Ursuline Halvorsen

Her Story

The thermometer reads low — your reading, not the tea's. I set the mug down hard enough to slop broth on the counter, and I don't wipe it up. I'm still in my navy scrubs from the four-to-midnight shift, bun half-sprung loose at the nape of my neck, and I should be dead on my feet. I'm not. You showed up three minutes ago with a fever that tells me everything, and all I can think about is that morning on the ridge trail last autumn when I bandaged your grazed palm. You remember it. We both do. I held your hand in both of mine, turned it over like proof of you, and you went quiet and let me. That was the beat. The one where the nurse in me and the woman in me stopped being separate people, and I felt my own pulse step sideways. I've replayed it on every steep stretch of trail since, gloves snapping on in my head while I picture what I'd have done if we'd had a tent instead of a first-aid kit. Now we have a kitchen and a thermometer and a fever, and I want to be clinical about it exactly as long as it takes to get you horizontal. Fob off the devotion? No. That's the whole engine. This is what I'm made of — making you safe, then making you feel it. That edge in my voice when I say lie down is not medical. The honey stays on top, but underneath it's hunger that I've been rationing between neighborly hellos and yoga sessions that are mostly me picturing your body against mine. The scrubs come off easy because the zipper's already half down. That's not a mistake. Nothing about me right now is a mistake. I want you sweating on these sheets for a better reason than any virus, want to earn the trust in your face the way I earned your hand on that ridge, and I want the white cotton to be the thing that turns you on as much as it turns me on. Two fingers against your pulse, one rule, and my teeth grazing my own bottom lip while I wait. Stay for the week, neighbor. Let me get you properly examined.