IT HAD TO be the quietest Christmas Eve on record for the hospital. Even the emergency room was quiet...except for the usual suspects—several older patients who claimed to be having heart attacks. Fortunately, it was only the stress of family visiting causing their mild, nonthreatening chest pains. Erika was certain that for some, they just wanted an excuse to leave the house for a while. The only patient she’d treated so far was an eight-year-old who’d stuck his tongue to a frozen pole on a dare and was being treated for frostbite.

Big, thick snowflakes fell outside her office window, creating the perfect Christmas Eve weather. She drew the blinds. Her office might be the only place completely void of any sights and sounds of the holiday. No artificial tree, no decorations, no snow from a can on her windows. A perfect refuge.

Sitting at her desk, she opened her inbox and was relieved to see several emails marked urgent from her father. They should help keep her mind off the place she longed to be. The person she longed to reach out to. She hadn’t heard from Reed since the day in the elevator, but his disappointed expression had haunted her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him walking away.

Work. Focus on work.

She opened the first email from her father, but a new one arriving in her inbox caught her eye.

From Tom Marshal—the man she’d performed the tracheotomy on weeks before.

Subject line—Merry Christmas.

Ignore it and focus on work.

It was Christmas Eve. One holiday e-card wouldn’t kill her. She opened it and an animated scene started on the screen. She watched, alternating between laughter and tears as the JibJab video reenacted the man’s camping trip in the Wild River mountains.

The avalanche, the rescue... He’d even found her medical school graduation photo online and superimposed her into the video, arriving in a doctor’s lab coat to save his life on the side of the mountain.

The video ended with him safe and sound in the hospital room, surrounded by his family. The photo of him they’d used was one of him hooked to machines after his surgery.

Obviously, the family appreciated his second chance at life and were dealing with the accident the best way they knew how—with humor.

Then the caption appeared on the screen.

I wouldn’t be here this Christmas without you being there that day. Merry Christmas, Dr. Erika. You’re our superhero. —The Marshal Family

The lump in her throat constricted her airways, and it was a relief to know the emergency room wasn’t busy, in case these overwhelming feelings decided to kill her.

She’d received thank-you emails, cards and even flowers from families in the past, but something about this one felt different. It touched her.