Page 3 of The Cabin
“Nadia.”
The elevator arrives, but I hear the news in Dr. Wilson’s voice before I even turn around. I don’t want to turn around. I just don’t. But I do. Wilson’s face is tight, hard, pinched.
“Mr. Hermano?”
He nods, and I wonder if his goatee is whiter right now than it was this morning. “He coded while you were with Mrs. Lasseter.”
“You didn’t page me?”
“There wasn’t time. I don’t think the stent took. I dunno. He was gone by the time I got there myself. I just thought you should know.”
“Thanks.”
“Good work today, Nadia.” He hesitates.
“What?” I ask.
“You worked a double today.”
“Yeah.”
“And yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re on the schedule for another one tomorrow.”
“Adrian is out of town.” I shrug. “I’d rather be working than at home alone.”
“I get that, I do. But…I need you on your A-game. You’re my best nurse, and if you burn out, I’m screwed. Who’s gonna take your place? Lydia? Sally?”
We both know neither Lydia nor Sally are cut out for the ICU, not long term anyway. They’re both great nurses, but Lydia belongs somewhere like the L&D floor, and Sally is just too sweet and innocent for this work. The ICU is brutal. You have to care, and deeply, but you also have to keep a certain part of yourself walled off from it all. You have to be able to leave it all here when you clock out. Sally takes it home with her, I can tell.
“I’m not going to burn out. I promise.”
He just sighs. “Still. I’m going to have Lacey get the second half of your shift tomorrow covered. I’m not going to have my best nurse work three doubles in a row when we’re not short-staffed.”
“Alan—”
“No.” His pager, hanging inside the hip pocket of his scrub bottoms, buzzes, and he tilts it to check. “You work the morning shift, and then you go home and you have a glass of wine with lunch and you…I don’t know. Go for a walk. Binge Netflix. Whatever. Just take a few hours to breathe, Nadia. See you Thursday. I have to go.”
I hate time off.
I get antsy. Bored. Especially when Adrian is traveling.
I’ve worked crazy hours since I was a teenager, working full time after school and a second job on the weekends, so I could save up for my first car. Then I worked full time and went to nursing school, and then once I was a registered nurse I was working at least sixty hours a week supporting Adrian as he got his writing career off the ground. And now it’s just…habit. A lifestyle.
I call the elevator again and get on. The ride down to the parking garage is short, and the walk to my car long. It’s after midnight, and my eyes burn. I’m the kind of tired that leaves streaks at the edges of your vision, where time seems slow, syrupy and then way too fast, where it seems to take ten minutes to get into my A5, set my purse on the passenger seat, start the engine, and buckle up—and then I blink and I’m halfway home with zero memory of the drive. Then I’m waiting at a red light for an eternity, sitting at an empty intersection where the shops are closed and dark and the streets damp after a brief rain shower, making the traffic lights glint off the blacktop in a smear of red and green.
The radio is off. After so much manic movement and chaos, I relish the silence of my car’s warm interior, the smell of the leather, the faint lavender scent of the dried bunch hanging from my rearview mirror.
Then I’m home, pulling up the long, steep driveway. I stop at the top, waiting for the garage door to open. Home is a two-story red brick Colonial, white Ionic columns framing the wide white French-style front door, white shutters. Box shrubs trimmed in precise squared-off rectangles under the windows on each side, with a profusion of bright, colorful perennials in front of them and lining the ruler-straight, brick-paved walkway to the front porch. A pair of double-width garage doors, white wood with an X of black wrought-iron straps across each. Faux gaslight lampposts stand at the corners of the property, far corner, on either side of the walkway, and on either side of the driveway, flickering their welcome.
McMansion it may be, and very much alike all the rest on our street, but it’s home and I love it. It’s the first and only house Adrian and I bought together and, as far as I’m concerned, the last. Every day, I pull up the driveway, stop here waiting for the garage door to trundle slowly upward, and I stare at my home, and I appreciate it.
I slide my car into its space, shut off the motor, and push open my door. Stand beside my little red convertible and stare at the empty space next to mine where Adrian’s car belongs. Beyond it, occupying a storage bay, is a collection of mountain bikes, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, bike pumps and spare tires and paddles and a shelf at the back littered with the detritus of life.
