My life hasn't turned out the wafy I expected.

I'm sure everyone's thinking that these days, and I know I'm not special. And that I have more important things to worry about. Like how I'm going to treat Mrs. Hutchinson's bronchitis without antibiotics. What will happen to my patients when we run out of fuel completely and I can't even see them in the darkness. How to stop my mother-in-law from working herself into the ground.

She'd laugh, I'm sure, if she knew I was worrying about that because she says the same about me. She thinks I'm working too hard, spending too much time at the clinic, not enough time preparing my own body for what's coming. I don't know how to tell her that I want to be here, more than anything. Being useful, helping my patients, doing the job I've wanted to do since I was a little girl treating my dolls and teddy bears for scarlet fever.

My father used to get a big kick out of that. He'd say, “April's going to save the world.” When my parents threw dinner parties, they'd tell their guests about their up and coming little doctor. My parents had lots of doctor friends, and they always smiled and encouraged me. They never told me how hard it would be, how much messier and less fulfilling it would be to have patients dying on me. Not that I couldn't handle that part, when the time came. I worked in an ER during my residency. I've seen plenty of things go wrong. But I liked working at the med centre here in Jericho, taking care of people, sending them back out into their community. I usually had more victories than failures.

Medical school never prepared me for this. No one is prepared for this I guess, much as my brother-in-law would have us believe he is. But everyone does what they can with what they have. That's why I'm here as much as I can be. This is my area of expertise, and this is my way of helping, surviving, and living. I would rather be here than anywhere, listening to heartbeats, diagnosing patients, making do with whatever I can find.

Maybe, just a little bit, I want to stay here and avoid thinking about everything else. I know I shouldn't think about those things that can keep me from moving on with my life. It's pointless and doesn't do anyone any good. If I were to stop and let myself feel all the things that have gone wrong this year, how my life has fallen to pieces, I don't know if I could keep going. I might not get up again. Staying here, this place I claimed long ago as my own, keeps me from thinking too much about my beautiful house – the dining room set my parents gave me as a wedding present, the study where I'd set up my lifetime collection of books, my niece's drawing that was still on the fridge when the kitchen burned, the half finished decorating job Eric and I had inflicted on the basement that first year we lived there. I don't hold onto these things anymore, they've changed and turned to dust.

As I stack charts and search the supply closet for the millionth time in case there's something I've missed, I keep myself from thinking about Eric. How much I'd like to take this syringe and jam it into a major artery. It's a good thing for him, then, that he never comes around here. I know, I would never actually harm Eric. Or make a scene. We're both too civilized to let this situation spill over onto everyone else in town who needs us. I can't let his betrayal keep weighing on me while I'm trying to save people's lives. Even if it's unfair. Even if he's actually 'happy'. The world ends and he gets all interested in 'happiness' all of a sudden. And no matter what I do or say, no matter what I've given him already and no matter what I would still have given him, it's not with me. It's with her. I can't even say her name. If I let myself, I could hate her. More than I've hated anyone on this Earth. Even more than him. He's the one who promised to be with me in sickness and in health, but she's the one who's stolen what was supposed to be mine.

It's not that she's stolen Eric. She can have him. He doesn't love me, he made that clear. I'm not a masochist. She can love him to death for all I care. It's not about me anymore.

I always wanted kids. When I wasn't pretending to be a doctor, fixing my dolls' bruises and my teddy bears' broken limbs, I was playing 'mommy'. In first year I did an observation round in obstetrics. It took a little to get used to, the screaming and tearing and complications that arose, but I saw the mothers' faces when they saw their babies for the first time. I tried to imagine what it was like, having this little being you were so close to, had lived with for nine months, but finally seeing a face, hearing a voice, for the first time.

I want it to be a simple, happy moment for us too. Even though life has gone to hell all around us, our house is a pile of ashes, and Eric's off with his bartender. I still want our first meeting to be just as it would have been, if the world hadn't ended, if the med centre was fully operational, if things were certain or at least hopeful when I consider the future my son or daughter will have.

