There were a few doctors who took extra liberty with their Halloween garb, but for the most part, the staff’s festiveness entailed funky headbands, face paint, and Halloween printed scrubs.
I wore simple black cat ears and drew on whiskers with black eyeliner. Though the day had been very busy with dislocated shoulders via bounce houses and allergic reactions to cupcakes with mystery ingredients, it would be nothing compared to the night shift. The staff nearly doubled by five o’ clock and the waiting room began to fill with many strange looking characters—and not just strange due to costume choice.
People were odd on this holiday. Unusual and unappealing stunts were often tried, tested, and proved harmful on this day. The difficult part was that Halloween messed with the most important sense a nurse had: the ability to visually assess a patient’s need and distress level. On this night, that sense was blinded by fake blood, painted scars, and layers of makeup and clothing (or sometimes no clothing).
Kai had sent me a text earlier in the day asking me to be careful of the crazies and to call him before I left work. I smiled at his thoughtfulness. He was one person who truly knew the freaky details that often went along with a shift worked on Halloween night.
I had already seen several emergency vehicles come through. At this point, their loads were mostly drunken high school students, but there was also a group of pumpkin smashers who’d been brought in as well. Apparently, their last house didn’t go as planned. A group of black ninjas had jumped out and retaliated on them by way of BB guns. Guess that was the last house with smashed pumpkins on that particular street.
The floor was frantic by nine. I still had three hours left. At least my remaining time would go by quickly. I made a note to tell Kai about my glass half-full mentality.
Hey, maybe I am a positive person after all.
I laughed out loud.
After releasing my last patient--a man hit in the face with a baseball bat at a haunted corn maze—I walked to room 104. I checked the chart briefly on the outside of the door and knocked twice as I entered. My eyes widened. There on the hospital bed was a beautiful blond lady bug—no older than eight.
A worried father stood by her side.
“Hi there, you must be Mallory...is that right?” I asked, walking closer to the small girl.
“Yes,” the young girl said, holding her left arm against her body.
“Do you know how much longer we will need to wait for the doctor?” the father asked. He pressed his fingers to his temples, and then stared at me for an answer.
“It should just be a few minutes more, Mr.-”
“Brown, David Brown.” He looked at his daughter.
“Okay. Well, let me just get some information and I can make sure to get it to the doctor as quickly as possible. Mallory was hit by a vehicle tonight?” I asked.
My heart rate quickened. The little girl moaned in pain. I fixed my eyes on Mr. Brown, but he wasn’t the one to answer.
“I was running...to see my friend Lauren.” Mallory answered. Her sweet voice was soft, but strained. Her face twisted in pain.
My chest felt like it was twisting, too.
This reaction was unfamiliar to me. I was good at my job. I was good at being a professional.
I was even better at being numb.
“We were in a busy trick-or-treating neighborhood. Kids were on both sides of the street, but there were also cars driving kids to each block. It all happened so fast. One minute she was in front of me...the next she was crossing the street to walk with Lauren. The car came out of nowhere,” Mr. Brown said. His face was full of guilt.
I swallowed hard. I knew that look.
I took a deep breath, turning my body away from Mallory completely. A burning sensation simmered in the depths of my core, threatening my ability to focus. I only needed to think about the facts, nothing else.
This is not like Anna.
Logically I knew that, but logic had lied to me before.
Logic had told me the storm wasn’t that bad.
Logic had told me not to turn back.
Logic had killed Anna.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts again. “Can you explain to me where she was hit? Do you have an idea of how fast the car was going?” I asked.
“It couldn’t have been more than ten miles per hour. She hit the bumper on the driver’s side...and rolled onto the hood before she was thrown down on the road. She landed on her left arm and hip,” Mr. Brown said, moving to touch his daughter’s hair.
My eyes followed him and the movement. Suddenly, I was seeing the hair of a very different little girl. It was an image I wouldn’t soon forget, one that had been permanently stamped in my mind’s eye.
I blinked several times.
Mallory was in focus again, moaning in pain.
I swallowed down the thick ball of molasses that had formed in my throat. My hands started to shake. Somehow though, I found the words to speak, “I’m going to see what I can bring her for the pain. I’ll be right back to examine her and get the doctor.”
I left the room, pulling the heavy door closed behind me. My breathing was heavy as I clutched my hand over my heart and closed my eyes. I just needed a moment to calm the panic inside me. The thought of easing the child’s discomfort propelled me forward through the hall.
Get a grip!
You can’t lose it, not here.
After many deep breaths and pep talks, I returned to administer her IV. She was frightened, crying as she pulled her good arm away from me. I leaned down next to her. A shiver raced through me as I took in the fragility of her body. She stopped crying as her eyes met mine.
“I know a trick, can I tell you about it?” I asked her.
She nodded, shifting her body a tad closer to me.
“If you sing the alphabet song and close your eyes real tight, I can be done with this part by the time you get to the end of the song.”
