Following the Doctor's Orders. Caro Carson

I wish Zach would walk in the door.

      For one second, just one second, Brooke let herself imagine a man dressed in black, bigger and stronger than she was, ready to shoulder her worries and cares.

      What a foolish thought. If anything, Zach was to blame for her sudden inability to handle the hardest part of her job. Because she’d felt this morning’s endorphin-fueled rush of attraction, this afternoon’s death seemed all the darker in contrast.

      She’d failed to protect her emotional stability. She wasn’t usually incapacitated by grief, because she wasn’t usually extraordinarily happy, either. She should never have agreed to start seeing a man who affected her like Zach did.

      She could fix that now. She could cancel her date with Zach. She could return Tom Bamber’s call.

      She should use her head, not her heart. Or rather, she should use her head, and not her hormones. Her attraction to Zach was purely physical, surely.

       Then surely it’s okay to go ahead and see him tonight. There’s no emotional attachment. It’s just physical chemistry. A little flirting with the biggest flirt of them all.

      That was perfectly sensible, but her attraction to Zach didn’t feel purely physical. Her emotions were all stirred up every time she was near him, and that was unacceptable.

      She looked at the clock. Six thirty. His shift had ended thirty minutes ago; hers had thirty minutes left. There was plenty of time to change plans. They’d exchanged phone numbers this morning. She should call him and cancel, for her own peace of mind. She could pack all her emotions, the good and the bad, into the neat little compartments in her head where they belonged, if she stopped anticipating time with Zach.

      The door to the waiting room opened. Not the door to the large waiting room, which had check-in desks and televisions and children’s play areas. This was the door to the smaller waiting area, the one with four walls and soothing artwork and privacy, the one where the staff put the families of patients who were critical and might not survive.

      The family of the deceased ninety-six-year-old began filing out. They’d followed the ambulance here in what must have been a small convoy of cars. Brooke had been surprised at the large cluster of adult children she’d had to shake hands with when she’d gone in to break the news. Now they were milling about, discussing who should leave, who would stay until the funeral parlor arrived, who needed coffee and where was the cafeteria, and had Bob had a chance to view the body yet? A broken little family, pulling itself back together, getting reorganized as families do.

      Brooke kept her head down. She wrote faster, but she still heard the young girl’s voice. “Do I get to see Grandpa now?”

      None of the adults seemed to have heard her. When Brooke had broken the news, that girl had been in the waiting room, too, a lovely young person on the threshold of adolescence, with braces on her teeth and shiny long hair.

      “Aunt Lucy?” the girl asked, trying again. “Can I go and see Grandpa with you?”

      Brooke wished now she’d shaken the girl’s hand as if she were one of the adults. She feels the loss, too. She’s grieving, too. Pay attention to her!

      The girl looked perhaps eleven or twelve years old, but that was old enough to understand and feel everything that was going on. Brooke knew, because that was how old she’d been when her four-year-old sister had died.

      The monster hit her hard.

      With her pen frozen over the paper, Brooke sucked in her breath at the sudden blow. It had been lurking, she realized, since this morning’s four-year-old patient with the parents who didn’t know how fortunate they were to have a little girl with a common cold.

      The aunt patted the preteen on the shoulder almost absentmindedly, but she did answer her. “We’ll say goodbye to Grandpa at the funeral parlor, honey.”

      The girl’s family cared for her. Of course they did, just as Brooke’s family had cared for her. Still, she’d been lost after her sister’s death. Watching this little drama in the hall, she could see how easily an older child could be overlooked. When her sister had died, Brooke hadn’t been young enough to require the attention of being fed and dressed and provided for, but neither had she been old enough to be included while the adults in her family had made funeral arrangements and tried to console her nearly incoherent parents.

      Brooke’s almost twenty-year-old memories suddenly weren’t old enough. She felt the pain of her sister’s death, a horrible contrast to the pleasure of thinking about Zach.

       Zach.

      Had she really been blaming him for letting the genie out of the bottle? Her emotions weren’t out of control because she’d said yes to him. They were out of control because a four-year-old little girl had stirred up painful memories this morning, and this afternoon’s death had made them boil over.

      She looked at the clock again. It was six forty-five. Unless she texted him that she needed more time, Zach would pick her up at her apartment at seven thirty. She’d given him the address.

      Loretta walked up to her. “Can you start one last patient? It’s a straightforward laceration. Shouldn’t take too long.”

      A straightforward case would still keep her here another hour. Loretta was asking because Brooke always said yes. All of the doctors, not just Brooke, routinely worked past the end of their shifts. It was the nature of a medical career. Zach would understand. He might not have ended his shift on time, either. She’d text him and push back their date by another hour.

      She glanced at the family down the hall. The girl turned away from the cluster of adults. She poked listlessly at a poster on the wall.

      Suddenly, an hour seemed like an eternity to Brooke. She wanted, very badly, to see the man who made her smile against her will with his corny lines. She wanted to be with a man who had confidence, who lived life with a bit of swagger. He’d buy her a drink, she’d soak up his casual charisma and life would be no big deal, nothing to worry about.

      “No, I can’t start a new patient now.” Brooke dashed her signature hastily on the bottom of the death certificate and slapped it, facedown, in the nurse’s in-box.

      “Are you okay, Dr. Brown?” Loretta was watching her with concern.

      “I’m fine. It’s been a long shift, so I’m determined to leave on time for once.”

      The grieving family was breaking up, a few going back into the waiting room, most of them, including the girl, leaving through the door to the parking lot.

      Loretta looked in the same direction Brooke was looking. “That was a nice family, wasn’t it? Listen, I saw Dr. Gregory come in, and MacDowell’s here. You can go on and leave a little early. I’ll let them know.” Loretta patted her shoulder, a maternal move that surprised Brooke into taking a step back.

      “Yes, I’ll see you next time.” She walked quickly toward the kitchen, unbuttoning her white coat as she went. She stuffed it into the next laundry bin she passed, grabbed her purse from the locker and headed for the physician’s parking lot at the same pace she usually reserved for heading to the crash room.

      She wanted to see Zach. Zach had held Harold Allman’s hand and kept the pain from overwhelming him. She wanted, more than anything, for Zach to hold her hand, too.