“Careful, Mouse. Try not to drop the whole tray this time.”
Dr. Warren Teague started laughing before he even finished the sentence. The two corpsmen sitting at the nurses’ desk laughed right along with him.
They always did.
Annie Keller didn’t say anything. She set the steel instrument tray down on the cart. Her hands shook. Just a little. Just enough for them to see.
“See that?” Teague said, pointing with his pen. “Church mouse nerves. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Quiet Annie. Seven months on the night shift, and she’s said maybe forty words.”
“Forty-one,” said Danny Ortiz, the youngest corpsman on the floor. He was twenty-two and still had acne on his chin. “I counted.”
More laughter.
Annie kept her eyes on the cart. Head down. Shoulders curved forward. Her dark brown hair was sliding out of its messy bun again. She didn’t fix it.
Pine Harbor Naval Medical Center sat at the end of a long, empty county road in northern Maine. Forty beds. One small emergency room with three trauma bays. The nearest real trauma center was ninety minutes away by car, longer in bad weather. Over the front doors hung a wooden sign painted in navy blue letters.
Service. Sacrifice. Heal.
On the night shift, nobody seemed to remember the last two words.
It was a little past two in the morning. A storm had been building over the coast since sundown. Rain was hammering against the windows. The wind kept rattling the ambulance bay doors in their tracks like somebody was trying to get in.
Teague leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the edge of the desk. He was forty-four, tall, a little soft around the middle, and very comfortable. He was the kind of man who had never once been told no on his own shift.
“Hey, Mouse. Go get me a coffee. A real one this time. And don’t spill it on my charts.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Her voice was soft. Barely there at all.
Teague grinned at the corpsmen like he’d just won a bet.
Annie walked down the hall to the break room. Her navy scrubs were a size too big and hung off her shoulders. A thin, pale scar ran just above her right eyebrow. Under her left sleeve, which she always kept pulled down to her wrist, a ridge of old white marks crossed her forearm. Shrapnel scars. Nobody at Pine Harbor had ever asked about them.
Nobody had ever really looked.
The break room was empty. The fluorescent light over the sink buzzed. Annie put a paper cup under the coffee machine and pressed the button. It hissed and gurgled. She stood there and watched the dark liquid fill the cup.
Something was sitting on the counter next to the machine.
A small gray plastic mouse. The kind you’d find in a bin at a pet store, with a little rubber tail.
Somebody had left one on her locker last week. Then one on her chair in the charting room. Now one here, right next to the coffee machine, where they knew she’d be sent.
She didn’t throw it away.
She never did.
Lila Hart is a dedicated Digital Archivist and Research Specialist with a keen eye for preserving and curating meaningful content. At TheArchivists, she specializes in organizing and managing digital archives, ensuring that valuable stories and historical moments are accessible for generations to come.
Lila earned her degree in History and Archival Studies from the University of Edinburgh, where she cultivated her passion for documenting the past and preserving cultural heritage. Her expertise lies in combining traditional archival techniques with modern digital tools, allowing her to create comprehensive and engaging collections that resonate with audiences worldwide.
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