Is it bad to admit I'm scared? I'm so scared but I can't tell anyone. My world is full of people I can't bring myself to worry and people I can't bring myself to hate. I'm afraid every day of what will happen when the med centre runs out of power, what will happen when our town runs out of food, who they will want to save and who won't matter anymore. I'm afraid for this baby, growing inside me, and I'm afraid of what's coming. I want to do it all myself, but I'm afraid. It's going to hurt like nothing else on Earth and then I'll be all alone, with this little baby, and what will I give her?

 Sometimes I'm angry at myself. What was running through my head that night with Eric? He and I haven't, in months, and then that night, after the fallout had cleared and we went back to our house...I know of course, I can't think this, not now. I didn't know about her. I didn't know Eric would get up and leave. I didn't think the bed, the carpet, and the wallpaper would soon be gone in a blaze of smoke. And of course, I don't regret the outcome. I don't.

When I was a little girl, I took gymnastics. My first competition, I fell off the balance beam. I put on a brave face, but when I came home that night, I found my father in his armchair and I climbed onto his lap. I remember leaning against his shoulder and asking my Daddy, “Why does it have to be so hard?”

I'm not a little girl and I have no father. I am a doctor and I am still doing everything I can to save people. But sometimes I wish I could ask someone, “Why does it have to be so hard?”

My life hasn't turned out the way I expected.

I never listened much when my grandmother talked about karma, but as I slave away in this backwater clinic, I can't help but think I'm being punished for something I did.

If my sister were alive, she would probably think it funny, that I finally make it to America after so many years of threatening to go somewhere else and make my fortune, and a few months after I get there, the land of opportunity turns into Dante's inferno. I'm sure my sister wouldn't really have laughed at my misery, but she had quite an appreciation for irony.

I suppose I should really be cheerful. I was in a much worse position right before I found myself in Jericho, Kansas. I surely wouldn't have lasted much longer in Rogue River, or Vegas for that matter. I suppose I should be thankful each morning that Jake and Eric Green arrived in their getaway car. I should be grateful, but the misery of life just outweighs these small victories of each of us insignificant people.

In the miserable day to day drudgery, I easily forget to be pleased with anything. The mere fact of being alive and the sacrifices another poor soul made for me don't make up for the fact that I came here for the life of luxury I never had back home. I didn't always know I wanted to be a doctor, like some people do. I didn't put a lot of thought into that as a youth, though I did sometimes fantasize about being wealthy, or adored by many. I was good in school, and often got asked if I was planning on medicine or law. My uncle was a lawyer and quite insufferable, so I decided to opt for medicine. I had grand and glorious visions of working in a first rate facility, surrounded by adoring colleagues and hitting hot night spots with a throng of gorgeous women. No doubt, this was because I'd caught too many episodes of my grandmother's favourite soap opera. What I remember most from my years of residency is florescent scenes of panic and pain, wet sidewalks, and irate patients. But I became a plastic surgeon and set my sights on a much better life in the Mecca of North America, Las Vegas. I saw the lights from the plane and knew I'd come to the right place to realize my hopes and fantasies.

It was good, the first few months. Then the bombs. My friends had all warned me before I left, jokingly, about America being a perpetual target. I laughed it off. Did they not remember the subway bombings? Worry over an attack wasn't a reason to stop yourself from living. But now, as I stumble through each day in this godforsaken place, I wonder how exactly it is that I am living.

Today is particularly bad. The unthinkable has happened, the bar is out of alcohol, and Gail Green saw me walking down the street earlier and convinced me to accompany her to the clinic. Apparently they are so desperate for hands they'll make do with my help. I can barely think through the pounding in my head and I've already been kicked by a child. I never did such demeaning chores in Las Vegas, but I have just accepted a pile of linens to be stacked on a cart. For whatever wrongs I committed to lead me to this place and time, I walk down the hallway, searching for the linen closet.

When I finally find it, after receiving wrong directions from a nurse's aide, I pause to pinch the bridge of my nose. This pain isn't going away. All around me I hear the sounds of disease. Coughing, moaning, the sounds I left Hillingdon to escape. And of course, crying.

But the crying is coming from inside the closet. It's soft, I'm surprised I can hear it through this headache, but it's steady, rhythmic and wrenching. You would think I would be annoyed, that I am about to discover a patient in the closet and now I'll have to deal with something besides coughing or kicking. But that sound. I can't keep myself from opening the door.

