to the locker room to collect our belongings and go home.
“Have a good night, Sara,” Kym said before leaving. “See you Thursday.”
“You too. Have a good few days off.”
Normally, we’d both have a break before our next stretch of shifts. But months ago, I’d agreed to cover for another day-shift nurse so he could take his family on a ski trip. I’d immediately dreaded it after I’d said yes. But now that Milo was here, extra hours in the hospital didn’t sound so bad.
I didn’t want to be home in my condo alone, especially tonight.
There was no hesitation in my stride as I left the locker room and walked toward Milo’s room. I ignored the text from Mom asking if I’d mind picking up a pack of Denny’s favorite beer and dropping it off. She was giving herself a manicure and her nails needed time to set. Why Denny couldn’t buy his own beer was a mystery.
He’d have to fend for himself tonight.
I peeked my head inside Milo’s door. “Hey.”
The room was dark, as expected. But his eyes were open for once. “Hey.”
I came into the room, closing the door nearly all the way. Somehow that one-inch crack between the door and jamb made me feel like I wasn’t crossing every single boundary there was by being here when I was off duty.
As I came closer, I noticed a haze in Milo’s eyes. His lids were droopy, which meant he’d likely pushed another round of morphine. “How’s the pain?”
“Right now? A two. Ten minutes ago? An eight.”
“Can I get you anything?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Are you going to keep me company?”
“I can let you rest.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll rest when I’m dead.”
“Okay.” I walked to the chair, taking my normal seat. Then I sat, relaxing into the seat and closing my eyes.
“Talk to me.”
“About?”
“What’s your family think about you staying here with me most nights?”
My family? They didn’t even care to ask what I did at night. “I’m not really close to my family.”
“What about a roommate? Or, um . . .” Milo’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “A boyfriend?”
I dropped my chin to hide my smile. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Oh.” He looked toward the opposite wall but not before I caught the corner of his mouth turning up. “So you’re not close to your family?”
“Not really.”
“Tell me about them?”
“There’s not a lot to tell. I grew up here, for the most part.”
“What do you mean, for the most part?” he asked.
I shifted in the seat, tucking a leg under my rear to get comfortable. “My parents divorced when I was ten. My mom’s always been sort of flighty. That was the word Dad always used to describe her.”
And as I’d grown up, I’d realized flighty was being generous. Mom’s troubles were more than being absentminded. She wasn’t scatterbrained. She just didn’t give a damn about anything. Well, except for my brother. And herself.
“After the divorce, my mom decided to move to Seattle. She wanted to live in a bigger city. She took me and my younger brother, Denny, with her. I lasted a month and then begged my dad to come and get me.”
I’d hated living with Mom. She’d been too busy exploring her new city and finding a young boyfriend to care about the upheaval she’d put Denny and me through. We rarely ate a home-cooked meal. She sent me to school in dirty clothes more than once because she’d forgotten to do laundry. I’d called Dad in tears and begged him to come for me. He’d been at the door four hours later with an empty suitcase.
Denny had been eight and loved the change. He’d gone from structure and schedules under Dad’s roof to ultimate freedom under Mom’s. He didn’t mind eating cold cereal every single day or wearing the same jeans five days in a row.
“So you came back?” Milo asked.
“Yep.” I nodded. “I lived with Dad. Denny stayed with Mom.”
And because of it, he’d missed learning all of the lessons about becoming a responsible member of society Dad had made sure to teach me.
“The only thing I didn’t like about living with Dad was he was a smoker.”
“Was?”
“Was,” I whispered. “Dad smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. When I got into high school, I used to razz him about it constantly. He cut back to half a pack but I guess I should have nagged him harder. About three years ago he caught a bad cold. It turned into pneumonia. Then it turned into stage-four lung cancer. He died eight months later.”
“Sara, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” I gave him a small smile. “I miss him.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“He was my best friend.” My chin quivered as the sting in my nose burned hot. “We used to do everything together. Simple things that meant a lot. We grocery shopped together. We planted flowers in the yard every May. We ate pizza and watched HBO on Friday nights.”
The hole he’d left behind hadn’t begun to close. There was no one to fill his void. And being around my mother and brother only seemed to make it grow.
“Are you close with your mom?” Milo asked.
“No.” I scoffed. “Not at all. Honestly, I don’t think she likes me much. I think I remind her too much of Dad. Or maybe she’s still hurt by my choice. When I left Seattle to come back with Dad, she didn’t understand.”
Mom put all her energy into Denny after that. She called me once a week at first, but as the years went on, the calls became fewer and farther between. The only times I saw her were on the trips Dad and I would take to Seattle so he could visit Denny. Three times a year, Mom would hug me and tell me how much she missed me. But there had always been a feeling under those words. A bitter tension to the hugs.
Now that she was back in Spokane, she nitpicked everything I did. What I wore. My makeup—or lack thereof. My ponytail and how it was pulled up too tight.
“Is she still in Seattle?”
I shook my head. “After Dad died, Mom came back to Spokane because he left her his house
.”
“Really?” Milo asked. “Not you?”
“Really. It bothered me at first, but Dad explained it to me before he died. I understand why he did it. And honestly, I wouldn’t have time to care for it anyway. It’s about four thousand square feet with a large yard and a ton of maintenance.”
It would have been too much for me. It was too much for Mom. Instead of trying to keep up on the yard work and little repairs, she’d let it go. It was heartbreaking to return home—to a place Dad had worked so hard to keep nice—and see how quickly it was becoming a shambles.
Underneath this winter’s snow, the yard was overgrown. The flower beds were full of weeds. The cedar shakes in the apex of the roofline needed to be stained, the porch swept of fallen leaves and stained too.
The inside, which Dad and I had always kept clean and tidy, was now crowded. Mom wasn’t a hoarder but she loved clutter. All of her knickknacks were coated with dust. Her abundance of toss pillows and crocheted throw blankets had gone too long without washing and gave off a musty odor.
I kept reminding myself it wasn’t Dad’s place anymore. Still, it was hard to see.
“I lived with Dad all through college. When I graduated, he bought me a condo about three blocks from here.” He’d wanted me to be able to walk to and from work. “And he bought me a car.”
He’d already been diagnosed with cancer when he’d bought me both. He knew Mom would fight for his house after his death. At least, for the portion she thought Denny was owed. And instead of making me deal with his loss and a battle with Mom, he’d simply let her win. At the same time, he’d provided me a home and my own freedom.
“Denny just moved in with Mom. Right after New Year’s,” I told Milo.
“Are you close with him?”
“We don’t really know each other. Denny is a carpenter or is trying to be. He’s . . .” Arrogant. Spoiled. Rude. He didn’t like to work before ten or past three. He did good work when he tried but he wasn’t exactly what anyone would call ambitious. “He has some growing up to do.”
Milo chuckled. “Is that a nice way to say you don’t get along?”