"What the hell are you doing, Mary?"
Jed didn't sound annoyed, though he could have been; she'd told him she'd meet him in the break room to run the list with Anne who was on night float, she'd offered to bring homemade pumpkin muffins which were growing stale in her car since she'd gotten paged as she was getting out at 5 am and had forgotten them in the hurry to unsnap the seat belt and high-tail it to the PICU, she'd maybe not-quite intimated that she was free on New Year's Eve but that they could talk about it today, a hour ago when she'd said she'd be free and she'd done none of it. He could have sounded exasperated and pissed off, but mostly, he sounded confused.
"We called hospice for Georgia Henderson. Her counts are just…fucked. You know how Lisette is, she just took over, there wasn't anything left for me to do," Mary said, knowing without looking that Jed's face would have changed, the exact expression that would be in his dark eyes. She waited a beat, took a breath before he spoke.
"Oh, Mary. I'm sorry."
"I know, I know you are and I know it's going to be like this…more than I want it to be, I just wanted her to get better and she won't. We can't make it happen. So we came here, Isabelle and I, while her parents were calling and arranging flights and we worked on these," she said, lifting her hands so he could look. He'd stepped closer, behind her, and had rested his hands on her shoulders as he leaned forward to see. She wouldn't have put up with it from just about anyone else, but Jed Foster had always been a special case.
"She left this one and took the rest," Mary added, gesturing to the construction paper angel Georgia had labored over and presented to her, explaining she'd made a doctor angel for Mary, complete with a lanyard and stethoscope. It was a measure of her lengthy illness and acclimatization to hospitals that she named and articulated both as well as a 25 year old, even though she'd just had her 5th birthday in October. She'd drawn with the concentration of a true artist, her lips pursed and had wordlessly taken the crayons Isabelle nudged over to her, determined to finish the assignment she'd set herself. Child Life had been empty by then, except for Mary and Isabelle, much quieter than when they'd arrived in the middle of the Christmas ornament project Emma was leading. Mary had explained they'd clean up after themselves and Emma had brought over the remaining decorations, the glitter pens and cotton balls and a weird assortment of googly eyes in a Tupperware, but Georgia had been a purist and had stuck to the crayons, paper and scissors. Mary had started a star, idly drawing a sort of stained glass pattern while she watched Georgia work, and tried to let her hand picking the colors, stroking the markers against the paper balance out her thoughts what a waste, I wish I could see who she turns into, what she becomes.
"Is that one yours?" Jed asked, reaching a arm around her to point an another angel.
"I made it. I'm not sure she belongs to me though," Mary answered. She'd made the angel as big as Georgia's but the face was a child's, a little girl's with big eyes and a small nose, a wide smile. The wings were Gothic, full length from scapula to heel and she'd used all the sparkly gel markers to create feathers like a peacock's fan. Mary shrugged; she was the first to admit they didn't need to page psych to unpack this one.
"Well, Georgia gave hers to you. Maybe you can give yours to me. My tree at home isn't much, but it could do with a few more ornaments. The homemade ones are always the best," he said. She didn't recognize his gentle tone but she liked it.
"Okay," she said, the first time the word had had even the remotest genuine meaning since she'd gotten to work, rested her gloved hands on the steering wheel and imagined Jed's smile when she offered him a muffin. Georgia's angel looked back at her appraisingly and she thought it would keep company well with the painted pinecones and pom-pommed acorns her mother had relinquished to Mary's own scrawny Charlie Brown pine.
"It's always going to feel this bad, isn't it?" she said as Jed started putting the colorfully handled scissors into a bin, rounding up the crayons trying to make a break for it.
"Yeah. But that's not the only feeling you get to have. Even now. You and Isabelle, that was good what you did this afternoon, for Georgia and her parents—and for you, even if you still feel shitty," he answered, still gentle but honest too, in a way she'd needed and he'd known.
"I forgot your muffins. They're probably stale and frozen now," she said, trailing a finger along the edge of Georgia's angel. It would fade over the years, the paper curling a little, but her mother still had paper ornaments she and Caroline had made on the tree at home, and even some she and her Aunt Kathy had made, that needed delicate handling and a few touch-ups with a glue gun, but which made it on to the 7 footer in the living room.
"Tell you what—let's take our angels and get out of here. I took the T, maybe you can drive and we can go to get some pho. I think this is the kind of day that calls for noodles," Jed said, picking up the angel she'd made, the one with Georgia's hazel eyes, and the doctor with her white coat sprouting a pair of wings that would fit well in an exam room, easily tucked out of the way when there was a code.
"Anne's going to have my hide," Mary said, for once unperturbed and simultaneously comfortable admitting she was deserving of the cross-cover's ire.
"I don't think so. I did the sign-out with her before I came looking for you and there were 4 discharges today, so it's not that much to handle. And Sam is on with her, she's golden," Jed replied, looking right at her, letting her see everything she wanted in his eyes, raising an eyebrow when she didn't look away.
"I owe you one then. Or maybe I owe you the pho," she said, trying to be the grown-up doctor she was supposed to be, the strong angel with the neat lanyard printed with "Dr. Mary," the friendly colleague. Jed was a little ahead of her and had opened the door; the room behind them was neat with its shadows each settled in place, the faint scent of Elmer's glue and Crayolas leaching out the threshold. She stepped closer and the way it was arranged, his arm outstretched to the door, head tilted down to look at her, made it the beginning of an embrace, incomplete but not a waste. She could have stroked her hand along his ribcage and found out whether he was ticklish, she might have on a different day, a different place.
"You don't owe me anything, Mary. That's not how—I don't want you thinking that," he said. Maybe he was right and she didn't or she couldn't. Maybe it was all of a part, like the tree and the ornaments, how they belonged together, how she'd belonged with Georgia this afternoon, making angels, messengers to say what they couldn't, how hard to was to leave and hard to be left. Jed was waiting, as patient as she'd ever seen him, wanting only to stay until she was ready to go.
"Fine. But you can't stop me from making a new batch of muffins," she said.
"I wouldn't think of trying to. Let's go," he said and so they did, the door falling shut behind them and the angels they carried.