Chapter Text
Mid-July 2020
If there was anyone who did not understand the concept of ‘reading the room,’ it was the man sitting in the as-socially-distanced-as-possible ER waiting area without a mask, coughing in between his loud assertions that the novel Coronavirus was a hoax.
“It’s just not real,” he insisted to everyone in the vicinity (which was no closer than six feet). “It’s all lies, I tell ya. Lies, lies, lies. All made up by the liberal media to influence the election.”
A young female intern, gowned from head to toe, a teal N95 Respirator mask snugly over her nose and mouth, cocked her head as the man coughed violently into his elbow. (Which, in turn, caused everyone else waiting to observe him in horror.)
“If the virus isn’t real,” the young woman asked slowly, “then, why are you coughing?”
“Asthma,” the man said in between wheezing breaths. “And allergies.”
From behind their own masks, everyone else around cast him dirty looks as he coughed again. They, at least, were all well aware of the two people who had come in within the last hour and had to immediately be intubated.
“It’s a hoax, I tell you,” the man said as his coughing fit ended. “It’s just one big hoax. One big damn lie. The virus doesn’t exist!”
“Well, Mr. Dixon,” Susan Lewis, gowned and masked like the intern, said as she drew even with him, reading off her iPad. “According to your test results, the virus does exist and it exists inside you. So, I’m going to need you to quarantine in your home for fourteen days and the public health department will be in touch for contact tracing.”
Mr. Dixon looked at her in shock before coughing again.
“That’s ridiculous,” he spat. “Run your tests again.”
Susan sighed deeply.
“I have to get special permission in order to run tests twice because we’re low on supplies,” she explained flatly. “It would be a while before I could. So, I recommend that you use that time to consider how much you really want another test, considering you nearly cried when I swabbed you the first time.”
The sick or injured who had been listening to the man rant while they waited to be seen chuckled at Mr. Dixon’s expense as the man’s face grew red with embarrassment.
“Forget this,” he snarled, shoving his chair back and then coughing again. “I’m leaving.”
“Alright,” Susan said, tapping the iPad again and holding it up to him along with her stylus. “In that case, I need you to-”
He took the stylus and scribbled on the screen before throwing it back at her and turning for the door.
Susan turned back for the desk.
Though they did their best to remain distanced even when in full PPE, the need for so many hands on deck made the desk more crowded than it should be.
Some, like Susan and Tonya, as well as a few of the nurses, had been around for decades. Others, like the interns, had just started only a few weeks before. And still others, like Carter, had been drafted by the leadership to help out when older doctors or those with elderly family members resigned.
Rachel Greene, though the youngest of the ER Attendings, had been forced to stay home since early March. Thankfully, it was not out of illness though. She had just been four-months-pregnant with her second child when the pandemic began and her mother (the lawyer) and step-mother (the physician) made a decision on her behalf that she should not work in the ER during the crisis to protect her and her baby’s health.
As Susan reached the desk, she looked at the Leaving Against Medical Advice waiver she’d had Mr. Dixon sign before he left.
“Oh, look,” she muttered. “A Trump/Pence 2020. I think that gives me AMA bingo,”
Susan shook her head, careful not to bump her face shield, before glancing around the desk.
“Where are the wipes?”
“A patient stole them,” one of the nurses replied with a shrug.
“How? I thought we locked them up this time?”
“They broke the lock.”
At one of the curtains close by, a young White man squirmed as the physician attending to him stuck a long cotton swab up his nose.
“Hey, lady - lady!” he exclaimed. “You don’t have to stick it in that far!”
“And you didn’t need to go out with your friends on your parents boat last weekend either, but we’ve all gotta do what we’ve gotta do, right?” the physician hissed as she removed the swab from his nose and dropped it into the tube in her hand. “Now, put your mask back on.”
The man’s face was still contorted in discomfort as he pulled the Chicago Bulls mask back up over his face.
“I thought we told you not to let her come down here after getting off the phone with medical supply companies,” nurse Sam Taggert said with a chuckle as she logged vital signs into one of the desktops.
“Or the Mayor’s office,” someone else chimed in.
“Or the CDC,” yet another added.
“I promise you that she’s been down here all morning,” Susan replied defensively. “I think she just woke up like this.”
Some of those, most of whom were newer and therefore didn’t have the practical experience to know better than to question whether Kerry Weaver could just be like this for no reason, chuckled. Those who did know better just furrowed their brows in concern.
