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Ellison
When Ellison Williams was a young girl, she wanted to be a hundred different things when she grew up. Any time she heard of something new, even though sometimes she had no idea what that thing was, she wanted to do it. She wanted to be an archaeologist. A pirate. A choir singer. A clothing designer. An actress. A writer. A boy. An heiress. A typist. The last was inspired by her mother. Her mother, with her kind, dark eyes, wrinkled at the corners, and her shadowy-brown hair, pinned back, up and away from her face. Her mother, who worked all day, cooked dinner each night, kept the house maintained in-between, and dedicated every scrap of her free time to her husband and her daughter.
When Ellison thought of her father, it was always hand-in-hand with her religion and faith; the two were almost synonymous. Her father was an intense man, with a heavy brow, thinning hair, and a short boxed beard. He loved his family, and he loved God even more. For her tenth birthday, her father gave Ellie a bible of her own and a small silver cross to be kept in her pocket at all times. For her thirteenth, he performed her baptism, and the whole of their community attended.
Ellie’s father was a bishop at St. Stephen’s Church on East 29th, just a few blocks away from their tidy suburban home. Every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, rain or shine, her parents would take Ellie to her father’s sermons, bracketing her on the sidewalk, their hands warm around hers. On Sunday evenings her father would shed his bishop’s smock to join the congregation, and the family made their walk a second time. All three of them would crowd onto the church’s bench -- up-front, left-hand side, shoulder-to-shoulder -- and listen to Uncle Edward lecture on the values of mercy, corporal and spiritual. Ellie came to enjoy the treks through the bristling summer’s heat or snow-slushed streets over the years, and, later on, as a grown woman, she’d walk everywhere the bounds of practicality would allow for -- even after she’d learned that not all streets were as safe as those spanning the distance between East 33rd and East 29th.
Although her faith in God and His teachings was unwavering, Ellie had never felt as passionate about her religion as her father. She loved God...but she loved her family even more. It was this fact, perhaps ironically, that created a distance between herself and her father as she aged.
If she had to describe it, she might reference the Binding of Isaac. Placed in the same scenario, Ellison had no doubt that her father would have played the part of Abraham without hesitation; his faith in the Lord was boundless. Were she ordered, even by God, to sacrifice any of her family -- to lead them to isolation, to place them upon an altar, to raise a knife for the killing blow -- Ellie had no doubt that she wouldn’t have been able to follow through.
She used to stare up at the three grand, marble altars standing vigil behind the lectern at St. Stephen’s, and up further, where the painting of Christ’s crucifixion spanned most of the back wall. It was the pride of the church, that painting; her father had told her, once, that it had been done by Constantino Brumidi -- back when she was far too young to know the significance of a name.
When Ellie looked at it, though, her eyes weren’t drawn to Christ, or the weeping men and women below him, or the men rolling dice to one side, but to the formless, featureless gray faces melting into the painting’s background. As a little girl, they looked, to her, like forlorn ghosts. The idea stuck with her, even when she had nothing left of her childhood but a handful of nostalgic memories.
As it usually goes, Ellison’s future turned into a reality infinitely less full of adventure and excitement than she had imagined it would be while watching her mother pen letters to her far-away friends in beautiful, looping letters. Her imagination tempered itself with age, as though chagrined it had promised so many wonders when it knew it wouldn’t be able to deliver, and Ellie replaced her fanciful dreams with reasonability and practicality and things more suited to a proper young woman.
And, as she neared adulthood, Ellie put aside her daydreams of adventure and glamor to entertain the more realistic goal of teaching. She could envision herself, years in the future, standing prim and proper before rows of young, doe-eyed boys and girls that would remind her of how she used to be. She would explain the definition of this term or that, how to write it, and, most important of all, how to string words together to express oneself, succinctly and eloquently.
Instead, the year after her graduation from secondary schooling, Ellison became a nurse.
As a girl, she’d imagined herself being so, so many things. A nurse had never been one of them.
Becoming a nurse had never crossed her mind. It had just happened. Ellie discovered, as time marched on, that life was prone to that sort of behavior. What started as a kindness for a friend of her father’s (“Ellison, dear, you ought drop by the hospital some time; the nursing program is quite something.”) became a part-time obligation (“Of course, we’re still terribly understaffed. Not many young women are willing to get their aprons dirty caring for the sick and destitute, I suppose.”), but her apprenticeship under Mrs. Johnson always had always taken priority. At first. It had been her intention that it always would.