I do it slowly, carefully, and I peer inside. It is so dark, at first all I see is the linen cart. Then, by the light spilling in from the hallway, I see the figure crouched beside the cart. Her hair catches the light and it is red.

I realize too slowly that it is Dr. Green. The last time I saw her was weeks ago, standing across her father-in-law's bed, an intimate family scene. Somehow, I feel I've disturbed a far more private moment now. She's covered her face with her hands, and I know the polite thing to do would be to shut the door quickly and retreat back to the bar. I want to do that and a voice in my head is shouting, warning me to get away from this desperate crying.

For some reason I'm reminded of the time Sheena Lawson's father died. We were eleven, and we lived down the hall from each other. I picked a bouquet of flowers from my mother's window box and presented them to her. She didn't want them, she told me to leave her alone and I still remember how she looked with her runny nose and red eyes. No good can come of confronting a crying person.

Yet I am rooted to the spot. She's stopped herself from sobbing out loud, and is obviously trying to gain composure. She chokes out “I'll be there in one minute, Margo -”

She thinks I'm the nurse's aide. I could get away right now without making this worse. I don't know why I open my mouth. “Are you alright, Dr. Green?”

She is turned towards the back wall and still has a hand over her eyes, but I see her freeze. Very slowly she turns to face me and lowers her hand, glancing at me as quickly as she can manage. “Kenchy? Dr. Dhuwalia, I-” She is struggling, and quickly forcing her voice to become professional but it still has a raw edge. “I was just – what are you doing here?”

I look down at my hands as she attempts to hide her face in the darkness. “I was asked to come help. Is there anything I can do for you?”

She might be surprised but she is quick to answer, “You can check in with Gail, she has a list of my patients who need to be monitored-”

She's giving me an easy out, and I should take it. I step slowly and carefully into the doorway instead. “But, Dr. Green, is there anything I can do for you?”

The unthinkable has happened. I've been caught. I thought I could hide in here, but now, of all people, Kenchy Dhuwalia is standing over me, blocking the light.

I want to be unshakable. A rock. This isn't working.

I don't know how to get him to leave and he's still standing there. I feel like I'm broken on the floor, bare, and he can see every part of me as I lie bleeding.

He still hasn't gone. I struggle to speak. What to say? “Please,” I hear myself say. Part of me is watching from somewhere else, and disappointed in the feeble sound my voice makes. I had meant to say, “Please go back out there and pretend you haven't seen anything.” I can't get past the first word.

He looks right at me, looks me in the eye, and even though it's dark in here, I know he can see my expression. He looks, and he turns and walks out.

I let out a huge sigh and wipe at my eyes in slow motion. I hadn't planned to end up in here twenty minutes ago, but ten minutes ago, in between Mr. Nelson's cold and Zoe Rennie's sore throat, I felt this wave. I don't know what else I'd call it, not quite pain, not quite any feeling I can name. I thought of everything all at once. My father, my family, Eric and her, all of them and everyone out there, and my child. A wave coming over me, swallowing me up. I bit my lip hard and ducked in here. I thought no one was looking.

Crying didn't help. It's still coming, lots of little waves now, hitting me again and again. But I can't let it, I have to stand up, go back out there. Everything's become so heavy now, I don't want to move, but I have to.

The door's opening again. I prepare to hide my face and make an excuse for being in here but it's him again. He didn't understand after all. He shuts the door behind him, and pulls the switch for the light bulb, a waste of precious power. I don't want him to see my eyes and my cheeks. They feel swollen, they must look worse.

He is crouching beside me now and handing me something. A cup of water. “I couldn't find any tissue,” he says, apologetically.

I am surprised. I take a sip of water, concentrating on swallowing.

She is beautiful. I shouldn't admit that that is the first thing that comes to my mind when I see her in the light, but it is true. Her hair is beautiful, her skin is beautiful, and her face, the lines that make up her expressions, are beautiful.

She also looks like a disaster. Her nose is running and her eyes are turning red. It's not only that, she's obviously fighting some kind of war with herself, and it looks like she is losing.

She should be irritating me. Women like her usually do. I barely noticed her that first time I met her but I remember her neat collar. I'd just come back from hell on Earth at that hospital, and she was neatly checking her father-in-law's vitals. I was in far too much of a walking coma myself to notice much else, even her hair, but I remember the way her collar sat, wrinkle free.

