Page 95 of The Wild Beneath

“I’ve never seen you miss,” Jason says, handing over the mask.

Easton pushes a bolus of propofol sedation. After Mr. Van der Zee floats away, Annie double-checks the defibrillator settings.

“Clear,” Annie says.

They all move back a few inches.

Annie pushes the red button. The zing goes straight up her spine. It always feels a bit that way. But today, it jolts her like a thunderclap.

She tries not to show it.

Mr. Van der Zee’s eyes flutter open and he pulls at the non-rebreather mask. His heart is back in a regular rhythm.

“I’ve got eleven handovers, MacLeod,” Easton says, already halfway out of the room. “And we’re bed-blocked. There are ten admits in the department.”

They’re short-staffed with fifty patients in the waiting room.

Annie works a double shift because she wants to help, and she wants to keep escaping herself. It’s a long sixteen hours before she gets home. The bedroom is dark and Evan is asleep on his side.

She pours herself water at the kitchen sink. Flickers of the day return in sequence. 10:46 a.m.: a sixty-year-old woman knitting a yellow baby sweater. Cancer all over her chest X-ray. Her needles fell from her hands when Annie told her, the yarn spooling out across the floor. 3:08 p.m.: a twenty-two-year-oldman, suicidal and paranoid, glued to a metal chair in the triage bay. When he wouldn’t stop screaming, security had to move him into an isolation room. 10:58 p.m.: A colicky newborn howling in the pediatric room, the parents unsure how to help her. Annie picked the child up and shushed her over and over against her chest.

She takes a long sip from the glass and feels the cold water hit her empty stomach.

1:29 a.m.: She’d found herself in the medication room, the heavily insulated space at the far end of the department. A computerized wall of tiny drawers, containing tablets and ampules and vials.

For a split second, in the quiet, Annie found a sliver of Walker’s sound. It came from nowhere and everywhere, vaporous; a halo of moonlight. It made her soft in the knees.

But then a code blue rang overhead. The sound vanished and Annie went running again. Today, everyone had sixteen critical questions for her at once, on top of reams of reports and results. The portable phone on her hip wouldn’t stop ringing.

In the dark of the living room, Annie sits down on the couch. A powdery feeling in the back of her throat makes her drink more water. She places the empty glass on the table beside her, next to the TV remote. She careens to one side and closes her eyes.

The next thing she knows, Evan is kneeling on the floor beside her. On her back, he draws the shape of a sea star, then a whale with his fingertips.

“Why aren’t you coming to bed?” he asks.

“I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

He removes the elastic from her wrist and massages the indentation left in her skin. He takes the other elastic out of her hair and loosens the braid.

“I can always tell when you’re lying.” Evan leans down and kisses her temple. His lips are soft and linger there.

“Have the last two days felt like two years?”

“God, yes,” says Evan.

“I smell like disinfectant.”

He nods. “You do.”

“And you have to get up in two hours.”

“Mmhm.”

She sits up and leans into his chest. “I gotta rinse this off of me.”