"So I've got a father who I know has had his world destroyed. No parent should outlive their children. And I'm listening to him on the phone, not even begging, just... 'My son always answers. Please.'"
The words hung in the air between us, heavy with implications I was only beginning to understand.
"I have to be circumspect, of course," Kellen continued. "Ihave to give a non-answer. HIPAA, protocols, all the legal bullshit that keeps the hospital from getting sued. But the father... he takes my non-answer as an indication that his sonisn'tin our ER, that he might just be okay. In a more rational state, he would have understood what I was really saying. He probably logically knew what was true. But when you're desperate, you'll grab onto any reason not to believe the worst."
Kellen's voice dropped even lower, and I had to strain to hear him over the ambient noise of the bar.
"I gave him hope when I should have found a way to prepare him. I made it worse by trying to follow the rules. And that kid died on the table twenty minutes later while his father was probably thinking his son was going to be okay."
I felt something crack open in my chest. The bourbon burned, but not as much as the image Kellen had painted — a father racing through the night, clinging to false hope because a nurse had been too careful in order to be kind.
"That's just one," Kellen said, refilling both our glasses. "One incident out of dozens, hundreds like it. I had a two-year-old once. Mom's boyfriend got angry at him for crying. Turned off the safety on their water heater, threw the kid in the bathtub, gave him third-degree burns. Had to watch that kid suffer for weeks."
His voice never changed, never wavered from that same flat delivery, but I could see the cost of each memory in the lines around his eyes.
"There’s a local politician. Had to report him to Adult Protective Services for how he was treating his elderly mother. Abuse, neglect, the works. But I still get to watch his campaign commercials every election season, see him talking about family values and community service, and I can't say a goddamn thing."
The bourbon was hitting me hard now, making everything feel loose and unmoored. I was crying without realizing whenit had started, tears streaming down my face as the weight of his words sank in.
"The job will eat you alive if you let it," Kellen said, his voice carrying a weariness that seemed to come from his bones. "It ate me. Look at me, Dalton. This is what it looks like when you let the job win."
I looked at him — really looked at him — and saw not just the emotionally distant charge nurse I'd worked with for years, but a man who'd been hollowed out by too many impossible choices, too many moments when doing the right thing felt indistinguishable from inflicting cruelty.
"But you don't have to do what I did," he said, his eyes meeting mine for the first time since we'd sat down. "You need someone. Like that firefighter. I saw how you looked at her."
The mention of Izzy hit me like a physical blow. I felt my face crumple, the careful control I'd maintained for weeks finally beginning to crack completely.
"I destroyed that," I sobbed. "I tried to help her and I destroyed everything."
"Maybe," Kellen said. "Or maybe you made a mistake that can be fixed. Believe it or not, I feel the same way about my wife, even after seventeen years, even if it doesn't show. She's the only thing that keeps me fromtrulybecoming... this."
He gestured at himself, a bitter smile flickering across his face.
"Don't lose yourself," he said quietly. "And don't you dare lose that." His voice dropped even lower. "It’s okay, son."
The words undid me entirely. This broken, distant man — who I'd never seen show a single emotion, who moved through the hospital like a competent ghost — had just claimed me as family. I started crying harder, raw, ugly sobs that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than my chest.
“Atta boy,” Kellen said magnanimously, patting me on the shoulder. “Let it all out.”
"Hey." A voice cut through my grief — not Kellen's, butsomeone else's. "What's wrong with your friend? Can't handle his liquor?"
I looked up through my tears to see a man standing beside our table, probably in his fifties, wearing a stained Carhartt work shirt and the kind of sneer that suggested he'd been looking for trouble all evening. He reeked of cheap beer and bad decisions.
"Nothing wrong with him," Kellen said, his voice carrying that same flat authority it always did.
"Looks like he's having a breakdown to me," the man continued, his voice getting louder. "Maybe you should take him home before he starts crying all over everyone."
I felt Kellen go very still, even across the table. When I looked at him, his expression hadn't changed, but something dangerous had entered his eyes.
"I think you should walk away, pal," Kellen said quietly.
"What if I don't want to?" The drunk took a step closer, apparently mistaking Kellen's calm for weakness. "What if I think you and your crying boyfriend should find somewhere else to — "
It happened so fast I almost missed it. One moment, the drunk was standing there running his mouth; the next Kellen had him by the scruff of his shirt as he lifted the man slightly off his feet.
"I’m sorry. You were saying?" Kellen's voice was perfectly calm. Conversational, even … which somehow made it more terrifying.
The drunk's reply came in a whisper. "N-n-nothing, I didn’t mean nothing by it."