Her eyes held no suspicion in them as she stared at me.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Mr. Brown smiled at me from the corner of the room. Mallory gave me her right arm, willingly. The gesture caused my heart to ache as I held her tiny wrist in my hand.
Then she started to sing; I had never heard a sweeter voice.
The only thing that kept me sane in that moment was the fact that I would do anything to ease the pain of this child. She trusted me…I couldn’t let her down.
When the needle poked through her skin on the letter “H”, she squeezed her eyes shut a little tighter, but by the time “W” came around, her IV was secured. She smiled at me as I laid her arm down gently.
I knew by the swelling of her left arm, that her wrist was probably fractured. There was a lot of swelling near the joint of her elbow, too. Peeling back the layers of her lady bug bloomers, her hip was a tie-dye of purples and blues. Hematoma was likely. Though she would be able to walk, it would be months before the deep bruise would heal completely.
Elvis—or Doctor Hernandez as I knew him—came in just minutes later. He confirmed that she would need x-rays along with an MRI. Mr. Brown gasped when he heard that surgery would be the most probable outcome tonight after they confirmed the lab results. Dr. Hernandez then explained that the elbow was a very sensitive area to operate on. Even with the most skilled surgeon, a full range of motion was difficult to guarantee.
Mr. Brown looked like he was going to pass out from the news.
“I...I need to make a phone call, please. Her mom is out of town. We have split custody and she needs to know what’s going on here tonight,” Mr. Brown said.
Dr. Hernandez looked at me. “Can you stay with her a minute while he steps out?”
“Sure,” I said, instantly feeling sick to my stomach. I needed to get out of this room—not babysit. I pulled up a chair to her bedside as Mr. Brown stepped out into the hallway.
Mallory seemed completely relaxed now. Her medicine had kicked in and she was no longer moaning, even though her injuries wer
e still very apparent. She turned her head to look at me.
“My mom’s never missed Halloween before. We always did trick-or-treating together,” Mallory said. The tears in her eyes made me want to touch her head, the way I had seen her father do only minutes before.
But I couldn’t do that.
Touching was the opposite of numbing.
I pushed the desire away.
“I like your costume choice. I always liked bugs,” I said.
Mallory’s eyes lit up, her tears momentarily forgotten.
“You do? Daddy says I’m a tomboy ‘cause I love bugs—all bugs.”
“I guess I was, too. I liked to collect bugs when I was your age. My sister always thought it was so weird, but I loved to make them special habitats in jars and things, and to learn what they ate and how they lived.”
She smiled thoughtfully. I noticed then that she was shivering, most likely from the cold liquid pumping through her IV. I stood and carefully pulled another blanket over her.
“Do you like to read about them?” I asked, distracting myself from her nearness.
“Yes, I love to read! I got some big picture books on bugs and reptiles for my birthday last month.”
It was then the lab tech opened the door to take her away. A part of me was relieved. Dr. Brown had just ended his call as the tech began to roll her out the door. He was careful not to bump her arm or hip. I followed them out, about to turn in the opposite direction, when I saw her reach back to me.
“Don’t you get to come with me?” she asked.
There was something desperate in her eyes—a pleading. I felt all the air rush out of my lungs.
She wants me to go with her?
Before I could answer, Dr. Hernandez answered for me. He told me to go ahead with her and that he would let Nurse Holt know. Mallory grabbed a hold of my finger then, her tiny hand gripping around it tightly.
I looked down at it.
I was no longer numb.
Touching had won.
**********
It was almost midnight when her surgery was confirmed. Though I knew she would be well taken care of by the fourth-floor nursing staff, she refused to let go of my finger. I didn’t argue. We traveled that way through the halls, in the elevator, and into the room that she would recover in post-surgery.
Finally though, it was time.
I felt her tense. “You’ll do great Mallory. You’ll sleep the whole time and when you wake up you’ll have a really cool cast. All your friends will get to sign it when you go back to school.”
“Will you sign it?” she asked.
Another stabbing pain tore through my heart at the sincerity of her question. Tomorrow was my day off, but I couldn’t say no. Nothing would have made me say no.
“I’ll come back and sign it tomorrow.”
“Promise?” she asked.
“I promise,” I said. She squeezed my finger one last time before dropping her hand. I watched her dad kiss her face and reassure her again.
Then, she was rolled into surgery.
Mr. Brown was speaking to me—thanking me I think—but I couldn’t hear him. All I could hear were the sweet words of a precious little girl. A little girl who reminded me so much of the one child I would never get a chance to hear.
**********
As I pulled into the driveway my phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hey, gorgeous…where ya at?” Kai asked, yawning.
“Hey, I actually just pulled up to Stacie’s house. I’m sorry I forgot to call you, I stayed late tonight,” I said.
“That’s alright, I’m just glad you made it home okay. It’s brutal out there tonight—accidents are everywhere,” Kai said.
I exhaled, thinking about his statement.
