She hadn’t been proud of him for a long time.

His eyes prickled with tears.

A hand pounded on the bathroom door. “Ralf? Don’t spend too long in the shower! Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. And make sure you clean up your room!”

3

3

Helen sat at the large, round table in the break room with Lex and Anouk, a younger colleague from the recovery room. The team members never took their breaks all at the same time. There always had to be nurses available to monitor the patients. The first few hours after surgery were critical, especially for patients who were already weak before their operations—those who had heart and lung problems, for example.

“Have you guys ever noticed how often we use the word ‘just’ over the course of a workday?” asked Anouk. Her sturdy legs were crossed, and she was dangling one of her plastic clogs from her toe.

“How do you mean?” replied Helen.

Anouk stirred her coffee. “Could I ‘just’ borrow the doctor for a moment? I’ll ‘just’ put in a drip . . .”

“I’ve never thought about it before,” murmured Helen.

Lex’s chair teetered on two legs. He was preoccupied with his cell phone and didn’t join in on the conversation. He’d probably decided that Anouk’s “we” didn’t include him. His work as an anesthesiologist’s assistant was highly technical, and he had much less frequent and briefer contact with patients than the recovery nurses did.

“You’ll be shocked when you start looking out for it,” continued Anouk. “It’s a real filler word, that ‘just.’”

A colleague entered the room, placed a cup under the coffee machine, and pushed the On button. “Maybe it’s because we’re always being told to ‘just get it done.’ You end up rushing from one patient to the next.”

“It’s not as bad as all that on our ward, though, is it?” replied Anouk, turning to face the newcomer.

Helen retreated gratefully into her cocoon and began playing a game on her phone. She wanted to get back to work as quickly as possible. There was nobody to watch her when she was with patients, and she could simply ask her standard questions and administer her standard treatments. That was already complicated enough.

She wished she could turn back the clock. In her mind’s eye, she had already pictured herself running out of the house and down the street with the gun a hundred times, screaming bloody murder and shooting in the air. In that version of events, the robber stayed alive and wound up in a jail cell—where he belonged.

“What did you get up to last night?”

Helen looked up in alarm, straight into Anouk’s big green eyes. The question was aimed squarely at her. “Er—why do you ask?”

Anouk grinned. “Jeez, Helen, the way you reacted. Is there something you aren’t allowed to tell us?”