Page 13 of The Wrong Husband

If only he were gone by the time I return home.Clearly, that’s not going to happen. Still, I can hope, right?

Deciding to forego the coffee, I spin around and walk out the door.

My mind is so preoccupied with our encounter that I forget to look out for the white van, or for anyone watching me.

Before I know it, I’m at the locker room in the hospital. I deposit my stuff and change into a fresh pair of scrubs. Damn, I forgot to buy new work shoes. I slip on the ugly, oversized, borrowed clogs.

The hiss of the automatic doors gives way to the low murmur of voices, the steady blip of machines, the quiet chaos that always simmers just beneath the surface in the ER. I draw in a breath—sterile air, laced with antiseptic and adrenaline—and step through.

The triage station is buzzing. The whiteboard’s half-filled. I clock at least four patients waiting in chairs—one cradling an arm, another with blood trickling from a forehead gash.

“Dr. Hamilton.” A nurse nods and hands me a freshly printed triage sheet. “Cubicle two. Shortness of breath, chest pain.”

“Got it.” I take the page and pivot without breaking stride.

My clogs cuff across the linoleum as I draw back the curtain to the first cubicle. I really do need to buy a new pair of sneakers. I push the thought aside and focus on the patient.

He’s a man in his sixties, pale, sweating who meets my gaze with a haunted sort of panic. “Feels like someone’s sitting on my rib cage.” He swallows.

“Let’s get that sorted.” I grip his wrist gently, feel his rapid, shallow pulse.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my colleague Sunita, appear with the portable ECG trolley. She moves with her usual competence, but her shoulders are slumped.

There’s a tension in the way she tapes the leads, in the way she bites the inside of her cheek between movements.

I file it away. First, I need to stabilize the patient. “Let’s run the ECG and get a troponin test. Stat.”

“On it,” Sunita murmurs, voice tight.

Minutes later, once the man is hooked up and monitored, I pull the curtain closed behind me and fall into step beside her.

“You, okay?” I ask, keeping my tone low, neutral.

She doesn’t answer immediately. We pass the meds trolley, the crash cart. Then she exhales, a long, shuddering breath. “I’m fine,” she says. Then— “No. I’m not. Sorry.”

We stop near the break room. Her hand clutches the strap of her lanyard like it’s the only thing keeping her grounded.

“My mum’s getting worse,” she says in a rush. “The caregiver quit, and the agency quoted me double for a replacement. If the ER shuts down—if they don’t reassign us—I’m screwed.”

“They can’t just shut down the ER,” I say with an edge of desperation because I want to believe that’s true, though the hollow in the pit of my stomach tells me anything is possible during these times of price increases and budget cuts. I shove that thought away and nod. “This community depends on it. Look at how swamped we are.”

I wave my hand in the air.

“And even if it does, I think they’d still reallocate us to other roles within the hospital?”

“Maybe,they’ll redeploy us somewhere else. But where? Urology? Surgical ward? I can’t go back onto nights. I’m the one who gets Mum sorted in the evenings, before she goes to bed. If I lose this schedule, I can’t be there for her…and if I lose this job altogether, the mortgage doesn’t get paid.”

Her voice cracks, and she presses the back of her hand to her mouth like she can push the emotion back inside.

Someone calls out my name.

“Go on.” She blows out a breath. “I didn’t mean to unload on you.”

“Anytime. I’ll bring you a cuppa in a bit.” I move on, but Sunita’s teary face lingers in my mind.

As I head toward the assessment area, my fellow ER doctor, John nods in my direction. I’ve seen him put patients at easewith his calm voice and gentle manner. Today though, he appears stressed in a way I’ve never seen before.

"Rough night?"