Beth Branch's House…
"Jeremy, I have to go to work. For right now, it's your job to watch Molly!" shouted Denise to her son.
"Okay Mom," said Jeremy coming out of his room, "Where's Aunt Beth?"
"She has to work for a living too," said Denise, "And you're off today so you and Tonya have babysitting duty."
"Okay bye Mom," said Jeremy.
Three Rivers…
It was only Denise's second week on the job. She still wasn't 100% sure who was who other than the head of surgery, Dr. Sophia Jordan, fellow nurse, Pam Acosta, and attending transplant surgeons, Dr. Andy Yablonski, Dr. Miranda Foster, and Dr. David Lee. She spent the majority of her day with Pam but she had also found a liking to Andy. In fact they had hung out a couple times alone. Although she still didn't know that much about him, she already had a crush on him. And how could she not? He was tall, personable and, oh yeah, handsome with his baby blue eyes and nice smile. The only problem was those blues eyes and that smile reminded her of Frank's and she didn't know whether she was ready to date yet. It had only been six months since he died.
"Nurse Sherwood?" asked a voice from behind her.
Denise whirled around to find Andy standing behind her, "Dr. Yablonski. And please call me Denise," she said.
"Okay, Denise, um you just seemed upset that's all," said Andy, "And don't worry you can call me Andy."
"Just thinking about Frank that's all," she said.
"Did you want to talk?" asked Andy.
"Uh I guess," she said following him into a side room.
"I take it you're still missing Frank a lot," said Andy sitting down next to her on the couch.
"Yeah," she said starting to cry, "We had been married for twenty years and then he was killed. He never got to see his son get married, never got to meet his daughter, and we never got to grow old together."
"Believe it or not, I know how it feels to lose a spouse," said Andy.
"You were married?" asked Denise shockingly.
"Yeah for thirteen years. I met my wife, Rena, when we were five years old. And then we married not long after we graduated from high school. She was detective in the Pittsburgh P.D. and one night, I heard of a major shooting downtown. I knew there were detectives on the scene and I had heard a couple had been shot, but I never imagined one of them was Rena," rambled Andy as tears started to form in his eyes, "She was conscious for a short while here and then slipped into a coma. I was with her when that happened. I knew what had happened but I didn't want to believe it. I only did when the doctors pronounced her brain dead."
"I'm so sorry Andy," said Denise sympathetically, "I didn't mean to bring any bad memories back."
"You didn't know," said Andy, "That was three years ago. You just think the pain is going to go away but it never does. We never had kids together. She's gone," sniffled Andy.
Denise rubbed his shoulder comfortingly and said, "I don't think the pain of losing someone ever does fully go away. My friend in Charleston lost her daughter, Amanda, in 2008 and still has nightmares about what happened."
"Wow," breathed Andy, "It's one thing to lose your spouse. Quite another to lose your child."
"Yeah," said Denise.
"Are you feeling better?" asked Andy standing up to get back to work.
"Yeah I do. Thank you for listening," said Denise as she stood up and gave Andy a hug.
"If you ever need to talk I'm here," said Andy as he embraced her back.
Hope you enjoyed it!