“Yes, and I’ve never had a problem.” Glenn put her hand in the center of Mari’s back, gently directing her out of the stream of foot traffic. “But unless you want me to worry, you’ll take the ride.”
Mari laughed. “That strikes me as blackmail.”
Glenn grinned. “Possibly.”
“Thank you,” Mari said, aware of the press of Glenn’s fingers along the edge of her scapula, the tiny points dissolving the terrible distance she’d felt earlier. “I’d appreciate a ride, then.”
“Good. That’s better.”
In minutes Glenn pulled to the curb in front of Mari’s apartment. As Mari was about to say good night, she regretted her decision not to go out with everyone after the game. Reminding herself of all the reasons why she had decided to pass, she pushed open the door and stepped out. “Thanks again.”
“Don’t forget the barbecue tomorrow. Do you need a ride?”
“No,” Mari said, wishing for a second that she did. “Carrie is showing me around tomorrow, and I’ll be going over with her.”
Glenn nodded. “Have fun then.”
Mari held the door open for a second, searching for something to say and discarding everything. She’d made the rules and wished she wasn’t so sure of them. “’Night.”
Glenn’s gaze traveled over Mari’s face, warming her skin and making her heart race.
“’Night, Mari.”
*
Glenn waited until Mari was inside before pulling away. She drove to the next corner but instead of turning left toward Bottoms Up, she turned right, and five minutes later pulled into the lot behind the hospital. In the locker room, she stripped out of her dusty softball clothes and crammed them into her gym bag, pulled clean scrubs from her locker, and turned on the shower full force. With steaming water sluicing over her head and shoulders, she braced both forearms on the shower wall and closed her eyes. With nothing but silence to focus on, her thoughts were all of Mari and what Mari had told her about the last year. Her hands closed into fists and the muscles in her shoulders bunched. She hated thinking about what Mari had endured with her illness and her family’s rejection, and she hated even more imagining the uncertainty she lived with every day. She hated not being able to do a damn thing about it, and she could only imagine what the waiting must be like for Mari. She was so fucking tired of senseless waste, of cruelty and the fickleness of life. And she ought to know by now she couldn’t change a goddamned thing.
Straightening, pushing the anger deep down inside, she rubbed her hands over her face and switched the water to cold. The shock against her heated skin jolted through her like a rifle crack. Her mind cleared and she accepted that reality was often unfair and inexplicable. Life, her life at least, was a battlefield, and she knew what she needed to do.
She pulled on scrubs, toweled her hair dry, and went down to the ER. Bruce manned the desk.
“I didn’t know you were working tonight,” he said, sounding not the least bit surprised to see her.
“I’m not, officially.”
“It’s Friday night, though. Should have known.” He gestured at the board, which was half full of names already. “In another hour we’ll really be able to use you.”
“Thought I’d check in on the student. Where is she?”
He grinned. “In six with an earache. Three-year-old.”
High-pitched screaming alternating with heartfelt sobs emanated down the hall from the direction he indicated.
“Oh, boy,” Glenn said. “My favorite thing. Holding down a thrashing, inconsolable child to look in their ears.”
Bruce laughed. “Uh-huh.”
“If I don’t come back in half an hour, send help.”
“Oh no—you’re on your own, Doc.”
All medics in the field were Doc, and as Glenn headed off to give her student some backup, she was grateful for anything—even a screaming three-year-old with an earache—to dull the weight of helplessness sitting on her chest.
Chapter Seventeen
A little before four in the morning, Flann pulled into the drive beside the schoolhouse her great-grandfather had attended and parked behind Abby’s car. Before Abby came to town and into her life, Flann would’ve bunked the rest of the night in an on-call room reserved for docs waiting for babies to be born or for the OR to get ready for an emergency case. After a few hours of semi-sleep, she’d grab a quick breakfast in the cafeteria, shower in the surgeons’ locker room, and start her day again without giving the world outside the hospital a thought. There were times when she didn’t get home for a couple of days. She’d never really minded, before Abby. But everything was different now.
