CHAPTER 4

Connor

“I don’t understand why I need to listen to her.”

It never fails. And it never ceases to amaze me. “I’m a doctor, she’s a nurse.”

Interns. First-years. Short-coats. Newly graduated medical students who are technically doctors—but not really. They rotate through the different hospital departments working under the supervision of senior residents and attendings. They have a tendency to be jackasses. Pumped up by their shiny new medical degrees, with just enough knowledge, plus confidence, to make them dangerous.

“I shouldn’t be taking orders from her.”

But there’s always one in the group who stands out. With balls of hubris.

Arrogance to spare. Gold-medal-level annoying. “She should be taking orders from me.”

And every single year, they bring the same terrible question to the minds of the doctors who supervise them: Dear God, was I this much of an asswipe when I was an intern?

The cold, hard, truthful answer is: Probably. The answer we tell ourselves is: No. I couldn’t have been. The nurses would’ve killed me.

“Stop talking.” I tell the dark-haired, twentysomething, emptyheaded grasshopper in front of me.

I think his name is something like Jamie or Jonathan or Janas.

“First of all, you’re not a doctor yet. Not in this building, not on your own. We’re being nice letting you hang around hoping our knowledge sinks into your thick, high-on-your-own-supply intern skull.”

I walk down the hospital hall as I talk, because I’m busy and I have to set this kid straight before things get out of hand. Jackson shuffles along beside me, dodging orderlies and gurneys.

“Number two, Marisol has been a nurse longer than you’ve been alive. If she tells you there’s a problem with one of your patients and you need to see

them—it’s because there’s a fucking problem with one of your patients and you need to see them. Immediately.

“Third, nurses don’t work for you—they work with you. You’re a team. It’s a vital symbiotic relationship in the ecosystem of the emergency department. If they hate you—and make no mistake, they all frigging hate you right now—it will make your job harder than it ever needs to be. Are you getting this?”

“Yes, but—”

Johannesburg is not getting it.

I stop abruptly and look directly into his eyes. “They will kill you. They know a thousand different ways to do it without leaving a trace of evidence behind. They’re probably in the break room planning it right now.”

The gravity of his situation finally registers. He gulps. “Really?”

I roll my eyes. “No, not really. They will make you cry, though. I’ve seen it happen—and crying is worse.”

“Worse than death?” “Absolutely.”

“What should I do?” he asks, in a low, hushed, appropriately panicked tone.

“Crumb cake.” “What?’

I scribble out an address on the pad from my pocket and shove it against his chest. “After we examine Mr. . . .” I grab the chart from the bin on the wall “. . . Wilson. You’re going to go to Polowski’s Bakery and get a crumb cake. Full sheet, the high-end stuff, now is not the time to scrimp. Bring it back to the nurse’s station, with an apology for Marisol. It’s your only hope, padawan.”

He looks at me helplessly. That’s a good start. “Who?”

Jesus, do they teach kids nothing these days?

I wave his question away. “Just go. After we look at Mr. Wilson.”

I give the door to Exam Room 1 two raps, then breeze in with Jacques the intern trailing behind like a less knowledgeable, less good-looking shadow.

“Good morning, Mr. Wilson, I’m Dr. Daniels.”

Mr. Wilson, a medium-build eighty-year-old man with thick gray hair and a frowning disposition, sits on the table wearing a hospital gown and black

shin-high socks. The tear of Velcro rips through the air as Violet removes the blood pressure cuff from his arm.

“156 over 98,” Vi tells me.

High BP, I mentally note as I scan the blood work on his chart. “What brings you in today?”

I could read the triage notes, but it’s always better to hear it from the patient.

“The wife,” he grumps out, glaring at the petite elderly culprit sitting in the corner chair.

“The wife?”

“That’s right. She nagged me here. Wouldn’t stop until I came in.” “I see.” I nod. “How’s your health in general?”

“Excellent,” he replies with a surety that only a true bullshitter could pull

off.

“The wife” confirms my suspicions when she stands up and announces,

“He has atherosclerosis, high cholesterol, diabetes, and glaucoma.” “But other than that,” Mr. Wilson insists, “healthy as a horse.” Mrs. Wilson’s eyes swing around to the ceiling.

“Show him your foot, Melvin.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my foot, woman!” Mr. Wilson grouches. “I stubbed my toe a few days ago, Doc, and she’s been on me about it ever since.”

Here’s a fact for you: if one half of a couple drags the other half to the hospital kicking and screaming—especially if the kicker and screamer is an old man? There’s definitely a serious problem happening.

“Well, you’re already here, Melvin,” I say reasonably. “Might as well let me take a look at the foot—if nothing else, the nagging will stop.”

