Chương 1: The Gift

Evan was nearing the end of his sixteen-hour shift when he entered Helen Gregory's room. He pushed the door open and rolled in the IV pole, the IV bag already in place. It was nearing midnight, but Mrs. Gregory was still awake. She looked tiny and fragile under her white hospital sheets. Her face was pale and contorted in pain. She'd been in this ward for almost three weeks now, and Evan knew her chart well. The eighty-two-year-old woman suffered from metastasized breast cancer.

"Good evening, Helen," Evan said quietly, trying not to startle her.

"I brought your pain meds." She opened her eyes. Evan had noticed before that they were quite unusual. One was brown, one was blue. Her wrinkled face moved into a tired smile.

"Thank you, dear." He attached the IV line to the access cannula on her left arm with a few practiced motions. He had been a nurse for a little over seven years now, and he considered himself pretty competent.

"You'll feel better soon, Helen."

"I doubt that, darling. It'll take the edge off, but there's no better for me. We both know that."

"What kind of defeatist attitude is that? Haven't we agreed that you'll get out of here so you can celebrate Christmas at home?" She chuckled, but then her expression turned somber.

"Home. Yes, I would like to see my home once more. But it's not meant to be. Not for me." She looked up at him as he opened the IV line to let the medication flush through the tube. Suddenly, a frown creased her forehead. Her eyes, usually cloudy and unfocused from a mix of strong medication and tumors eating at her brain, turned sharp. She stared at him, squinting as if she'd just noticed something about him she had never noticed before during the many times he'd been in her room to take care of her.

"Is everything alright?" Evan asked, feeling a tad uncomfortable under her intense gaze. His question seemed to snap her out of her state.

"Yes. Yes, I think so. Wait, I have something for you. I need to give you something." She heaved herself into a sitting position and pulled her drawer open. Evan waited patiently while she rummaged around, mumbling something to herself.

"Ah, here it is." With a smile, she handed him a necklace. She pressed it right into his palm and closed his fist around it.

"I want to gift this to you. You're a good man, Evan."

"Nah, I'm nothing special."

"I think you are," she said gently, a wistful smile on her face.

"And I like your red hair. You remind me of someone I used to know and care about a lot, many years ago."

"This is very nice of you, Helen, but I can't take this."

"No, I insist, dear. You deserve a reward for all your hard work. You know, you might be the only thing that makes this pitiful swan song bearable."

"Really, I can't accept it," he said.

"Staff aren't allowed to accept gifts from patients. I'll get in trouble if my boss finds out."

"Then we don't tell anyone about it." Evan sighed.

"Helen…"

"No, young man, you need to take this necklace." Her tone was urgent and surprisingly authoritarian.

"And you need to wear it. Life and death depend on it." His eyebrows rose. This wasn't the first time a grateful patient had wanted to give him money or gifts, but no one had ever been as dramatic about it as Helen. She looked up at him. Her eyes looked huge in her emaciated face.

"It's my dying wish. You won't refuse a dying woman her last wish, will you?" He let out another sigh and slipped the necklace into the pocket of his scrubs. If it was this important to her, he would play along. He could always hand it over to his supervisor tomorrow.

"Okay, I'll wear it. Thank you very much." Helen looked relieved.

"Make sure you wear it at all times, my dear. Put it on right away."

"Okay, I'll do that."

"Good, good." She sank back into her pillow.

"Leave me alone now. The drugs are starting to work, and I'm very tired. Very, very tired."

"Of course. Good night." He adjusted her blanket, making sure she wasn't cold. It was December after all. The coldest December since 1976, the guy on TV had said. Outside, a snowstorm whipped snowflakes past the windows, and the roads had been covered with ice for days now. Evan left the room and headed to the nurses' station to make some last entries in his patients' charts and write a few notes for the night-shift nurses before he clocked out.

His co-worker, a middle-aged woman named Denise, was already getting ready to leave.

"Finish up, Evan," she said.

"Me and a couple of the nurses from cardiology are going for a drink at Frank's Bar. You're coming too, right?" If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Evan smiled apologetically. He liked Denise a lot. In fact, the bubbly woman was one of his favorite co-workers, but he had to refuse her invitation.

"Sorry, I can't. I have to go home and look after my dad. The neighbors caught him wandering the streets again."

"Oh God, is he alright?"

"Yes, he's okay. They were kind enough to take him back to our house. I gave them a key because he does that pretty often now, and with me being at work so often…"

"Yeah, about that, Evan. Claire told me you picked up three more double shifts this month. Including Christmas."

"Pays well," he said dismissively. The sixteen-hour double shifts were brutal, especially on a ward as taxing as the oncology department, but he desperately needed the money. His father's medical bills were eating most of his paycheck, and he hadn't even started paying back his college loans yet.

"You look tired, Evan," Denise said in the typical concerned mom voice.

"You're pushing yourself too hard."

"I'm fine," he said, forcing a smile onto his face.

"I can handle it." Denise's gaze lingered on him. She pinched her lips together, clearly not satisfied with his reply.

"Okay. See you tomorrow then." He nodded.

