Five
Whitney
Rule Number Fourteen:
Establish exit strategies and distress signals in advance.
I was exceptionallygood at three things.
First off, surgery—specifically, heart transplant surgery.
Next, applying a winged eyeliner. While they probably didn’t seem interchangeable on first glance, my capability with number two had a lot to do with number one.
Finally, intimidating the shit out of people without saying a word.
Three things sat on the opposite end of this spectrum.
One: boundaries—with everything, everyone, everywhere.
Two: balance. I had no doubt there was another circular relationship between one and two at play here.
Three: catastrophizing. I could drown myself in a downward spiral of intrusive thoughts the second I was hit with a problem with no apparent solution.
It was easier this way, distilling myself down to bits and pieces. Lists with clear, discernible items. These aggregate parts were manageable.
Until today, an otherwise uneventful September day when the trapdoor I’d never noticed beneath my feet gave way and everything was raining down around me as I fell.
I scrambled up the stairs, my heels snapping against the concrete and my hair flying into my face. As a rule, I did not run, definitely not on stairs and never in heels. But there was no other option at the moment. The inside of my head sounded like a screeching heart monitor crossed with Henry singing along to “Cruel Summer” while the Chief of Surgery formally reprimanded me.
I slammed into the door on the sixth floor and then bolted down the hall. Terrible, terrible decision in these shoes though it seemed many of my decisions were terrible these days.
When I blew through the doors into the surgical wing, I headed toward the charge nurse. “Where’s Dr. Mercer this morning?”
She eyed me for a second before glancing down at her tablet. “Thirty-five,” she replied. “You good, Dr. Aldritch?”
I didn’t even have to imagine what kind of mess I looked like right now. I knew my face was beet red, the boob that was slightly larger than the other was very close to flopping out of my bra, and I’d probably sweated through my blouse and into my white coat. I blew some hair out of my mouth as I turned in the direction of Operating Room Thirty-Five, saying, “Never better.”
I scrubbed and masked before entering the OR. As a nurse stepped up to get me into a gown and gloves, I asked Meri, “How much longer do you have here? I need to talk to you. Right away.”
She looked up from the preemie on her table. Couldn’t be more than a few days old. “What did your sister do now?”
“It’s not about Brie,” I said, although she was still a holy terror. “It’s about Lake Tahoe and it’s very urgent.”
Meri gave me the same up-and-down glance I’d received from the charge nurse. Everyone else in the OR did the same. The tea was going to be hot on the surgical wing today. “Did the hotel call about those earrings you’d lost?”
“Not quite.” I motioned to the patient. “Seriously, how long?”
“Five minutes to close and then another five with the family,” Meri said. “I’ll meet you in my office.”
Twenty-seven minutes and several journeys through worst-case scenarios later, Meri arrived. I’d worn a ditch into the floor with my pacing and gnawed my thumbnail ragged in that time.
She shut the door behind her, saying, “What’s happened?”
I continued pacing, my thumb still snared between my teeth. “He’shere,” I managed.
“Who is here, sweet cheeks?” She dropped into one of the chairs in front of her desk, her legs dangling over the arm. “I can’t help if you don’t use your words.”
“The best man.” I turned, shoving my fingers into my hair. “He’s one of my new residents.”
