As confident as Julianne Draper was in her abilities, she did not feel prepared for this day. She’d been talking about taking up a second job for months, and now that it had been realized, she doubted that she was meant for any work involving adults. Gone were the holiday-themed scrubs, in their place a blue-grey set. The color reminded her of yearly checkups and appendicitis as a child, with the prim but kind faces of nurses in army hospitals. As she drove to the VA hospital from her house, her mind filled with memories of the family clinics from her childhood. They were all remarkably similar with big windows and tan brick counters topped with speckled grey laminate or modern steel. They would be bustling with people in uniform or, more commonly, pregnant army wives or exhausted veterans in their decorated baseball caps.

Jules was struck by how much moving forward felt like sliding backward. She’d moved away from Texas so she wouldn’t end up one of those pregnant wives at Fort Bliss or Fort Carson or Fort Benning. She wanted to get away from the constant worry over people she barely knew and the far-away rumbling of training for some disaster or another. She’d moved to California for the distance and to San Francisco because it felt safe. It was a big little town with charming hills and a good view of the ocean. And now she found herself in this place. Training for some disaster or another. Worrying about people she hardly knew. If she allowed herself to fall down the rabbit hole, she would spiral and float until, eventually, someone might take notice.

So she did not allow herself to fall down the rabbit hole.

Instead, she tried to make the best of this. Taking a second job felt so much like a failure. It felt like she’d spent thousands of dollars on an education and, for that, she was promised to work one good job for the rest of her life. But the promises after graduation never took into account things like children or complicated interpersonal relationships or her big little town becoming unconscionably expensive. The people she cared about were quick to tell her that, sometimes, things happened like this. She would always be glad for the cheerleading, but it didn’t make any of it feel any better.

But she wouldn’t allow herself to feel bad.

The Veterans Affairs Medical Center was a breathtaking white building rising stark and angular against a backdrop of lush green hills and infinitely blue sky. Its clean, angular lines gave off the air of importance and elegance that was only enhanced by the carved terracotta panels inset under the windows. From her vantage point at the front of the building, the whole scene was split down the middle by a flagpole, the flag of the United States and the black POW/MIA flag whipping slightly in the early morning bay breeze. It felt important to use this main entrance on her first day, to climb up the labyrinthine steps to the large glass door.

In her nursing career, she’d had many first days, but all of them within the contained environment of UCSF. At 22, she’d started grad school and had her first day in a hospital. She’d cried and vomited in the bathroom, convinced that she would never be as good as the nurses tasked with showing her around. Then there was her first night working in the emergency room when a man came in with a knife wound so deep that his intestines made a brief appearance and it had taken every ounce of professionalism she possessed to push forward with a straight face. Her first day in peds, a baby so fuzzy and new grabbed her finger so tightly that she’d welled up in front of every other nurse on the floor. But she’d grown inside those walls over the last eleven years. She knew every administrator’s name, that the good vending machines were on the third floor, that the maintenance staff finished cleaning the bathroom on her floor at exactly 12:57pm every day, and she could enjoy three whole minutes alone before the next shift came in. She reveled in the familiarity of the hospital, but her shoulders were pushing against the windows now. The longer she had Spider-Woman in the back of her mind, the more she would fear going to work in the morning.

A new start seemed like the most logical next step.

Logic did not, however, always lead to smooth sailing. First days were, by nature, awkward and clumsy. She didn’t know anyone’s name and it had been so long since she’d done the work with which she was tasked that she could not, as she had hoped, just jump into the action. Every hospital had its own system and that was doubly true when dealing with the military. It took nearly three hours before she was deemed able to do the job on her own, which she tried not to view as a slight on her abilities. The work was similar to what she was used to. It was histories and checking vitals. It was preparing things for doctors and making notes. The main difference was, of course, the people. There were things, like the blood pressure cuffs, that seemed too big, and muscle memory had her crouching more than was necessary. It was a relief, though, to be allowed to speak like an adult. To express things like an adult. To be firmer when things needed firmness.

At noon, the head nurse told her to go ahead and take her lunch break, and Jules could not help but stare at the woman in awe. This was a hospital for all intents and purposes, but nothing felt like an emergency. There was time carved out in the day for her to actually sit and take her meal, and Jules did not know what to do with herself. A whole half hour spread out in front of her, stretching out into the horizon. She was used to eating a cup of noodles standing over the break room sink or a small stack of granola bars throughout the day.

After grabbing an apple, a sandwich, and a cup of coffee from the canteen, she wandered out into the well-manicured lawns, settling on a bench looking over the adjacent Battle of the Bulge Memorial Trail. The sun was out, and the nearby fires felt far off and mythical in this place. Occasionally, the breeze would carry the smell of ash to her, but it dissipated just as quickly. Just as anything in her city, this place was not silent, but it was peaceful and she could feel the muscles in her back shake into unfamiliar calm. Even as a man sat next to her, the hiss of his oxygen tank adding to the city’s din, she did not feel intruded upon. This was the nature of hospitals. There were people in every corner, living their lives the best they could. And an old veteran was more than welcome to share this space with her.

“You’re new.” He said it with such gruff authority that she thought she’d wandered into a restricted section of the hospital. Looking over at the man, she was met with an unwavering, curious gaze. She realized almost immediately that the hard-edged tone of his voice was just what happened with age. He smiled, all blue eyes and wrinkles, as she turned her attention to him rather than the scenery.

“Yes, sir, I am. Today’s my first day.”

“You can call me Bill, young lady. Haven’t been a soldier in damn near 70 years. No need to call me sir.”

Jules liked Bill. He reminded her of so many people she knew and cared about. Seeing him there was like taking a glimpse into the future she hoped for. There was a certain petulance against the idea of dying that she’d thought was unique to the old veterans in her childhood, including her own grandfather. Bill could have been her great-grandfather with how young Draper soldiers liked to have children, but the way he looked at her then felt like camaraderie.

“Bill, are you supposed to be out here with that tank? The smoke’s gotta be hell on you.”

“What’s your name, nurse?”

“Julianne Draper.”

“Well, Julianne, we’re all living through a bit of hell, aren’t we? I’m 93 years old. I’m old enough that they’re turning my memories into memorial trails,” he told her, gesturing toward the sign that indicated the trail name. Jules looked at the painted wood sign and back to him, her head tilted. Swallowing hard, she suppressed the urge to ask him the questions that immediately came to mind.

“You can’t miss the things on the news these days,” he continued, leaning back against the bench. “Fires, marches, impeachment, aliens from outer space. We’re all dying faster than we were yesterday, Julianne, so we better take advantage of the things we get when we get them. And today, I got this.”

With a little smile, Jules looked down at her apple core and nodded to him. He was right, of course. It was a lesson she’d tried to teach herself over and over again, and it never seemed to take. The lift in her chest that she felt wasn’t likely to stick around, she knew, but it was nice to take that one moment with some permission.

The pair of them sat in companionable silence until the timer on her phone let her know it was time to head back. Gathering up her things, she looked back over at Bill.

“Come see me for a flu shot next weekend, Bill. We might be dying faster than we were yesterday, but there’s no need to help it along.”

Bill waved her off, a wheezing laugh escaping his lips. She left him where he sat, letting him enjoy the rest of the afternoon light.