“It just supports my theory, though,” Susan continued as she watched Kerry stalking down the hallway in the opposite direction, “that it’s a good thing she got her hip replaced when she did. Otherwise, she’d be threatening to reach brain in two different ways.”
Geena, the intern who had spoken to Mr. Dixon, frowned from behind her N95.
“What do you mean?”
Susan was about to roll her eyes when she remembered Geena had only been one the ER for about fourteen days and it had been over fourteen years since Kerry had gotten surgery.
“Dr. Weaver got surgery several years ago to get her hip replaced,” Susan explained to the intern. “Before that, she used a crutch to walk.”
“Oh, I see,” Geena said, nodding in understanding. “So, you mean she would threaten to put the crutch up their nose.”
“Yes,” Susan replied flatly. “Up their nose.”
Before Geena could ask why everyone else was laughing, the Ambulance Bay doors burst open and paramedics in N95s rushed in. Susan finished wiping down her iPad and then adjusted the strap over her shoulder so it hung behind her as she fell into step with the incoming gurney.
“Another virus patient?” she asked.
She was ready to shout for a scope and an ET tube when the paramedics shook their heads.
“Nope. GSW.”
“You mean people still get shot in Chicago?” Susan asked, unsure if her tone of disbelief was a joke or genuine.
“You do if you’re down at City Hall protesting,” one of the paramedics - a Black woman - remarked as they continued towards Trauma One.
Susan pointed them on and then turned back down the hall.
“Kerry, need you in Trauma One,” she called out, pointing towards the yellow trauma room.
Kerry held up the swab and tube in her hand, her expression of frustration clear though half of her face was obscured.
“I’m a little bit busy!” she called back tersely.
“GSW,” Susan said, nodding on.
Even down the hall, she could see Kerry’s eyes grow wide with the same sort of disbelief Susan had that the ER was needed for something other than boarding the growing number of COVID patients. (Unfortunately, in recent months, if it wasn’t virus patients, it was more often than not protestors bearing wounds from rubber bullets or choking on tear gas.)
“What have we got?” Kerry asked as she backed into the trauma room where Susan and a few others were already setting to work.
“32-year-old White man, rubber bullet to the chest,” the paramedic replied. “Some contusions and lacerations from trying to run away. GCS is 6.”
“No breath sounds on the right. Tracheal shift suggests a pneumothorax,” Susan said as she listened to his chest.
“Have we paged Surgery?” Kerry said as she passed Susan supplies requested to insert a chest tube.
“On their way,” one of the nurses called out as they hooked the young man up to a chest monitor.
“You mean they aren’t here yet?”
“We just paged them two minutes ago,” the nurse replied in defensive confusion.
“Well, it’s not like they’ve got anything else to do,” Kerry muttered.
Susan made the incision in the man’s side and then inserted the chest tube. Immediately, blood began to pour out of the tube into the Thoroseal.
“He’s hemorrhaging,” Susan said, lifting it up to show Kerry.
“He’s got anterior rib fractures,” Kerry said, observing the man’s chest. “One of them could have lacerated the atria.”
She took a half-step back so the nurse could get him on the monitor. Once one, it went off, confirming Kerry’s assertion with a reading of atrial fibrillation.
“We need to shock him. Charge to sixty,” Kerry instructed.
A nurse handed her the paddles. Another put down the pads before the machine beeped.
“Clear.”
Kerry put the paddles down on the man’s chest, but it did little.
“Charge to one hundred,” she called out.
“It’s no use,” Susan said firmly. “He’s bleeding too fast. We need to get the laceration fixed before shocking him will be of any use.”
“Fine. Then, prep for a midline thoracotomy,” Kerry said, handing the paddles off. “Where the hell is Surgery?”
“They’ll be here,” Susan assured her.
As soon as the words left her mouth, two doctors backed in through the trauma room doors. They were just as gowned up as the ER staff, but the scrubs on under their gowns were blue as opposed to green.
“We’re here, we’re here,” one of the surgeons announced breathlessly, like they’d rushed downstairs.
“Dr. Levin, you are late,” Kerry hissed.
“Does that mean they’re already dead and we put all this shit on for nothing?” Annie groaned as she approached the table.
“No. It means you need to crack his chest now instead of standing around talking about it,” Kerry said firmly. Upon noticing the second person who’d followed Annie in, she asked, “Who is this?”
“This is my new intern, Matthew,” Annie informed her as she slipped her arms out of her crutches and handed them to intern to set aside.