On particularly trying days, Ellie wondered. How, exactly, had her life taken such a turn? Surely it had to have been a conscious decision...but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember making it. Maybe it was fate. Destiny? God’s will? She’d certainly never intended to drop her apprenticeship entirely in favor of nursing. Nursing had been a work of mercy, her act of charity towards those less fortunate. She’d never meant for it to become her life.
Her transition from full-time teacher’s apprentice and part-time nurse to part-time apprentice and full-time nurse had happened so gradually, so subtly, that by the time she’d noticed...it was too late to go back. Mrs. Johnson had three other apprentices already, and there were so many at Bellevue who relied on her, who needed her there.
So...perhaps it was God’s will after all.
-----
If Ellison’d ever had any reason to doubt in divine retribution, being assigned the C Ward’s mysterious new John Doe would have reaffirmed her belief in a heartbeat. She was literally on her way to change out of her nurse’s apron, go home, and get some much-needed rest, when she turned a corner and nearly bumped into Doctor Everett Philips. Of course she did. It was just shy of eight in the morning and the end of Ellison’s shift. It wasn’t often that she left work early (even by a few minutes), but it’d also been a very harsh day, and she’d been hoping to avoid...well...exactly this.
“Ah, Miss Williams! There you are!” The too-tall, lanky doctor looked down at her with a pleasantly-surprised smile, his hazel eyes unusually bright for a man who had been on the clock at least twice as long as Ellie. Apprehension coiled in the nurse’s stomach; a doctor looking for her could only mean one thing.
God’s will, Ellie.
“Yes...yes sir?” Ellison tried to return the man’s expression, even if she didn’t share his energy. She smoothed her hands over her apron, trying to press away the wrinkles and faint smell of sick. She had long since given up on her hair, which had started the day sitting pretty beneath her too-white hat, and had been hanging in dark, sullen curls against her cheeks for the last hour and a half at least. “You need me for something?”
“Yes, actually...if it’s not too much trouble.” A file had been tucked under his arm, and as he spoke, Philips transferred it to his hand...but he seemed hesitant to actually hand it to Ellie. His gaze swept over her, and his smile faded a bit as he took her in. Ellie tried not to shift under the scrutiny; if Philips’ own ginger-blond hair was still, by some miracle, as neatly-coiffed as it had been when he began his shift, it was only because his work was less labor-intensive. Ellie had no reason to be embarrassed by her own...dishevelment. “Er. Is...it...?”
She went ahead and got embarrassed anyway. “Of course not,” she said, perhaps a bit louder than necessary. “Not at all. What do you need, Doctor?”
God’s will.
“Hm. If you’re certain...” Philips didn’t seem too swayed, but he offered her the file, regardless. “A John Doe was brought in about half an hour ago -- apparently washed up in the Bay. A bunch of dockworkers say they found him, but none of them were able to identify him, and he hasn’t regained consciousness since he arrived. Anyway, we need someone to get him admitted and type up his paperwork.”
“I’ll take care of it, sir. Where is he now?”
“I believe Adrien -- ah, Doctor Cole -- said he was sending him over to C Ward.” The doctor’s lips quirked, briefly. “He shouldn’t be too hard to find. The papers are trying to make a bit of a celebrity out of the ‘mystery man’ before he gets a chance to wake up and explain everything.”
Ellison opened the file and frowned at the notes she found there, taken during the preliminary examination. The man was...certainly mysterious.
“...You think he’ll wake up?” she asked, looking up.
“There’s no reason he shouldn’t,” Philips said. “We didn’t find a single thing wrong with him in the exam, aside from old scars and the lack of response. Ideally, all he needs is some time to recover. Cole and Doctor Delaney will be keeping their eyes on him, and we’ll have a nurse on-watch to note any changes. Now, ah, if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have a patient waiting.”
“Oh, of course,” Ellie ducked her head in apology. “Please, don’t let me keep you, Doctor. I’ll head over to C Ward right away.”
Philips flashed another oddly-bright smile. “Thank you, Miss Williams,” he said, and with a small gesture of farewell, turned and headed back around the corner.
Ellison was left with a file full of notes in barely-legible doctor’s handwriting, a new patient, and at least another few hours’ worth of work. This would teach her to skirt her duties, she supposed.
She tucked her hair beneath the brim of her hat and went back to work.
God’s will indeed.
Author's Note
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