*notification*

This chapter has some strong language, but it was necessary. (just thought I’d let you all know.)

Chapter Sixteen

Nora had to work the early shift the next morning. She’d debated taking time off work, but realized she was committed for the next few days. Anyway, if she was at work, she’d be in the hospital. If she was in the hospital, she’d be where Isaac was. It seemed like a good plan.

That was, Nora thought, until the third hour of her shift. “Dan,” she found herself saying into the phone, a strange sense of deja vu washing over her, “I don’t know if he has a fever. I’m at the hospital, remember?”

Dan sighed. “I know, but I can’t find the stupid. . .”

“Thermometer,” Nora repeated. “I know.”

“And then the cat chased Zac around the living room and he started crying, and then Taylor started crying and now. . .” Dan shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

“He had a cold yesterday,” Nora began.

“Yeah, and now I think he does have a fever, and these little red blister things around his mouth and they might have been there yesterday, but I really don’t remember, and I don’t know if they’re from the fever or he’s getting the chicken pox or what.” Dan paused for breath.

“It’s impetigo,” Nora said. “It’s just a rash little kids get. . . try to keep him from touching them and don’t let him drink out of anybody else’s cup.”

Dan was amazed. “You know that just over the phone?”

Nora shook her head. “No, he had them yesterday. Put some antibacterial stuff on them.” She sighed. “I should have prescribed something. . .”

Dan’s voice was small. “Is the cup thing really important?”

“Well, that’s a major was the infection can be spread,” Nora told him.

Dan bit his lip. “Does a can of Diet Coke count as a cup?”

Nora rolled her eyes. “Dan. . .”

“Oh, lord,” Dan sighed. “He’s coughing, though. And I think he does feel warm.”

“Did he tell you didn’t feel good?” Nora asked.

“Well, yeah,” Dan admitted. “He did tell me that.”

“Then he doesn’t feel good!” Nora exclaimed, turning her head in the direction of the gurney that had just been rolled in through the double doors.

“What’s all that screaming in the background?” Dan asked.

Nora sighed. “You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, things are bad enough here,” Dan agreed. “But Ike’s doing okay?”

“Yeah.” Nora brightened. “They upgraded him to stable, so he’s doing better. Thank God.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll try to be home tonight. Give him some Tylenol. . . he’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” Dan agreed. “YOU STUPID CAT! IF YOU DON’T STAY IN THE BASEMENT I’M GOING TO KICK YOU OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW SO THAT YOU FREEZE!”

Nora heard someone burst into tears in the background. “Tay, I really didn’t mean it,” Dan groaned.

“I’ll let you go,” Nora said. “I love you.”

“I love you to,” Dan said. She heard him turn away from the phone, probably to distract Taylor from thoughts of what tragic fate might befall Gallagher if he continued to annoy Dan. “This is how I say goodbye to my wife,” he said. “Smooch, smooch.”

Nora rolled her eyes, blushing. A wide smile crept across her face. “You’re crazy,” she told him. “Bye, honey.”

“Muchos besos!” Dan dipped into his diminuitive vocabulary of Spanish words and phrases. “Adios, amorsita!”

“Nora!” someone yelled. “get over here! We need all the help we can get!”

“Good bye!” Nora sang. She hung up the phone and turned to the trauma room. “What’s going on?”

They brought her in kicking and screaming. She was little more than thin flesh over ropy sinews, her match stick, drug-tracked arms flailing wildly. “LET ME DIE!” she was shrieking. “I DESERVE TO DIE!”

“Ma’am, you’ve got to hold still, ma’am,” commanded one of the EMTs, futilely. “You’re in a hospital. We’re trying to help you.”

“FUCK YOU!” the woman screeched, her cracked voice thin and reedy. “GO TO HELL!”

“Druggies,” someone sighed. “I hate’em.”

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT I DID?” the woman screaming. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT I FUCKING DID?”

“Oh, God,” Nora murmured. “What was it?”

“Apparently everything she could find,” someone said. “This one was suicidal, but they found her early.”

Nora nodded. “Pumping her stomach?” she asked.

In response, someone handed her a long tube. “You do the honors.”