“Your intern is a fully licensed physician,” Kerry snapped. “You should regard him as such.”
“And I would,” Annie said earnestly, “but he has lost his name privileges for the day.”
“Ignore her, Annie,” Susan said flatly. “She’s a little pissy this morning.”
“Because the Rona’s a nasty bitch, or just in general?” Annie asked, glancing between her mothers.
Annie called out for a 10-blade and an iodine swab as Susan considered the question.
“Both.”
Annie nodded knowingly as a nurse handed her the swab and scalpel as requested. Susan stepped back to next to where Matthew stood watching as Annie disinfected the man’s chest before using the scalpel to make an incision over his sternum.
“What did you do to lose your name privileges?” Susan asked the surgical intern curiously.
“All I said was that I didn’t like Lizzo,” Matthew replied with a shrug.
He was too busy watching Annie work to notice the way Susan’s brow furrowed and then her small shrug of acknowledgement indicating she understood Annie’s reasoning.
“Well, you might not know this, Matthew-” Susan began.
“Doctor.”
Susan rolled her eyes at her wife’s interruption, which came even amidst Annie instructing her to help retract the skin before calling for the sternal saw.
“Doctor…”
“Stevenson?” Matthew offered hesitantly.
“Stevenson,” Susan repeated, nodding.
She made to continue, but paused so as not to be drowned out as the sternal saw roared to life.
Annie carefully guided it down the patient’s sternum before clicking it off and trading it for a requested nylon suture on a needle driver.
“Well, you might not know this, Dr. Stevenson,” Susan began again as Annie started suturing the laceration on the man’s heart. “You see, Dr. Weaver and I have all these daughters.”
“Together?”
“Yes. And when all this began, youngest daughter moved home from college and middle daughter moved in with her fiancé. But oldest daughter and oldest daughter’s husband were about to buy a house when oldest daughter’s husband got furloughed, so they had to pull their offer and move in with us.
“And it’s been interesting, because we realized it’s always been oldest and middle, middle and youngest, or all three of them in the house at once. It’s never just been oldest and youngest at the same time. And for the most part it’s been fine, except for a couple times like last night, when oldest and youngest daughters stayed up until two o’clock in the morning talking and watching Schitt’s Creek.”
“Which is especially concerning given that oldest daughter is an essential worker,” Kerry added in a hiss, directly to Annie, “and should not be up until two o’clock in the morning on a work night.”
“Well,” Annie said slowly as she started the last suture. “In oldest and youngest daughters’ defense, it was one o’clock in the morning…”
Kerry waited a brief second for her to go on.
“And?”
“Nope. That’s all I got,” Annie offered, the smile hidden behind her mask evident in her voice. “Cut?”
Kerry let out a huff, but clipped the suture off at Annie’s request.
“Internal paddles,” Annie said, straightening up. When a nurse handed them to her, she asked, “Charge to ten.”
The nurse nodded. When the machine beeped, Annie called, “Clear,” and then shocked him.
“Fifteen,” she called out when the monitor continued to screech.
The nurse nodded again and turned up the charge. Annie called to clear again and then shocked him once more.
“Normal sinus,” the nurse called out.
“Great. Does the OR know we’re coming?” At the others’ affirmative nods, she handed the paddles off and then tapped the side of the gurney twice. “Alright. Let’s get him upstairs.”
Annie stepped back to peel off her gloves and put a cleaner pair on before grabbing her crutches from where Matthew had set them against the wall. She threaded her arms through them and followed the others out into the hall.
Kerry rolled her eyes at her approach, as she did almost every time she saw her lately, thanks to Annie’s addition of biohazard symbols and warning stickers that read CDC-Approved Social Distancing Enforcement to both of her crutches.
Annie paused where Susan and Kerry did outside the trauma room and looked to her intern, who, along with the nurses, had started moving the gurney towards the elevator.
“Go ahead and take him up,” she called out to him, waving him on. “I’ll be up in a second.”
Then, she turned to Kerry.
“Okay,” she said with a sigh. “Is this really about last night? I thought you liked Schitt’s Creek. You said it was funny, but tender.”
“It’s not about last night and it’s not about Schitt’s Creek,” Kerry said with a huff. “It’s about the fact that this morning at breakfast, Charlie told me that while we were here working the other night, you two got drunk together.”
“No, we didn’t,” Annie replied quickly, her widening eyes giving her away.
All it took was Kerry narrowing her eyes at her for a long moment before Annie conceded.
