A friend of mine came to work the other day and explained to me that I needed to cover for her with her husband. Told me that she had gone out the night before and told him that she was with work friends like me, when really she had gone out with an ex.
She had barely told me the story when her husband walked thru and brought us coffee, telling us we must need this after such a long night out. I laughed and thanked him for the coffee and tried to make a get away saying my patients needed to have their morning medicines. He stalled me and tried to ask questions about how the night went but I insisted that I needed to get to my patients.
We both were off the next two days and I forgot the entire encounter. When my alarm went off the next shift I felt off but I had no way of knowing why. I got ready and made my way into work without thinking too much of it. In the locker room I could hear the other staff talking about their lives as I got my things ready to walk out onto the floor.
She wasn’t there. She never showed up for her shift. We found out in the middle of the day that she was in the ICU at a different hospital near us.
Maybe he didn’t believe me. Maybe she slipped up with something else. All I know is she survived. He is in jail, hopefully staying there. I’m a little lost, feeling as if I should have done better, knowing I had no way of preventing this. This wasn’t the first time he laid hands on her we found out.
You never know whats going to happen. You never know whats going on behind closed doors.
Physical violence is all around us.
National Domestic Violence Hotline– 1-800-799-7233
Live life lightly 