Page 62 of Strays
“You’re gonna round it out if you keep forcing it,” I mutter without looking up.
“I barely touched it,” he snaps.
Without a word, I toss him a clean rag. He catches it midair, wipes his hands, then tosses it back. That’s when we hear someone call from the sidewalk, voice amused and easy:
“Well, that’s a pleasant sight. Three guys and a truck. You fixing her, or just trying to scare her straight?”
I straighten up and squint toward the street. It’s the guy from next door, the one who waved when we first moved in.
“Coolant sensor’s acting up,” I tell him. “Might be the thermostat too.”
He steps closer, smiling as he offers a hand. “Mike Thompson.”
I lift my hands, palms up. “Sorry, greased to hell.”
“Fair,” Mike chuckles. “My old F-150 used to pull that crap every winter. I miss that beast. But my husband’s a fuel-efficiency guy. Won’t let me nearanything that gets under twenty MPG.”
“Sounds like a wise man,” Jay replies.
We stand around for a few minutes, talking trucks, tools, and early cold snaps. Shane finally gets the bolt loose with a grunt of triumph and sits back, holding it like a trophy.
It’s weird, having a friendly conversation with a stranger, especially a human man. But it’s good.
Mike starts to head back toward his house, then pauses and turns. “Has Bree Sorensen come by to bully you yet?”
I blink. “Red hair, three doors down? Yeah. She upset our mate just yesterday. How’d you know?”
Mike snorts. “When Hugh and I moved in two years ago, she gave us hell. For someone who loves church so much, she really hates anyone who doesn’t fit her mold. I figured aegis would set her off, too.”
He waves it off. “Don’t let her get to you. She’s just a Karen. Loud, judgy, but harmless.”
When we tell Jo about Mike, she smiles and says we should invite him and his husband to the barbecue she’s planning, once she sets a date.
Life gets bittersweet, torn between joy and tension.
The following week, we drive to Bridgeport to watch an ice hockey game for the first time, and Jo’s buzzing with excitement to introduce us to the sport.
None of us expected to like it as much as we do. The cold air in the arena, the roar of the crowd every time the puck slams into the boards, the tension before a face-off: it’s electric. We don’t know the rules, don’t know the players, but Jo gives quick explanations with glowing eyes and half-yelled commentary between bites of pretzels and sips of cheap beer.
She loves our reactions, how quickly we get into it, how we lean forward during power plays like it actually matters.
But the very next day after the game, she comes home with red eyes again. I’m in the living room when she walks in, so I reach her first, and she starts sobbing the moment she’s in my arms. Jay and Shane rush in seconds later, coming from the back of the house.
We hum for her and let her cry. When the tears finally slow and she can breathe again, she tells us what happened.
“The last patient didn’t even let me finish,” she says, choking on the words. “As soon as I said I’m a nyra, he cut me off and said he didn’t want me playing doctor on him. That he was really sick and needed a real doctor.”
She inhales, deep and unsteady. “I’m so sick of it. More than half of my patients refuse me now. I’m not getting the experience or training I’m supposed to. And even with the ones who do accept me, it’s still hard, because most of the nurses and attendants avoid working with me. And it makes it look like they’re right, like I really am incapable. But I’m not. It’s not because of what I am; it’sbecause they’re making it impossible for me to do my job!”
It feels like my heart is going through a meat grinder. I wish I could track that motherfucker down and beat him to a pulp. I wish I could march into that hospital and spit in the face of every bastard who avoids working with her for no reason but their own stupidity. I wish I could shield her from people like them.
And though I’m ashamed to admit it, I wish I could make her stay home, cared for and protected, instead of going back there every day to deal with all this.
But I can’t.
Jay and Shane are silent too, their entire bodies tense. I can tell they’re just as torn apart as I am, watching her suffer like this and not being able to do a damn thing.
On our next day off, Jo convinces us to drive out to Middlebury to spend the day at the Quassy Amusement & Waterpark.
