Erik's Absolution

by Kristine Allen

  “So, what did you say you do for a living, Ms. Donahue?” Ugh. I hadn’t. Clearing my throat, I thought about my answer, sure she was going to tell me to get lost.

  “Ummm, well, I was working as a waitress”—my official job title had been waitress—“but I’m graduating from nursing school in a few days.” I had taken one of my finals this morning after speaking with Nancy. “I’m hoping to get a job at Lakes Regional after I pass my boards. So, I have to be honest, Miss Nancy, I don’t know if I can afford this house right now.” My heart broke a little as I turned to look at her.

  “It’s just Nancy. Goodness, don’t make me feel older than I am! And what a small world, I just retired as a nurse! When this house came up for sale next door to me, I decided it was a good retirement investment since I could keep an eye on it myself rather than messing with a rental company. My sons helped me remodel it. So tell me a little about what you want to do as a nurse. How have your grades been?” She looked calculating, and I had to admit, this slightly Amazonian-looking woman made me a little nervous despite her steel-grey hair and kind eyes.

  Well, here goes nothing. “If my grades on my exams are good, I should graduate with honors. I know they say we should all work Med/Surg for a while after we graduate, but I have been hoping I could get one of the internships to work in the Emergency Department. I’ve already talked a little with Tom, the head nurse of the ED, and he said he couldn’t guarantee anything as far as my acceptance would go, but that they would have two openings for the internships starting the first of February. Of course, I would have to apply once I take and pass my boards, but I’m optimistic.” My heart was heavy, but I tried to smile.

  “Hmmm… well, would you be the only one on the lease?” That calculating gleam never left her face.

  “No, well, yes, ma’am. What I mean is, I would be the only one on the lease, but my younger brother will be living here as well. He’s a senior this year, and he turns eighteen in May. Ummm, our parents… passed away….” It was still so hard to say even years later. “I was able to get custody of him. It’s kind of a long story, but anyway, he would live with me until he left for college.” Just talking about my parents brought that oh-so-familiar pang to my heart.

  “No boyfriend, fiancé, or husband?” Uh, no.

  “No, ma’am. Just me and Matt.” She tapped her pointer finger to her lip.

  “Well, why don’t you look around a little. There are two bedrooms and a bathroom on this floor, then a storage room and the laundry downstairs. The owners had wanted to finish the basement but never did before they sold it to me and moved to Florida. My sons were going to finish it, but they are so busy with their own lives, I didn’t want to ask too much of them, so I told them it would wait. Anyway, I digress. Do you think that would be enough room for you two?” Did I? Our entire apartment probably would fit in the living room and kitchen alone.

  “Oh, heavens yes! I’ll look around. Maybe it will still be available after I get my license.” Smiling, I walked down the hall, peeking in the bathroom and into the bedrooms. It was all very neutral, but so clean and so much nicer than what we had now. We would each both have our own rooms! My hands on my cheeks, I looked in the small walk-in closets each room had. We would have our own closets! I couldn’t help but jumping a little in place.

  Calm down! It will probably be unavailable by the time you’re in a position to rent it. Why did my inner self have to be so negative? She was all for bad decisions with Hacker. No! I was not thinking about him!

  I smiled at Nancy as I passed her to go down the basement stairs located straight in from the door we entered. The basement was nothing fancy, but there was no sign of water seepage or major cracks in the cinderblock walls. The washer and dryer were mismatched, but if they worked, it would mean no more trips to the laundromat at ten o’clock on my Wednesday nights.

  Nancy was talking upstairs, and I could hear her muffled voice ending what sounded like a phone call, so I figured it was time to head up to tell her I wasted her time.

  Shuffling in my socks, full of resignation, I walked back into the kitchen from the stairwell to find Nancy waiting for me in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with her phone in hand. She looked up from the screen as I walked fully into the small but beautiful kitchen.

  “Well? What did you think?” she asked.

  “Well, I love it, Nancy. But I’m afraid I may have gotten ahead of myself. I’m so sorry to have wasted your time, but I was so excited when I drove by and saw it last night. If only I had already gotten the job at the hospital.” My disappointment heavy in my chest, I looked down at my twisting hands.

  “Yes, about that. You said you graduate soon, right?”

  “Yes, but I won’t be able to take my boards until the first week of January. Which means a month and a half before I would possibly have a job as a nurse.” My lip between my teeth, I prepared to tug my boots on.

  “Wait. Look, I hope I’m not wrong, but I consider myself an excellent judge of character. What if I have a proposition for you? You see, I retired out of the ED, and Tom and I know each other very well… after all, he took my position when I retired. So, let’s just say, I spoke with him and he has the authority to hire you as a graduate nurse until you pass your boards, annnnnd let’s just say he would then transfer you over to a registered nurse and enter the internship program, providing you pass your boards? Of course, you would need to bring him proof of your present student status and pending graduation. Your Nursing Department Head should be able to provide that information with a letter of pending graduation providing you pass all of your final exams, if your grades are what you say they are.” My heart was racing, and I had to shake my head because I had to have dozed off and was surely dreaming.

  Stuff like this did not happen to me.

