Authors: Maris Black
I have to remind myself to close my mouth before I destroy the ruse. “Yes, sweetie. We certainly did.” I smile at her, hoping she knows it’s genuine, because she’s just saved my ass big time.
“You’re an asshole, Ben.” Christina huffs away toward the door. “I hope you and your whore will be happy together.”
Oddly enough, I find myself wondering if it’s really Julie she’s talking about, or if she knows more than she’s letting on.
“Thanks, Julie,” I whisper after she’s gone. “But why did you lie?”
Her face reddens. “I didn’t think you’d want her to know what’s really going on. She’s not very discreet.”
“And what exactly do you think is going on?”
“Come on, Ben.” She rolls her eyes and touches my hand gently. “You may think you’re a loner, and that no one knows you, but I pay attention. Plus, I was between you and Corey the other night, remember? I’d have to be deaf and blind to miss the sexual tension there.”
“Oh. Does that bother you?” I’m not sure if I want to hear the answer.
“Only because I was planning on asking you out myself, if you didn’t ask me first. But I didn’t know you were gay.”
“I’m not gay.”
“You just like
him
?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yeah. Just him. I’ve never liked a guy in my life… until now.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I think you two make a great couple. Both of you are super hot, and you’re obviously into each other. But what am I supposed to do now? There aren’t that many eligible guys in this stupid little town, you know?”
“Julie, you’re a beautiful, intelligent girl. And you’re so young. You have plenty of time to find someone amazing.”
She smiles, her eyes flickering with excitement. “I did just see a drop dead gorgeous hunk going into the ambulance shack when I got here. Is he new? Maybe Corey can set me up.”
“Fuck.” I spring to my feet, sending my chair rolling backward to crash into the cabinets behind us. “I forgot about him.” I put my hands on Julie’s shoulders and look her squarely in the eyes with all the sympathy I can muster. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he’s gay, too, darlin’. Now I need to go check on something.”
I hear Julie’s cry of disappointment from behind me as I bump the ER doors open and sprint to the ambulance shack. How could I let it slip my mind that Corey was going to be staying out here alone with the most eligible gay dude in the county?
The doors are unlocked, but the place is empty. When I re-emerge, I see that the ambulance is gone. I’m not going to be winning any awards for my observation skills tonight, that’s for sure.
Julie is readying the main bed in room one when I get back to the ER. “They’re gone to pick up an overdose. It’s bad. A little kid.”
My heart jumps into my throat like it always does when kids are involved. “Little kid? Like how little?”
“Like five.”
“Jesus. How does a kid like that overdose? Why can’t parents quit leaving their freaking drugs lying around?”
“I don’t know, Dr. Hardy, but I’m scared of what we’re fixing to be seeing. What if the kid—”
I know what she’s going to say. What if the kid dies? It does happen. Has happened here. On my watch. Most of the things that keep me up at night, that plague my dreams so relentlessly, are things that have happened here. Things that I tried to prevent and couldn’t. In the fragile and fleeting game of life, we doctors are just damage control at best, and it’s that sense of impotence that haunts me.
The radio clicks to life, and Mike’s voice comes across.
“ETA two minutes. Five year old female, suspected overdose on narcotics— uh, Oxycodone?— Yeah, Oxycodone.”
I can hear Corey’s voice in the background, dictating the status report. He sounds frantic, and that makes me more nervous than anything.
“Patient is unconscious, pinpoint pupils, patient is being bagged with an LMA. We’re pulling in now.”
“It’s show time.” I stand at my spot at the head of the bed. “Don’t worry, Julie. Corey’s very capable. He’s already managing her airway, and that’s three quarters of the battle in a narcotics overdose.”
Suddenly, Corey and Mike burst through the double doors with the stretcher. I’m dismayed by the small stature of the occupant, but I can’t let that affect my performance. I’m the damn doctor, and everyone is counting on me. I consciously drop my ice shield into place.
“She’s having trouble breathing, and her heart rate’s slowing, Doc.”
“Time for Narcan, then. Get it ready, Julie.”
Corey is nearly in tears. “Why didn’t we do something, Ben? We were too wrapped up in our own bullshit dramas, and now look.”
I don’t understand what he’s talking about until I get a good look at our patient. It’s Tyleah, the little girl from the motel. My whole body goes hot with fear and shame as I realize I never even bothered to call child services like I said I would.
Julie hooks up the IV. “Administering Narcan.”
I breathe a little easier. “Hopefully, we can head this thing off and avoid having to put her on a ventilator. Where’s her mother?”
“She was fucked up as a bat,” Corey says. “Possum picked her up and escorted her to jail. Hopefully, she’ll stay there until she dies of old age.”
Mike pipes up in his deep voice. “That lady’s crazy. Corey told me you two had planned to call DFACS and get the kid taken away from her.”
“Apparently we waited too long.”
“I don’t know, Doc.” Mike’s use of the nickname Corey gave me makes me cringe. “You can’t always do the right thing. We all think we have more time than we actually do. That goes for everything.”
Mike the Sage. Gotta love this guy.
But he does have a point. We can’t go balls-to-the-wall about every little thing, or we’d burn out fast. Most situations tend to resolve themselves without intervention, and we often have no way of knowing which ones are true emergencies. Like playing the lottery, that little girl was just as likely to live a full childhood without incident as she was to overdose— or worse— even with the warning signs. I’ve personally seen the child of a strict gun law advocate die from a gunshot wound while visiting a friend, but plenty of hunters’ children die of old age every day. Ultimately, warning signs mean nothing. It’s all down to the luck of the draw.
Still, I feel like shit. I should have done something.
“How many did she take? Does anyone know?” I check her eyes, listen to her breathing and check her heart rate.
