I shoved her out of the way, knowing she was a new nurse and all, but the man she was tending to needed surgery and needed it quickly.
"You have to move or he will die, do you understand?" I told her, not meaning to be so rude, but the brunette woman needed to understand that she had to move quick around the med tent.
Everything was all over the place. My head was swarmed with thoughts and insanity.
All I felt like was a machine. When i would see blood, my hands went for the cotton cloths quicker than my mind could tell them too. I worked endless days, taking out bullets from men, sewing them closed, helping preform surgeries, amputations, and even in the not so rare cases, have to let men go when they're dying.
I was the only nurse that had stayed for longer than a few months in my medical station. Women would come, get scared, then fake pregnancy or demand to leave because they were no real help.
It was horrific work, but it had to be done. Mack needed his house. I couldn't let the bank take it all because he was fighting a war.
The nurses that would come would always ask me how I was able to continue for so long, to continue to have hope on the days were men continued to die left and right, or even on the cold, bitter nights that brought no sleep and relaxation.
It was because I knew I had to be at my ultimate best if just in case Mack or my brothers or the Blythe brothers stumbled upon the tent, needing my help.
It was why going home felt so strange.
Women on the train were doing needle point and knitting or tending to their children.
I was practicing my sutures on an apple because it felt like all I knew after two years of millions of stitches preformed.
The amount of fruit I didn't eat but rather tore apart and put back together on that long train ride home once arriving to Canada again was enough to make men stare at me as if I had nine heads.
I walked the ten kilometres home from the station with my case in hand. I knew my hands were still a light hue of pink even though it had been over a month since I had last saved a life.
Black water looked strange. As if it was dim and quiet. It seemed to be that many of our boys hadn't come home yet.
But I was watched at every storefront window as I walked through town to get to the little side road that led to my cottage house.
The house was dusty, dark and untouched from both Mack and i leaving for so long.
It was why I scrubbed. Well, it was the reason I liked to tell myself. I scrubbed the entire house, cleaned up the yard and stocked the fridge with what little money I could spare because I was anxious.
I was anxious that Mack would come home and tell me he had slept with some French whore in France, and wouldn't love me.
I sat on the front step every day, waiting for Mack.
It wasn't like I could go work anymore. Women were losing jobs left and right as men were coming home and women were wanting to spend time raising children.
So, I would sit and wait everyday until it would get to dark to see if anyone would be coming down the driveway anymore.
I didn't want to scare anyone by telling them I was home and for them to worry about their boys not being home yet.
