Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3)(11)
It would be so much harder to leave the kids if she’d had to put them into daycare. It wasn’t about saving money. It was about knowing that the children were in the safest, most loving hands while she was at work.
Her mom smiled. “Have a good day. Daisy, come help your old granny make coffee. Can you say ‘caffeine’?”
Ellie hurried back to her car and drove to Mountain Memorial, Scarlet’s little hospital, which sat a few blocks from the center of town. She was on call every other Monday, and today she’d been called in. Apart from days like today, she worked only three days a week. With the DIC payments she got from the VA and the small amount of Social Security she received for the kids, she didn’t need to work full-time. It was important to her as the twins’ only parent to spend most of her time with them.
She arrived to find that they’d put her on Labor & Delivery for the day. She had four years of surgical nursing experience, but she’d taken a position as a float nurse working Fridays and weekends. Floating required her to move from unit to unit depending on patient load. A lot of nurses hated floating, but Ellie wanted to avoid the unit politics that had made her last nursing job in Kentucky so stressful. Besides, no two days as a float nurse were alike, and working across so many specialties kept her nursing skills sharp.
Ellie spent the morning with an older couple that had opted for a C-section for the delivery of their in-vitro twins, their nervousness and excitement reminding her of how she’d felt when she’d found out that she was carrying two babies. She shared her C-section experience with them, hoping to reassure them.
Kelly, the mother-to-be, teased her husband about his nervousness, then looked over at Ellie. “How did your husband hold up?”
The question hit Ellie in the chest.
She fixed a smile on her face. “Your husband will do just fine. The only thing you have to worry about is how you’re going to get sleep with two newborns at home.”
She stayed with the couple in the operating room, her throat going tight when the new father wept at his first glimpse of their sons, both of whom announced their arrival by screaming their little heads off.
Grief blindsided her, surging cold from behind her breastbone.
Dan hadn’t lived to see his babies.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
She reached over, stroked one baby’s cheek with a gloved hand, willing herself to speak in a normal voice. “They’re beautiful—just perfect. Congratulations.”
Her patients in good hands, she fled the operating room, tore off her mask, hair net, and booties, and walked straight to the courtyard, where she stood in the cold and snow, drawing in deep breaths.
You’re a professional. Get it together.
When her emotions were under control once more, she went back inside and had just started back to the L&D nurse’s station when Pauline, the hospital’s assistant director of nursing, came up behind her, heels clicking on the tile. “How are you feeling, Ellie?”
Ellie put on her game face. “Much better. Thanks.”
“We still need someone to coordinate the first-aid tent for SnowFest, and no one has volunteered. I would like that person to be you this year.”
Ellie had forgotten about SnowFest. “How many hours would that take?”
“I’ve done it a few times. I had a couple of organizational meetings and did my best to delegate to other volunteers. You’ll work the event that weekend rather than your regular schedule here at the hospital. You’ll be head nurse of the tent.” Pauline said this as if it were an honor. “You can even take the twins.”
Oh, glory. Because having two almost-three-year-olds running around a first-aid tent wouldn’t distract anyone, least of all Ellie.
*
Ellie spent her afternoon with a young dreadlocked couple from Ward who wanted as natural a birth as possible—minimal monitoring, no pain meds, not even an IV. They’d brought a doula, who swept into the room all scarves and velvet skirts, her long silver hair smelling like patchouli.
“Rose? I didn’t know you were a doula.”
Rose owned Rose’s New Age Emporium over on First Street and was known more for her tarot readings, astrological charts, and gossip than anything else.
Rose gave her a mysterious smile, as if she had a great secret to share. “Birth is all about energy, and I’m an energy worker.”
Okay, so she wasn’t a certified doula.
Ellie did her best to support the couple’s birth plan, leaving most of the hands-on support—and one hundred percent of the chanting—to Rose. By the time Ellie’s shift ended, the mother had only dilated to four.
Ellie stopped at Food Mart on her way to pick up the kids and got a call from Frank, who owned the local gas station and garage.
“The copper contacts on your starter are shot to hell. I can replace them for you for one-fifty parts and labor and have the car back to you late tomorrow,” he said.
What choice did she have?
“Thanks, Frank.”
She picked up the kids, drove home, and made spaghetti and salad for supper. After some play time, baths, and stories, she tucked them in bed. She had just poured herself a glass of wine and plopped herself in front of Netflix when she noticed it sitting on the coffee table.
Jesse Moretti’s business card.
She still hadn’t thanked him.