After a moment Melvin nods, still grumpily, but he reaches down to take off his sock. While he does, I offer Mrs. Wilson an apologetic look for the nagging comment, but she seems to understand we’re on the same team.

And then I get a look at the foot.

Hello gan-fucking-grene—long time no see.

I snap on a pair of latex gloves and examine the foot more closely, poking and prodding the damaged flesh. Then I listen to his heart, his lungs, check his eyes for jaundice and his lymph nodes for swelling.

“You’ve got an infected foot ulcer here, Melvin, heading quickly toward gangrene. Another day and you’d be losing that toe—a couple more days it’d

be the whole foot.”

Melvin nods. Because he already knows this—he just didn’t want to believe it.

“We’re going to get this cleaned up, get you started on IV antibiotics, and I’m going to admit you so we can monitor your blood sugar and adjust your insulin if needed. Then I’m going to write you a very strong prescription . . . to listen to your wife sooner next time.”

He grunts out a chuckle. And when his wife moves beside him, he takes her hand in his, giving it a squeeze.

“Will do. Thanks, Doc.” I nod. “I’ll be back.”

I cruise out the door with Jamestown hot on my heels. Out in the hall I glance at my watch and tell him, “Get me the vitals on the asthma attack in Exam Four; they should be done with the nebulizer treatment. Then come back here and I’ll demonstrate the debridement procedure for a diabetic, and then you can scurry off to the bakery.”

“Yes, Dr. Daniels.”

I pause then, and give him some of the most important professional advice he’ll ever hear.

“If you want to go into emergency medicine, your most vital relationships are not going to be with the surgeons or the cardiologists or other residents or the chief of staff. It’s with your nurses. They have to respect you—and they’re only going to do that if you respect in return. In most situations they’re all you’re going to have—and more times than not, they’re all you’re going to need. Don’t screw it up again.”

He looks at the floor, his face contemplative. “Okay, Dr. Daniels. Thank you.”

I pat his shoulder before he heads down the hall.

Then I turn around—and stop short. Because Violet Robinson is standing there, staring up at me with those round, heartbreaking eyes.

This morning, I overheard her talking to one of the other nurses—Cooper Palmer—about a date he set her up on with his cousin or something. She said the guy was nice. That the restaurant he took her to was nice. That they had a nice time.

Which is frigging fantastic—because I was married for fifteen years. I know all about nice.

It’s the kiss of death.

If you give her flowers, and she says they’re nice? She’s not impressed. Jewelry is nice? It means she hates it.

And when it comes to guys? Nice means she’s flat out, never-seeing-you- again not interested.

I get a dirty thrill every time I hear about one of Violet’s dates going down the drain. I realize this is wrong on every level. I’ve heard Vi talking relationships, maybe marriage, at some point in the future. If I’m not planning to make a move, I should be wishing her a long, happy relationship with some other worthy guy.

But . . . I’m just not that good of a person.

“That was kind, what you said to him,” she tells me softly. “About nurses.”

“No—it was just the truth.”

Her hair is up in a bun today, a thick russet knot, with gentle wavy wisps escaping behind her ear and at the nape of her slim neck. And I just can’t stop myself from wondering what those tendrils would feel like, what her skin would smell like, if I brushed my lips across that exact spot.

“You’re good with them—the first-years. You have a way of making them want your approval, not because they’re afraid of you . . . but because they admire you. And I think that’s better. Better at bringing out the best in them.”

My heartbeat picks up, pounding rough and sudden against my chest. “Well, that’s the job.”

“Yeah,” she says with a smile and a soft nod.

A moment later, my tone shifts, becoming clipped and formal. “I need to debride Mr. Wilson’s foot.”

Violet’s voice mirrors mine—all business. “Right. I’ll prep him and get the cart.” “Good.”

I hold out the chart, and when she takes it, my fingers brush the back of her hand.

There are three thousand touch receptors in the human fingertip, and every single one of mine focuses on Violet’s skin. How baby soft it is, smooth.

The hospital temperature is set at a steady sixty-six degrees to reduce the spread of bacteria. It’s why stethoscopes and doctors’ and nurses’ hands can feel like ice cubes. But Violet’s hand isn’t cold or callused from washing or

the harsh rub of hand sanitizer.

It’s warm, silky . . . achingly feminine.

It’s not something that should register in my mind; it’s not professional. I have no memory of what any other nurse’s hand feels like—because I’ve never noticed.

But hers . . . I do.

* * *

When I was eleven, the tire on my BMX bike blew out after I jumped the homemade ramp the kid down the street constructed. I landed hard, then walked to Kmart by myself, bought a new tire with my own money, replaced and inflated the tire, and still managed to finish my paper route on time.

Because I’m a Gen X-er. My brothers and I weren’t latchkey kids, but even with a stay-at-home mom, my generation was basically raised to survive a zombie apocalypse.

