My feet feel like they’re made of lead by the time I clock out. I haven’t felt this bad coming off a shift since I first did clinicals in nursing school. Twelve hour shifts are normal. Days back to back happen. Even sometimes staying at the hospital working shifts consecutively due to staffing issues or a random storm. Today the minutes dragged on feeling like an endless loop stuck at work. The kind of exhaustion that isn’t just physical. It’s in my pores. In my bones. In the place behind my eyes where the fluorescent lights live even after you leave the building.
My hair is scraped back, my scrub top smells faintly like disinfectant and old coffee, and my brain is still half in someone else’s room, beeping monitors, low voices, a family trying to be brave in a hallway as they make a difficult decision for a loved one’s care.
I sign the last thing I need to sign, filling in the last few notes on a chart, and letting my mind review the shift. I give a bed side report for the shift change relieving myself of the responsibilities of patient care. I force my mouth into the right polite shape for the night-shift charge nurse. I nod at an aid I barely recognize because turnover is constant and the life of a hospital swallows some people whole.
Then I walk. Through double doors. Through the hush of the lobby. Past the vending machines with their snacks. Past security, where the guard gives me a tired wave as he counts down his own shift to clock out time.
Outside, Arkansas early morning sky hits me as the sad reminder, I’m going home and he won’t be there. There won’t be coffee together before getting Papa cleaned up and then climbing in bed for myself to get a little sleep before getting up and taking over his care at dinner. Back to the same grind I had before meeting Miles.
The parking lot is lit in early morning sun rising as the overhead lights have cut out due to the timers. The air smells like wet asphalt and cut grass and something faintly metallic from the road. My car sits where I left it.
I’m already thinking about my grandfather, if he’s sleeping okay, if he’s going to wake up coughing and scared, if he’s going to need water or a hand on his shoulder or someone to tell him he’s home, he’s safe, and I’ll be there soon. It’s the same worry I have every morning when I head home.
Josie and Raff left a week ago. Miles left two weeks ago.
Miles.
The thought of him slides through me like warmth, like a hand at my lower back guiding me forward. We’ve been talking. Texting. Calling. Small pieces of our days traded back and forth like we’re building something out of fragments. It doesn’t fix the distance.
But it makes things more bearable.
I hit the unlock button on my key fob. My headlights blink. I walk closer, already fishing my keys out of my pocket. That’s when I see it.
My front tire is slumped. Not low. Not maybe I can drive until it warms up and expands. No, there right in front of my face, the tire was toast.
Completely flat.
My stomach drops.
I step closer, heart thumping harder now, and shine my phone light down at it as if it might change the visual in front of me. The rubber looks wrong, collapsed, like it’s given up. I move around to the passenger side, something inside me said to check it too.
A sharp, cold spike of adrenaline cuts through my exhaustion.
Two flat tires.
Not one. Two.
I stand there for a second, just staring, trying to make my brain compute it.
How? I drove here. I parked. Everything was fine.
Two.
My skin prickles. I turn slowly, scanning the lot like I’m going to see the answer standing under a lamp post.
There’s nobody close. A car pulls out near the far entrance. A nurse I don’t know crosses between buildings, head down, phone pressed to her ear. The rest is quiet.
Too quiet.
I swallow and make myself breathe. Okay. Okay, Danae. Think. I could call roadside assistance, but that’s a coin flip this time of the day on how long I will have to wait. I could call a tow company, but I’m already calculating money in my head like it’s a triage chart, what’s urgent, what can wait, and what will break the bank. Taking the time off when Josie had Journey I depleted my savings. While I still have some, I never know what may pop up for Papa. I pay out of pocket for home health care since his insurance only covers a small portion of the time needed. Obviously, I have to do something even if it means putting the cost on a credit card.
Before I could make the call, my phone vibrates in my hand.
Miles. Of course it’s Miles. Like the universe has a sick sense of timing and also, somehow, mercy.
I answer fast. “Hey.”
His voice comes through like gravel and warmth. “Hey, sweetheart. You off?”