“Lucky for us, it was a new prescription. Not the mother’s. I don’t know where she got it, but there were only six missing, and the mother said she took two herself. So we know Tyleah had no more than four.”
“Good. When this Narcan kicks in, I think she’ll be out of the woods. We can probably keep her here, thank goodness, because I don’t want to let her out of my sight. A few more pills and we’d be sending her to the ICU at County.”
*****
By the time morning comes, I’m exhausted. Fortunately, everything else that came into the ER during the night was mundane, and it was a quiet night overall. I spent most of my time in Tyleah’s room watching over her. It’s heartbreaking that she has no family to visit her, but all of the nurses are obsessed with her, so I know she’ll be well cared for during the day while I sleep.
Corey spent most of his time in her room, as well. She’s still a little reserved with me, but she’s obviously crazy about him. He sat on the side of the bed and let her rest her head on his chest while we watched infomercials and reruns of old Westerns and fifties shows. I don’t think Mike minded having the ambulance shack to himself for his first night. They only had one more transport all night, so he was probably sleeping or porn surfing most of the time.
“You’re really tired, aren’t you?” Corey looks concerned as we pull into the garage and trudge up the steps.
“Yeah, I think I’d just like to sleep all day today. Do whatever you like. What’s mine is yours, okay?” I barely shuck my clothes and shoes before falling hard into the bed, reaching over to close the blackouts with the remote. I’m instantly comforted by the cool feel of the sheets and the consummate darkness.
“What I want to do right now is lie down with you and get some sleep. Is that okay?”
“Of course.” I yawn and turn my back to him. “Just don’t expect me to be much company.”
Corey is silent for a few minutes, but just as I’m drifting off, he drags me back to consciousness. “Ben, can I ask you a personal question?”
“Oh, good lord. What is it?”
“Do you get depressed a lot?”
I heave a sigh, wishing he hadn’t gone there. Wishing he’d just leave me alone. “I get a little low sometimes. I’m really tired, okay?”
“Okay. Sleep well.”
He scoots up close, barely brushing against me, but it feels uncomfortable— like a full-body case of restless leg syndrome. I can’t stand to be touched when I’m like this. I’ve got the urge to shake off his touch, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings, so I try to ignore how it makes me want to cringe. I’ll be asleep soon enough, and then I won’t know the difference.
*****
The sound of laughter wakes me sometime in the afternoon. I hear Corey, but there’s also a female voice. When I stagger bleary-eyed into the living room, I find Corey and Allie sitting on the sofa talking animatedly.
“Am I missing a party?”
They both startle and look my way. “Hi, Ben,” Allie jumps off the couch and runs over to hug me. “So great to see you again. Hope you don’t mind me keeping your boy company while you nap. He’s just been showing me around, and I must say your house is amazing. I feel like I’m in a photo shoot for one of those Southern home magazines.”
“Thanks.” I shift my attention to Corey, who looks slightly apprehensive, as if he’s not sure how I’m going to react to him having a guest. “Corey, did you find everything okay? Have you guys eaten? I’m sorry I’ve been out of it.”
He stands and approaches me. “Don’t worry, everything is fine. You were dog tired. How are you feeling now?”
“I’m better,” I admit, rubbing my head. “Got something of a pain in my gulliver, though.”
Allie laughs hysterically, but Corey looks perplexed. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“It’s from
A Clockwork Orange
,” I tell him, smiling affectionately. “There’s a copy of it in the library. I’ll find it for you before we go to work, and you can read it in your downtime in the ambulance shack this week.”
Instead of hanging out with Mountain Mike.
My phone rings, and I rush to the bedroom to find it vibrating across my bedside table. I catch it just as it falls off the edge. “Hello?”
Possum is on the other end. “Hi Ben, how are you?”
“Fine, except for that drama with that little girl last night.”
“Yeah, that was bad, buddy. Thank goodness you guys were able to save her. No telling what would’ve happened if she hadn’t left the room and wandered out. She was looking for your friend, but as you know he’d already moved out.”
“Wow. Does Corey know that she was looking for him?”
“Yeah, she was lying right outside the door to his old room. He was pretty torn up about it. Said he never should have left her.”
My heart squeezes, but I don’t offer any response to Possum’s disclosure. I have my own guilt in it that I don’t particularly want to talk about, so I change the subject. “To what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your grumpy voice, old man?”
“Old man? Hey, you’re not that far behind me, fella. In a few years, I’ll remind you of what you just said, and we’ll see how it sits with you then.”
I have to laugh. Possum has always had a way of lifting my spirits, I guess because he got so accustomed to doing it while my mama was sick. It’s a skill he’s perfected through years of practice.
“I looked up that tag number for you. I don’t know if you’re going to like what I found out, though. Can we meet?” My stomach clutches with fear, wondering what he could possibly have to tell me.
“When?”
“Like right now.”
Damn. That doesn’t sound good.
“Uh, sure. Why don’t you come over to my house? I’ve got guests, but we can have privacy if we need it.”
When Possum arrives, his face is so serious it puts me instantly on edge. He shoots Corey a suspicious look. “Quite a bit of drama last night, huh son?”
“Yes, sir.” Corey nods vigorously and gets up to shake Possum’s hand. “Good to see you again. Do you know Allie?”
“Seafood Barn.” Possum rubs his belly. “Best eating in town. Besides my wife’s kitchen, of course.”
Allie beams at the compliment. “Thanks, Possum. I appreciate that coming from you.”
“So, Ben, I’ve got some stuff to show you, and it actually involves your… friend. So what should we do about it? I don’t want to be airing your business out to the world.”
Allie blushes when he glances in her direction. “Oh, don’t worry about me, guys. I was just leaving. Got some errands to run before I head back to the restaurant. Call me later, Cor.”