Maggie’s gaze softened—barely, but enough that Evie noticed. “That’s not what I asked.”
Evie swallowed. “Not all of it.”
Maggie didn’t correct her. She stepped into the room instead.
Evie watched as Maggie greeted Daisy and her daughter, Kara, with calm familiarity. She sat, unhurried, her presence filling the space without crowding it. She listened more than she spoke. When she did speak, it was with clarity that didn’t soften the edges but didn’t sharpen them either.
Evie felt something shift in her chest.
Hope wasn’t being crushed here.
It was being reshaped.
When they stepped back into the hallway, Evie felt wrung out.
“You don’t have to protect them from the truth,” Maggie said quietly as they walked. “You just have to stay with them while they hear it.”
Evie stopped. Her words sounded cold. She wondered where she buried her emotions. Was it somewhere so deep in her soul she forgot how to feel human?
“I don’t want to take away hope,” she said.
Maggie turned to face her fully then, the hallway noise receding around them. “Hope changes,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it disappears.”
Their eyes met.
Evie became acutely aware of how close they were. Of how Maggie’s voice didn’t need volume to carry weight. Of the faint scent of soap and something warmer beneath it.
“How do you do it?” Evie asked before she could stop herself.
Maggie studied her. “Do what?”
“Let go.”
Something unreadable crossed Maggie’s face—too fast to catch, too real to ignore.
“You’ll learn,” Maggie said after a moment. “Or you won’t. Either way, medicine will teach you.”
She turned and walked away.
Evie stood there longer than she should have, heart pounding, watching her go. Why did she want to hear more? Why did she want to know more? She cracked her fingers and let out a deep breath.
What the hell is going on here?
Later, alone in the call room, the lights dimmed and the pager blessedly silent, Evie lay back on the narrow bed and stared at the ceiling.
She told herself it was professional admiration she felt. Or frustration. Or exhaustion.
But the truth pressed in anyway.
Maggie Laurel unsettled her.
Not because she was intimidating. Not because she held power.
Because she stayed.
And Evie had a feeling that whatever she’d just stepped into at Oakridge, it wasn’t just a job.
It was something that might change her.