“Alright, fine,” Annie said, rolling her eyes. “She was going to go down the street to get something for herself. I thought it would be better to give her something of mine. That way I could control what and how much she was drinking.”
Kerry just narrowed her eyes further.
“How could she have gotten something for herself when she is not twenty-one?” she asked suspiciously.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because she said she would kick me if I did?” Annie offered before faltering further under her mother’s gaze. “Okay, okay. First of all, I was not drinking. I was sober the entire time.
“Second of all, I gave her one Whiteclaw. One. If she got drunk off of one Whiteclaw, that’s not my fault. That’s her fault. For being a lightweight. I don’t even get drunk off of one Whiteclaw, and I’m related to you.”
“Annie, you are the oldest sister. You are supposed to set the example,” Kerry stated firmly. “And that does not involve giving your underage sister alcohol.”
Annie considered this for a moment and then nodded seriously.
“I hear you. You’re right. I’m the oldest sister,” she said before cheerfully adding, “Next time, Suzie gives her the alcohol.”
“Annalise, if there’s a next time, you’re going to be grounded ‘til you’re thirty.”
Kerry turned on her heel towards the elevators, but Annie wasn’t done yet.
“So? That’s like a week from now,” Annie said with a shrug. “And it’s not like I can go out and do anything anyways. What would being grounded even look like? Are you going to take away my phone?”
“Annie.”
“My laptop?”
“Annie.”
“My Netflix privileges?”
Kerry stopped a few feet from the elevators and turned back to raise a finger at Annie, counting on her Momma voice to off-set the fact that her eldest had four inches on her.
“Annalise Elisheva, go scrub into surgery before I take those privileges away from you.”
Annie blinked.
“I thought only Aunt Lizzie could do that,” she said with uncertainty in her voice.
“And I am Aunt Lizzie’s boss. Now, go.”
She pointed Annie to the elevator car that had just dinged to their floor. Knowing better than to pester her mother further (should she make good on her promise), Annie stepped inside.
“And make sure you sanitize those crutches before you go in that OR,” Kerry called out in an afterthought.
“You act like I’ve never done this before,” Annie called back as the elevator door closed.
Kerry stood there for a moment before Susan joined her in the hall.
“Okay, be honest with me,” Susan said, narrowing her eyes. “Is this because she just got the Chief President job upstairs and you’re sad that she’s not the Chief President down here?”
“No. As long as she’s been in medicine, she’s always wanted to go into Surgery like her father, and I have always been supportive of that,” Kerry said in a sincere tone, raising her hands defensively. “And, frankly, over the last few months, it’s probably better that she’s not in Emergency Medicine.”
“Oh, I see. It’s because she’s out here doing this, instead of figuring out how to Zoom teach from her living room or… running ten miles and then sitting on her ass for the rest of the day. Also, I meant to tell you, I think we need to give Charlie more chores.”
Kerry looked up at her, all frustration gone from her expression and replaced with one of amazement.
“She’s going to be thirty in a week,” she said in a much quieter voice, filled with both awe and sadness. “She’s older than I was when I had her.”
“She’s going to be thirty,” Susan said, nodding. “Suzie is twenty-five. That means that October will be twenty-five years since your mom took one look at me and said, ‘You. You, my dear. You’re going to be the one who finally turns my daughter gay.’ But, you see, because I’m a woman, that was a compliment.”
“Oh, good Lord,” Kerry said, rolling her eyes as she turned down the hallway.
“It’s true,” Susan maintained as she fell into step with her as they walked. “We always told you our first conversation was about Suzie, but really, it was about that.”
Kerry stopped and turned towards her, her look of displeasure returning. Her telling off was stopped, however, when Susan pulled herself up to full height and observed Kerry closely over the rim of her goggles.
“You see, she’s been married to a gay man for several years,” Susan said, making her voice sound as much like Mildred Weaver as she could manage. “And I’ve tried to tell her that if they were.... What’s it called? Moustaching? Bearding! Ah, yes. Bearding for each other, then it’s perfectly fine. But she still won’t tell me.
“So, here’s what we do. You move into our house. I’ll take care of your daughter, and in return, you woo mine. And, if it works, great! And,if not, well … I get my answer either way.”
Kerry looked at her for a moment before a smile crept into her eyes.
“That was not a bad impression of her.”
“Well, it helps that I have to wear these stupid things now,” Susan said, shaking her head to indicate the reading glasses she had on underneath her goggle and face shield. “So I can look over the rim of them at you the way she used to.”
