Chapter Three
All four of the new nurses were yet again, hungover mess. Max found himself wondering where on earth they'd been on a random Tuesday night to get themselves in quite such a state. Jodie was the worse of wear of all of them, he'd caught her trying not to cry into her coffee in the staff room that morning. She always had been one to her tearful when she was hungover. He'd thought about saying something, but it was only going to start another argument between them, just as things had started to settle down. He'd email Donna and ask her to have a word with all four of them so he could stay out of it.
It was a couple of hours later when he ran into her again, he'd ducked into the store room to grab some more supplies on his way to stitch up a nasty wound and found her sat in the corner hugging her knees.
"Struggling today?" He commented, rummaging around on the shelves to find the kit he needed.
She took a shaky breath, wiping her eyes. "Sorry. I just needed a minute." She forced herself to her feet.
"Well, if it's not too much trouble, can you come and give me a hand with this stitch up?" He asked, finally finding the last thing he needed. "It's chaos out there."
"I um… sure." She sighed, rubbing her eyes and wondering if she'd smeared her make up everywhere or not.
"Great." He pulled his phone out of his pocket, reading something. "Take these, cubicle three. Start cleaning it up and I'll be there in a minute." He thrust the supplies into her hands and shot out of the door before she could answer.
Jodie took another deep breath, plastering what she hoped vaguely resembled a smile onto her face and heading back out into the busy ED. She was beginning to regret her decision to work that day. She'd very nearly booked the day off, but then decided she'd be better off at work keeping her mind busy than sitting around at home on her own on the anniversary of her mothers death. She hadn't factored in that it was impossible to tell what kind of day it was going to be in the ED, and of course it had turned out to be a particularly bad shift to top things off.
She found Max's patient, relieved to find she was a sweet old lady who hopefully wasn't going to give her a lecture about the waiting times and the state of the NHS, and set to work cleaning the wound up so it would be ready when Max eventually returned. The last thing she needed was him to be complaining she didn't do her job properly.
It took him so long to come back she thought she was going to have to go looking for him. "Sorry about that, it's been a bit of a day today." He apologised, closing the curtain behind him. "Thanks, Jodie." He took the gloves she held out to him. "Let's get this show on the road and get you back home again."
He worked in relative silence, making light work of stitching the wound up as Jodie chatted to the patient to take her mind off things, pausing periodically to help Max. She handed him the patients drug chart at the end for him to sign off the local he'd used. "Thanks, what's the date today?" He asked, not looking up, as he scrawled on the drug chart in handwriting she was sure was completely illegible to anyone else.
"The second." She answered, swallowing the lump in her throat. Her eyes filled with with tears again and she blinked rapidly. Max looked up at her and frowned. "I'll dress this and go get your medication so we can get you home." She said to the patient and bolted before he could stop her.
It was the end of the shift when he saw her again, despite his best attempts to find her. The ED had been absolute chaos all day and he'd not even managed to stop for a coffee in the end. He sighed at the realisation that he still had all the paperwork from the clinical governance meeting sat on his desk to sort out and there was a high probability that tomorrow would be just as bad as today.
"Jodie." He called across the nurses station. "Can I have a word?" He tilted his head in the direction of his office. She hesitated for a moment and he wondered if she was going to flat out refuse in front of everyone which was bound to raise questions, but she nodded and followed him inside. "Sit." He gestured to the chair before sitting down at his desk.
"Have I done something wrong?" She asked, pulling at the bottom of her scrub top nervously.
"Not at all." He reassured her. "I just wanted to check how you are, I didn't realise until you said the date earlier what day it was. I'm sorry."
Her lip quivered and she willed herself not to cry. "It's fine." Her voice was weak and unconvincing.
"It's okay, you're allowed to miss her. You should've said, we could've given you the day off." He sighed.
She shook her head, wiping at her eyes again. "I volunteered to work." She explained. "I thought it would be better than moping around on my own but it's been one of those days."
"It has indeed." He nodded in agreement. "I'm so sorry I didn't realise earlier."
"It's fine. You don't have to pretend you care." She shrugged him off.
"I do care, Jodie." He sighed, every time he thought they were making progress she pushed him away again. "Your mum was a wonderful woman, and I know what you think of me but I did love her. I'll always regret how things worked out and that we never got the chance to make things right."
Jodie was quiet for a minute. "What was she like?" She asked tentatively. They'd never really spoken about her parents relationship, it tended to lead to uncomfortable questions about the way things had ended and that usually ended in an argument.
He smiled fondly, thinking about the memories. "Why don't we go and get some dinner and I'll tell you about her?" He suggested. "You said it yourself, you didn't want to sit at home and mope on your own."
She looked at him for a second and then at the huge pile of paperwork on his desk that he'd been gathering up to take home with him for the evening. "Are you sure you've got time for that?" She asked.
He definitely hadn't, but he'd worry about that tomorrow. "Of course. Go and get changed and I'll meet you out the front?"
She nodded, a smile crossing her face ifor the first time that day as she got up. "Thanks, Max."
