Ava's Prize. Cari Lynn Webb

      She refused to believe that. She had to be thoughtful and methodical in her job search. Entering a contest and wishing on stars wasn’t practical. “I just have to search the right job-ad website.”

      Dispatch interrupted the conversation. Codes. Location. And more details rattled over the speaker, focusing Ava.

      Who was she kidding? She wasn’t an inventor or a forward thinker. She was a paramedic who’d served her country and now took care of her mother. She tended to the wounded and sick—that was what she knew how to do. What she excelled at. Ava buckled her seat belt and left her ridiculous thoughts about inventions outside, in the gutter.

      “Time to roll.” Dan buckled his seat belt. “Told you that you should’ve eaten while we had the chance.”

      Stress had stolen her appetite. With each block closer to the victim’s location, she crammed the stress deep inside her, where it wouldn’t distract her. She couldn’t rescue her struggling finances, but she could help save another life.

      * * *

      FORTY-EIGHT HOURS after her late-night job search in the ambulance, the reality of Ava’s life crashed over her. Game night at Kyle’s place seemed like a distant memory—an imagined one.

      Her reality was a domestic fight and a victim with multiple stab wounds. An overdose. One early-morning heart attack. A stroke. Not everyone arrived at the hospital alive. Those were only the life-threatening calls during the night.

      Five hours into their shift, Ava had checked the full-moon calendar, looking for something to explain the hectic pace. The full moon was still more than eight days away. Her shift had been another routine night on the job. A routine night that had left her hollowed out and exhausted.

      Ava walked into her apartment, her legs wooden, her steps slow. Surely a few hours of sleep would right her world enough to take on the day.

      But her home life collided with her professional life, adding a bleakness everywhere she looked.

      Joann, a registered nurse and her mother’s caregiver, sat at the kitchen table, her fingers wrapped around a wide mug. Worry and exhaustion faded into the older woman’s wide brown eyes and thinned her mouth.

      The long-time nurse—and second mother to Ava—didn’t need to speak for Ava to know her mom had relapsed during the night.

      Ava worked her voice around the catch in her throat. “How is she?”

      Joann sipped her tea as if requiring the warm liquid to loosen her own words. “We made it through the night.”

      They’d never called Ava. Not that she would’ve been able to answer, given their call load. She thanked the powers that be for Joann. She’d be lost without the remarkable woman caring for her mother.

      Joann pointed to a dry-erase board on the side of the refrigerator. “Doses and times are on the board. You’ll want to repeat.”

      Ava scanned the med list and her heart rolled into her stomach. This wasn’t a mild relapse. Nothing that would resolve in the next few hours. “You need to get some rest.”

      “I’m thinking the very same thing about you.” Joann tipped her mug toward Ava; a familiar motherly scold laced her tone. “Child, you look like you’re about to drop out to that tile floor. If you dare to do it, I’m leaving you right where you fall.”

      “Can you at least cover me up?” Ava asked, a small smile in her voice.

      “Fine, but I’m not getting you a pillow.” Joann rinsed her mug in the sink and set it in the dishwasher. “Go to bed before you really do face-plant on this floor.”

      Ava hugged Joann and watched the nurse leave. Exhaustion made her feet drag down the hall. She already knew sleep would be difficult to hold on to with the worry for her mom weaving relentlessly through her. She showered and changed, and then headed out of her bedroom. Her gaze drifted over the contest flyer she’d tossed on her dresser last week.

      She tiptoed into her mom’s room and curled into the recliner beside her mother’s bed. Concern pulsed through her, making her entire body ache.

      Her mental health needed a career change and soon. She’d never really paid attention to statistics, never considered herself a number on a survey. Until recently. Statistics listed a paramedic’s burnout rate at five years. If Ava listened hard enough, she could hear that clock ticking. She hadn’t shared with Dan or her mom that her past and present intersected during any quiet moment. In those moments, memories stole her sleep and haunted her with fear-induced adrenaline rushes.

      The more she worked, the more her empathy dwindled away. Last night’s first call had been to a car accident involving a seventeen-year-old who’d been texting. The teen had cried his life was too hard with balancing school and girlfriends and expectations. He’d swerved into oncoming traffic, too absorbed by the videos on his phone to watch the road. Ava had wanted to lecture the teen that hard was having both legs blown off from an IED and living to talk about it. Hard was leaving your pregnant wife at home while you served for a year overseas and not knowing if you’d return at all. Hard was burying your child. Too soon. Too early. Because of irresponsible drivers like him. Anger warred with her compassion. But teens should be having fun and being carefree, shouldn’t they? They weren’t adults yet. And didn’t everyone deserve a second chance?

      She wanted to believe she could attend physician assistant’s school, shift into an office environment with normal hours and less stress. Then she’d rediscover her empathy and passion for helping people. But attending graduate school would sacrifice her mom’s care. She’d never risk losing Joann. If only there were more hours in the day. Then she could have everything.

      Kyle’s contest was another option. A chance—however small—to change her future if she won. Maybe all she needed was to just take the risk and enter the contest. Maybe believing she had a chance to win would be enough to quiet the past and give her hope. Hope that would surely bring back her compassion.

      Her brain was too exhausted to think logically. She wasn’t actually considering entering Kyle’s contest, was she?

      She had an idea of sorts. Something she’d considered over the last few nights in the lull between calls. Something she’d woken up thinking about yesterday afternoon.

      Ava slipped out of her mom’s room, grabbed her laptop and returned. She opened the contest website and clicked on the entry button. She’d enter and not tell anyone. If nothing came of it, at the worst, she was out a few hours’ time. She’d wasted more time scrolling through TV stations, searching for something to watch.

      Filling out the entry form gave her a chance to decompress—something the facilitators of the Critical Incident Stress Debriefing group recommended.

      More than an hour later, her mother woke up. Her smile barely twitched across her lips; her voice was no more than a raw scratch. “Glad you’re home safe.”

      Ava set the laptop on the bedside table and held her mom’s pale hand. “Sleep, Mom. I’m here.”

      “I have two guardian angels,” her mom whispered. “What would I do without you both?”

      Ava waited for her mom to drift back to sleep. She wasn’t qualified to be a guardian angel. Joann had earned that distinction more than once. Ava might not be guardian-angel eligible, but she was there to protect her mom.

      She reached toward the computer with her free hand and pressed the submit button on the entry page. She had to try for her mother and herself.

      She shut the laptop and curled into the recliner. She fell asleep cradling her mom’s hand between her own, wanting to hold on to the dream of a different future. Not the pink skies and fantasy future, but one that might be a real possibility. If only...