Chapter 4: Cafeteria Rules

"Tell Haley the hem is two inches long on her," I said from Cal's doorway. "She'll trip on the church steps."

Deborah's smile did not move.

Cal stepped between us and put one hand flat on the door.

"Take your foot off my porch, Deborah."

She went down the steps in her good shoes, with Dean behind her, and the neighbor with the fern watered the same leaf the whole time.

By Monday, the town had the rest.

Haley had walked down the aisle in my dress, in front of a hundred and forty guests.

There was no license in her name yet, so the pastor called it a celebration of Dean's new beginning.

Somebody posted it in the town group anyway.

I went in to work, because the children on the fourth floor did not care who I was supposed to marry.

The head nurse met me at the lockers with a coffee and a look I had never seen on her.

"You're on your regular rotation," she said. "Nobody says a word about Friday to a patient or a parent. Understood?"

"Understood."

"And Breuer, if you want to be mad at someone, I have a list."

I made it to noon without crying.

At ten, the mother of a boy with a broken femur asked if I was the nurse from the video.

I told her I was the nurse for her son's IV, and then I checked the line twice.

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