Last Nurse (eBook)

Prologue:

At some point during childhood, most every child wishes they could be a superhero. Of course, there’s the kid who wants to be a ballerina with a sparkling pink tutu and a perfect pirouette, or the kid who longs to be an astronaut who rockets into space and dances on the moon. But the epitome of any awesome childhood fantasy career has to be the superhero.

Superheroes are undeniably appealing. They’re strong. They’re fast. Some of them can even fly. (I know, right? Who doesn’t want to be able to fly?)

Admit it. Whether you wished to morph into a badass Power Ranger, to respond to a personalized signal and slide into your tricked out Batmobile, or even to flawlessly wield a truth-revealing lasso, you have indeed wished to be a superhero at one point in your youth. But besides all the cool gadgets and rad powers, what is it that’s truly the most admirable quality of a superhero? I think all us fanatics can agree, it’s the fact that they save people. Superheroes swoop in at the direst of times, when all hope is lost and they save the day, they save lives.

As the little girl in the Superman shirt is led down the long, cold corridor of the building where “the sick people go,” she wishes she could just fly away like Superman. She thinks of all the comic books she has read, all the cartoons she has watched, and wishes she, herself, was a real-life superhero. She wishes she could be the one to save him. The one to swoop in and save the day since they now know that all hope is lost.

She grasps her tiny hand around her father’s strong one and obediently places one foot in front of the other; she must keep moving. She gazes up at her father, tears welling in her eyes. Until today she could have sworn her dad was a real-life superhero. He always made everything better. When there were monsters hiding in her closet, he would be the one to slay them. When she fell off her bike and skinned her knee, he was there within seconds to carry her to safety. She knew this wasn’t his fault, she wasn’t mad at her father. She knew that if her dad could save him—if he could take all the hurt away—he would. But this monster was just too big. This hurt was just too bad. Their family had finally met their match.

She continued clutching her father’s hand as they floated down the long hallway. She didn’t even feel like she was walking anymore. She no longer felt like she was intentionally moving her feet, yet she somehow continued moving forward. She was drifting away on what felt like a stream of tears. As she looked up once more toward her father, she saw tears mirroring her own rolling down his face. He forcefully brushed the tears from his cheek with his opposite hand.

As they continued floating on their tears to his room, a lady in pajamas with a big, shiny necklace draped across her neck rushed by them. The lady softly smiled at her as she passed. It was a knowing smile, a sad smile. Her dad informed her that the lady was not in fact wearing pajamas and a gaudy necklace, but she was wearing something called scrubs and a stethoscope. Her father told her that the nice lady was a nurse, and a nurse’s job was to help sick people. She timidly glanced back over her shoulder at the lady that passed, thinking to herself that maybe nurses were kind of like superheroes but in outfits that looked like pajamas.

When they neared his room, she could hear guttural sobs, the cries of which were undeniably her mother’s. She had heard her mother make such sounds before, late at night locked away in her bedroom over the last few months. However, this was the first time she had heard her make these noises in the light of day rather than behind the safety of her bedroom door where she thought no one could hear her despair. The little girl knew that for her mother to allow herself to be seen and heard so uncomposed in public, her brother’s situation had to have moved from bad to worse.

The little girl’s mother was the definition of perfection. Or at least that is how she portrayed herself to the outside world. She was always impeccably groomed, her clothes always so lovely, fitting her slender frame perfectly. Her hair was always styled into flawless curls that seemed to effortlessly cascade down her back, unlike the little girl’s own hair that often resembled a frizzy nest where birds would reside. Her mother always seemed to carry herself with such grace and poise. The outside world could have easily mistaken her for a real-life princess, but the little girl knew better. Her mother was hurting more than she would ever let the world see and, over the years to come, the hidden pain her mother concealed would slowly start to destroy them all. Unbeknownst to the little girl, this would be the last day in a very long time where she felt she had a mother who truly cared for her, a mother who could look into her daughter’s dark blue eyes and not be reminded of what she lost on that cold December day.

