This was where she belonged, who she was. Here, she would find a path through her grief.
She went to the front desk, where a bouffant-haired young woman greeted her with a smile and pointed the way to the director of nursing’s office on the second floor.
Frankie’s hand on the briefcase’s leather handle was damp. This was only her second real job interview. Military recruitment didn’t count. She knew that she looked young—was young, at least chronologically.
She found the office she was looking for, two doors down from the elevator on the second floor. Outside of it, she stopped, took a breath.
No fear, McGrath.
Standing tall, shoulders back, chin up, as she’d been taught by her parents and the nuns at St. Bernadette’s, she walked up to the door that read MRS. DELORES SMART, DIRECTOR OF NURSING, and knocked.
Mrs. Smart looked up from the work on her desk. She had a round face with bright red cheeks and wore her gray hair in old-fashioned pin curls that lay flat against her head.
Behind her, a large window overlooked the parking lot. “Mrs. Smart? I’m Frances McGrath. Here for an interview.”
“Come in,” the older woman said, indicating the empty chair in front of her desk. “Your résumé?”
Frankie sat down, took the folder out of her briefcase, and slid it across the desk.
Mrs. Smart read it. “St. Bernadette’s,” she said. “Good grades.”
“I graduated at the top of my nursing school class at the San Diego College for Women.”
“I see that. You worked for a couple of weeks at St. Barnabas. Night shift.”
“Yes, but as you can see, I just returned from Vietnam, ma’am, where I was an Army nurse for two years. I worked my way up to surgical nurse, and—”
“You are hardly trained for surgical assistance,” Mrs. Smart said crisply. She pushed her glasses up and stared at Frankie. “Can you follow instructions, Miss McGrath? Do as you’re told?”
“Believe me, ma’am, the military demands it. And my Vietnam training has made me an exceptional nurse.”
Mrs. Smart tapped her pen on the desk as she read and reread Frankie’s résumé. Finally, she said, “Report to Mrs. Henderson at the first-floor nurses’ station Wednesday at eleven P.M. for your first night of work. Tilda in the office next to mine will set you up with a uniform.”
“You’re hiring me?”
“I’m putting you on probation. Eleven P.M. to seven A.M.”
“The night shift?”
“Of course. It’s where all beginners start, Miss McGrath. You should know that.”
“But—”
“No buts. Do you want to work here?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. See you Wednesday.”
* * *
On her first day of work, Frankie dressed in a starched white uniform with an apron, thick white stockings, and comfortable white shoes. The nurse’s cap sat on her teased, precision-cut bob like a flag of surrender. In ’Nam, in the shit, it would have fallen into some patient’s gaping ab wound, or been splattered with blood.
She arrived ready to work, was shown to her locker and given a key. At precisely 2300 hours, she reported to the night charge nurse, Mrs. Henderson, an elderly woman in white who had a face like a bull terrier’s, complete with whiskers.
“Frances McGrath, ma’am, reporting for duty.”
“It’s not the Army, Miss McGrath. You can just say hello. I hear you have almost no hospital experience.”
Frankie frowned. “Well. Civilian, maybe, but I was in Vietnam at a mobile—”
“Follow me. I’ll get you started.”
The charge nurse walked fast, her shoulders squared, her chin tucked in, her head on a swivel. “You are on probation, Miss McGrath. I assume Mrs. Smart relayed this information to you. Our patients are important to us and we strive to offer the highest caliber of care, which means, of course, that nurses who know next to nothing do next to nothing. I will tell you when you can treat actual patients. For now, you may help patients to the restroom, refill their water, change bedpans, and man the phone at the nurses’ station.”
“But I know how—”
Another hand held up for silence.
“Here’s the emergency room. You’ll see everything here—from a heart attack to marbles stuck up a kid’s nostril.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good sign. Politeness. Nowadays, most girls your age act like feral dogs. My granddaughter dresses like a vagrant. Follow me. Keep up. This is the surgical ward. Only highly trained surgical nurses work here.” She kept going on her tour of the hospital.