Enthralled

capitulo siete

Cairo, Onyx and I were relaxing in my parents' backyard while we waited for my brothers to show up. Ever since Gabe dropped her off in the morning, Cairo seemed down but she wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I had a sneaky feeling that the incident with her teacher was still weighing on her but instead of pushing her, I let her play with our dog while I talked to my parents. My entire family had rallied around me in the last few months and took extra care to include Mahdi and Cairo in family gatherings. My mother in particular loved Cairo almost as much as I did, she treated Cairo the same as her biological grandchildren which made me happier than I could've expected.

The sounds of Cairo's giggles caused me to look in her direction, a smile crept onto my face because she seemed to be getting out of her funk. I could only hope that she would be willing to open up to me later on.

"Natalia, I saw the strike on the news. What's happening at the hospital?" My mother asked me, I turned to her with a conflicted expression.

Things at the hospital had become decidedly more hostile since I had left the night before; this was the second occasion when our hospital had been in the news for mistreating their staff and I feared that it would be the end for them. "We've been complaining about being understaffed for almost a year and their solution was to hire glorified hall monitors that will tell us how to complete tasks in the most efficient way."

"Tally..." My mother gasped, "That's disgusting- I think that it's time for you to look elsewhere mija." She shook her head, no doubt empathizing her fellow nurses.

The thought had been crossing my mind more frequently than ever before, however the thought of my coworkers and the patients being worse off for the loss of another nurse served no other purpose than to unnerve me. I cared too much about what I would be leaving behind; the friends that I'd made and the nurses that I was responsible for in my position... I couldn't quit when things were that bad.

"Mami, por favor!" I groaned, she would be the second person in as many days to mention the topic and I couldn't deal with it. "I just want to have a nice day with the family, we can cross the bridge of the hospital's demise when we get to it."

My father cleared his throat and seamlessly fell into his role as peacemaker. "Your mother is just worried about you, just like I am." He grabbed one of my hands and gave it a squeeze. "But we hear you, all we can do is trust that you know what you're doing."

There was an awkward silence after that as the three of us watched Cairo play with her dog; despite how much I worked on myself, I still found myself slipping away when too many people offered me suggestions. Slowly but surely, I felt myself retreating inwardly as I tried to think about where I could go from there. My role at the hospital meant a lot to me and working there had been my everything since I'd gotten the job; and the truth was that no matter how stressful the environment became, my love for the job never wavered. Regardless of how I felt about the way in which things were being run, the patients were the most important part of the equation- what would happen to them if everyone decided to jump ship? The next hospital was almost an hour away and that could be detrimental for patients who were severely injured or in life-threatening distress. My family and Mahdi weren't wrong to be concerned, though I feared that they could never truly understand where I was coming from because they didn't do what I did for a living.

After a while, my brothers began to arrive with their families and the atmosphere became less tense than it had been. Caiga's son Lucío and Fiyero's daughter Anaís bypassed us all and headed straight towards Cairo and Onyx. Since introducing them to each other two months before, the kids seemed to get along well- Izan's twins were still a bit iffy where Cairo was concerned and stayed close to their parents as they greeted everyone. I had also been trying my best to foster a relationship with the women that my brothers had chosen to do life with, whether they were wives or long-term girlfriends. Selena, Caiga's wife was definitely the mother of the group; she made it a point to include me in conversations and family activities, no matter how many times I had declined in the past. All in all, over the last six months I had become a lot closer to my family and often looked forward to spending time with them. Selena, Valerie, Farrah and Sulani all worked in healthcare in some way or another- Selena was a nurse practitioner who worked at a private practice, Valerie was a CNA while Sulani and Farrah were both paramedics. I came from a family of first responders, and I believed that each member of my family found their significant others through their shared passion for helping others- it was what I focused on when first trying to build relationships with the ladies.