Deborah rolled her eyes. “A civilized one. Never mind. Sorry I bothered.” She began to close the door.
“Wait!” Hayley held her hand out to keep the door open. She sniffled. “Do you have any tissues?”
“No.” Deborah glanced around. “Hang on.” She walked out of Hayley’s line of sight briefly, coming back with a green box of tissue. “Of course Derm would be using the tissue with aloe.”
“Oh, no, that’s good, it’ll be nice around my eyes and nose.” Hayley took the box and pulled out a tissue, dabbing delicately around her sore eyes. She almost certainly looked terrible—tearstained, bright pink. She never had been a pretty crier. Pulling another tissue, she cleaned up around her nose, wincing at the amount of snot she was clearing up.
The whole time, Deborah stood there, a look of uncertainty on her face. Hayley wasn’t feeling all that steady herself. This sort of interaction wasn’t exactly usual for them. By now at least one of them would have said something insulting.
Deborah didn’t seem inclined to break the silence, or maybe she just didn’t know what to say. Hayley decided to go first. “Thanks.”
“Sure,” Deborah said, a trifle gruffly. As she often did, she stuck her hands into her lab coat pockets and started messing around with whatever was in there. Her dark eyes darted around the room as she fidgeted. She didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t look like she was leaving, either.Interesting.
Hayley finished dabbing at her face and stood up in the little reflection pod, clutching her used tissues in her hand. Deborah was blocking her way out. “Hi. I need to…”
“Oh, yeah.” Deborah stepped back, pulling the door open more widely. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” Hayley looked around and spotted a trash can. She walked over to throw away her tissues. When she turned back around, Deborah was still there by the reflection pod and still looked ill at ease. Hayley frowned in confusion. “Did you… did you need something from me?”
“No, no.” Deborah pulled one hand out of her pocket and gestured back towards the pod she had been occupying. “I was in the middle of my lunch.”
“I know.” Hayley simply waited.
After a long moment or two, Deborah rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh. “I didn’t want to get back to it without making sure you were okay.”
“What do you care?” Hayley blurted without thinking, so surprised was she at the concern.
“Wow, damn, nevermind then.” With a snort, Deb turned and began to stomp back over to the pod she’d left her spaghetti in. “Pardon me for not being an asshole.”
“For once,” Hayley mumbled under her breath. Then with a sigh of her own, she trotted after Deborah and caught up just as the other woman reached the pod and had her hand on the handle. “Doctor Morales. I’m sorry. I was just surprised. We don’t usually…”
“Exchange niceties? No.” Deborah turned back and shrugged. “But you seemed really, really upset. I can have some compassion even for snotty little nurses.”
“Oh, and there it is.” Hayley threw her hands in the air. “Wow.”
But Deborah didn’t fire back another snarky remark. “I’m not interested in arguing, I have a lunch to get back to before it gets cold. Are you all right, Nurse Milton?”
“Yeah, I just…” Tucking her hands into her scrub pockets, Hayley began to pace around. “We lost a patient in ICU. He’d been there for a while, and I’d finished his paperwork to sendhim up to cardiac. He was supposed to be going upstairs to finish getting better and…” Her throat closed up.
Still standing by the pod, Deborah nodded. “Ah. Yeah. That’s rough. Did you like him?”
“I mean…kind of?” Hayley walked back to the pod she’d been in to retrieve the box of tissues. She could feel her eyes welling up again. “Honestly, he was kind of a perv. He was always flirting with the female nurses.”
“Even you?” Deborah raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “And he lived?”
“Well, you know, we have to be nice to patients, especially in our unit.” Hayley dabbed at her eyes as the tears began to trickle out. “But he was this sweet old widower, mostly. He liked to read, and we had a little book club going. We were about to finish readingPride and Prejudicetogether.” She sniffled. “He didn’t really like it. Said he likedNorthanger Abbeybetter. He was such a…” She looked up, groping for words. “He contained multitudes, I guess.”
Deborah nodded. “Humans are complicated. And we have complicated feelings.”
“Yeah.” Hayley patted a tissue under her nose and then took in a deep breath. “Anyway. It just hit me hard. Warts and all, I’ve spent a lot of time with him this month. He was turning the corner, after weeks of complex care. He should have been able to get better and get back to his fishing boat.” More tears began to flow.
Deborah took a step or two forward. “You said he was a widower?”
“Yeah.” Hayley was beginning to feel stinging around her eyes as she wept, despite the aloe in the tissues.
“Maybe…” Deborah’s hands were back in her pockets. “Maybe he’s with his wife again. If there’s an afterlife.”
Well. That was an unexpected turn for the conversation to take. Hayley’s eyes widened in surprise. “Do you believe in the afterlife?”