Today her hair is disheveled and she wears an old sweater. And she looks as though her heart is breaking. I have no idea why this beautiful woman should feel heartbroken, and my head is still killing me, but for some reason I kneel in front of her. Perhaps I'm just a masochist.

“Rough day?” I ask.

She is stunned, taken aback. I don't know why. She nods, but does not speak.

“I had a child kick my shins,” I say, hoping she might laugh. “First time in years. It helps when you choose to specialize in plastic surgery.”

She smiles politely. It seems to take her effort.

“Of course, I once had a patient disappear between surgery and recovery. The anesthesia wore off quickly and he wandered away while some unfortunate nurses were too involved in their discussion about the true nature of the Island on Lost.”

She smiles a little more, with a little less effort. Her eyes are still woeful.

“So what's your worst in-the-trenches story?” I ask. “Can you beat me?”

She sighs. “I guess this is it.”

I take it as a good sign that she speaks. “This is it? Well, I'd say you're pretty lucky than. Much better off than the hospital I was first signed on at here, we didn't have water or electricity, forget about powering a generator with townspeople's gas.”

Her face has gone absolutely still. Her eyes are in motion, and I can see she's fighting again. I'm not sure what is about to unleash from her and my instincts say to move back. Somehow, I fight my instincts.

“Yeah, water's good, I guess,” she says finally.

“Try living without it,” I say, attempting once again to lighten the mood.

He doesn't know. He must be the only person in Jericho who doesn't know by now. He would have no doubt that this is my worst moment if he did. Everyone else looks so carefully at me, and I'm the woman they pity and the woman they don't want to be. I can tell, when people know, every time I venture out into town. I sometimes wonder if I was the last person in town to know what I was. I want to think I'm still just me, but I know that as soon as people find out, I become something else. I become the victim. I don't want to be. I fight it with everything I have left.

It's hard, being this vigilant, and I want to tell someone how tired I am. And here is someone who is asking for my worst story, he wants in on the misery, because he doesn't know. I don't know how to answer him.

Somehow I wonder in the midst of all this what he's doing here. I haven't seen him in weeks. I heard he spends most of his time in the bar. No one wanted to tell me this, they think I can't handle hearing them mention her, but I heard anyway. He's sitting close enough that I can smell his breath, which is quite strong to me. But I don't smell alcohol. I wonder what exactly is going on in town as I spend my days avoiding everything here.

“What are you doing, Kenchy?” I ask.

He looks slightly taken aback. It seems as though I should understand, from the wild gestures he's almost making. “I heard you and I didn't mean to intrude but-”

“No, what are you doing at the med centre?” I ask. “What's the occasion?”

“Oh, someone thought I could be of some help.”

I am silent, but I am fairly certain I know who strong-armed him into coming here. I'm just not certain how she got to him. As far as I know, she's avoiding the bar as much as I am.

He's looking at me still, with these serious, steady eyes, and in my tired, embarrassingly weepy state, I'm staring back at him.

He slowly touches my arm. I think he is going to pat it, in a show of solidarity, or run his hand down it, a misguided selection from the hierarchy of affectionate gestures. Instead, he leaves his hand there, his fingertips nearly touching my shoulder, his palm soft against my sleeve. I feel a shock, though I remain entirely still. It's surprising. I do not shake him off, affect an uncomfortable laugh at his temporary misstep or get offended by unprofessional decorum. So often, I feel that people are keeping from getting too close to me, as if I'll topple over and break if they're moving around me, or my misfortunes will rub off on them. I don't know how many people have looked me in the eye lately and I know almost no one touches me.

I just sit still, even though this is dangerous. This is how people get hurt, when they let themselves depend so much on someone else's touch or eyes. Even for a second, even with Dr. Dhuwalia, the last person on Earth I'd expect to find myself staring at. Yet I am still staring.

I don't register that my hand is on her at first. It's like I've forgotten. Who do I touch anymore? Patients with coughs, dead people, soldiers. It is never like this anymore. The wool of her sweater is thick under my palm, but I imagine I feel warmth coming from her skin too. It is too calming a feeling to take my hand away immediately, as I should. Instead, I look at her eyes.

