I is for Ian

“Shit. Alright, I am on my way. Thank you, Carl. I wouldn’t have known without you.”

“You’re welcome. But hurry down here. The storm is picking up, and the electronic stuff in here could get damaged if it doesn’t get put away quick.”

“I’m getting dressed right now,” I said, hopping out of the bed and grabbing my jeans from the hanger on the bathroom door. “See if you can’t move anything electronic out of the way, and when I get there, we can move the heavy stuff. I’m not even going to move it to the trailers, just away from the windows.”

With that, I hung up and let out another stream of curse words as I put on my jeans.

I had been so prepared for buckling in at the hotel that I didn’t know where all my stuff was at the moment. I had put away most of my clothes in the dressers rather than living out of the suitcase, but aside from that, I wasn’t entirely sure where my wallet or keys were. I had just tossed them inside when I got there.

Finding the wallet inside my ball cap with the keys next to it was a stroke of luck. They were sitting on the bathroom counter, where I had emptied my pockets before getting a shower. I put on a couple of layers, just in case I did need to bring something out to the trailer, and at the last second, grabbed my lunch pail with the deli meat and ice packs in it. The peanut butter and bread were still in the car. I figured the worst that might happen, I might end up there for a few hours and need some sustenance.

As for the pizza, I grabbed one slice and stuck it between my teeth as I put on my coat and checked to make sure I had everything I needed. I was chomping on it as I walked out and down the hallway to the elevator and had mostly finished it by the time I got outside.

I wished I had stayed at a hotel closer to the hospital. There was an option to stay at a motel that was within walking distance that some of the guys had taken. I, like an idiot, had chosen to drive out to the hotel that was technically in Ashford along with some of the others. It was more expensive, but I rationalized it by saying having a stove meant I could cut down on meals out.

Now I was just mad that I had to drive so far, up a mountain, in the storm.

15

MINA

I got back to a hospital in just as frantic a state as when I left it, but soon things were getting better, and it seemed we were actually going to be able to make it. When I got back to work, there were just a few snowflakes floating around in the sky, but it got progressively heavier in the first few hours of me being there.

We just kept going, not slowing down our efforts of making sure everyone was safe and off to where they were going to hunker down for the storm. It was incredible watching everyone work together, and I couldn’t help but be inspired every time the emergency room bay filled with a line of ambulances and medical transfer vehicles ready to take another wave of patients to the waiting facilities. It choked me up a little bit and brought a tear to my eye, but I didn’t have the time to be emotional for too long. There was still work to be done.

As the number of patients who needed to get out dwindled, so did the staff still at the hospital. Doctors, nurses, and others who had stuck around to help started heading out to make it back to their own homes before the storm really set in, leaving a smaller group to help out the remaining patients.

“Jo, aren’t you going home?” I asked the nurse when I found her in the lounge making a pot of coffee.

She shook her head. “Not if people are still here who need me.”

“The snow is really starting to come down out there,” I said. “You should get home while you still can and stay safe and warm. We’re going to be okay here.”

“So, you are staying?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m just going to stick around here for the rest of the night so I’m available for the early morning emergency room shift. I have a feeling we’re going to have a lot of visitors once the storm worsens.”

There were a few things in this world that always made for exciting times in the emergency room. Full moons, holidays, and weather emergencies were some of the biggest. Especially when the cold weather hit and snow and ice became an issue, beds in the emergency room usually filled up fast.