Page 93 of The Wild Beneath

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” She had held out so long without a phone.

“So we can be connected, is what I was thinking.”

“We are connected.”

His fingers danced over the screen. Over the coming minutes, the pings did not stop: a relentless barrage of notifications and emails. Evan opened each of the apps to show her what they were. “Maybe you won’t hate it,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“You can even watch TV on it.” He picked out a show with competing vocalists traipsing across a spotlit stage. Judges sat in front of a clapping audience. Squealing voices nattered, yelled, sang.

She couldn’t keep up with them all.

When she stashed the phone in a drawer in the back of the closet the next day, Annie couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. She left it there until the battery died. When she told him why, Evan did not try to sway her. He kissed her on the forehead and said: “We tried.”

She kept the AirPods though, shocked by the bliss of noise cancellation.

She’s getting close to work now, passing a garbage can near the north parking tower. It overflows with hospital wristbands, crushed pop cans, napkins. Condiments from a take-out bag splatter across the metal rim.

She locks her bike and reluctantly takes out her AirPods.The silicone earplugs she replaces them with are not nearly as good. A pop song emerges from the speakers above the hospital entrance, piano music floats out from the gift shop. The different melodies climb over one another, worse than usual.

Layers of clouds threaten rain. It’s damp and chilly.

Annie holds her breath and walks inside.

Chapter 35

“First of all,” Dr. Easton starts. “Get the fucking pads on.”

The ER nurse standing beside Annie is a small mouse with straightened platinum hair that swings uniformly around her face. Her badge reads AMBER with no last name. She must be new.

Dr. Justine Easton’s badge reads DR. EASTON in bold. She’s the chief of emergency and has been since Annie was a medical student. Her greying hair is pulled back haphazardly in a magenta scrunchie. She’s only forty-five-ish but has a sphinx-like, reincarnated presence. Her crow’s feet already extend the length of her cheeks. She paces in arcs at the end of the hospital bed, a snake charmed by the song of the tele­metry machine.

It’s 8:02 a.m. on the wall clock.

Amber is frantically searching the bottom drawer of the crash cart. She pushes aside packages of catheters, intubation tubes, bite blocks, and a few fall onto the floor. At 8:03 a.m., she still hasn’t found the pacing pads.

Annie leans over to retrieve them from the top drawer. She places them discreetly into Amber’s hands.

“Thanks, Dr. MacLeod,” she says. But once the adhesive backing is off, Amber misplaces the pads on the man’s chest.

“What’s going on?” The elderly patient groans underneath her.

He tries to sit up. The back of his grey hair is sticking up at the top. His gown is not tied, revealing his sun-spotted skin and spindly legs. MR. VAN DER ZEE is scrawled on the whiteboard over his bed in hasty handwriting. Details from another patient are only partially rubbed off; the chain of old vitals linger in the bottom right corner.

“Your heart rhythm is irregular, Mr. Van der Zee. We’re going to fix it,” Annie says. “Then we’ll get you breakfast.”

Annie peels off the pads and corrects their placement. “Listen. The pads go on the diagonal, Amber. Imagine the heart needs to be between the two pads so the voltage can run through.”

“I’m glad someone here can teach elementary school,” Easton says. “And where the fuck is RT?”

The telemetry machine wails, then regurgitates a roll of white paper covered in erratic tracings. Annie turns and taps the buttons in quick succession. The alarm stops.

Mr. Van der Zee groans again and clutches at his chest.

Amber is now a wide-eyed statue. Annie turns to the defibrillator and sets the sync and voltage herself.

“Let’s just get this over with and cardiovert him.” Easton tightens her scrunchie.