I wish I could look anywhere else, but I can't. I feel as though I am witnessing a moment that wasn't meant to be seen by anyone, a thousand tales of woe and triumph, all caught up in that space between her eyes and mine. I should have broken away long ago but I haven't yet.

She looks, her eyes staring steadily, blinking, shuddering, until she finally looks down and I hastily let my hand drop. She shifts in her spot on the floor, drawing her arms into herself. I stand up too, clearing my throat and averting my eyes as she brushes her cheekbones with the back of her hand. The air in the closet feels stifling and thick now, and I shift my weight back and forth on my feet, swinging my hands in front of me and finally folding them together.

“Well, I guess I should...” I don't finish the thought, but that doesn't seem to matter. Neither of us has spoken even a half of what we are thinking since I came in here. I am not looking right at her now, but I can see her nodding, through the blurred lowest quadrant of my vision.

I should already be walking away but I can't help turning around again. “Dr. Green, are you certain there's nothing -”

“I'm fine,” she says quickly, whispering in a lower tone, “Thank you.”

I stuff my hands in my pockets, still not looking, bobbing my head. I turn to walk away again. It seems as though each step takes an eternity but I am soon reaching for the door knob.

I am preparing to brave the world out there again, the children and coughing and crying and headaches, my hand on the metal, when I hear her. “Kenchy.”

I am surprised but my body turns naturally. I look at her.

She is kneeling, sitting up, dignified as her eyes swim. “Do you think maybe...”

We are both silent for a moment. It's another unfinished thought we both understand. I stand still for a moment of hesitation, though we both seem to know what I will do next. I cross the small floor again, crouch beside her, and wait.

It all comes rushing out of me. The things I have been working so hard to contain, the waves I've braced myself against. I fought against it, but I can't seem to remember why now as I hear the words tumbling from my lips in a voice that is anguished and passionate but not broken.

I don't speak of specifics. I don't tell him about my memory of my father's lap, of the bartender I'd like to claw in the face, the mother-in-law who I simultaneously cling to and feel smothered by, the baby I haven't met yet who already holds my heart in her hands and scares me to death. And Eric. I don't speak of them.

I tell him instead of the mourning I feel for the world we've lost. The fears gnawing at me every day when I let myself imagine what could be coming next. The overwhelming sadness I'm trying to face like an adult, even as I miss the comforts of days gone by.

I don't expect him to agree or understand, but he offers his own lamentations to match mine. He speaks sadly too, of everything that is no more, in a world he once barely dared to take pleasure in. He agrees that the picture he has of the future is terrifying and even he, a self-proclaimed cynic, refuses to look directly at that picture most of the time. He is wistful as he remembers those comforting earlier years, and he gives me tiny details. His grandmother's cake, his lunch box when he was seven and imagining a future in race-car driving, the girl downstairs he took to the movies and touched, clumsily, in the dark.

He doesn't offer consolations or words of hope. I am grateful. I get these every day and they do nothing to stop the waves. He chuckles softly, sighs dolefully, leans back in our cramped space on the floor, and stays there as I face the truth that my life as I had planned it has disappeared. The steady tracks I'd envisioned out ahead of me for so long have been swallowed by the earth, replaced with shards of glass and barbed wire, pits to fall into and snakes in my path. I haven't wanted to face this, not once, since this leg in the journey has started. I had, in the back of my mind, the thought that to put this into words would sound self-pitying. I think now that perhaps it was also that I was determined not to let this truth hit me fully, to not feel the hurt of it so completely. I'm not sure that strategy has worked. It hasn't hit me full on, but I've felt it welling up inside me all the same.

It doesn't matter now, as I speak out loud. It doesn't sound pathetic, cloying, or any of the things I worried when I forced myself to hide. It is just real, what is true right now. He does not try to disguise this or make it better. He lets me feel it and face it.

I lose track of time, of space, of myself. I do not know how much later it is when I find myself leaning against the wall, hip to hip with him, our arms and hands occupying the space between us with an easiness I would never have expected. I am laughing at something he said, though I lose track of what that is too. He is smiling, ruefully, and absently he is brushing his thumb over the back of my hand. In this moment, it seems like the most common thing to remark to myself.

