Chapter One

Pippa looked around the emergency room, looking for where they moved the emesis bags. The elephant trunk blue bags seemed to be missing throughout the entire ER. Her drunkard of a patient started experiencing severe nausea, which came on after his bender. She hated this hospital and how they moved things all the time. Stupid, fancy Boston hospitals. She opened a cabinet in another exam room and found the blue bags sitting there. She grabbed two and a pink wash basin, with a canister of sani-cloth wipes inside it, that sat on the shelf next to the only emesis bags in the emergency room. She was making her way back to the exam room, and she almost made it to the room when she heard gagging and vomit splattering on the floor.

Pippa sighed and tipped her head back, taking a deep breath in. She took some peppermint oil out of her pocket and rubbed it under her nose before putting on a mask. She was a sympathetic puker, and there was no way he was going to ruin her lunch. She grabbed another mask from the box on the wall for the drunk patient’s babysitter.

“Not today, satan,” she whispered under her breath as she whipped open the exam room curtains. “Not today.”

Night shift at the major hospital in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, was never boring. Her patient was hanging over the edge of the bed, puking up all the whiskey and hot dogs he ate during this month's bender. For a fancy lawyer, you would think he would know better than to get a DUI and alcohol poisoning before court. But some people never learn. The female police officer who brought him in stood there staring straight ahead, starting to look a little pale. Pippa took the peppermint oil and a mask out of her pocket and handed them to her.

“Put the oil under your nose and the mask on. It will help with the smell.” Pippa instructed her. The female officer quickly took the oil and put it under her nose.

“Thank you,” the officer said after rubbing peppermint oil under her nose and putting on the mask. “I thought I was going to lose it.”

“I’ve never seen you before,” Pippa said, putting on gloves and putting her patient back in bed after he puked up his entire stomach. “Are you new?”

“This is my first shift on my own. I caught this guy doing 90 miles per hour on the interstate coming into the city. He was swerving all over the road.” She said, gesturing to the man sitting on the bed, groaning about his stomach.

“Look, Leroy,” Pippa said, cleaning up the chunky vomit off the floor with a towel and sani-wipes. She brushed her loose curls that escaped her hair clip with her arm out of her face. “You need to quit drinking. I know your last case was tough, but your labs are getting worse.”

“You know him?” The officer questioned.

“Leroy is a divorce lawyer; he always takes the big-wig cases around here, but often gets involved in the state’s DCYF cases from time to time when they involve the family he is working on a divorce with.” Pippa sighed. “Unfortunately, he drinks when the divorce does not go as planned, or the DCYF case takes a turn for the worse. Usually, he’s not driving, and the Uber or Lyft driver brings him in.”

“Not anybody’s night, is it?” The officer said quietly, placing the peppermint oil next to the computer’s keyboard by the door.

Pippa finished cleaning up the mess and put the ruined towel into the biohazard waste bin. She looked down at the lawyer’s arm and saw the IV ripped out during his vomiting fit. Pippa took off her gloves and left the emesis bag next to Leroy’s hand. She went over to the computer, messaging the doctor to see if she could get a new order for an anti-nausea drug and a new IV placement with normal saline.

She logged out of the computer and grabbed the peppermint oil. She smiled at the officer and patted Leroy’s blanket-covered leg before leaving the room.

Just another day in paradise, Pippa thought, as she sat down at her desk.

She looked at her phone sitting on the desk and saw multiple missed calls from her Aunt Rose and her cousin. Then a text message that made her stomach lurch.

Aunt Rose: It’s your mother. Call me.

Followed by a text message from her cousin.

Michael: I’m so sorry.

She didn’t remember much from the phone call with her aunt. All she could remember was her aunt telling her that her mother was gone. Pippa was shaking as she told her charge nurse about her mother. Her charge nurse grabbed Pippa’s stuff from the locker and had another nurse walk her out to the parking garage. She turned the key in her Subaru and stared out the windshield at the city in front of her. It was the end of her life here; it was time to go home. As she backed out of her parking spot and drove up to Eagle Falls, New Hampshire, her mind went blank.