Chapter 2

The smell of the hospital drapes is characteristic of disinfectants and hospital scrubs. Trolleys lie on the walkway, and men and women occasionally pop their heads out from rooms labeled with numbers to ask a question or shout an order.

“Code blue!” the alarm blares, and several nurses and doctors scurry through the door toward the direction of the alarm.

Meredith has now become accustomed to the reflex of jolting whenever she hears “Code blue,” a signal that there is an emergency that needs immediate attention, and she constantly joined the run during her days as an intern. Her right leg twitches as though she is about to be on her feet, but she reminds herself that she is new here and doesn’t understand how the team works.

She straightens her long, blonde hair that is tied in a ponytail, crossing the end of it across her shoulder to the front. She straightens a wrinkled part of her ward coat as though her hands were an electric iron, slightly irritated that her coat would have wrinkles on the first day of work.

She turns toward the direction that has a sign painted in white and green: Nurses Station.

“Hello,” she says to the nurses, putting up her best smile. She had been advised several times on the need to be nice to the nurses as a resident since their help could contribute to the ease of her work as a resident.

“My name is Meredith Alvarez,” she continues. “I’m one of the new residents, and I’m new here.”

“Hello, doctor,” one of the nurses replies. “Welcome to Castle Hill Hospital. The other new residents reported yesterday.”

Meredith knows she was supposed to report to the hospital the day before, but she was unable to because she had to take care of something that she could not explain to the nurses. Actually, she didn’t feel like she owed an explanation.

“I had something to do,” Meredith replied. “However, I spoke to the director and was granted permission to resume today.” A lie. “I was a little bit sick yesterday.” Another lie.

“Okay,” another nurse replies. “The team is over there,” she says, pointing toward the direction with her finger, “You can join them over there.”

Meredith turns toward the direction. As she opens the door, the creaking sound of the door draws the attention of the team.

“I’m…umm… I’m sorry for being late,” Meredith says, stuttering.

“Are you supposed to be here?” the attending surgeon asks. Professor Perkins is an attending neurosurgeon who has made his life revolve around surgery. He is currently in his fourth marriage, as every other one failed because of his excessive devotion to surgery over love. “This would be the last marriage,” he often jokes, “since I’ll soon retire and finally be in love.”

Meredith enters the room, shutting the door carefully so as not to elicit the creaking sound again.

“Uhm, I’m a resident,” she says with great trepidation. Anybody, including other attending surgeons, would feel the same trepidation standing before Dr. Perkins. His surgical skill and talent precede him.

“Yes, sir,” another voice from the team says. “She is currently the only female resident on our team.”

Meredith’s attention is turned toward the voice. The deepness of the voice that caught her attention is betrayed by the appearance of the body in a surgical scrub. Dr. Henshaw is also a surgical resident, just like Meredith. His tall, lanky body gives away the fact that he has spent most of his time in the library and not in the gym. His Harry Potter-style glasses conceal his brown eyes, and his hair drops over his face as though drenched with sweat.

Meredith turns back to Professor Perkins.

“I’m so sorry for being late on my first day,” she says. “I promise, I won’t let this happen again.”

No response from Professor Perkins. He instead turns back to the patient, giving Meredith time to sneak in and hide behind every other person.

“So, before the interruption, I was asking what intervention you think we should carry out for this patient, considering his current situation and his lack of fitness for surgical intervention.”

“I would suggest we put the patient on some intravenous fluids and monitor his blood pressure and heart rate,” Dr. Henshaw starts, “carefully observing for any improvements in his condition.”

“Good,” Professor Perkins acknowledges, nodding his head. “Where’s the new resident? What’s the name again?”

“Meredith. Meredith Alvarez.” She scuffles to the front.

“You take care of this patient until we confirm he is ready and fit for surgery. I’ll be heading to the operating room now for surgery.”

Everybody bows as Professor Perkins walks out of the room, and they turn to follow him, except for Meredith and Dr. Henshaw.

“The name is Jones. Jones Henshaw.” He stretches out his hand to shake hers.

“Meredith. Meredith Alvarez.” Meredith doesn’t take his hand, and he is slightly embarrassed by it.

Meredith generally avoids having contact with people. Her body feels cold like ice, and during her intern years, she would always wear double gloves to examine patients so that they didn’t feel how icy she was.

Growing up in the woods with only her mom, she really did not have any need to come in contact with other humans, as she was homeschooled by her mom, and the only time she had to come in contact with other people was when she went to medical school.

Except for her mom, Meredith has only come in contact with someone who has skin as icy as hers, but the contact had been brief, and she barely made it out alive.

“You must have been impressed by my vast knowledge of medicine,” Dr. Henshaw says as though to recall Meredith’s attention.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“My vast knowledge of medicine, you must have been—”

“I heard what you said. I’m just surprised about how highly you think of yourself.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“If you don’t mind, I have to work now. I need to get used to the hospital environment. If you would excuse me now...”

Meredith opens the door and walks out, while Dr. Henshaw just stands there, slightly humiliated. He’s always been touted as one of the smartest residents in the hospital, and even surgical residents from other specialties would call his attention to general procedures that they were having difficulties with.

—

The emergency room department smells like disinfectants but also like expensive wood. There is a flurry of activities but also a level of coordination, like some kind of orchestrated performance. It is a paradox of activities, and Meredith finds herself in the middle of it all, ready to save her first life.

For as long as Meredith can remember, she has always wanted to be a doctor. Secluded from the world with her mom, who was also a doctor, she would spend most of her time perusing anatomy textbooks and drawing anatomical diagrams from different perspectives.

Her mom stopped buying her dolls when she would always rip the ones she had with a knife.

“My patient died,” she would cry to her mom after cutting her doll into pieces as a sham surgery, and she would request a new one.

It’s been about thirty minutes since she entered the emergency room in her navy blue scrub and sneakers, her long hair tied in a ponytail and gracing her back.

Then the loud blare of the ambulance siren jolts Meredith into consciousness, and she stands on her feet and wears her gloves, ready for action. Her legs are shaky, and her palms are sweaty under her gloves. Before today, she had always rehearsed this moment. The emergency patient would be rushed into the ER ward, and she would be the resident in charge, and she would bark orders at interns and nurses while gracefully maneuvering tools to stop her patient’s bleeding or resuscitate a dying patient.

But right then, at that moment, the feeling is different.

“Dr. Alvarez,” one of the nurses called out. No response. “Dr. Alvarez. We need to step outside now.”

“Yes. Yes, let’s go.”

“He’s a young man who was involved in a road traffic accident,” one of the paramedics says as he lifts the man off the ambulance and onto the stretcher. “He was speeding in his vehicle when he lost control and hit an electric pole. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt and smashed his head on his steering wheel.”

The other medics rushed to take control, with some trying to put drapes over the man’s bleeding skull and another pushing the trolley down into the ER, looking over his shoulder to hear commands from Meredith, but she stood there as though her feet were fixed to the ground.

This was not how she intended to stay on her first day of manning the emergency room, and definitely not the impression she wanted to give to the surgery department, considering how difficult it might’ve been to get into the surgical program as a female.

But the odds were unfathomable and astronomical that her first emergency case would be the only other infected man who she had ever come in contact with, the man who had killed her mother and had attempted to kill her, too.