The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,89
Morales, but Gil put out an arm to stop him. Morales kept yelling. “You know which one I mean. Stop screwing with me, man.” Morales was rocking back and forth. He must have been starting to come down from his high.
Gil let Morales calm down for a minute before he asked again, “Can you describe her to me?”
Morales didn’t answer. He was starting to sway in his seat, his glassy eyes fixed on the tabletop. Gil started pacing, then stopped cold as the thought came to him. “Hector, do you mean Mrs. Baca, Melissa’s mother? Maxine Baca?”
Morales smiled. “That’s the bitch.”
Lucy tried to go back to sleep after her bath, but after an hour or two of trying, she gave up. Her shoulders felt better, but she knew that the only way to get rid of the pain was to stop avoiding the problem that was bugging her—Gerald Trujillo. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail and decided to forgo the makeup. She didn’t need to look good to beg for forgiveness and tell him that she was quitting the medic-training program.
She scanned radio stations as she drove, too nervous to settle on one song. She took a couple of deep breaths as she pulled up to the fire station. She had no clue what she was going to say. The only speech she could think of started and ended with “hello.” She opened her glove compartment and rummaged around. She tossed out a windshield wiper and some old insurance papers before she found her EMS pager.
She got out of the car and squinted at the sun as it was making a halfhearted attempt to warm up the January air.
Gerald was in the ambulance bay, sitting at an old desk covered with dust and speckled with grease. As she came in, he looked up but didn’t speak.
Lucy took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t show up yesterday. I know I’m a flake.”
Gerald looked at her, measuring. She continued. “I thought you might want this back.” She held out the pager to him, but he didn’t take it. She shifted on her feet. He didn’t even look mad.
She sighed and decided just to come out with it. “Gerald, how come you’re the only person who can’t see that I suck at being a medic?”
“You remember Earl Rivera?” he said, annoyingly calm.
Lucy was confused. “Yeah. The guy from the car accident on Wednesday. What about him?”
“I saw you with his wife. No one else would go near her because she wouldn’t stop screaming, but you went right up to her.”
“I just wanted her to shut up. She was giving me a headache.”
“You can joke about this all you want, but you were the only one with enough guts to try to comfort her. You really helped her. You have a way with people. You care, and they can tell. That’s all that being a medic is.” Lucy stared at an oil stain on the garage floor, embarrassed. She had never been good at accepting compliments. Gerald got up from his chair and took a few steps toward the office before he stopped and said, “You just refuse to be a grown-up.”
“Wait a second. That’s a little harsh. Just because I can’t do the work …”
“It’s not that you can’t do it. The blood doesn’t scare you. The patients don’t scare you. You were one of the best students in my class when you paid attention. It’s that you refuse to try. If you tried and failed, that would be one thing, but you won’t even try. I have no respect for that.” He walked into the office and closed the door.
“What? You won’t even talk to me about it?” she yelled at the closed door. He didn’t answer. She sighed. Exasperated. She was trying to do the right thing. She was trying to quit. Wasn’t that best for everyone? What did he want from her? She could throw open the office door and confront him. But, to be honest, she was much better at being passive-aggressive. A confrontation would require energy. Passive-aggression just required her to be snarky. And she could be really snarky.
“Fine, Gerald, I’ll keep the damn pager,” she yelled at the closed door. “Here, look, I’ll even turn it on.” The pager made a weird beeping noise as she flipped the switch. He didn’t answer.
Gil had watched as Officer Phillips broke the bad news to Hector Morales: “In your statement, Mr. Morales, you admitted to a felony—selling