“Thanks, Sunny. That’s always nice to hear, and coming from you it means a lot.”
She grinned at me and put a hand on my shoulder, which had to look comical because she was so much shorter than me.
“Right. So believe me when I tell you that you need to find more in your life than this ER, or any ER. This is a job, a career, and yes, it’s an important one, one that requires dedication and sacrifice, but it does not require that you lose yourself in it. You’re a lovely, brilliant woman who has a bright future ahead of her. I see a lot of similarities between the two of us. Believe me when I say none of that means anything if you don’t have anything else.”
I made a confused face at her and shifted my weight so that she had to drop her hand off my shoulder.
“What brought that on, Sunny?”
She gave a little laugh and flipped her long hair over her shoulder again.
“I heard a rumor Dr. Bennet asked you out for drinks the other night, and you turned him down cold. Why would you do that? He’s gorgeous, and you have work in common, so I know you would have things to talk about. Why didn’t you even consider it? It just makes me worry about you. You’ve been here for almost two years, and you never socialize with us, never open up. I like you. I want you to be living the best life possible.”
Dr. Bennet was the hospital’s catch. He was twenty-eight, built like a fitness model, and had wavy black hair and dreamy green eyes that made most of the nurses and any other female whose path he crossed turn to mush. He was a total Lothario, but a seemingly nice guy, and had been hinting around for the last six months that he would like to get to know me better outside of work. Generally, I brushed the attention off. I wasn’t the type of girl doctors wanted to date, and there was no way I was in the market for an office hookup—not when I could hardly act normal as it was. But he had flat-out asked me on a date on Thanksgiving. Instead of responding, or trying to stumble my way through a mumbled excuse, I’d rushed off the moment the Flight for Life info had come in bearing Phil Donovan’s name. I had seen the information on the chart, and I had the single-minded need to find Nash and see what was going on with him. I hadn’t exactly turned the doctor down, but whatever draw Nash still had was just more powerful than getting to know the handsome doctor better.
“Come on, Sunny. I don’t really think I’m Bennet’s type and I don’t go out because I don’t really have time. I work, and you know how crazy things have been with my mom. I do live a good life.”
“A good life is not the same thing as a fulfilled life, Saint. If the man is asking you out, then I would say you are most definitely his type. You need to buy a new mirror, one that accurately shows you what everyone else sees when they look at you. I’ll never understand how you can’t see that you’re pretty much every man’s type.”
I wanted to tell her she was wrong, I did see what everyone else saw, but no amount of spectacular cle**age, a nice hourglass figure, or pretty hair could overcome the fact I had a hard time connecting with people, that trusting someone enough to let go and lighten up was nearly impossible for me, or the fact that trying to make small talk and just act like a typical girl was almost an insurmountable task for me. I was always so worried about saying or doing the wrong thing. I was saved from leveling more excuses, more justification at her, by my phone going off again. I could practically see my sister’s frustrated face on the other end of the call.
“I have to take this, Sunny, but seriously, thank you for looking out for me.”
“Sure thing, my friend. Someone has to … you’re too busy caring for everyone else to care for yourself.”
As if to prove her point, as soon as I cleared the sliding glass doors at the entrance of the hospital, Faith’s voice rang shrill in my ear.
“Are you ignoring my calls?”
Faith and I were close. Since we were only a year apart, we had gone through school together until she graduated. Going away to college on the West Coast had been necessary for me, but it had also been hard to leave her behind. Now she was married to her college sweetheart. They had four kids under the age of seven and were expecting a fifth. She was the primary reason I had come back to Denver even though I loved the beach, missed the hospital and staff from my postgrad job in California, and had a really hard time returning to the town that reminded me of my younger self every day.
“No. I had to work late and got caught up talking to my boss on the way out. What’s up?”
I heard her sigh as one of the kids screamed in the background.
“Did you talk to Mom this week?”
Considering my week had been crazy and spent alternately punishing and berating myself over Nash, no, my mom has not been on my radar.
“No. I was busy. Why, did something happen to her?”
My parents had been married for over thirty years, twenty-five of them happily. At some point, while I was gone and Faith was starting a family, my dad had decided that being home alone with my mother was no fun. Unbeknownst to any of us, he had started seeing his much-younger dental assistant who worked with him at his practice. The marriage had struggled on until my mom couldn’t take the infidelity and insult anymore. As a result a seriously contentious and ugly divorce started two years ago. It was drawn out, filled with hate and bickering, and had turned my parents not only against each other but practically into strangers to Faith and me. That was the other reason I came home. I wanted my mom back.
My mom wanted us to have nothing to do with my dad. She was angry, irrational, and all her focus had been on Faith and the kids. It was driving my sister bananas, and after one too many teary and desperate phone calls, I had applied at Denver Health Medical Center and had come home to help out and try and minimize the damage. My mom was on the brink of a meltdown. I could see it coming like speeding lights at the other end of the tunnel, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to prevent it. She was self-medicating, taking pills and drinking her weight in wine to try and deal with the hurt. It sucked for all of us because even though my dad’s actions hurt us all, it was impossible just to cut him entirely out of our lives, and that drove my mom crazy.
“Yes, something happened. One of the neighbors called me to let me know that the fire department was out at the house. Apparently she went to the backyard and put all the old family photos in the barbecue and decided to burn them.”