This Is Where We Stop novel · Chapter 4 of 24
Chapter 4: Gold Hour
The truck from the airstrip let me off at a school gym at ten past eleven at night, and there was already a stretcher in the doorway.
The earthquake had been six weeks before, and the injured were still coming down the mountain.
The school was the only building in the town with a flat floor and a working roof, so it had become a hospital.
Rows of cots filled the basketball court, and somebody had hung work lights from the hoops.
I could see my breath.
"You're Kincaid." A short woman with gray curls and reading glasses on a cord was already steering me by the elbow. "I'm Bess. Head nurse. Have you eaten?"
"On the plane."
"That doesn't count. Put this on."
She pulled a gray fleece vest off a stack and pushed it into my arms.
I stood there holding it.
"What?" Bess said.
"Nothing. It's perfect."
I put it on and zipped it to my chin.
It was warm, and nobody had made a speech about it.
"Orientation is the next two hours," Bess said, "but we're going to skip it, because the doctor is short a surgeon and he's about to start swearing."
She pointed across the gym.
At the far end, under the brightest lights, a tall man in scrubs was bent over a boy on a table.
He had short gold-brown hair and a scar that split his left eyebrow in two.
He did not look up.
"Dr. Lowry," Bess called. "Your new hands are here."
"Good." His voice was low and flat. "Scrub in."
"Hello," I said. "I'm Mara Kincaid."
"I know who you are. Scrub in."
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