Excerpt from How Can I Help You by Laura Sims, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I hadn't meant to say what I said to Donna out loud, but I had, and there was no taking it back. A small part of me thought she might agree, but she stared. "Really? You really think that, Jane?" she asked. Like she'd never considered it herself. Like she hadn't seen how they shuttled so many sad, crippled, hurting souls from the ICU out through the main doors into cruel sunshine and wished them well, sent off to linger alone in some shadowed room until time finished them. They may as well have given them a great shove into the busy parking lot and left them wherever they fell. The untimely-death woman didn't appear to fit that mold-not to a casual observer like Donna-but I'd witnessed the woman's suffering firsthand. Maybe she would have gone home and recovered, but to what end? There were crueler fates than a quick death. But Donna didn't get it, or couldn't stomach it, or just couldn't admit the truth of it to herself, so I told her I was kidding and left it at that. She opened her mouth to say something more but then closed it and shifted her eyes away. Usually, Donna and I could chuckle over anything. But that time she pursed her lips and took a sip of tea.

Through the years, I've learned to be careful. Careful what you say and to whom, careful how you carry yourself at all times. I carried myself regally on my rounds, and then let my hair down and laughed hysterically in the break room. Always had a tale ready to cheer up my fellow nurses. Made-up stories of my love life, raunchy jokes, lies and more lies. Sometimes they laughed until they cried. "Jolly Jane," they said, shaking their heads and wiping their eyes. "Tell us another one. No—don't!"

"Did I tell you about the time my ex-husband lit his own pants on fire?"

"The old man in 307 waved me over just now, beckoned me close, and then he squeezed my tits like two melons! Dropped right back to sleep after that, like he'd had his snack and was satisfied."

"That raving homeless woman who was in the other night kept telling me she could turn her piss into wine! I asked her to bring me a cup."

I'd have the whole room rapt, or in stitches. Nurses needed help, too—they were tired and traumatized by all they'd had to touch, see, smell, and do. They left the break room feeling renewed; I saw to that. I was holding the hospital—whichever one it was at the time—up and afloat in the palm of my hand. And they knew it, every one of them knew it, but it didn't stop them from chasing me out, pitchforks in hand.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I relish having escaped, having found my way to the library. Late Friday afternoons tend to be quiet, but I can still drift on the tide of familiar sounds: the soft clatter of fingers across keyboards, the thud of books landing in the return slot, the ruffling of pages, the mechanical whoosh as the front door opens and closes, sealing us inside. Standing here, swaying a little, I feel as relaxed as I might after a long vacation. I never felt this way at any hospital; it was a great burden, you know, helping so many for so long. Jane loved it, but it hardened her. Margo is softer, and less hurried, too, in her dealings with patients. Patrons. Patrons. It shouldn't matter what we call them, really; they're the same in the end. Patrons will land in hospital beds at one point or other—for sickness, for surgery, for death. I can't touch them the way I touched patients, though; I might pat someone on the hand or back, or possibly squeeze an arm, but that's as far as it goes. Sometimes I miss the heft and smell of flesh other than my own, the rigors of my practice as a nurse, but I tell myself how lucky I am, to be a librarian.

Sticklers would say I'm not a librarian—I have no official degree. Liz lords it over me sometimes, though it's not as if patrons know the difference. To them I'm Ms. Finch, the librarian. I even bought reading glasses that hang on a beaded chain around my neck. I love raising them to my eyes to peer down at the book title a patron has written down, or at the monitor of a troublesome computer. "Thank you, Ms. Finch," the patrons always say, with some reverence, when I'm wearing my glasses. Instant gravitas.

Excerpted from How Can I Help You by Laura Sims. Copyright © 2023 by Laura Sims. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.