Page 39 of Ward D
She closes her eyes for a moment, and she suddenly looks so old. She could be a hundred. “I’m truly afraid I might not make it through the night.”
“Why do you feel that way?”
Mary opens her mouth as if to answer, but then she changes her mind and shakes her head. “I’m too tired to talk anymore. You should go.”
She does look tired, and it’s getting late. I can talk to her more in the morning. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
As I stand up to leave the room, Mary reaches out to grab my arm with her spindly fingers. “Hold onto that knitting needle I gave you, Amy. You’re going to need it.”
This night seriously better not end with me needing to stab somebody with a knitting needle.
When I get out of Mary’s room, I almost run smack into Clint Eastwood. He is shuffling down the hallway, still holding that paper bag filled with saltines with one hand and hiking up his pajama pants with the other. He has some white spittle in the corner of his mouth.
“Nobody took my crackers!” he cries accusingly. “I still have them!”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
“I have diabetes,” he reminds me. “These crackers could kill me. Why would they give these to me?”
“I have no idea. But… I’d be happy to take them for you.”
Clint grumbles something under his breath. He looks like he’s about to give me the bag of saltines when he gets distracted by room 912. He scratches at the gray hairs jutting out of his chin.
“Hang on,” he says.
Clint shuffles into Mary’s room. I don’t know if he’s supposed to be in there, but he seems harmless enough, and Mary doesn’t seem upset about it. When she sees him, she looks up and smiles.
He reaches into the bag and pulls out a package of saltines. “This is for you, pretty lady.”
Mary accepts the package of saltines. “Well, aren’t you sweet!”
Clint winks at her, and the two of them grin at each other. It’s so darn cute, I almost can’t stand it. I let them have a little bit of privacy.
I don’t even realize how late it is until I notice a lot of the lights are out in the patients’ rooms. Many of the doors are closed, and it looks like everybody has gone to sleep. I suspect Cameron is sound asleep on the couch in the staff lounge. Maybe I can kick him out, although I’m truthfully not that tired.
Instead, I return to the nurses’ station. Even though it’s not required, maybe I’ll write up a note on Mary Cummings. At least in the morning, I’ll have something to give Dr. Beck when Cameron hands in his own novel-length masterpiece on Spider-Dan.
Ramona is sitting at the nurses’ station flipping through that same magazine. This time she’s looking at a page with tips on how to spice up your love life. She looks up and smiles when she sees me. “You look tired,” she comments.
I am tired, but at the same time, I know I won’t be able to sleep. “It’s weird doing a night shift.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She snickers. “You’re at the very beginning of your third year. You haven’t gotten used to the schedule yet.”
“Not yet.” And unfortunately, it’s only going to get harder. Psychiatry is the easiest rotation of the year. I’m dreading surgery—I don’t have Cameron’s stamina. “I’ll be okay, though.”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s usually quiet here at night. Unless Mary Cummings starts acting up.”
I think of Mary and her knitting needles. Instinctively, I reach for the outline of the needle in my pants pocket. It just barely fits inside.
“Have you been doing the night shift for a long time?” I ask her.
“Oh, forever.” She grins. “It’s nice to have your days free for appointments and all that. And I don’t have a significant other to bug me that I’m always sleeping when he’s awake.”
“Do the patients cause much trouble here?”
She doesn’t need to think about it before shaking her head. “For the most part, they’re very easy. Every once in a while, we get a troublemaker.”
“Like Damon Sawyer?”
