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Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs and butter; mix well. Press crumb mixture firmly on bottom of baking pan.

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Pressing firmly makes me focus all my energy on cooking. Not on how much I’m looking forward to Chase coming home. Not on how much I’m enjoying living with him. Not on how much I liked rubbing his shoulders the other week. Gah. I messed up the recipe. Be right back.

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2. Layer in remaining ingredients; press firmly with fork. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture.

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Baking is therapy. It soothes me. The times when dating in New York City has been weird and frustrating and disappointing, at least there’s something I can do well. I can mix and create, and turn ingredients into something tasty. Something that makes people happy. Honestly, I suppose that’s all I really want in life. To make someone happy. Even better if that someone makes me feel that way, too.

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3. Bake twenty-five minutes or until lightly browned. Cool. Cut into bars.

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Serve to your roommate with a straight face as if you didn’t just imagine him grabbing you, touching you, sliding into you, and pounding you hard under the hot stream of water in your shower. No, I swear I didn’t fantasize about every naked inch of him, and he’s not the reason I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming out his name.

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4. Have a second helping.

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Well, I did say the bars were sublimation.

17

The red line flattens. Anguish floods my bones. Sorrow drowns my blood.

The patient is gone.

We lost him, a thirty-four-year-old man named Blake Treehorn.

All the medicine, all the paddles, all the speeding ambulances, all the nurses and doctors here at Mercy, and we couldn’t save his life.

I exhale heavily. One of the nurses makes the sign of the cross. Another runs her hand gently along the patient’s arm. I look at my watch and confirm the time of death.

“One thirty-five p.m.,” I say, and the nurse records the information in his chart. I scrub a hand over my jaw as a profound sense of both sadness and failure digs deep into my flesh. I’ll be signing his death certificate shortly.

David, another ER doc who worked to save him too, claps me on the back. “We did our best,” he mumbles.

“Yeah.”

That’s the thing. We did. The paramedics barreled in fifteen minutes ago with a man who worked at an office building ten blocks away. During a routine Wednesday afternoon meeting, Blake clutched his chest and complained of pain. He collapsed seconds later, and his coworkers called 911. He’d been fading when he arrived, and we’d fought like hell to save the guy. Thirty minutes later, he’s dead in his early thirties on a hospital bed in an emergency room in the middle of Manhattan.

“Life is short, man,” David says, his tone heavy.

“It sure is,” I say with a sigh.

I’ve lost patients before. Every doctor has. Last year in Africa, we said good-bye to more people than I wanted to count. It’s part of the job. I get that, and I can live with it. It’s what I signed up for.

But I’m only human, and I’m not as steel as I pretend to be. This one hits me hard. Blake was young and healthy. I heard one of his coworkers say he’d gone running with him the other morning.

There’s no time to sit with these churning emotions, though. When the charge nurse informs me there are multiple gunshot wounds coming in, I have to pretend I’m Teflon.

That’s how the rest of the afternoon unfurls. Like a parade of pain and heartache. No sex wounds, no amusing tales, no naughty moments that make for funny stories with friends. It’s all too fucking real. One of the gunshot victims dies from blood loss. A patient who seemed to be improving after coming in yesterday with a stroke passes on.

By the time my shift finally ends, I sink down on the bench in the locker room, so ready to be done with the Grim Reaper today. But I just sit. I can’t move yet. A leaden weight has settled deep in my gut. I drop my forehead to my hand and let the gloom spread through me. Sometimes I am good at separating work from my emotions. But sometimes work is emotional. As much as I pride myself on the ability to wear blinders, the fact is my business is one of life and death.

And death sucks.

The door creaks open and David trudges in. “Want to get a beer?”

I raise my face. “Pretty sure you meant whiskey.”

A small smile cracks on his tired face. “Make it a double.”

“You’re on.”

And that’s how I find myself at Speakeasy in Midtown at five p.m. We trade war stories and talk sports, and it eases some of the day from my shoulders.

When we finish, David tips his chin and pushes his glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose. “And on that note, I should head home to the woman.”

I clasp his hand in a good-bye shake, and when I leave, that last word resonates with me. There’s one woman I want to see.

Josie closes late on Wednesdays so I catch the subway and exit at Seventy-Second. When I walk along the block where she works, the early evening crowds thickening around me, I swear I can feel the clouds lift and my heart start to lighten just from knowing I’ll see her. Josie is my sunshine in this rain-soaked day.

As the smooth, intelligent voice of the audiobook narrator in my ears delves into the physics of perpetual motion, I pass a flower shop, spotting a bouquet of daisies. For the briefest of seconds, an idea takes hold. But I smash it, scoffing at myself. I’m only going to say hi to her. Bringing her flowers would be something one of her cheeseball dates would do. I’m not dating her. I don’t have to worry if she’ll be in my life tomorrow, or the next day, or the next year. She is in my life because she’s my friend, and that’s why I’m the one who gets to see her, who gets to stop by her work, who gets to hang out with her. The rest of the assholes aren’t good enough to even get past a first date.