The alarm clock rang for 3:30am. Linda groaned. Not having any other choice, she swung her legs off the bed and tried to avoid dropping her feet too hard onto the wooden floor. All of her work clothes, her makeup and toiletries were in the master bedroom, of course. She gingerly opened the door to avoid waking Stephen as she crossed the room for the bath. Along the way she let her pajamas drop and she placed them atop the chest at the foot of the bed.
Still groping in the darkness, she reached the doorknob for the bathroom and opened it, pulling the door toward her slowly. Once inside the bathroom, with the door closed behind her, she could turn on the light. Her naked reflection blazed onto the mirror in the vanity suite and she gasped, nearly shrieking. All she saw were folds of white skin and a smooth, shining belly that made it look as if she had swallowed a basketball. I look like a cow, she thought, as she swiftly stepped toward the bath and shower.
She let the warm, soapy water wash over her, suddenly breaking into tears over what had happened over the past couple of days. The final straw was her body being presented to her in its least appealing light, stretched obscenely by the ravages of pregnancy. Warm tears mixed in with the water, which she let wash over her face as well.
When she finished, she dried off and reached for the set of scrubs she always kept in the bathroom in an armoire. Many times she had to get herself ready hours before Stephen got out of bed. She put on her scrubs, greatly thankful that nurse's uniforms had gone that way over the past five years. Rather than purchase a bunch of costly maternity skirts and pants, all she had to do was go up to sizes on the scrubs bottoms, to accommodate her round belly.
It took a few more minutes for her to fix her hair into shape by fastening it away from her face with barrettes. It was a quick and easy way to make both her hair and her self presentable.
Before long she kissed both her husband and her daughter good-bye for the day. After a quick breakfast, by four-thirty she had climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep and headed for Jewish hospital. The good thing about continuing to work such an obscenely early schedule, she always thought, was that she never had to deal with traffic. And she would be able to pick up Hayley from school.
She arrived at work and saw her best friend Jodi on the job. Jodi gave her a briefing about what had occurred during the day when she was off. They checked the readouts together and the meds screens before starting on rounds at opposite sides of the unit. Little by little, the other nurses checked in as the third shift nurses dragged themselves away. When all the third shift nurses had left, Jodi smiled. "I love this time of the day, before the world wakes up."