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Show Nocturne/ 16 not there. They tried to figure out who called him to tell him. The brave nurses speculated about whether he planned to move away from the house with all of the ranunculous or whether he thought the possibility of remarrying. It was the first time many of them admitted they had a crush on him. They talked about what he might do with that little boy and his cleft lip. Few nurses discussed Mark Grover. No one blamed Carolyn for his death. Lauren Elliott did not know how to say anything. She worried that she might begin shaking and stop breathing. She stuttered. She did not want the charge nurse to hear her stutter or to see her shake. Finished with all of her required tasks, she orbited around her patients like a satellite. When Lauren Elliott went home she took two Ambien and her daily Lexapro. She remembered seeing the lack of color in Mark Grover's face when she went to check on Carolyn. She remembered Carolyn charting after the code. Lauren put in earplugs and covered her head with blankets. She could not afford to think too much about it. Sydney and Carolyn finished their charting an hour after their shift officially ended, and the charge nurse checked and double-checked all of the information. The day shift almost did not recognize Sydney without her characteristic glow. Carolyn could barely remember what time she first noticed the patient's heart rate declining. She remembered checking his vitals at the beginning of the shift. But she could not have said how long she stood there watching him lie on his bed. She was supposed to account for it. She convinced herself that she could not have prevented this man's death. Cancer killed him, she reasoned: just like it killed everyone else on that floor. |