  “Excuse me?” Somehow, I knew I had to have heard her wrong. “Did I really just hear you correctly? I’m really concerned there is something wrong with my hearing.” My eyes blinking rapidly and mouth hanging open, I was sure I looked like a dipshit, not an honors nursing student.

  “Well, I haven’t had great prospective renters coming through in the two months since I put up that sign and posted the ad. You seem like an honest, stand-up young lady, and I’m excited you are becoming a nurse and you’re interested in my field of choice. In my old hospital, no less. So my thought was… if I can call your current landlord for a reference, you and your brother were willing to help me get the garage cleaned out here and at my house, your brother was willing to shovel my snow this winter, and you would agree to have coffee with me once a week to keep me in the loop about the goings-on at the ED—sans patient info and all—I would allow you to break up the deposit into three months, and you could move in as soon as you could. I’m sure you have to give notice wherever you are, but I’m flexible. So, what do you think?” She looked at me expectantly. My mouth wouldn’t make words. She had completely blindsided me.

  “Cat got your tongue?” She chuckled.

  “Yes! I mean, no. I mean, yes, that sound amazing! This just seems too good to be true, ma’am,” I stammered. My stomach was littered with butterflies conducting a mosh pit.

  “Great! And it’s Nancy. Not Miss Nancy, not ma’am. Just Nancy. I can see us being excellent neighbors, Kassi. May I call you Kassi?” I mutely shook my head yes. “So, when do you think you could move in? Or if you need to think about it and call me back, that’s fine too.”

  She made a move to the door, and I blurted out, “Wait!”

  She turned back to me with a patient smile.

  “No! That sounds amazing! I’m actually on a month to month on our apartment. I’ll talk to my landlord today and give notice. We could probably start moving in right away, if that’s okay. We don’t exactly live in the crème de le crème of apartments, so they only require a two-week notice once your lease is fulfilled, which happened several months ago because I didn’t want to sign another lease with hopes of moving after getting a nursing job.
” My smile was about to crack my face, it was so big. Tears were filling my eyes because I couldn’t fathom the good fortune I had just been bestowed.

  “Of course! I’ll contact my lawyer and have him draw up the lease agreement with the terms we discussed, and you can swing by anytime Wednesday to sign them and get the keys. I won’t be going anywhere until the evening.” My newfound friend, and soon-to-be landlord, reached out a hand to shake mine.

  Her hand was cool but work-worn as only years of being a nurse with frequent hand washings could be. But her handshake was firm, and her other hand curled over the top of ours.

  “Thank you so much, Nancy. I don’t know what else I can say that would express my level of gratitude I feel right now!” I exclaimed, and she scoffed.

  “It’s okay, Kassi. We nurses need to take care of each other.” With a wink, she led me out of the house, locking the door behind us and heading to her house. She tossed a “see you Wednesday” over her shoulder before bustling into her home, and I pulled my beanie down over my ears.

  Jumping up and down, clapping my hands like a child, I whisper-screamed a “yessssss!” before climbing into my car and hurrying to get the poor beast started and warming up. It hurt that the first person I wanted to call was still my parents and the next was Hacker. Shaking him and my sadness from my mind, I backed out of the driveway to head back to the apartment. I had a lot to take care of this afternoon before Matt got home from school, and I had to study tonight for my exam tomorrow. Not even that could put a damper on my mood.

  Matt and I would be able to celebrate Christmas in our new home!

  “Emotionless”—Red Sun Rising

  IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE. I was supposed to be at my parents’ preparing for the morning. My oldest brother, Jon, was home from Ankeny with his two kiddos. It’d been too long since I’d seen them, and I told him I would help get their presents put under the tree from Santa. But I called and told him I’d be running late. Why? Because I was sitting outside the address I hacked from the DMV to find her.

  Through the sheer curtains in the large picture window, I could see a tree lit up with twinkling Christmas lights. This was the fourth night I’d sat out there staring at the house, wishing I had the nuts to knock on her door. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get her out of my head. She was there when I went to sleep; she was there when I woke.

  My gaze slid over to my passenger seat where a small, flat, pink package with a large, glittery, dark pink bow rested. It seemed so small and insignificant against the large leather seat it sat in. The truth of the matter was, its significance was monumental. It was the first gift I’d bought a woman, other than my mom or sister, in over eight years.

  The week before, my sister, Bexley, and I were at the jewelry store picking out the gift from us kids to our mom. Every year for Christmas, we got her a charm for a silver bracelet my dad helped us buy her when us kids were just little things. It was heavy as hell with all the little silver charms on it, but she wore it religiously. We were going to have to get her another one soon if we kept this up because it was nearly full. None of us kids want to break the tradition though.

  As we looked at the charms the saleslady had set out on the glass cabinet, I glanced down and saw a silver stethoscope charm with a diamond at the diaphragm and bell end. When I pointed it out as something I wanted to see, my sister looked at me like I was crazy. Looking at the shining charm held in the palm of my hand, I knew I needed to get it. Asking the lady to put it on a silver chain, I told her I would be buying it.