On our own.

I try my best to pass those life skills—self-sufficiency, responsibility, independence—onto my boys. Aaron doesn’t work during the school year, because he plays football and keeps his grades up, but in the summer he has a part-time job as a lake lifeguard. When Brayden turns fifteen, he’ll find a part-time job too—probably as a junior counselor with Lakeside’s summer rec program.

And when I’m on days at the hospital, I’ve gotten the boys in the routine of coming home from school, doing their homework, and getting dinner started. Nothing fancy or complicated—but I trust that they can manage soup and sandwiches or mac and cheese and a salad—without burning the house down to the ground.

“Dad, please stop buying the crappy fabric softener,” Brayden says, folding his laundry at the opposite end of the kitchen table where I’m currently eating a roast beef sandwich for dinner. “It sucks.”

Parents don’t have favorites—we’d cut open a vein for any of our offspring. But some kids are just easier. Low maintenance. Generally happy and don’t mind doing what they’re told.

They’re not our favorites . . . but they sure are nice to be around. “I didn’t realize there was a crappy fabric softener, Bray.”

Brayden is my easy kid. It’s unusual for a middle child, but no less awesome. He picks up the ice cubes when they fall on the floor instead of kicking them under the fridge, he’s always liked vegetables, he does his own laundry—and occupies himself so well, most of the time I don’t even know if he’s in the house.

“Good fabric softeners have names,” he explains, looking at me with his mother’s eyes. “Downy, Snuggle, if it just says ‘fabric softener,’ it’s the crappy kind.”

A smile tugs at my mouth. “Got it.”

“Rosie, come iiiinnnnn!” Spencer bellows from the backdoor. Then he bellows at me, “Daaaad, Rosie’s chasing the squirrels again!”

“Just leave the back door open—she’ll come in when she’s ready,” I call back, before quietly adding, “And hopefully alone.”

Because our German Shepherd is the unholy terror of the backyard woodland animals’ lives. She doesn’t mean to be. She just wants to play with them; she thinks they’re her friends. But it never ends well.

“We should put in a doggie door,” Aaron says as Spencer slides into the seat next to him and starts tapping away on his Nintendo Switch. “With a bell, you know . . . to warn them she’s coming.”

“We’ll do it this weekend.” I nod. “And speaking of this weekend, I need you to stay home Friday night.”

Aaron’s head snaps up from his phone. “I’m supposed to go over to Mia’s.”

Mia is the girl Aaron’s been dating the last few months. They’re not true- love serious like Garrett and Callie were, but she’s nice and they’re going to prom together next month.

“Well, have Mia come here.”

“It blows when we hang out here! Brayden and Spencer won’t leave us alone.”

Aaron is not my easy kid.

“Be that as it may,” I tell him reasonably, “I’ll be out, so I need you to keep an eye on your brothers.”

“They’re old enough to stay home by themselves! You baby them so frigging much.”

Brayden’s fine on his own during the day and he’s responsible enough to make sure Spencer doesn’t jump off the roof or destroy the furniture. But he gets spooked at night—either from covertly downloading the latest Saw

movie or reading one too many articles about real-life horror stories on the internet.

“It is what it is, Aaron. Friday night, you’re home—end of discussion.” But for a seventeen-year-old, the discussion never ends. It just goes on,

and on, and on . . .

“So I have to change my plans because you’re going out to get laid?” I toss my napkin on the table.

“A—knock it off. Now. B—I have a D.U.H. meeting on Friday and then I’m going fishing for Dean’s bachelor party with your uncles.”

Garrett’s best friend, Dean Walker, is like a fourth brother to me and he’s getting married in a few weeks. Dean had more than his share of wild, stripper-filled evenings—and days—before he met his bride-to-be, Lainey. So he opted for a guy’s night out of fishing and beer on a party boat instead.

“I need you here because I’m going to be out on a boat and I don’t want your grandparents having to drive over in the dark if the boys get scared. C— when you’re paying for my car and my car insurance, then I’ll change my plans for you. Until that happens, it’s the other way around.”

This wouldn’t be an issue if Stacey and I were still married, because two is better than one and she’d be home with them. But while living out the Brady Bunch song—four men living all alone—wasn’t what I pictured for them when we had them, I still think we’re doing okay. Better than okay.

Aaron lowers his head, giving in, but not happy about it.

“The worst part about this divorce is I got stuck being the nanny.” Spencer gives his brother a lip-curled sneer. “We don’t like you either.”

Spence is my sweet kid. He has a gentle soul—as far as insults go, that’s about as vicious as it gets.

Brayden picks up the slack. “Yeah—dick for brains.”

“Douche-canoe,” Aaron shoots back. “Guys!” I snap. “That’s enough.”

