The locker room at Greenbrier Memorial Hospital smelled of pine floor cleaner and the damp wool of coats.
I stood before the small metal mirror on the inside of my locker door and pinned the silver nursing badge to the left lapel of my blue scrub top. The badge was solid sterling, its edges slightly worn from the twenty-five years I had spent on the wards before my brief retirement. The new uniform had cost me twenty-eight dollars, a sum I had debated for three days before writing the check.
I adjusted the crisp collar of my nurse uniform, smoothing the fabric with both hands to calm the slight fluttering in my chest.
Florence, the head nurse of our ward, stepped into the locker room with a clipboard tucked under her arm.
“Nancy,” she said, her eyes dropping to check her wristwatch. “We have three discharges and four admissions scheduled before noon. It is going to be a heavy shift for a Tuesday.”
“My stamina is quite sufficient, Florence,” I said.
“I know you can do the work,” Florence said, her voice dropping its usual brisk edge for a moment. “But you do not have to prove anything to anyone here. If the lifting gets to be too much, you call for an orderly.”
“I am here to work, not to observe,” I said.
Florence nodded once, her efficiency returning as she checked her watch again.
“Room Two Twenty has a new arrival coming down from the intensive care unit,” she said, handing me the yellow intake sheet. “A transfer for palliative care.”
I took the sheet from her, noting the empty lines where the family contact information should have been.
“No family listed?” I asked.
“None that the admitting office could locate,” Florence said, turning toward the door. “Only a legal representative.”