"Don't go too wild at Frank's." After Denise was gone, he finished up his notes and headed for the elevator. He went down to the basement, where the locker rooms were located. When he pulled off his scrub top, Helen's necklace fell out of the pocket. Evan picked it up from the floor, and for the first time since the old lady had dug it out of her bedside table, he took a real look at it. It was beautiful. An interestingly shaped star on a chain, but the metal was unlike anything he'd ever seen.

Even in the bleak fluorescent light of a hospital changing room, it shimmered and gleamed like a real star. It felt interesting, too. Warm to the touch, but in an unusually pleasant, soft way. Something about it was… special. Evan couldn't quite put it into words, but he felt it. He would still hand it to his supervisor first thing tomorrow morning, but today, he decided, he would wear it. To honor Helens's wish. He pulled it over his neck, and then quickly put on his sweatshirt and jacket to hide it.

Helen was right. As long as he kept this secret, no one would be any the wiser, and he would not get into trouble. Shouldering his backpack, he checked his phone on the way to the hospital's lobby and noticed four missed calls from Leah. His chest tightened. Leah was his on-again-off-again girlfriend. They'd started dating in high school and had broken up at least half a dozen times since then, only to get back together soon after.

They were currently in one of their on phases—kinda—but things weren't exactly going well, and four calls in quick succession were never a good sign when it came to women. He made his way out of the hospital, where reception was shoddy at best, but called her number as soon as he reached the parking lot. When she answered the phone, she sounded absolutely pissed.

"God damn it, Evan. Where the hell are you?"

"Uh, at work still. I just left the hospital, though. I'm heading home now. Is there something—""Are you serious? Work? I told you about today over two months ago, and you promised to clear your schedule. You promised, Evan." Evan quickly tried to rifle through his memory, trying to remember what event he'd forgotten about. What date was it again? December fourteenth? Shit. Leah's birthday. He'd forgotten his girlfriend's birthday. No wonder she was angry.

"Your birthday party," he said, defeated. There was no way he could talk his way out of this.

"Damn, I'm so sorry, Leah. I just… I totally forgot. Rhonda offered me a double shift because Hannah caught a stomach bug, and you know how tight money is at the moment, so I—."

"You wouldn't be constantly broke if you wouldn't spend all your money on your drunkard father." Evan took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.

"He's sick, Leah. You know that. He has dementia."

"Yeah, I know. I know he got dementia because he drinks two bottles of vodka on a good day."

"It's called Korsakoff syndrome," he muttered, knowing full well Leah was right. His father had done a lot of harm both to himself and the rest of his family. But he was still his dad, and he needed someone to take care of him. He could hear Leah's labored breathing on the other side of the phone.

"This party was really important to me, Evan. All my new work friends are here, and they're all asking where my boyfriend is."

"I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I just have a lot going on right now."

"Well, are you coming now or what?" she snapped. Evan grimaced, already knowing the reaction his answer would earn him.

"I can't. The neighbors found my dad wandering the streets again. They're still with him. I need to go home so they can leave and go to bed." Leah scoffed. A long silence stretched between them. Evan considered apologizing again, but he knew it would only make her angrier.

"You know what, Evan," she finally said. Her voice sounded more sad than outraged now.

"I don't think I can do this anymore." His throat tightened.

"Come on, Leah. Don't be like this. I'll make it up to you, I promise. I just have to take care of my father tonight."

"No, you don't," she said more forcefully.

"And you shouldn't. Everyone else in his life has already understood that. You're the last one gullible enough to stick around." A low blow, but she was right again. His mother had divorced Evan's father the year he'd finished high school. His older sister had gone no-contact three years ago, and his younger brother, who was still living with their mom at seventeen, still occasionally answered the phone but refused to see his father in person. The only one his dad had left was Evan himself.

"Are you telling me I have to choose between my father and you?" he asked.

"No, I'm saying I'm going to make that decision for you. It's over, Evan. We're done. I'm sick and tired of waiting for you to start your life." She ended the call before he could defend himself, leaving him with a silent phone in his hand and a painful mix of anger and devastation in his stomach. They'd broken up before, but this had felt different. More final than the times before.

He stared at his phone screen, hoping to see her face and name appear on the display again, calling him again to tell him she'd spoken rashly and that she'd changed her mind. The screen remained empty. The only thing it showed was the temperature—2° Fahrenheit—the date—Leah's birthday—and the time: 10: 16 pm. 10: 16 pm! With a curse, he stuffed the phone into his pocket and started running. The last bus departed at 10: 18.

Evan had sold his car to pay off some of his dad's medical bills, and Leah was definitely not going to pick him up and drive him home tonight, so if he missed that bus, he was stuck here until half-past five in the morning. He sprinted across the parking lot and vaulted over the waist-high metal railing separating the parking lot from the street to save a few precious seconds. The bus stop was right across the street from the hospital's side entrance.

He could see the bus in the distance already, but if he really rushed, he could still make it. Taking the crosswalk would take too long, so he beelined for the bus stop, running onto the street. He was in such a hurry that he didn't even notice how the black sedan driving past the hospital way too fast lost traction on the icy road. The last thing he heard was the desperate screeching of brakes as the car slid on the ice and crashed into him.