The woman’s face was contorted with rage, her features twisted with the effects of the drugs she’d taken. There was a large, bloodied patch over the left side of her forehead, where she’d been bashing her skull against the pavement. Nora would never understand why people took drugs. The psychological effects were so overpowering. . . how could anyone want to lose total control of themself this way?

Grimly, Nora forced the tube between the woman’s teeth. Some people did, she told herself. It was her job to keep them from killing themselves.

“You know, sometimes I wonder why I do this,” Nora whispered to an orderly, the two of them scarcely blinking as the woman vomited into a basin, attended by a nurse. “Because of all the throwing up and bleeding and body fluids and...” She shook her head. “And then I realize, it really doesn’t bother me anymore. I’ve kind of gotten used to it.”

The orderly curled his upper lip. “I know what you mean,” he said. “It’s kind of repulsive, but it’s. . .” his eyes scanned the room as he searched for a word, “life.”

“And life. . . and preserving life. . . is worth so much more than having to watch a few people puke their guts out,” Nora agreed.

“You could put it that way,” the orderly agreed. “But all the drugs? Man. . . that’s just stupid.”

Nora thought of Isaac and Kathleen. “Incredibly stupid,” she said. “I can’t think of anything more stupid.”

“Why didn’t you just let me die?” the woman cracked open her swollen eyes as Nora took her blood pressure. “Don’t you see I just deserve. . .” her voice trailed off for a moment, “to die. . .?”

Nora shook her head. “You don’t deserve to die,” she said. “You deserve another chance. Things will get better. Don‘t worry about it.”

The woman’s jaw tightened in anger. “You don’t know. . . what you’re talking about,” she wheezed. “You don’t know. . . a fucking thing. . . about it.”

Nora sighed. “I don’t. I know I don’t.”

“I killed him,” the woman rasped. “I. . . fucking. . . killed him.”

Nora swallowed. “Killed who?”

Despite the restraint that was strapped around her wrist, the woman managed to wrap her fingers around Nora’s arm. She was able to muster a surprising amount of strength. . . her unclipped nails digging into the skin deep enough to draw blood.

“My son,” she rasped. “I fucking killed my goddamn son.”

Nora took a deep breath. This couldn‘t be. . . no, it couldn‘t. It wasn‘t. There was no way. “What?”

“I picked up the knife,” the woman’s voice was low and level. “I picked up the knife and I stabbed him. And stabbed him.” Her eyes flickered. She smiled, grimly. “I killed my baby, and now you have every reason to kill me, too.” She released Nora’s arm.

Nora closed her eyes for a moment. “Kathleen,” she said.

The woman stiffened. “You know my name. They looking for me?”

Nora’s eyes slid toward the examining tray. The room was loaded with potential murder weapons. She could kill Kathleen. And she could probably get away with it.

“I told you I want to die,” Kathleen murmured. “You could fucking do it. You could fucking end the whole thing.”

“I won’t,” Nora said firmly, mostly to herself. “I won’t.”

“But you could,” Kathleen pointed out. “You could.”

“I couldn’t.” Nora turned to leave the room. “I couldn’t.”

She walked out into the waiting room and sank into a chair, shaking violently. She rested her forehead in her hand for a moment, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I couldn’t kill her, Ike,” she whispered. “Should I?”

“Dr. Conway!” a nurse yelled. “Get in here, now! She’s coding!”

Nora raced back to the trauma room before she had time to think, diving for the crash cart someone pulled out of the corner of the room and slid toward her. “Okay,” she shouted, holding the paddles above Kathleen’s chest, covered with pads to prevent electrical burns. “One, two and. . . and. . .”

Nora squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. “One, two and...”

“Dr. Conway, are you all right?” the nurse asked.

Nora nodded. She swallowed. “Clear!” she yelled, placing the defibrillator paddles on Kathleen’s chest, jumping as the jolt of electricity sliced through the woman’s body.

Everyone’s eyes turned to the monitor. The room was suddenly filled with a steady bleeping noise as Kathleen’s heart began beating again.

Nora sighed, putting the paddles down. “Call the ICU,” she said, her eyes curiously dead. “She’s back with the living.”

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