Page 59 of No Greater Love
We might have stayed like that all night, but a small voice from the hallway interrupted us.
"Tasha? I had a bad dream."
Paige stood in the doorway in her space-themed pajamas, hair mussed from sleep, looking young and vulnerable.
Without hesitation, Tasha was off the couch and crossing to her. "Oh, sweetheart, come here." She gathered Paige into her arms, and my daughter melted into the embrace like she'd been waiting for it her whole life.
"Want to tell me about it?" Tasha asked, leading Paige back to the couch.
"There were these scary men trying to get into our house, and Dad wasn't here, and I couldn't find him anywhere."
I started to get up, but Tasha was already settling onto the couch with Paige in her lap, stroking her hair with the kind of instinctive tenderness that couldn't be faked.
"That does sound scary," Tasha said softly. "But you know what? Your dad would never let anything happen to you. He'd fight off a hundred scary men before he'd let anyone hurt you."
"I know," Paige said, snuggling closer. "But in the dream, I couldn't find him."
"Well, he's right here now. And so am I. You're safe, baby girl."
I watched them together—Tasha holding my daughter, Paige trusting her completely—and felt something fundamental shift in my chest. This wasn't just about Tasha and me anymore. This was about family. The kind of family I'd never dared to hope we could have.
"Can I stay with you guys until I fall asleep?" Paige asked.
"Of course," Tasha and I said at the same time.
We rearranged ourselves on the couch, Paige curled between us, her head on Tasha's chest, my arm around both of them. I watched Tasha hum softly, some lullaby I didn't recognize, her hand making gentle circles on Paige's back.
Within minutes, Paige was asleep again, but none of us moved. We stayed there in the soft glow of the TV, holding each other, holding onto this moment of peace after a day that had shown us how fragile safety could be.
"Thank you," Tasha whispered.
"For what?"
"For letting me come here. For giving me this." She looked down at Paige, then back at me. "For showing me what love is supposed to look like."
I pressed a kiss to her temple, breathing in the scent of her hair, the warmth of her skin. "Thank you for trusting us with it."
Outside, the world continued to turn, filled with its mixture of beauty and horror. But inside our living room, wrapped around each other in the darkness, we had created something perfect and safe and real.
nineteen
tasha
"You thinkyou're ready for triage? The real deal this time, not just covering for five minutes?"
Sophia's question caught me off guard. I looked up from my charting, remembering that brief stint covering for Nate when he'd had to step away. That had been manageable; a few routine patients, nothing too complex.
"Flying solo. Well, not completely solo. Nate’ll be right there with you. But you'd be primary for a full shift." She studied my face. "Triage isn't for the faint of heart, Tasha. You don't have to deal as much with some of the more complex stuff, like the nursing home patient covered in God knows what, the gunshot wound that needs immediate stabilization. But triage is different."
I set down my pen, giving her my full attention.
"The triage nurse is arguably more responsible for patient flow than I am," Sophia continued. "You have to make snapshot judgments about patients. You have to theoretically wrangle every patient in the waiting room, and if you have ten, twenty, thirty people waiting, that adds up fast. People pile up at your desk, so you need focused assessments that get all the information you need without taking too long. But that's balanced against the fact that if you miss something, if you screw up something subtle..." She paused. "That's on your conscience."
I felt a flutter of nervousness mixed with something else—excitement? Pride? Those five minutes covering for Nate had gone smoothly, but a full shift was entirely different.
"Not just any nurse can do triage, especially not here at Metro General," Sophia said. "It's recognition of your clinical skills. Also, fair warning—triage nurses always get their asses beat because it's not easy. But you're ready for it, if you want it."
Two weeks ago, I would have jumped at the chance without hesitation. Now, after the Mia case, after falling apart in Nate's living room, I found myself hesitating. What if I missed something? What if I wasn't as ready as Sophia thought?