I sigh, with ease, and absently lift my hand to wipe more tears from my face. They have been there for several minutes. He raises his hand instead, smoothing his fingertips over my cheek and gently turning my face, cupping my chin in his hand. What happens next seems natural too. He leans towards me slowly, crossing the last bit of space between us. His lips touch my cheek, right along the trails my tears made. It is one kiss, and he breathes softly as he slowly moves away again.

This has all happened slowly, but as I realize what has happened, I move quickly, surely. I reach for him with both my hands, pull his face towards mine, both of our bodies meet in the small space on the floor. I am not thinking about anything as I kiss him, wrap my arms around him, lean in completely and breathe. I only feel.

It is comfortable and free and exhilarating and consoling and I lose track of how long we are there, with no space between us, in the dark, small closet.

Later, I will think that April Green is strange, a puzzle I must figure out. Later still, I will miss her. And years later, I will think back to this moment, at odd, unexpected times. After our long moment in time, talking and crying and kissing and holding each other in the dark, I didn't think much about anything. I will remember the moment we sat, leaning against the wall, staring at the other wall, breathing in silence the next day when I am expected to drag myself away from the bar and come back to work. For now, I think of nothing.

It could have been ten minutes, three days, or a lifetime, and I wouldn't know. It is her who eventually suggests out loud that she needs to go back out there. I resist the temptation to touch her red hair, touch her cheeks, reassure her. I see that this is no longer the time. She is standing, straightening her clothes, attempting to put on her professional face again. I must stand too and go back to whatever activities I am supposed to have begun to fill my life in this world. I stand reluctantly, and she suddenly worries about how it will look if we exit the closet together. The outside world is back, before we are even in the hallway of unsuspecting townspeople. I retreat towards the shelves of linens, offering her the first exit. I do not know whether to thank her, offer words of encouragement, or fumble through some kind of speech about hope. She nods to me and it seems we don't need any more words. She opens the door a crack and slips out. Her hair hits the light for a moment and is gone, a flash of red in the black around me.

I don't glimpse her again as I make my exit a few minutes later. Though my eyes are searching for her hair amidst the white walls and dull scrubs and hospital gowns, I don't expect to see her. The April Green I saw this afternoon is rare. She has slipped back inside Dr. Green now, and is no doubt busying herself with patients, charts, missing equipment and saving the world. I doubt I will ever see the rare April Green again, and as I walk down the hall, ready to accept another demeaning task from a volunteer, I feel a slight sting inside me. I shake it off. I will be glad to get back to the bar, to what I know of this world, my familiar stool and scalding drink.

I am quickly listening to heartbeats and coughs as though nothing out of the ordinary has intruded on my day. I may try to make sense of everything that has happened later, but this will all work better if I continue like nothing has changed. I will keep surviving, keep protecting everything I care about, if I can keep going as I normally do. The waves have subsided, and for that, I am grateful. I try not to question it as I go about my day, apologising to Zoe Rennie for taking so long and taking charge as the volunteers wrestle with an injured ten-year-old. I do everything as I've always been taught, steadily, unblinkingly, and I don't find myself thinking about Dr. Dhuwalia until the end of the day.

I see him pass by me as I finish filling out my last chart. He doesn't see me, and it is for the best. He shared my tide of troubles but he doesn't know of the messy future awaiting me, my baby, my cheating husband, his bartender. Those are mine, and I must handle them. He is no doubt on his way to the bar right now, and like that, our worlds are no longer in the same orbit. It is natural and what I expect.

I find myself thinking about this as I walk down the hall, to retrieve my coat from the office and prepare to brave the walk home. I try to put the thought out of my head and concentrate on the evening to come. It is no good to worry about these things that are no longer a part of my life's orbit. Only what is present, here and now.

There is a pain in my stomach now, and my hand rests there. One ache among many. Keeping my hand over it as I go into my office, I don't let myself think about what it could mean. I am tired, it has been a strange day, and I feel the same effects of this long winter without resources that everyone else feels. I step over to my couch and sit down, swinging my feet up and leaning back. Both my hands rest over my belly now, and I try to send positive thoughts, in waves, towards it. I close my eyes and try not to think about all those things I spoke about in the closet earlier. I try to hold onto the calm I felt as I left it instead.