Was that what they said the night of my accident? The night of the bad storm? Was I just another accident—another sad statistic of a fatal car crash?
“You there, Tori?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m just really tired. It was a long night…I think I just need to get to bed.”
The clock on my dash read 1:30am.
“Is something wrong, Tori? You sound different tonight… did something happen?”
I thought for a second. “Can you ask me again tomorrow?”
There was a long pause on the other end. I wasn’t trying to push him away, but I couldn’t talk right now. I was too raw.
“I promise you I will, but I need to know you’re safe tonight before I can hang up.”
“I’m safe,” I said softly.
Safe.
Such a simple word…such a complex meaning.
Another pause
“Okay. I get off at noon. I’ll call you. Goodnight, Pele. Sleep well.”
“Goodnight,” I said.
I looked at the dark phone in my hand—thinking.
Why haven’t I ever thought about the man who called 911 after hearing the collision? Or those who were dispatched to the scene that night?
I knew I had purposefully kept myself from thinking about the EMT who had carried Anna’s body to the stretcher—knowing she wouldn’t wake up. I was glad I couldn’t remember the faces from that night. It was easier that way. I didn’t want to know if there were others who were tormented with memories from the night Anna died.
Sorrow was not something I wanted to share.
I could hardly deal with it on my own.
TWENTY-ONE
I stood outside the door to Mallory’s hospital room and took a deep breath. I had tossed and turned all night thinking of this little girl, hoping she wasn’t in too much post-surgery pain. I tightened my grip on the gift bag in my left hand, and knocked. Instantly it was met with a greeting to enter.
Just. Keep. Breathing.
I walked into the room and saw her sweet face. Her smile was bright and eager—welcoming. The full-length cast and sling that now adorned her small frame caught my eye. From her left shoulder to wrist, she was positively bombproof.
“You came!” Mallory said.
“I promised, didn’t I? I never break my promises…especially to cute little lady bugs about to have surgery,” I said smiling.
Mr. Brown updated me on Mallory’s prognosis and the care she’d received so far. It was extremely rare for me to see a patient once they left the ER, but so far nearly everything about my experience with Mallory was that way. I walked over to her bedside and handed her the gift bag as I picked up the marker and signed my name on her cast.
She squealed in delight at the sight of the present. With her free hand she carefully pulled out the sparkle tissue paper. I held the bag steady as she reached inside to take out the bug habitat and magnifying glass. She placed each on her lap, looking at them with wonder.
“This is the best gift ever,” she said smiling.
“I hope you can go on many bug hunting adventures as soon as you’re feeling better. I’m sure you have some friends who will hunt with you,” I said.
“Definitely, thank you, Miss Tori,” she said reaching out her hand to me.
“You’re very welcome,” I said.
As I gave her my hand she tugged on it, bringing me closer. She leaned in as if to tell me a secret. It was then I felt my body weaken.
“I want to be a nurse just like you when I grow up,” she whispered, “I want to help people.”
And then it was all too much: the touching, the nearness, the whisper, the smile. I had to get out. I had to get out…now.
With each passing second, my body relinquished control to the tidal wave of panic that was threatening to consume it. It was all I could do to smile as I let her hand drop from mine. I muttered a weak goodbye to them both, and then I was outside of her room, floating down the hall in a sea of colorful blurs.
**********
I don’t remember getting on the elevator, or pressing the button for the 6th floor, but soon I was there. As I walked toward her door, I fought to take in one full breath. Everything felt so tight: my skin,
my chest, my airway. There was nothing in my body that seemed to function without a direct command.
I could see her just on the other side of the couch room. Her door was ajar as she wrote in a file on her desk. She looked up as if she sensed me and stood immediately.
“Victoria? Come in—come sit,” Dr. Crane said, ushering me into her office and closing the door behind me.
“I know we don’t have an appointment, I just...I just-”
“Slow down, its fine. I was just about to take a lunch break; I don’t have any appointments right now. Please, sit. Tell me what’s going on?” The kindness in her eyes broke me. I told her.
I told her everything.
I told her about Mallory.
I told her how she had reached for me, how she had talked to me, how she had wanted me with her before surgery. All the while Dr. Crane nodded, saying nothing in return. I went on.
“She…reminded me so much of her,” I said, refusing to say her name, though I didn’t know why.
“And what about Mallory reminded you of Anna?” Dr. Crane asked.
I stared at her, lost in the depths of my memories.
“Her hair, her age, her size…”
“And what do you feel?” she asked me.
“What?”
“Connect this event with Mallory to a feeling…what do you feel?”
What do I feel?
I took several deep breaths as I searched for the answer to that.
“I feel…sad,” I said. With that admission I bent forward at the waist and let my head fall into my hands.
“And why does seeing Mallory make you sad, Tori?”
If her voice hadn’t been so soft when she asked it, I would have laughed at the obvious connotation of her question. But…it wasn’t the obvious she was after. She expected something different than the obvious, something more.
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