  See, in my search for Kassi, I found out she had just graduated from nursing school. I knew she was in school, but I didn’t know it was to be a nurse. She had been simultaneously holding down her job at the Shamrock, raising her brother, and going to nursing school. She didn’t know it, but I was so damn proud of her. With Christmas just around the corner, I wanted to get something for her. At the time, I hadn’t thought about how I would give it to her; I just got it.

  My sister had put her hands on her hips and demanded, “Okay, Erikson, why haven’t you told me you have a girlfriend?” Fuck, I hated it when she called me my full name, and she knew it, but saying anything just had her doing it more.

  “I don’t.”

  No matter how much she begged or cajoled, I remained tight-lipped.

  “I’ll find out one way or another, you jerk.” Her shrewd expression made me smile and shake my head at her.

  She had been bugging me every day since, trying to get me to slip up, but I still hadn’t said a peep. Wouldn’t, either.

  So, there I sat outside her house, wondering what to do. The package still in the seat, I sat on my ass, not moving.

  Figuratively grabbing myself by the balls, I scooped up the package and quickly climbed out of my truck before I could change my mind. My feet carried me, crunching across the snow-packed road until I stood on the sidewalk looking straight at her front door. It was hard to breathe because of both the cold and the cold feet that were trying to latch onto me. Shifting my weight from foot to foot, I had to fight the urge to turn around and head right back to the warmth of my truck cab.

  “Shit, I’m a Marine. I’ve done crazy shit and lived. I can do this.” Encouraging myself, I took the first step and then the second until I was at the foot of her small front porch, looking up at the door. My breath came out in puffs of white in the cold. Inhaling the frigid air, I stepped up onto the porch and reached for the doorbell. Pressing it once, my resolve diminished, and I gazed at the package before setting it in the center of the porch and jogging quickly back to my truck.

  Like a fucking criminal, I leaned my seat back until I could barely see over the door and out my window. At first, I didn’t think anyone was home, but then a shadow passed in front of the window. The door opened a crack before she leaned out and looked up and down the street. In my head, I told her to look down.

  The glittering of the package when she flipped on the porch light must have caught her attention because I saw her finally look down at it. When she knelt to grasp it in her hand, her dark hair cascaded over her face, obscuring it from my view. She crouched there for a moment as she turned it over in her hands. Her brother appeared behind her, and I could barely hear the murmur of their voices as I sat silently in my, now cold, truck. Her brother took the small present from her, and I watched as he gently shook it next to his ear before pulling it back down, shrugging and handing it back to her.

  Wishing I could watch her open it, I was disappointed when she took the package inside and closed the door. If I would have stayed there and actually handed it to her, I could have watched her. But afraid she might throw it back in my face or worse, I just couldn’t do it. She may have gotten the wrong idea too. What was the right idea though? To be honest, I didn’t know why I bought it. Other than it was Christmas, and I knew she had very little family. I just wanted her to have a nice gift to open.

  I just wanted her.

  No. No, no, no, no, no—it just wasn’t a good idea. It hurt too much to think about letting someone in and giving them the power to demolish my heart again. Despite how hardened I felt I had become over the years, the damage had been so deep, the cracks so plentiful in my chest, it may not take much to utterly destroy me. So instead, I decided to just torture myself with her from afar. God help me if she finally started seeing someone, because it would really shake the foundations of my resolve to stay away. That or it would be the end of life as I knew it.

  My heart shoved back in the cage I kept it locked in, I drove off toward my family.

  “Breath”—Breaking Benjamin

  Late January

  SITTING IN MY CAR with my head on the steering wheel, I ran my fingers back and forth over the mystery silver stethoscope necklace no one ever claimed they got me, and willed myself not to cry. This should be a happy time for me. My boards were over, and I had just found out I had passed. I was officially a registered nurse. My internship would be starting at the hospital soon.

&n
bsp; Even working as a GN, I loved working in the ED—Emergency Department. It was exciting. My day was different each and every time I went in. Granted, yeah, there were a lot of little-Johnny-has-the-sniffles patients, but I didn’t even care. The nurses I worked with, with the exception of one, were all great. They were helpful, mentored me, and encouraged me.

  There’s a saying in the nursing world—that there are two types of nurses: the ones who teach and mentor new nurses and those who eat their young.

  That one nurse? I was convinced she was one of the ones who eat her young. She was an evil witch, and I couldn’t even believe she was a nurse. I tried my best not to let her ruin my shift on the days I was unfortunate enough to be on the same schedule she was. I figured there was one in every bunch so I deal. Then there was Marcus. He was a great nurse, but a conceited ass. Thank God for Hunter being my preceptor—the person who trained me—and not Marcus. Ugh.

  Anyway, enough dawdling.

  Shit. What was I going to tell him? I hadn’t thought this out very well, even though I had run a million scenarios through my head since I found out two days ago. God, how did people do this? Was there an instruction booklet on how to tell a guy this? Maybe it would have been different if we were a couple. The fact that he didn’t want anything to do with me changed this whole situation exponentially.

  At first, I had been glad he didn’t want a relationship because I wasn’t in a position to be in one either, but when thoughts of him continued to bombard my mind, I had to wonder if maybe he was “the one.” After he saved me and was so loving and tender, I really thought things were changing. Instead, he ditched me again.