Page 19 of It's One of Us
Patti is going home this morning, which makes this a wonderful day, the end of a cycle of ups and downs, of whipsaw emotions and terrifying physical scares. Patti is a strong kid; she’s going to do well back in the real world. She’s licked the cancer, and she told Darby earlier tonight she wanted to be an oncology nurse, just like her. Darby was beyond flattered.
Darby is tired. She’s at the end of her twelve-hour shift and her feet are sore, but she’s going to stick around to see Patti off before she retreats to her ten-year-old Honda Civic and takes the meandering path from the hospital back to the house for a few hours of rest before tackling the remainder of her day. She’s due back on the ward at eight tonight, and she needs to get in a stop at the grocery store for cupcakes and a birthday present for one of Scarlett’s classmates. A gift card will have to suffice. A small gift card. Scarlett may be attending Bromley West, but she’s on a full ride, and Darby doesn’t have change to spare to make a spoiled little rich girl happier than she already is.
“Darby?”
The shift supervisor and her boss, Eileen Warner, pops around the corner, startling Darby, who nearly falls off the ladder.
“Good grief, you scared me. What are you doing sneaking up on me?”
Eileen doesn’t smile. “Sorry. Can you step into my office for a moment?”
Uh-oh. Darby climbs off the ladder, annoyed that one end of the sign is a full two inches lower than the other. Could Eileen have not waited until she was finished?
Down the hallway, looking neither right nor left, Darby follows Eileen to the end, where her desk is situated in a little office—with a door, mind you, a luxury of privacy none of the other nurses enjoy—that has a wide window overlooking the quad. It is a lovely space, one Darby always likes to linger near, because after looking at the yellow walls and pained expressions of a ward of sick kids for twelve hours a night, any glimpse of trees, even those lit up by solar lights in the black of night, is worth a few moments of her precious time.
“Have a seat.”
Eileen’s voice holds a note of concern, enough that Darby goes on alert. A complaint? Did someone, a parent, a coworker, say she’s done something wrong? Darby is so conscientious, she can’t imagine—
“Darby, I’m sorry. We have to let you go.”
She freezes. “Excuse me?”
“Budget cuts. I argued against it, we can hardly afford to lose a nurse, especially now, especially one as good as you. But the orders come down from the administration, and it’s out of my hands. You’re the most expensive salary.”
“Eileen, no. You can’t. I’ll take a pay cut. You can furlough me for a few weeks.”
Eileen is shaking her head, her eyes sad.This isn’t happening. This just isn’t happening.
“What am I supposed to do? Scarlett, Peyton, they—”
“Darby, I truly am so sorry. I will write you a glowing recommendation, and the moment you find a new opportunity, you have them call me immediately, and I will tell them how wonderful you are. With your background, your skills, you’ll get picked up somewhere quickly, I just know it. In the meantime, there’s a small severance package, and you’ll be eligible for unemployment. HR has all the paperwork waiting for you, but I wanted to tell you myself instead of one of them dragging you out of here. I owe you that much, at least. You’re my best nurse.”
Eileen seems genuinely upset, voice cracking and lower lip wobbling, which makes Darby feel even worse. They’ve always gotten along, had great respect between them. But this, the power imbalance suddenly exposed, is untenable.
“Can I stay for Patti’s going away?”
Eileen nods. “Technically I’m supposed to take your badge and ask you to leave immediately, but what HR doesn’t know won’t kill them. But promise me you’ll see HR as soon as we’re done? And don’t talk to anyone on the floor? I have one more cut to make, and I don’t need the whispers starting. This is hard enough.”
Tell me about it.
Darby nods, unable to speak anymore. Who else is Eileen letting go?
That doesn’t matter. My God, what is she going to do? This is a good paycheck, and to have it disappear with no warning... She has planned for this, of course, has enough to last several months, and there’s the kids’ college funds... No, she can’t raid them. A new job is the only way to survive. Oncology nurses aren’t a dime a dozen; the field is small and the opportunities limited, at least here in Nashville. With all the specialized training she has, she is an expensive proposition. She’ll be able to get another job, sure—hopefully—but this is the best gig in town, even if she does work nights.
Damn. She is now a single mother with two kids in pricey schools and no job.
Eileen has given her a swift hug and ushered her out of the office, and Darby realizes she’s been standing, frozen, in the hall, running scenarios through her head: rack and ruin, the kids starving, losing the house, living on the street. She has the fallback of six months’ savings, but that’s it. She’s alone in the world, just her and the kids. She wanted it that way. She wanted to do it herself. But now...
There are cheers coming from the other end of the hall, bells ringing and people shouting congratulations. Darby hurries toward the cacophony, arrives just in time to blow Patti a kiss before the doors close on the elevator and it’s over, the sweet child is gone, and now Darby must collect her coat and bag and keep her chin up, get the paperwork from HR, and follow her young charge out of the hospital, not looking back.
She manages the exit with dignity, makes it to her car in the parking garage before the tears come. She is sobbing with her arms folded on top of the steering wheel when she hears the breaking news alert that the body of Beverly Cooke has been found at last.
Could this day get any worse?
She listens, head still pillowed on her arms. She knows—knew—Beverly from a private group on Facebook for local mothers who’ve used sperm donation to have children. It is an intimate enclave, a very safe space. It is the one place these women have to express their hopes and fears—into the waiting arms of anonymous friends who are always there to lend succor. Beverly was unique in the group because she was married, and her husband doesn’t know the baby isn’t his. The lengths she went to in order to save face for that man, the crazy details she’d shared—how she mixed the donor’s semen with her husband’s so they would never truly know unless they did testing, how guilty she felt at times for tricking him, for doing the testing to find out it was him, not her, and making the drastic decisions to catapult them both into the unique world of donation; exultant in others, especially when it became clear the baby she conceived was going to have her husband’s coloring—she’d done so much research, been so very careful to find a donor who would fit the physical bill so her husband would not become suspicious...
And then she went missing, and now she’s been found dead, and God knows what’s going to happen. Beverly’s husband, Dan, is by all accounts a kind, gentle man, incapable of harming his wife, but it’s always the husband, Darby knows this. He must have found out and lost it.
