Where Angels Tread Read Online Free PDF Page A

that. What we don’t know, and won’t know for a while, is whether she’s going to sustain any long term damage. Her head wound is pretty bad.”
    “What kind of damage?” As a rookie nurse, Heidi had been horrified when Megan arrived in the ambulance. She was, in Heidi’s opinion, far too young to endure so much. She couldn’t help but imagine Zachary’s broken body being wheeled into the same emergency room, a thought that made her own blood run cold. Heidi made a mental note to remind herself to sit down with Zachary for a serious conversation on the dangers of texting and driving. Even though he was years away from receiving his license, she wanted to instill the fear of God in him while he was still young enough to listen. She knew that once he was a teenager, all hope was lost.
    “Hard to say. Memory damage, speech problems. It’s very possible that she’ll be completely fine, after a long recovery. When they’re that young, their body is capable of bouncing back in surprising ways.” Josie turned to Dr. Conway, who was making notes on Megan’s chart. “Are you going to go out there and speak to the parents?”
    Dr. Conway checked the clock on the wall. “I have to head upstairs and check on a patient from earlier this evening. Why don’t you and Heidi handle it?”
    Josie nodded and beckoned for Heidi to follow her from the room. “I’ve never done this before,” Heidi whispered, picturing once more the expression of frozen terror on the mother’s face. “What should we say?”
    “I’ll take the lead,” Josie whispered back. “Then next time it comes up you’ll know what to do.”
    Josie pushed through the emergency room doors, where a handful of patients with less serious injuries were waiting to be seen. At the sight of the two nurses, Megan’s parents leapt to their feet and dashed across the room. “How is she?” her father asked, his face pale and drawn. Her mother’s eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and she held a crumpled tissue to her mouth. Heidi saw that her hands were shaking.
    “Right now, she’s stable,” Josie said, and began to explain the extent of Megan’s injuries. Heidi listened as Josie rattled off a number of medical terms, impressed at how cool and collected the veteran nurse was in the midst of such chaos. Heidi, who had joined the team at Saint Andrew’s Hospital a mere four months ago, knew that she still had a lot to learn.
    It was still difficult for her to believe that her path in life had led her here, to a career helping to save other people’s lives. As a child, Heidi was terrified of blood; she clearly remembered the time she sliced a deep cut into the tip of her finger with a kitchen knife while trying to saw through a particularly dense bagel. Those first few drops of blood had sent Heidi into a dead faint, and she only came to fifteen minutes later once her mother had patched her up. “I guess you’ll never be a doctor,” her mother had teased as she sat Heidi down in front of the television set with a plate of cookies. “Maybe a lawyer?” she asked, tugging playfully on Heidi’s hair.
    But Heidi, who had always loved children, dreamed of being a schoolteacher. Her favorite form of playtime was lining up her dolls—Heidi didn’t have any siblings—and teaching them arithmetic, reading, and writing. While they weren’t always the most enthusiastic audience, Heidi would pretend that she was shaping their minds and awakening in them the same love of learning that she had.
    After graduating from high school, Heidi entered the University of California, Santa Barbara on a scholarship, where she immersed herself in her studies, as well as the vibrant local culture. Santa Barbara was a beautiful place; when Heidi closed her eyes at night, she could still picture the skinny palm trees that lined the edge of the golden sand, which led directly to an ocean so crystal clear that Heidi could see the outline of her toes while standing in the