It had finally stopped snowing but the city was bathed in an ethereal glow.
Her phone told her it was past eight, but still there was no sign of him.
What had possessed her to cook a soufflé?
Maybe she should ditch it and serve smoked salmon instead.
After an hour she poured herself another glass of wine.
After two hours she was starting to get seriously worried.
Maybe he’d had second thoughts. Maybe cooking dinner at home sent the wrong signals.
THERE WERE DAYS when he loved his job. Today wasn’t one of them.
“Remind me. Why do I spend my Saturday nights in this place?” Susan ripped off her gloves. “I could be at the theatre or having sex with a hot guy. I could be having a life instead of always being in on the worst moments of someone else’s.”
They’d lost the patient and it had been a harrowing few hours.
Ethan was exhausted. He knew the rest of the team was too.
Each member would go home and process the loss in the way that best suited them. Some might use counseling, some might reach for the bottle, some might just bury it deep and keep going. All of them would analyze. They’d go over every step of the care they’d given, looking for holes.
In this case there hadn’t been any.
He knew they’d done everything that they could have done and that the odds had been stacked against them.
The man had been drunk when the car he’d been driving had rammed into a wall. The car had caught fire, something that happened more in the movies than in real life but in this case the guy had been unlucky, as was the woman he’d hit with the car before he’d made contact with the wall. His passenger had crawled from the wreckage moments before the car had exploded. The driver had been brought in with most of his skin toasted and his aorta severed. His friend had walked away with nothing more than a cut finger.
Alcohol and driving. Two words that shouldn’t ever appear in the same sentence, Ethan thought as he watched Susan try and haul her emotions back inside. She kept up a stream of her usual black humor, but it was different from usual and Ethan knew why. He knew what most people didn’t. That her husband had been killed by a drunk driver. He knew that this case wasn’t just professional for her, it was personal.
He also knew it would take her a few days to get back to her normal self. In the meantime he’d help all he could.
“You’d hate living a normal life.”
“I don’t think so.” She looked tired and for once there was no sign of the humor or banter that characterized their relationship. “This place shows you the worst side of humans.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it shows you the truth about humans.”
“Jeez, Black, that’s depressing. You need someone to lighten your dark side. Go to the theatre. Do something happy. Speaking of which, how is Harriet?”
He decided a little teasing might be good for her. “Who?”
“Cut me some slack. If I can’t have my own sex life, I’m going to enjoy yours.”
“What makes you think I have a sex life?” He could already see that he’d pulled her away from that dark, dark place. Not completely, but at least she seemed to be clear of the edge.
“You smile more.”
“You’re thinking of someone else. There’s nothing to smile about here.”
“True, which makes it all the more appealing whe
n you do smile.” She patted his hand. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
She sighed. “You’re being a good friend, that’s what. And I’m grateful for it. And relieved to know you’re human.”