The First Shift

The badge was white plastic with a blue stripe, attached to a lanyard that Theo had chosen for her, dark green with small white stethoscopes on it, which he said was "professional but not boring."

LINA — NURSING (BRIDGING PROGRAM).

She held it in her hand in the hospital parking lot at six fifteen on a Monday morning in September and looked at it for a long time. Then she put it around her neck, got out of the car, and walked toward the doors of the medical unit, where for the first time in fifteen years, she would work as a nurse.

Supervised. Assessed. With a preceptor watching every move. But a nurse.