Page 61 of Strays
On Wednesday, she comes home with dry eyes, but they’re red and puffy. We all jump from the couch and rush to her, our chests humming loudly.
“I’m okay,” she says when she sees our faces.
She drops onto the couch, and we circle her, anxious, waiting for her to tell us what happened.
“The hospital’s making me disclose to every patient that I’m a nyra before I see them, so they can choose if they want to ask for someone else,” she says, her face buried in her hands.
Shane hisses through his teeth.
“Can they do that?” Jay asks, his voice clipped.
“Yes,” she says, exhausted. “I talked to the legal department today. There’s basically no regulation about what they can or can’t do in this situation. There’s never been another gregalis resident before.”
I press my teeth together so hard I’m surprised they don’t crack. “I’m sorry, Jo.”
It’s pointless; we’re all obviously sorry about everything, but being sorry helps nothing.
On Friday, Alice stops by with her husband, Jayme, and their little girl, Kate. Jo worked a brutal twenty-four-hour on-call shift yesterday, so today her shift was short.
When we walk in, she’s sitting on the wooden bench in the backyard with Alice and Jayme, watching Kate chase leaves across the grass. Alice isn’t warm, but she isn’t hostile either.
Jayme, though, goes out of his way to be friendly. He’s a criminal defense attorney, used to working with cops, and he clearly picks up on the stiffness Alice can’t quite hide. Maybe that’s why he makes such an effort, chatting with Jay about department policies and cracking jokes with Shane. It feels like he’s trying to smooth the edges, and we appreciate it.
A little while after we join them, Alice asks Jo if she’s happy.
“It’s complicated,” Jo replies. “At home with my mates, I’m happier than I ever thought was possible. But everything else, every other part of my life, is kind of crumbling.”
“I still think you should let me help,” Jayme says as they’re getting ready to leave. “The fact that there’s no regulation just means we have the chance to establish one. The way they’re treating you is prejudice, Jo. We could fight it. Not just for you, but for any nyra or aegis who ends up in the same situation someday.”
But Jo is firm in her decision to avoid a lawsuit at all costs. “I appreciate your offer, Jayme. But let’s be realistic: I'm a total outlier. There isn’t anyone else like me in the system. A resident suing the hospital where she’s still in training? That could bury my career. I won’t risk it unless it’s my last resort.”
When they say goodbye, Jayme stares at Jo for a while. “They seem like good guys,” he says.
She smiles. “They are.”
Not every visit is nice, though.
On Saturday morning, a woman we’ve never seen before shows up at our door with a still-warm loaf of banana bread. Says her name is Bree Sorensen, and that she lives three houses down. She somehow knows a lot about us: where we work, what time we leave in the mornings, even what truck we drive. I have no idea how.
She looks disappointed when we tell her Jo is at work and says she’ll come back later.
She does, in the same afternoon. Jo answers the door this time. The woman immediately pulls her into a hug and kisses both her cheeks. Jo invites her in and makes coffee, and we leave them to chat while we finish cutting the grass.
But when I come inside to grab a bottle of water, I know something’s off. Jo’s scent hits me first, acid sharp, the way it gets when she’s upset. I move closer and catch sight of her at the kitchen counter, standing stiffly, facing the woman, voice like ice when she says: “I think you should leave.”
The lady looks like she wants to argue, but when she spots me at the doorway, she gets up and leaves without another word.
Jo is livid. “Can you believe that woman?” she says, slamming the fridge shut. “She told me her church could help women in ‘difficult situations’ like mine.”
“What difficult situation?” I ask, confused.
“Living with three men,” she snaps. “She tried to convince me to ‘abandon my sinner life’.”
Every instinct I have tells me to go after that woman and make sure she never comes near Jo again, but I clench my jaw and wrap my arms around her instead.
That week, the truck started running hotter than usual. Jay ran the codes and traced it back to either the thermostat or the coolant temp sensor. So Sunday morning, we’re out front, popping the F-150’s hood.
It’s crisp outside, sunny but cold. We have tools laid out on a towel in the driveway, music playing low off Shane’s phone. Jay crouches near the front tire, double-checking the sensor diagram on his phone while I lean over the engine bay, sleeves shoved up, forearms streaked with grease. Shane wrestles with the housing bolts, his knuckles white around the wrench.
