Mount Mercy

I wanted to get her the hell out of that OR and show her the world. It wasn’t fair that she was hiding away. She deserved a life. She needed to be fed ice cream in a park on a really hot day, my arms wrapped around her from behind as we sat on a blanket. She needed to go swimming in the sea, both of us riding the waves as we kicked around in the surf. She needed to go walking in the forest early on a misty morning, freezing in silence as we saw a deer. She needed... me.

Except I couldn’t give her any of that. There’s a reason I keep it shallow, keep it simple. I can’t have anything else. Not without Chrissy and Rachel.

I couldn’t just sleep with her and I couldn’t have a relationship with her. Around four in the morning, I’d finally reached a conclusion. The only thing to do from now on was to avoid Beckett completely.

When I pulled into the cafe on Main Street to grab breakfast, the locals were shaking their heads and muttering about the bad weather in Denver...and that it might head our way. “Could be a long day at the hospital,” the old lady behind the counter warned me. “I recommend the Behemoth. In case you don’t get to eat again for a while.”

I shrugged. I’ll try anything once. “Hit me.”

The Behemoth turned out to be a foot-long hot sandwich. The cafe started with a French baguette, brown and crunchy on the outside, soft and white inside. They flattened it out, then sliced it open and filled it with sliced sausage, fried onions and diced potato, all dripping in gravy. Then they wrapped the whole thing in waxed paper and served it with a super-size takeout cup of coffee. I ate it one-handed as I drove the rest of the way to the hospital and it was wonderful: rich, spicy sausage, the tang of golden fried onion, piping hot chunks of potato and that amazing gravy soaking the bread.

I was still sipping my coffee when I walked into the ER. Taylor, my med student, was already there, taking off a woolly hat and combing her long, blonde hair out with her fingers while she watched a wall-mounted TV. I still couldn’t get over how young she was. “Could get bad, if that comes our way,” she said, nodding at the screen. A forlorn reporter stood in front of an intersection in Denver, hugging her coat around her as a howling wind plastered her with snow. The caption said it was ten degrees. That doesn’t sound so bad. Then I remembered this was America, and they used Fahrenheit. Christ, that’s minus twelve!

“Nice coat,” said Taylor.

I’d forgotten I was wearing it. It was a big orange parka I’d bought years ago in Chicago when we had a really cold winter. It was kind of ridiculous, hugely thick with a furry hood and way too many zippers and toggles. But Chrissy had loved it. She’d kept stealing it on weekends: she’d sit on our house’s little balcony, curled up on the chair with my coat wrapped around her like a blanket and her hands warmed by a hot cup of coffee and she’d look so damn cute….

I took a deep breath and pushed the memories back down inside. “What have we got?” I grunted.

“Ten year-old with a broken arm,” said Taylor. She led the way to an exam room.

The kid—Alex—was dressed for school. Just from the amount of pain he was in as I gingerly examined his arm, I could tell it was a messy break from twisting or bending, not a clean snap. “How’d you do it?” I asked.

His dad answered for him. “Running in the house.” He was in a fancy suit and his eyes kept gravitating back to the screen of his phone.

I looked at the kid again. I couldn’t see much more than blond curls because his eyes stayed permanently on the floor, avoiding confrontation. I’d seen a lot of kids like that. A suspicion started to grow in my mind, sickening and cold.

“500 miligrams acetaminophen IV for the pain,” I told Taylor. Then I turned to Alex’s dad and shook my head. “X-Ray’s backed up,” I lied. “Could be two, three hours.”

“Oh, fucking great,” the dad snapped. “I’m late for work already!”

“Ms. Taylor can show you a quieter place, if you need to make some calls,” I said helpfully.

He sighed and nodded, then followed Taylor without even a backward glance at Alex. As soon as he was gone, I turned to the kid. “That true?” I asked gently. “Were you running in the house?”

He hesitated. Nodded. But he still wouldn’t look at me. And there was something about the way he was sitting, hunched forward as if he didn’t want the chair to press into his back. The suspicion was growing and spreading, chilling me... but at its center was a hot pulse of anger. “You hurt your back when you fall?” I asked.