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“The difference is, somebody pays me to be awake.”

He rolled his eyes and shoved another bite into his mouth. “Football conditioning at six.”

Right. The coach ran early-morning practices before school, and the first day of school was today. I tried to fuss over Jace’s first day, but he told me, in no uncertain terms, that he did not want a photo shoot of him holding a backpack in front of the school “like a loser.” Message received.

“Are you nervous?” I asked. Jace had excelled at soccer, but there wasn’t a team close enough to join here. Football was new to him, but he was an athlete through and through, able to do anything he set his mind to.

“Nah.”

“Liar.”

He grinned as he slurped some milk. “. . . Maybe a little.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I know.” He shoveled another spoonful into his mouth before pointing the spoon at me like a wand. “You’re the one starting a new job, Doc.”

I filled my water bottle at the sink.

“You nervous?” he asked.

The stream splashed against stainless steel.

“A little.”

He watched me over the rim of his bowl.

“You’re gonna be great,” he said.

I reached over and scrubbed the top of his head until he protested.

“Hey.”

“You’ll survive.”

“Barely.”

I laughed, grabbed my lunch from the refrigerator, and texted Helen.

Me: Leaving now. Jace is up. Grandpa’s still asleep.

Three dots appeared almost immediately.

Helen: Already on my way. Don’t worry about anything.

I slipped my phone into my pocket. Helen had become the thread holding our days together. She’d stay with Grandpa, make sure he ate lunch, keep him company until she drove Jace home after school. Every hour she spent here stretched the budget a little tighter, but I’d sort through the stack of overdue bills one at a time. One shift, one paycheck, one day at a time. That was enough. It had to be.

The helipad came into view before the hospital did. It stood vacant, which was an immediate relief. An empty helipad meant no one was waiting to be transported to Omaha or Kansas City due to the severity of their situation. The hospital stood beyond it, the same faded brick building I’d passed a thousand times growing up. The automatic doors still hesitated before sliding open, like they were trying to decide if they wanted to open. The scent of antiseptic and burnt coffee flooded my senses the second I stepped inside. A new badge rested against my scrub top.

Cali Walton, FNP-C.

My fingers brushed the edge as I walked toward the emergency department. From the nurses’ station, I could see all eight beds. In Austin, we’d have filled eight rooms before I’d finished my first cup of coffee. A phone rang somewhere behind the desk; a monitor chimed in room two. Someone laughed farther down the hall before a door clicked shut. Trauma centers and community hospitals were just different—distinct paces but the same medicine. Small-town medicine was more complex in ways because it was personal. You weren’t just treating a man with chest pain; you were treating Nancy’s husband, who was a fifth-generation farmer who had helped your grandfather harvest wheat every year. The level of care wouldn’t change, but the eyes that watched me would. We were the front line for every emergency.

“Cali Walton?”

I turned to find a woman with dark curls and crystal clear pale-blue eyes striding toward me; her smile was warm enough to cut through every first-day nerve I carried.

“You made it.” She held out her hand. “I’m Lacy.”