As the little girl and her father reached the doorway to Matthew’s hospital room, their silent stream of tears met with her mother’s ocean of violent cries. No longer did the girl feel like she was mindlessly floating in her sadness; now she was drowning in the sorrow that filled the small room located at the Summit Valley Pediatric ICU. The little girl felt like she could no longer breathe. Her chest was heavy, and her reddened cheeks were soaked with tears. She could not do this. She was not strong enough. The t-shirt she adorned was just a lie. She was no Superman. She was simply a scared, seven-year-old girl who was about to lose her brother.

As she attempted to run out of the hospital room that held a little boy who no longer resembled the older brother she once knew, she collided into the legs of a different nurse lady in a pair of bright yellow scrub pajamas. After collecting herself, the little girl hurled her small body around the new nurse lady and slid to the cold, shiny floor of the hallway. Her tiny body aggressively shook with every sob that escaped her.

Suddenly, she felt a kind hand rest upon her shoulder. She expected to look up and see the face of her father waiting to console her. Her mother had recoiled so enormously from her role within the family over the last few months that the girl would have been astounded if she managed to pull herself away from her son’s bedside to console her daughter. The girl doubted her mother even noticed her existence anymore, let alone her sudden and obvious distress. As the little girl peered up through her pool of tears, she realized it was neither her mother nor her father but the new nurse lady she had just passed.

The nurse, in scrubs that looked like sunshine, slowly kneeled until she was seated beside her. The lady spoke softly, “Hi sweetheart. My name is Emma and I’m going to be your brother’s new nurse. I brought you an apple juice. Are you thirsty?”

The little girl slowly nodded, timidly reaching for the small carton of juice. While the little girl cautiously sipped, the nurse’s smile grew as she asked, “Do you like Superman? I’m a big fan of superheroes too. My favorite is Wonder Woman.”

The girl’s face immediately lit up, “I love Superman! Wonder Woman is cool too, but not as cool as Superman. Sorry, it’s the truth. When I grow up, I want to be a superhero.”

Emma let out a loud laugh that took the girl by surprise. The girl never heard anyone laugh at this place where all the sick people go.

Once the girl took the last sip of her apple juice, she moved her gaze from the shiny, white hospital floor to Emma’s friendly smile. “Is it okay if I ask you a question?” the little girl inquired.

Emma’s smile widened, “Of course, sweetie. Shoot!” The little girl’s brows furrowed as she pondered over Emma’s reply. “What am I supposed to shoot?” the girl questioned.

Once more, the joyous sounds of Emma’s unconfined laughter echoed throughout the gloomy halls of the hospital floor. “Oh, honey!” Emma chuckled. “I forget that I’m talkin’ to a tiny human. It’s what we call a figure of speech. It means ‘go ahead and ask all the questions your lil’ heart desires.”

The girl grinned, “I know you don’t have a cape or anything, but my dad told me that nurses help people just like superheroes do. I was wondering…are you a superhero?”

Emma’s smile somehow became even bigger. “Well, that’s a really good question,” she thoughtfully replied. “I’d like to think that, in a way, us nurses are kind of unsung heroes. We go to work each day and before anything else, even ourselves, we put our patients first. We make their needs and comfort our primary focus for twelve hours a day. We are healers by nature and when we’re unable to heal, we try our best to ease the pain and to take away the fear. That’s the type of nurse I am.” Emma paused briefly, her smile appearing sadder as she softly placed her hand atop one of the little girl’s hands. “I am a nurse that comes to help a person be comfortable when a sickness can’t be healed. I help take the pain away, so they don’t hurt anymore. Do you understand, honey?” Emma asked.

The little girl slowly nodded once more as she lifted her gaze from the nurse’s hand resting atop her own. Her dark blue eyes locked with Emma’s honey-colored eyes, and she confidently proclaimed, “I...