Page 8 of Family Bonds- Garrett & Justine

“Then who knows? Could be the best thing that happened to you.”

She kept the roll from her eyes.

It was hard to think of anything great that happened in her life in the past several months.

“Time will tell,” she said. “And we need to get to it. I see two orders from Dr. Mills right now.”

“The others will come in soon,” Troy said.

“Do we bring it to them or do they come down for it?” she asked. “You’ll have to walk me through those things.”

“They will send a medical tech down for it normally,” Troy said. “And Marissa will be here at nine. That is when things will pick up more. What time did you get in?”

“I started at six,” she said.

She’d been filling scripts nonstop, even though the pharmacist and techs who worked before she came in had most of them done for the morning rounds. She was catching up now.

“Are you going to be covering nights and weekend shifts too?” Troy asked. “I’m not sure how they are doing it. I’ve worked with everyone, but I’ve been here the longest and thankfully have the day shift.”

“For the first month I’ll be days,” she said. “I think they want me to learn the routine this way. But I’ll be working weekends at that time too. Then I’ll have to change shifts to nights and rotate. Twelve-hour shifts, four days a week right now.”

She’d been told there could be times she’d be working five days too. There was another full-time pharmacist on the island working opposite her most times and then two part-time ones filling the rest of the time.

She didn’t have a problem working more. It’s not like she’d do much more with her time than sit in her apartment alone.

“Yep,” Troy said. “That is how it always worked. What shift were you in Boston?”

“Switching around,” she said.

“How about before you moved here?” Troy asked.

Boy, he was chatty. She wasn’t used to this, but since it was such a small department, again, not wanting to butt heads or appear a bitch.

“I was in a retail pharmacy before moving here,” she said. “So I didn’t work nights but had some later hours or weekends and holidays.”

“You can’t get out of it in this field. There are some of those jobs on the island too. Those jobs fill before the hospital jobs, but here you’ll be paid more and receive housing or a housing stipend.”

“Housing is always paid for?” she asked. Damn, that was a nice incentive. “I thought it was only because this is temporary.”

“It’s been known that they do it for a longer period of time for doctors and other staff. Even nurses. It’s so hard to fill positions here and then find affordable housing, if you can even find housing. The hospital owns a lot of apartments for those uses. I think it’s one of those negotiable things.”

“Good to know,” she said.

She was silent after that and got to work.

Troy seemed content to work quietly too. Though he had put music on and she was fine with that.

Once the orders for oncology were filled, she moved on to the hospital scripts that were coming in.

“Hey, Tess,” Troy said. “Got your orders here so far.”

“I’ll be back for the other two,” Tess said.

Must be the tech with oncology since Troy handed over those two orders.

“I just got the scripts in now,” she said. “For Dr. Mills, right?”

“Yep,” Tess said. “I’ll run these down and get them set up, then return.”

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