At 3:47 a.m., the world is supposed to be quiet. Hospitals never are, but my office at St. Catherine\u2019s usually was. The surgical floor slept behind thick glass and fluorescent hum, and my screen glowed with next week\u2019s schedule: gallbladders, hernias, a tumor resection that had me double-checking every name like it was a prayer.Then my phone lit up. ETHAN.My chest tightened so fast it felt like someone had cinched a strap around my ribs. Ethan didn\u2019t call me at this hour unless something had broken loose from the ordinary rules of life. He was twenty-two, halfway through a master\u2019s program at State, three hours away, and stubbornly independent in the way young men are when they\u2019re still certain their bodies are unbreakable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At 3:47 a.m., the world is supposed to be quiet. Hospitals never are, but my office at St. Catherine\u2019s usually was. The surgical floor slept behind thick… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84392,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n