A week before her maternity leave ended, Shen Nanxing began lying awake night after night.
Gu Yiming was only a few months old and still woke two or three times during the night. She carried the child back and forth through the living room, her feet touching the floor so lightly that they made no sound. Outside the window, the city lights came on one by one. Her phone screen lit up again and again, displaying six days, five days, and four days until she returned to work.
Her mother-in-law said, “All women are like this. Just tough it out, and it’ll pass.”
Shen Nanxing could tell that her mother-in-law meant no harm, but the words drifted down lightly, turning all her unease into mere fussiness.
She worried that the child could not be without her, and she also worried that she would be unable to keep up with the pace after returning to her department colleagues. The Emergency Department was not a place where one could adapt slowly. Once she stepped into position, no one would make fewer patients come in just because she had recently given birth.
On the day she returned to the hospital department, she deliberately arrived half an hour early.
The nurses' station still looked familiar. Computers, treatment carts, medical record folders, the sound of number calls, and the smell of disinfectant mixed with the aroma of steamed buns drifting over from the morning cafeteria. Yet standing there, she felt a brief sense of unfamiliarity.
Xiao Zhou had already arrived. She was a nurse newly assigned during Shen Nanxing’s maternity leave—young, quick-handed, sweet-tongued, and calling everyone Teacher.
“Teacher Shen, you’re finally back.” Xiao Zhou smiled. “I heard you’re especially steady when inserting needles. You’ll have to teach me from now on.”
Shen Nanxing smiled. “I learned little by little too.”
The head nurse came out of the office. Seeing her, she said in a fairly gentle tone, “Nanxing, you’re back? How is your recovery going?”
“It’s all right.”
“That’s good.” The head nurse flipped through the shift schedule. “Since you’ve just returned, I won’t schedule you for the night shift yet, but the workload on the day shift isn’t light either. The department colleagues are short-staffed lately, so please bear with it.”
Please bear with it.
Those three words were like punctuation she could never get around in her life.
On her first day back, Shen Nanxing was so busy that she did not even have time to drink water. Her body had not fully recovered. Her lower back ached after standing for too long, and her chest was swollen and painfully sore. But she did not dare show it. She was afraid others would say she had become delicate after giving birth, and she was also afraid the head nurse would think she was no longer as capable as before.
A little after ten in the morning, she hid in the changing room to express milk. People walked back and forth outside the door. Sitting on a narrow stool, she listened to the footsteps and call bells outside, feeling anxious and embarrassed. Her mother-in-law sent a video call to her phone. The child lay in a small bed, waving his hands and making indistinct sounds.
Her mother-in-law said, “Look, Yiming is looking for you today.”
Shen Nanxing looked at the screen, and her eyes suddenly grew hot. She wanted to reach out and touch the child, but the phone was cold, and there was nothing she could touch through the screen.
After the video call ended, she straightened her clothes and pushed open the door. She had just reached the nurses' station when a doctor called her over to reestablish intravenous access for an elderly patient. She washed her hands, put on gloves, disinfected the area, and inserted the needle in one fluid motion. The elderly patient looked at her and praised her, saying, “nurse, your hand is really steady.”
Shen Nanxing smiled and said, “Your veins cooperated too.”
In that instant, she felt as if she had returned to her position.
But this position was different from before. She was no longer merely a nurse; she was also the child’s Mom. After work, she had to hurry home at once to feed him, wash the baby bottle, and coax him to sleep. When the child cried at night, she picked him up and soothed him, then went to work the next day with red-rimmed eyes.
Gu Cheng'an was busy too. Whenever she wanted him to hold the child a little longer, he always said, “I have surgery tomorrow. I need to get some sleep tonight.”
Shen Nanxing understood him.
She understood too much, like a piece of clothing washed too many times, slowly losing its original color.
A month after returning to her position, the hospital department held a meeting to praise the young nurses for adapting quickly. The head nurse casually remarked, “It isn’t easy to train newcomers these days. Senior staff also need to feel a sense of crisis. We can’t let family matters affect our work.”
Shen Nanxing sat in the back row, gripping her pen. Its shaft pressed a shallow mark into her fingertip.
She suddenly understood: at home, they felt her work affected her ability to care for the child, while at work, they felt caring for the child affected her work.
Both sides needed her.
Neither side had truly left her any room to catch her breath.