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Carol was not happy to be back at work, needless to say, and if only her needy stepson could grow a pair and go back to McKinley she could at least cut her hours, get closer to being part time instead of the Full+ time the nurses worked in this little hospital. But no, Kurt had to bogart all of her honeymoon money and force her keep up her “single mom” insane schedule. Meanwhile Kurt wasn’t around to do the cooking and cleaning that he had always done for his dad. Carol threaded her rings onto the strong gold chain necklace she wasn’t really supposed to be wearing, but it wasn’t like she was the only nurse who liked to show-off her rings, even if the stones weren’t nearly as big as the ones that the young nurses who dated the older doctors had. The younger doctors, these days, were even more broke than she was, working in the ER to “Make a Difference” and meanwhile not being able to pay down their med school debts.
And oh, good lord, she was sharing her shift with little goody-two-shoes, by-the-book Olivia. Carol pulled out her best saccharine smile, the one she would use to tell families that sure, grandma could still get better. “Olivia, how are you, dear? Hold down the fort while I was out of town?”
“Yes,” Olivia said, “it was an emotional weekend, but we made it through.”
“Sweetheart, be careful,” Carol said almost sincerely. “You cannot get so involved with all of your patients. I really worry about you! I thought Jaden was going to have a word with you about that very thing.”
“Yes, they did.” Olivia didn’t miss Co-head Nurse Carol H-H’s wince at the use of Jaden’s preferred pronoun. “But we had a 72 hour hold, a teenager, and Brian has said-“
“It’s Doctor West, Nurse Brent! Again, don’t care if you are banging him or not, in the hospital we refer to all Doctors formally.”
“I’m not,” Olivia started to say but then stopped herself and took a deep breath and counted just like the little girls on PBS cartoons did when they get upset. Because even in the 2020’s girls are still supposed to keep calm when dealing with bullshit. “Dr. West had asked me to pay extra attention as we could not get ahold of the family.”
“Well, they were probably up at the game with us.” Carol said, as if everyone in the hospital didn’t already know where she had been.
“Oh, god, I hope not!” Carol shot Olivia a look, but Olivia continued. “Well, he didn’t really look like the Football type, if you know what I mean. It would be extra sad if he tried to kill himself when his “loving family” had left him behind just because he would prefer to go see a Broadway show! That loving family never did show up, couldn’t reach the father at his garage and the kid made his attempt on his mother’s grave. A weird cheerleading coach came to give him a ride to his boarding school.”
Carol looked whiter and stiffer than the old man who had passed away in the ICU an hour ago.
Like Olivia didn’t know what both H’s on Carol’s nametag stood for.