I is for Ian

I stood up, stretching. It was going to be a good day. I could feel it. I just needed to do what I did best and keep things moving on time.

I glanced out of the window again at the truck. Satisfied that it was safe, I turned and headed back to the area we had designated as our breakroom to fill up my bottle get back to work.

3

MINA

“Are they exploding bombs up there?” I looked up at the ceiling as I walked back into the breakroom.

“I’m pretty sure they don’t use dynamite inside buildings,” Meghan said. “But you never know, I guess.”

“I don’t know what else it could be,” I muttered. “Whatever it is, it’s bothering the hell out of the young mothers and the new babies in the ward.”

“Not to mention pissing us all off.” Meghan stabbed at her salad with her fork like she was punishing it. “I swear, I am going to lose my mind.”

“I’m with you there.” I grabbed my lunch from the refrigerator and sat across from her. “I just got out of room four, and a loud sound shook the room so hard, I thought we were under attack. I had to pretend it was all fine, and the mom started freaking out. Her baby was just not having it. I had to spend ten minutes helping her calm that baby down and go over her discharge plans.”

“Are they still in there?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I sent them home, fast. I’m turning beds over today. If people don’t absolutely need to be there, I’m getting them the hell out of the building. There’s no need for them to be here with all this going on. Who thought it would be a good idea to do this with the pediatric floor right below it?”

“The board,” said Red, an older nurse that had been working at Five Corners since it opened in the eighties. “They couldn’t give a shit about us or the patients. They just want the big, splashy newspaper clippings when it’s all done and for Dr. Sutton to be happy about his new offices and equipment.”

Red looked as disgusted as the rest of us felt. She had been around and seen it all in her time here, including before Dr. Sutton decided he wanted to move to Tennessee and become a hard-to-reach specialist in what amounted to a tiny mountain town.

When Dr. Sutton moved in, he brought along a circus with it. Patients came from all over the country to see him, and that meant an influx of patients across the board. More people were moving to the area to continue treatment with him, and we were seeing some of those people starting families and settling down in the surrounding towns.

It just felt… exploitive.

At the same time, we certainly benefited from the money he brought in, and the fame helped us get donations of new equipment and supplies that kept us well-stocked. We all got paid a bit more than we otherwise would have too, and the benefits package was really solid. Most people would look at that alone and write off the other frustrations.

Not me. I was more concerned with taking care of our patients than an extra bit of money in my check. And the extra supplies didn’t do us much good if the hospital was seemingly always renovating something and things were pushed from one room to another, never to be seen again.

“Hey, has anyone seen the overflow stock of diapers?” Daisy asked, poking her head in the breakroom. “They were in the supply closet on the fourth floor, but when they moved everything, I didn’t get word as to where those went.”

“They’re still there,” Meghan said. “They didn’t touch the overflow storage.”

“Crap,” Daisy said. “We’re critically low on our regular stock. We need those.”

“Well, it’s a hard hat area up there, so I wouldn’t suggest going up if I were you,” Meghan said.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “It’s fine. Do you know what time they break for lunch?”

“I heard noonish,” she said. “Thank you, Mina, I appreciate it.”

“No problem.” I looked at my watch. It was already twelve-thirty. I was going to need to eat quickly.

“Why are you doing that?” Meghan asked when Daisy had left.

“I don’t want the other nurses to get yelled at,” I said. “It’s not their fault.”

“No, not that,” Meghan said. “Letting her call you Mina. You’re a doctor.”

“Meghan don’t care about the title. Besides, you call me Mina.””

“Yeah, but I earned that. You trained me. Yelled at me for a year straight until I knew what I was doing.”

“I wasn’t yelling. It was constructive criticism.”

“Constructive yelling,” she said. “It’s cool. I appreciate it. Without it, I don’t think I would have gotten as good as fast as I did. I needed the kick in the ass.”