A begrudging silence descends, but Aaron gets in one last grumble, because he just can’t resist.

“Still blows.”

And a part of me feels for him—the part that didn’t think my brothers following me around all over town was such a great time either when I was his age. That’s the circle of life.

“I’m sure it does. But you’ll live.”

* * *

“And then Paul told me he just wasn’t attracted to me anymore. That forty pounds and fifteen years had turned me into someone he didn’t want to be married to.” The woman sitting in the wooden folding chair covers her face with a tissue, sobbing. “And the worst part is he’s right! I have let myself go. It’s all my fault.”

Her name is Karen, the newest member of the Divorced, Unattached, and Happy support group—also known as D.U.H. or “duh.”

They really didn’t think the acronym all the way through.

We meet in the rec hall basement the first Friday and third Sunday of every month. We used to meet on Wednesdays after Sex Addicts Anonymous, but that wasn’t the best mix. The sex addicts kept falling off the wagon with the divorcées.

“There, there, boo-boo. You go right ahead and let it out.”

Delilah—a deeply religious, curvy redhead who separated from her husband last fall after twenty unappreciated years because, and I quote, “her field of fucks was barren and she had not a single one left to give”—puts her arm around Karen’s shoulder and pulls her in for a side hug.

“But while you do, know that Paul is unworthy to drink from the chalice of your inner beauty. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but the day will come when you will believe that, I promise you.”

Some may think group therapy for long-term relationships that have met their maker would be depressing . . . the sob stories, the loneliness, the heartbreak, the betrayal.

But it’s kind of a riot. Uplifting.

Mostly because every person sitting in this circle is a character and a half. They’re honest, unique, determined, and funny—and that’s when they’re sober. Get a few drinks in them and group therapy turns into toga night at the frat house.

“Paul deserves a smackdown with extreme prejudice.” Lou says.

Lou’s in his sixties and originally from North Jersey. I’m pretty sure he’s in the mob.

He and his wife used to own and operate a bowling alley, but after their three kids moved out of the house and they sold the business to retire, she came to the realization that they had nothing left in common.

Carl the dentist and Maria the dog groomer nod their agreement.

“Violence is never the answer,” Dr. Laura Balish, the blond, bespeckled therapist who runs this group of misfit toys, admonishes gently.

“Well, sometimes it is,” Lou insists with a shrug. “Never say never, amiright?”

Laura gives Lou a disappointed third-grade teacher look that would cow a lesser man, then addresses the group.

“Thank you for sharing, Karen. Remember, we can’t control the feelings of others. We can only control our reactions and focus on finding happiness with ourselves.”

Dr. Laura was Aaron, Brayden, and Spencer’s therapist in the months after the divorce, because I wanted to make sure they were handling the transition all right.

“Would anyone else like to share?” Laura asks. “How about you, Connor? Where have your thoughts been lately?”

The “sharing with the group” thing was weird at first. Exposing. Once I realized that no one in this room actually knows what the hell they’re doing

—that we’re all just winging it and hoping for the best—it got easier.

“I’ve been thinking lately that . . . maybe I’m not meant to have another relationship.”

I think about how, at this point in my life, I just want to be me and enjoy fun times and shared interests and fantastic sex with a woman who’s comfortable being her.

A relationship that’s simple, beautiful, easy, good.

It doesn’t sound like a tall order. But after two years of setups and hookups, and stupid fucking swipe left apps—it’s starting to feel like the unicorn at the end of a rainbow who shits gold coins. A myth.

I shrug and continue, “Maybe some of us only get one chance at bat.”

Tikki clicks her tongue. “Oh, baby, that’s just not true. Love is like a river; it keeps flowing and moving your whole life. You just haven’t found the right stream to run off with yet, but she’s out there.”

Tikki’s been married nine times. And divorced ten. While she obviously has experience in relationships, I don’t know if she’s the best person to take advice from on relationships that last.

Stewart the mattress salesman, who at the last meeting shared that he was dating someone new, nudges me with his elbow.

“Careful, man—talk like that’s almost a dare. Then when you least expect it, love smacks you over the head and makes you its bitch.”

“From your lips to God’s ear, Stew,” Delilah says.

“There’s actually something to that,” Dr. Laura says. “Sometimes it’s referred to as the not-looking-for-love phenomenon. It applies not just to relationships but efforts to get pregnant, sports performances. Essentially, it states that by attempting to find love or conceive or hit a baseball, we put too much pressure on ourselves, which keeps at bay the things we want most. But if we let go, release the pressure, if we stop swinging so hard for the ball and just have fun . . . those things we want end up coming to us.”

“So you’re saying I should go with the ‘I’m destined to be alone until I die’ line of thought?” I ask.

Dr. Laura holds out her hands, shrugging. “It can’t hurt.”