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surprise,” Molly said without opening her eyes on the couch, where she lay like a slug. “If the Water Mother had just said right off, ‘Hey, I have a one-kilo preemie in my pocket,’ I probably wouldn’t have hyperventilated. But she was too busy trying to redesign my face with a flensing knife.”
    â€œA face which is going to need some attention,” Sasha said.
    Molly waved her off. “Right after I start breathing again.”
    Sasha just watched her for a moment. “You’re not going to save them all, ya know. You’re probably not even going to save most of them. Which most of them might just thank you for.”
    A sentiment Molly would do well to cross-stitch and hang over her locker. But not one she needed to hear right now, especially when she was trying so hard to keep herself together all by herself. To cram the old memories safely away where they belonged, but where they refused to stay during Christmastime.
    â€œYou really are much more fun to live with in October,” Sasha admitted, as if she could hear Molly’s thoughts.
    â€œI told you,” Molly admitted wearily. “My regression festivals are scheduled every Christmas and summer. I wet the bed and throw tantrums.” She sighed. “And I have a little more trouble dealing with kids.”
    She had a little more trouble dealing with everything. She had ever since her halcyon days in Vietnam half a lifetime ago, but she’d been managing pretty well until the last eighteen months or so. In that time, she’d forfeited her savings and the job she’d held at one of the more posh St. Louis County hospitals to a malpractice suit, and she’d lost her psychiatrist to suicide. Now she had two jobs, no money, and a once-again precarious hold on her peace of mind.
    But then, she also had the friends she’d found when she’d been relegated to the battered old halls of the Grace Hospital ED in downtown St. Louis, and a new sense of purpose in her second job as part-time death investigator for the city Medical Examiner. For the moment, though, stability was still something that she’d relegated to “mirage in the distance” status.

    But heck, she’d survived before. She could do it again. She just didn’t feel like doing it at Christmas.
    Or summer.
    Or around two-pound preemies.
    â€œI think I should retire, Sash.”
    Sasha even had an elegant snort. “And do what? Play death investigator full time? Even with all those buff young police to dally with, you’d be bored in a minute.”
    â€œAt least it would be easier,” she retorted.
    As death investigator, her job was to filter the notifications of death throughout the city. Report the naturals and show up at the unnaturals to examine and take control of the body before seeing it safely back to the morgue, where the Medical Examiner would take over. Help organize the information if the case had to move toward trial.
    Time consuming, yes. Detail-intensive, sometimes emotionally exhausting, since the death investigator usually notified families in the bad cases. But not dangerous. Not overwhelming. Not ever out of control, which trauma always was.
    Molly sighed again, her attention on the Olsen Twins poster somebody had tacked to the ceiling and then redesigned with glued-on feathers, sequins, and G-strings.
    â€œI’m tired,” she said. “I’m old. I’m too cranky to be empathetic anymore.”
    Sasha lifted an eyebrow. “And the problem is?”
    Molly had to grin.
    â€œPlease don’t expect me to be your cheerleader,” Sasha all but begged. “You know I find it distasteful.”
    â€œYou’re charge nurse. It’s your job.”
    â€œBalancing the staff like a circus juggler and not massacring the doctors is my job. Yours is to come to work so I have someone worth talking to.”
    Molly didn’t bother to look over, even for such a