“I think they make you look cute.”
“I think they make me look old. Like you. Or Annie,” Susan said emphatically. “And I’m only fifty-two, which is not old. Unlike some people I know who are pushing sixty.”
“I just turned fifty-nine a few months ago,” Kerry replied, rolling her eyes.
“Which means next year, you will be sixty,” Susan concluded. “Which is old.”
Kerry gave a small shrug of acknowledgement, before adding as an aside, “At least I’m not the one with the full head of gray hair.”
“Hey,” Susan said warningly. “That was the Rona’s fault, not mine. I had my appointment scheduled.”
“And I told you that was a decent excuse up until you let me take the clippers to it.”
Susan let out a huff, both at the statement and her long quiff and undercut, which was now salt-and-pepper gray instead of blonde thanks to the trim Kerry had given her a few weeks ago.
“It’s going to be blonde again.” When Kerry raised her eyebrows, Susan raised a finger. “It is going to be blonde again.”
“You keep saying that,” Kerry said with a small shrug. “But between you not wanting any of us to dye it and it not being safe for you to get it done for… I don’t know. A year or two… By then, you might be used to it.”
Susan shook her head.
“I had just told Charlie before all of this started that the only way that I was going to go completely gray was when I turned sixty, or the world ended.” She let out a sigh. “I just didn’t expect that to be so soon.”
Kerry raised a hand as if to console her, but seemed to think better of it.
She then turned towards the Suture Room, which was designated as the place for staff to change their PPE. Susan followed alongside her.
“You know, I believe Annie when she said she wasn’t drinking,” Susan said as she yanked the door open for Kerry to enter.
“You don’t think she gave Charlie a Whiteclaw?” Kerry asked, frowning.
“Oh, no. I believe that. I just meant I believed her when she said that she wasn’t drinking too,” Susan clarified before glancing at her wife out of the corner of her eye. “And, honestly, I was kind of surprised you were acting this way today. I feel like if you saw what I saw in her room, you’d feel a lot different.”
Kerry froze in the middle of taking off her gown. She looked at Susan, her eyes wide with impending anger.
“Is she smoking weed? In the middle of a pandemic? That causes respiratory illness? ” she asked as that same anger crept into her voice. “Oh, forget thirty. She’s gonna be grounded until she’s dead.”
“Will you relax? The only weed in the house belongs to Charlie, who has already assured me that she’s only doing edibles until all this is over,” Susan explained. “And, besides, according to Suzie, she never shares anyways.”
Kerry stared at her for a moment.
“What?”
“I do think Annie has gained some weight lately,” Susan remarked, ignoring Kerry’s question. “But I don’t think it’s due to the munchies.”
Kerry pulled on a new gown and started tying it behind her back. She inclined her head in acknowledgement.
“I have noticed that,” she admitted. “But it kind of makes sense. I mean, all she does is come here and go home. She’s not out playing soccer like she normally would be.”
“Not even in the backyard with Ethan or Charlie,” Susan observed as she picked up her own gown.
Again, Kerry gave a small nod of acknowledgement.
“Well,” she said, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves, “Ethan McDaniel has never struck me as the most athletic young man. And, Charlie, well… I think Charlie put her foot down on playing soccer with Annie last summer when blocking one of Annie’s shots broke her finger.”
Susan swapped out her gloves as well and then followed Kerry back out into the hall.
“It is interesting when you think about it though,” Susan thought aloud as they started back for the desk. “Annie’s not drinking. She’s gained some weight…. Not playing contact sports.”
“It’s the power of the pandemic. What can I tell you?” Kerry offered with a shrug. “It’s changed everything. Because you know what it takes to keep Annie from soccer.”
Susan thought about it for a moment and then nodded slightly.
“So, you don’t think the sonogram I saw on her bedside table has anything to do with it?”
Kerry stopped walking. For a moment, she just stared ahead of her before turning to look at Susan.
“The sonogram?” she asked in a suddenly tiny voice.
“The sonogram,” Susan confirmed, nodding.
Kerry took another moment to consider this.
“A sonogram like…” She swallowed hard, though the emotion could still be heard in her voice. “Like she’s gonna have a baby?”
“Well, I didn’t look at it too closely, because I didn’t want her and Ethan to think I was snooping... And also because I was in the middle of vacuuming when I saw it…” Susan said, before her smile grew so large Kerry could see it in her eyes. “But if I was reading it right, I think she’s going to have two.”